Travis Relates the Meaning Of Christmas
Many years later
As the years went by the world slowly changed around us, day by day. A lot fewer humans got eaten than I'd first predicted. As it turned out, the aliens—who have a name and fuck me if I can say it, let alone spell it—have found that like Charles, what they really like to eat is chicken. This was a great savings to humanity but not to chickens. Sucks to be a chicken, I guess.
I never did ripen, no matter how much sex we had. Or, as Chuck likes to tell me, in that prissy-ass way of his, I did ripen then spoiled when he wasn't paying attention, rather like an avocado. He thinks he’s hilarious.
We don't try to “ripen” me as much as we used to. I mean, don't get me wrong, we haven't stopped , but even with their alien technology bullshit, my heart isn't what it used to be. And, honestly, being one-hundred and one years old seems too old for still getting freaky, but Chuck assures me that I have many years left to me. When we met I was just a larva, as Chuck loves to remind me. There are humans who are nearing their century-and-a-half mark. In comparison to that, I'm still a larva.
Chuck is way more gentle than he used to be, and my bones are grateful. I sometimes wonder what he still sees in me. My hair is thinner and white now, I'm all wrinkly, and a little poochy in the gut. When I let my beard grow out, he says I look just like Santa Clause. He, on the other hand, is still as beautiful as he was when he took over Charles’ body. It isn’t fair, but doesn’t ever seem interested in any human other than myself.
He says that no human will ever compare to me because I am the one who nurtured his young. Even now, decades after the technology became available, I still find it insane that I became pregnant. Not once, mind you, but three times. The hybrids are like Chuck, only they are born into those bodies. They have tentacles, and racial memories, and can be taught to manipulate atoms and any number of scientific things I will never understand. I never thought I wanted to be a father, let alone a kind of mother as well, but I wouldn’t trade any of our children or grandchildren for anything in this world.
I have lived a good life and it’s not over yet. Chuck still takes me to bed and loves me until I lose my mind. Love isn’t a concept that Chuck’s people had before coming to Earth. They gave us peace and prosperity and longer lives. We have given them children and love and concepts they still struggle to understand. Like Christmas.
Chuck still over-decorates and we end up having to stay in a hotel to escape it all. Every year we eat fried chicken and watch Christmas movies and fuck until neither one of us can walk properly. It might not make sense to most people, but that’s what Christmas has come to mean for us. It will always be our favorite time of year because that’s when we fell in love.
And Christmas is, when you get down to it, love.