<< Back to Refit --- Continue to Gift >>
Hanukkah
Year: 2187; Date: 25 Kislev
Setting: Kirishi, Russia
"Not again!" young Homer Glitchman exclaimed as the dreidel fell on "shin*" once again on his turn. He chipped another candy piece into the bowl. "Why am I the only one paying in here?" he asked his cousins, who always joined him and his parents for Chanukah*.
"Just because your luck is bad doesn't mean you can blame us for it." With a smirk Nessa socked him on the shoulder.
"Ow!" Homer rubbed his throbbing arm and passed the wooden top to her.
She spun it. It fell on "gimel.*" Again. "Hand it over." She motioned for the bowl. Her little brother handed it to her and she scooped everything out of it and into her lap with a grin. Then she passed on the dreidel.
"Haven't we been doing this long enough?" Oren asked from the other side of the circle. "All that's happening is Nessa's beating the pants off Homer and the rest of us are getting stuck in the middle. Let's do something else."
"Like what?" Homer asked, eager to leave the game he was miserably losing.
"Why don't we go outside for a while?" one of the older cousins suggested. "There's always something going on around here when we come to visit."
"Sounds good." Nessa agreed.
Homer nodded his approval, and Oren said, "Yeah, okay."
The kids shoveled all the candy back into the bowl and bundled up. With a "We'll be back later" to their parents they set off into the thick stand of trees by Homer's house.
It was cold, but not as cold as it usually was this time of year.
Homer hung back and looked up through the trees. He could just barely make out a few stars twinkling up in the dark sky.
The night was clear and clean and he was glad to have other kids to spend time with, even if they were a little annoying sometimes.
The group crunched along through the snow, making sure to avoid the low-hanging branches. Each one of them carried their own light and Homer, keeping back towards the rear – as he usually did – could see every one of the little lights bouncing along as his cousins walked. It was almost like giant fireflies had come to live in his little forest.
Suddenly he noticed the rest of the kids were getting a little too far ahead of him and he started to pick up his pace, trying to catch up.
He was stepping over a large tree root when he slipped.
"Ow!" he exclaimed as he came down hard on his ankle. His light flew out of his hand and into the snow a few feet away.
"Hey! Wait!" he called out to his cousins, but no one heard him.
"Just great…" he muttered. "There's no way I can follow them now… At least I know which way we came…" he struggled to get up, his ankle burning as he did so. He hopped awkwardly on one foot over to his light and picked it up. By now his cousins were out of sight.
He sighed and turned to go back to his house when an odd sound caught his ear.
Singing?
He stood silently, trying to figure out which way it was coming from.
He turned off his light for a moment, looking for any indication of a fire or lantern somewhere nearby.
Just off to the right there was a faint glow. He clicked his light back on and started slowly in the direction of the light. He hoped it wasn't far.
His slow trek through the snow was rewarded when he came upon an open-air pavilion just beyond his parents' property line.
There were at least two dozen people sitting in chairs around a warm, glowing fire pit singing songs he had never heard before.
He inched closer to the strange gathering, staying behind the trees, hoping he wouldn't be seen.
The people's faces looked happy – a lot happier than most people in this town.
A man got up in front of the group and started to speak, "Glad everyone could be here tonight. After all, it is Christmas and I know most of you have family you could be with tonight instead of joining me out here in the cold."
The group chuckled.
"Good singing tonight." The man said, "But we have one last song I would like for us to sing. It's not very joyful like most Christmas songs, but it is sobering – a reminder that the Israel we sing about so much this time of year is still far from a complete nation. She is fragmented – scattered. But one day she will be whole again. So let us sing, 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.'"
The man sat back down and the group began to sing. Homer had never heard a song like this.
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, O Bright and Morning Star,
and bring us comfort from afar!
Dispel the shadows of the night
and turn our darkness into light.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, thou Key of David, come,
and open wide our heavenly home;
make safe the way that leads on high,
and close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, O come, great Lord of might,
who to Thy tribes on Sinai's height
in ancient times once gave the law
in cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, thou Root of Jesse's tree,
an ensign of thy people be;
before thee rulers silent fall;
all peoples on thy mercy call.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Desire of nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid thou our sad divisions cease,
and be thyself our King of Peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
There was something in their voices – something that longed for these words to be true. To his surprise he felt the cold sting of tears freezing on his face. Who were these people who wished his nation whole again?
He didn't have time to wonder because after that the group broke up. They put out their fire, picked up their chairs and put them away. Then they all disappeared off into the trees.
Homer just stood there in the silence of the winter's night.
