Christmas 1992.

A cold, weird night

There is a ringing noise when I push open the door. A few heads turn round, mostly elderly people are here, always curious to see if there is someone new in town.
"Sorry folks, only me!
- Anna! Nice to see you again!" exclaims Nancy from behind the counter. She is, most of the time, dressed in a short yellow dress with her hair tied in a bun and bits dangling on the side of her face.
I get her updated on a bit of gossip I heard about this week and find a table in the corner of the room near the window so that I can keep an eye on what is going on outside. So many people are just rushing with their heads down, not wanting to enjoy the magic. This is when you normally see THE person, the odd one out, the one who doesn't follow the rest of the group. And it's why, when I look closer to the glass window, I see HIM. He is like searching for someone, for something,and seems completely lost. That is where the flash back: the man standing in the middle of the street is the one I bumped in earlier on!
He straightens his black suit and off he goes again. He seemed pretty nervous, scratching his head from time to time, but it was impossible for me to deduce what he was thinking about.
Instantly, I put my coat back on and leave a tip for Nancy, so that I can a follow this mysterious stranger , way too curious to let him get out of sight.
I quickly get out of breath with all the running and effort to catch up but he is faster and unfortunately I lose track of him.
"I'll find him here, probably soon. He is bound to come back for these". That is what I say to myself, looking at tickets lying in snow at my feet. They are in fact, pretty similar to the ones I saw earlier this evening. But I do remark that this time the right side corners, on every ticket, has been cut off, or more precisely ripped off.
It's not as if waiting here is going to do much so I decide to go home sensing it must soon be midnight.

There are many reasons why I didn't sleep much that very night. Firstly because I had the weird impression the temperature in my room had gone down. I even jumped out of bed to go check if it was also the case in the lounge and kitchen. But it just seemed my whole flat had a problem. There was nothing really I could do about it, so on my way I grabbed two jumpers I had left yesterday on the sofa. It took me ages to fall asleep! My brain kept twisting and turning what happened this evening. Plus before all this, I had decided to call my best friend Elena. We met sixteen years ago at the hairdressers. She was pregnant at that time of her first child Emma, but since she divorced and married for the second time à Spanish cook who already had two adorable little twins: Marco and Maria.
I didn't mention to her on the phone how I was feeling because sometimes, things have to be kept to themselves, especially when you don't know what to think yourself.