Grand Change by William Andrews

smirk on his face before breaking into a full smile. I put my guitar away, then sat with my feet on the oven door and drank a cup of the hot chocolate Nanny had left simmering on the back of the stove when she went to bed. When the program finished, The Old Man told me to take a look at the sick cow before I went to bed and turned in himself.
    I usually stayed up late on Christmas Eve, but I felt like going to bed early. My musical dreams had taken a licking, to say the least. Buying my new guitar didn’t seem like such a good idea now. I put my clothes on and got the flashlight. When I got to the heavily iced doorstep, I paused and looked up. A few stars had broken through. There was a quiet stillness disturbed mildly by the raucous bark of a fox and a crump from cracking ice in a distant field. I could see the glow of lights from the city off to the north and, as if by some cue, the northern lights began to flare and dance from beyond.
    In the stable, the sick cow’s eyes showed blank, white circles in the light when she turned them to me from where she lay. I could hear the snuffs of her breathing mingling with the cud chews of the other cows and their chain rattles. The tap affair protruding from her side showed no signs of escaping gas and her belly was not barrelling. She snuffed again curiously, then turned her head away peacefully and chewed her cud.
    I had left the radio on, and when I got back to the bask of light strewing from the kitchen window across the pitted foot path in the snow, I could hear one of the big bands with that mellow horn gnash playing “Silent Night.” I paused, noticing the peaceful stillness, and watched the northern lights over the city lights again.
    Inside, the usual whine of the kettle, the odd crack from the stove’s firebox, the lamp’s glow and the shadows on the wall all seemed to augment the music of Christmas coming from the radio. I sat in the armchair by the radio with another cup of hot chocolate. A mixed choir began singing a carol medley, giving background music while a lady narrated the Christmas story. When they finished, I worked my way—winging and wooing—through the stations, fielding carols. The stations were beginning to blank out by the time the heat from the stove had begun to die away and I was pleasantly tired. I took the lamp and went into the living room and looked at the small tree, modestly dressed with the winds of red and green crepe rope with their squished spaces, the paint-peeled coloured bells and balls, the pigs’ hair icicles, the crockery angel on the top sprig with her wand and the jagged hole in her dress. I hung my sock on the mantel, reaching over the line of Christmas cards waggling wing-like in the heat waves from the Queen Heater burning below. Of course I didn’t believe in Santa Claus anymore; it was just a part of Christmas I still enjoyed with Nanny. I paused for a few moments, feeling the mirth-like coziness brought together by the spruce and burnt maple smells, and as I went to bed I knew that tomorrow would be Christmas, and it would have that specialness it always had, musical dreams or no musical dreams.
    I woke early, like always, and got the sock from the mantel; like always, it had an orange, that hard, smooth candy in animal shapes, a couple of striped canes and a handful of grapes. And like always, it was special.
    The day broke fine and clear. There was a cold, bright freshness in the morning when the animals traipsed to the ice-bearded watering trough, with its axe-chipped hole. The steers rammed their heads into the snow like playful children blanking their faces white, their breath puffs seemingly coming from the snow. There was still a cold, bright freshness when Aunt Laura and Uncle Jim and their twin boys rode in from town in their pung sleigh with bells jingling.
    It was nice sitting around the kitchen amidst the Christmas dinner smells, going through the usual greetings, exchanging