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The local radio station said the temperature was in the thirties, but inside the beat-up old Ford it must have been somewhere in single digits. Each breath sent a cloud of mist into the air, ephemeral heat, there and gone, and not for the first time he wished he still smoked. Wished he could still afford to smoke.

They'd be looking for the car soon, but Jase couldn't quite bring himself to leave. There was the small matter of having nowhere else to go, but even more than that, he didn't want to stop watching the scene in front of him.

If the glow of the store lights, beacon bright in the frosty dark, could have warmed him up, he'd have shuffled closer. But even though the signs above the door proclaimed a sparkling tinsel-edged welcome, he didn't feel it. This was someone else's world. It didn't belong to him.

The Salvation Army collector huddled in the entrance, her shivers making the bell-ringing a little erratic. She offered smiles and wishes of a merry Christmas even to those who didn't reach into their pockets. The optimism baffled him. Who would choose to stand in the bitter cold out of the goodness of their hearts, just to be snubbed and shunned? He'd been parked in this same spot for the best part of an hour, and he'd seen about a dozen people part with money. In that time, the parking spaces flanking his had been occupied by vehicles that cost more money than he'd ever dream of seeing in his lifetime. Jase didn't even have enough for the cigarettes he craved now, hard enough to turn his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel.

Goodwill to all men, my ass...

It wasn't as though it was Christmas's fault, but he still felt it all the more keenly this time of year. That dividing line between the haves and the have-nots. It wasn't goodwill or festive cheer that he saw on the countless faces trooping in and out of the store, carts laden with their newly acquired junk. At worst it was a blank sort of avarice, and at best it was a resigned panic. There'd been one or two he wouldn't have bet would make it back to their cars before keeling over from the stress etched into their faces.

He wondered if the inside was the same as he'd always seen on TV shows and read about in books, last-minute shoppers fighting over the last of this year's must-have toys, carts clashing and a distinct lack of the merry all around. He'd never seen it himself, had never gotten the opportunity. Christmas in his house had consisted of whatever his dad had managed to buy at the gas station or the convenience store on the way home from the bar on Christmas Eve. For several years the staple gift had been a coloring book and a bag of Doritos.

It didn't exactly make a kid believe in Santa.

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