Christmas in my Home Town (written from my little brother's childhood bedroom)

Mother is upstairs exploring the internet with the sounds of a PBS special keeping her company in the background. Father has converted the TV room into a sanctuary where he can explore the digital universe as stacks of the remains of his VHS collection loom along the edges of the room.  In between them are six walls and a dwindling desire to fulfill each other. The longing within to conquer the world or each other has settled into a dull roar of complacency and distracted silence. It is exactly what I expected to find upon returning from a warm visit with long ago friends who have traveled through time on a path of memories to meet me along the path of my own.  And as I avoided coming back home to the thick silence of an apathetic romance/surrender I veered from the destination and weaved through the empty winter streets of my hometown.

The houses seemed like the scale models in a novelty Christmas village, missing only the snow and lights and Christmas cheer. The vacant streets were full of crystallized nostalgia  and the echoes of hopes and dreams now long lost in the corridors of time and life moving on: the excitement of a first date when her hand pressed into mine to keep warm in the cold December air, the anxious anticipation as I waited to open the door for her innocent smile. When had those possibilities faded to the chilly sidewalk leading to a house of empty feelings hiding from each other just three rooms away from each other and a cyber world apart?