A is for Advent: A Three-Year-Old's Perspective

Z is for Zenith

The End. It's rarely written at the culmination of a book, but Mum will always say it anyway. All it means to Timmy is that it's time to choose another book. That it's time for something different.

"Christmas is over," Mum says to Timmy in the morning. 

"Over," Timmy repeats.

"All done. The End," Mum says. As if he doesn't know what over means. "What do you think of that?"

"Um... Toys!" he says, brightly. 

He is standing amidst little train carriages and pieces of wooden tracks, and he's dizzy with how many ideas and combinations he can make of them. He's particularly proud of the figure six he's been able to fashion from some of the track pieces. 

He puts another piece on the end, extending the tail, and shifts around to its other side.

"Oh, look!" He says to Mum. "Is a nine! I make a nine!"

"I think it's the same six you made before," says Mum. "Just upside-down."

Timmy looks at the track arrangement again. It is most definitely a nine. He knows his numbers. "No," he says, adamant. "Is a nine!"

"Okay, it's a nine," Mum says. 

Timmy likes being right. He rolls a few train carriages along his nine-shaped track line. Mum watches him.

Daniel sits next to him and tries to join two train carriages together. It should be simple. It had been, when Timmy connected his. He had just held his carriages close to each other, end to end, and the magnets on the ends had connected themselves. But Daniel's carriages don't want to join. When he tries to join their ends, one carriage always veers away. 

Timmy thinks it's funny. Daniel disagrees.

"Turn it around," Mum says to Daniel. "Connect the other end."

Daniel doesn't turn it around. He just screams at it. Unsurprisingly, the train doesn't respond, and the carriages still don't connect.

Daniel gives up and stomps away from the trains, leaving to play with another Christmas present. A plush giraffe is much less complicated than train carriage connections.

Timmy's happy with Daniel's departure. It leaves all the train set free for himself. The train set is one of his favourite Christmas presents, he thinks. He couldn't play with it on Christmas Day, though. Everyone was too busy, and there was no floor space.

Timmy likes celebration days well enough. Birthdays. Christmas. He just doesn't understand why grownups think the next day is the end of it.

The next day is Timmy's favourite. The next day is when he can enjoy leftover cake and desserts without having to compete with a crowd of clamouring celebrators. It's when he can play with his new toys without boxes and wrapping paper littering the floor, in the way. And it's when he's not expected to smile and perform for cameras. 

It's quiet. It's nice. It's better. 

Christmas reached the end yesterday, but that just meant it was time for the next day. Today. And when this day is over, it will be time for the day after this. Timmy thinks that day will be even better, because he'll have his new Minion duvet cover on his bed by then.

Timmy rolls the little train carriages along the stem of his nine-shaped track. The front carriage reaches the end of the track, and its wheels tip onto the carpet. 

Time to choose another track.

The End.