Snow started to fall again, making the air tingle all around him. He couldn't get the song out of his mind. The music had been so sad, but carried with it a hope he had not felt before.
Though he didn't understand all the words to the song, in his heart he knew it had been for him. Maybe someday he would understand them all.
"Hey! What're you doing way over here?" Nessa's voice carried through the cold air. "We thought you got lost."
Homer turned around to see the entire group headed toward him. "No, I hurt my ankle." He replied, struggling to turn around.
His oldest cousin, Gavrel, all of fifteen and taller than Homer and Nessa combined, came and picked him up easily.
"Let's get back." Gavrel said, "It's getting late."
The younger ones all agreed and they set off home.
"What were you doing over here anyway?" Nessa asked, looking up at Homer.
"Nothing." Homer dismissed. "Just looking around."
Nessa shrugged and jogged on ahead, careful not to trip on anything in the process.
All the while the words Homer had heard played over and over in his head, "And ransom captive Israel…"
Year: 2199; Kislev 25
Setting: Onboard the Argo somewhere outside our solar system
Homer laughed at Mark as he awkwardly spun the funny little top. "You've never done this before, have you?" he asked as the top struggled to spin twice then promptly fell over.
"Hey, give me a break. I've never even seen anything like this before." Mark tried again, this time with little more success than the last attempt.
"You sure you're not just pretending to be bad at this to get sympathy?" Derek prodded.
"Be quiet and let me concentrate." Mark said, holding up a hand to silence Wildstar.
Derek shrugged, "Whatever."
Mark tried a third time, finally able to get the dreidel to spin properly. It twirled around for a bit, then settled on the table, a strange character staring up at Mark.
"What does that mean?" he pointed at the top.
Homer laughed, "That means, 'pay up; you lost.'"
"What? Not again!" he shook his head, "That happened to me last time too." Mark tossed a random game piece into the small bowl off to the side of the circle. "And how are you winning by so much?" he asked Homer.
"Years of practice." He smirked, "And a cousin who always beat me."
"Hey, I say we declare Homer the official winner and move on to something else." Derek piped up.
"Yeah, I think I'm tired of losing for now." Mark agreed.
"Okay, see you guys later then." Homer waved as his fellow officers left the table and moved on to something they thought they might win at.
He was gathering up the game pieces and sticking them back in their containers when he heard a familiar tune. He stopped and listened. It wasn't coming from the ship's comm system. He looked around, trying to find its source.
His eyes went from one side of the mess hall to the other. He saw decked out tables with Christmas decorations all over the place. There was a menorah sitting stately in one corner with Hanukkah trimmings, and there were a few other holidays represented in the room too, but in everything he couldn't find anyone who looked like they were singing.
He was just about to get up when he looked just off to his left. There was Nova leaning up against the wall holding a cup of water. He stood and started over to her. She would be the only one who wouldn't laugh at him for trying to find the source of the strange music.
As he got closer he realized that she was the one he was looking for.
"You know that song?" he asked her.
"Oh! Homer, I didn't see you." She replied, her humming coming to an abrupt halt, "I didn't think anyone could hear me over here."
"Only if you listen." He smiled shyly, "Where'd you learn that song?" he asked.
"'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel'?" she said, "I learned it when I was a little girl. My father taught it to me. It was his favorite Christmas song. How do you know it?" she asked.
"Heard it one year when I was a kid. Could never get it outta my head." He replied, then fell silent. He leaned against the wall and looked at the floor, suddenly very hesitant to say anything else.
"What is it, Homer?" Nova asked.
"It's silly…" he replied in a low voice.
"What is?" Nova asked again.
"You don't have to if you don't want to…" he still wouldn't look at her.
"Don't have to what?"
"Do… you think you could sing it?" he finally asked, his eyes looking up at her.
Nova had never seen this look on his face before. "Yes…" she nodded, "I'd be happy to."
With that she softly sang the old song she'd known for so long.
"Thanks…" Homer said once she'd finished. "It's different now that I understand it…" he said, his eyes glassy.
Nova smiled softly, "It is, isn't it…" she looked at Homer, "Happy Hanukkah."
Homer returned her smile and said, "Merry Christmas, Nova" before slowly going back to his table.
* shin – a Hebrew letter on a dreidel indicating that the player has to "pay in" to the game pot
* Chanukah – Hanukkah; celebrated for eight days; it does not always coincide with Christmas Day, though for the purposes of this story, it did these two years
* gimel – a Hebrew letter on a dreidel indicating that he player has won the entire game pot