Page 28

By Jack Joseph Smith

giving. The week before the eve of our seperate peace I watched my father climb to the top of the fir tree, and string lights of Christmas blue and red and green around the highest fir tree anywhere; while I with the great care of artistic temptation, would neatly place the long druping bulbs brushing the bushes below. Hold the ladder tight now Michael, he would call, while we both pretended that my little mittened hands were the true protector of a creative Christmas. I fell asleep on Christmas eve, after my eyes began falling away and my ears were closed in heavy silence by the walls going to and fro along the staircase. I was peeking over the banister and listening to the laughter of my mother and father and their guests in the living ROOM below, when I turned away and walked into my room. The curtains were windless on the windows, with the trees moving outside them. Their branches were the same as the night air in their stark coldness and black movement against the dimness of a covered moon and stars. My sheets were a clean white ice I melted into; with my head on the feather pillow, that was like the skirt of a hospital nun. I pulled my blankets over me and snuggled up for dreams, becoming slowly warm with soft sounds holding me still under my window pane. After I was warm and close to sleep, I looked out over my blankets and around the dark green room. There were shadows on the wall, that looked like spider webs moving just beneath the surface of the Porposely rough plaster. I let them twist their way across the room and through the windows into space. They ran across the air, and I slowly felt my soul being alowed to breathe again. I turned my head back into my pillow, and felt my fingers pull the covers over my hair. I lightly touched my cheek to the cloth, and went into a better dream. The

Original Scan

Page 28

AI Interpretation

GPT

Michael helps his father hang Christmas lights, then leaves the Christmas Eve guests for bed and watches branches and shadows as he falls asleep.

Michael and his father pretend his mittened hands can protect the ladder. In bed he compares the sheets to white ice and the feather pillow to the skirt of a hospital nun. He imagines spider-web shadows crossing the plaster and escaping through the windows, and feels his soul able to breathe as he warms under the blankets.

Claude

In the week before Christmas the narrator's father climbs the fir tree to string lights, calling 'Hold the ladder tight now Michael', while the boy's 'little mittened hands' play protector. On Christmas eve he leaves the guests' laughter below for his room, where his sheets are 'a clean white ice I melted into', his pillow 'like the skirt of a hospital nun', and shadows like spider webs cross the plaster until 'my soul being alowed to breathe again.'

The page moves from a shared public ritual of decoration to a private, almost mystical descent into sleep. Cold images, windless curtains, black branches, and white ice, turn into warmth as he snuggles in, so the room becomes a place where fear and comfort meet. The shadows escaping 'through the windows into space' suggest release, as if sleep lets the child's inner life move freely.