Hologram

“There he is, Uncle Tobester”, shouted my six-year-old son David. I looked in the direction his mittened hand was pointing and saw an oldish man, hobbling slowly towards us across the snow-field. As he grew closer David and myself began to throw snowballs towards him although he was desperately out of reach he still seemed unamused and didn’t return our aggressively friendly gesture. Behind Uncle Tobester I could now see two hooded figures on skis moving across the slightly downhill section of the ski-path, before rounding a corner and heading directly towards us.
Soon we were all seated around our large oak dining table, in the slightly humid air of the huge main sitting-room, surrounded by drying garments hanging on hooks around three of the four walls. Uncle Tobester had begun to laugh almost in continuation as he played with David and his little sister, Jo, for whose third birthday we had gathered together to celebrate. The two skiers, my sister Mary and her husband Milo, were sitting at the table, discussing the latest weather forecast and already planning their return home. I gently chided them, and they too relaxed in the party atmosphere and soon began to laugh in their turn. Only my wife was absent from the table and so I excused myself and retired to the kitchen to help Sara with the preparations.
“Hi”, she greeted me as I entered. She barely glanced up from the lemon meringue pie, she was preparing. I moved up behind her and embraced her lightly, sniffed her long dark hair. “You’ll make me spoil the pie”, she admonished me, lingering in my arms before pushing me gently away.
“And if we take advantage of the party going on in the other room … a diversion …” I suggested, raising my eyebrows in what I intended to be a provocative way.
She giggled. “The pizza would burn”.
“Ah, is that all, maybe we could order another by phone.”
“Sure and it would arrive by motorbike in the snow I suppose. Check the pizza for me, be a dear”. She returned to her beaten egg-white. I had a look at the pizza and decided to remove it from the oven. “Stick the next one in, dear” requested my wife and a request is the next best thing to an order from the one you love. Or no ? I carried out my kitchen duties and took the pizza next door, to loud cheers from Uncle Tobester, and loud hooting from the kids. Milo was checking his skis.
“Sara”, I shouted, “come and eat”. The dutiful mother quickly arrived and the birthday feast began.
After the party had finished and our visitors had returned home, and we had put the over-excited but now exhausted children to bed, and while Sara was preparing for bed, I gradually carried all the dishes and glasses over various trips into the cluttered kitchen, and loaded the dish-washer.
Pausing reflectively, I looked out of the kitchen window towards the dusk and the snow. Moving to the end of the kitchen, I then opened the wooden door onto what should be the outside world and my summer vegetable garden, hidden by snow. Instead I found myself in a dark storeroom with a few broken crates and ropes in the corner. Concrete walls. No windows. No other way out. I closed the heavy metal kitchen door and returned into what remained of the kitchen, its colours fading and dissolving.
Slowly I crossed the concrete floor. I moved into a long metal corridor, dragging myself wearily along. Near the end of the corridor I turned right into a half-dark metal room. I limped towards the mirrored cupboard and looked my reflection up and down. An old and wrinkled man, dressed in shiny synthetic fabrics. A cough from behind to the left. I turned and hobbled across to the bed, where an ancient grey woman lay, her head propped up with innumerable pillows. She smiled at me as I approached. I touched her brow, smoothing away her thin grey hair, and stooped to whisper in her ear. “I still love you, Sara”. She giggled and closed her eyes.