A.

A sensitive guy in plaid arrives at your door. He's selling magazines. You can tell he's sensitive, by the way he says, "As a matter of fact, I'm first in my magazine-selling league," and asks you to high-five him. You oblige, and your fingertips linger on his fingertips. He looks cute under the Christmas lights.

He says you can help him by asking him a simple question, and then he feeds you the question. The question is, "Do you love me?"

He says, "I'm so glad you asked me. Yes."


B.

A sensitive guy in plaid arrives at your door. He's missing his dog. You can tell he's sensitive because his nostrils are flaring and his buttons are slightly buttoned against one another wrong, and part of his collar is inched up like it wants a bite of his neck. You too want a bite. He says, "Short-haired, stumpy legs, she's gonna kill me."

You frown in your cowl neck. The pronoun 'she' is a stinger. It hurts so bad that when the stocky short-hair pup stumbles in your periphery, you can't quite see it. Your lips are unforming a kiss.

"What's her name?" you ask, hurt, even though you don't know him, even though, when you close the door, he'll basically disappear off the earth.


C.

It's late one Christmas. Some guy is at your door.

Your Christmas lights are blinking white to red to white to red, and underneath them, his face is like a police light. He's grinning at you through the peephole.

When you take a step back, he says, "I can see you," or he says, "I know you're alone," or "I love you; I'm so glad you asked me." Or maybe he isn't at your door, he's at your window actually, and you're babysitting, only you don't know anyone with a baby—guys, whose baby is this?

It's the first scene of the movie so all you are is a deer, all you are is a house conspicuously huge and dark. You don't know you can't die, don't know there's heroic music as a volunteer firefighter swerves the corner.

All you know is to wrap the baby up so that it's closer to you, and when it starts to snow it isn't at all like the movies at all, the footsteps ringed around the house, the serial killer cornfield all frostbit under the moon.


D.

It's a small town and in this town doors don't lock. They don't need to! Ha!

Your Christmas lights freeze overnight and make a crackling sound when the bulbs turn on, which makes no sense because they are LED, and it isn't like firewood kindling.

A sensitive guy in plaid is hauling a Christmas tree out his front door and into the yard, ornaments crashing off and shattering on his walkway. You can tell he's sensitive because he's your neighbor and high-school crush, and sensitive puffs of air are coming out his mouth as he drags the tree to the street. Although you could do without those crash-break sounds.

You wrap your wool-knit cardigan tighter around yourself and feel the molecules in your toes start to shrink.

You want to be that tree.

You want to be dragged by your hair to the side of the road.


E.

An old flame arrives at your door. But you don't see him.

You're inside the house having a fight with your sensitive guy in plaid and he's starting to behave not so sensitively, yanking the Christmas tree out of its stand, and the little dog you had before you got engaged is starting to yap, it's gotta be a yap, this dog is a reflection of your character.

"What the fuck are you doing?" you say.

He doesn't answer because this is the early mid of the movie. This is the part where you realize all your mistakes, your big-city choices, everything your bug-eyed, sweater-wearing chihuahua represents.

Your watch your sensitive guy drag the tree outside like he is making a point of it, wrecking all the ornaments you inherited from your grandmother.

This scene isn't about your old flame and yet it is because he's there, pressed against the side of your house, imprinting his place in your story.

You don't know it yet because right now you are dialing the police. Your tree is demolished, ruined, public. You are trying not to tremble. It is Christmas.


F.

It's a small town and you're sensitive. You've always been sensitive. You go into the forest sometimes looking like an Instagram model with your hair in effortless curls. You don't know how pretty your hair is, no matter how long you spend smoothing in product.

You wear sweaters with arms so long your hands disappear.

You find yourself in well-lit nooks, eyelashes batting.

When a stranger arrives at your door, you look at him like you've never seen a pair of human eyes before.

He's there selling magazines.

He's there because his rambunctious little boy threw a snowball at your car.

He's there because he's a widower, and his dead wife loved red doors.

You turn around and yes. It's red and true as Christmas.