A Cherry Street Christmas

A Cherry Street Christmas
(An Emmy Story)


	“Emmy, would you please go and put out the Christmas lights? The Misses would be most pleased to see them on returning.”
	“Of course, Sir! I’ll have them up post haste,” Emmy beamed cheerfully as she turned towards the front door, a large bin of multicolored electric lights hefted in her lithe, delicate hands. As she wobbled over to the front door, the tweed-jacketed Master of the house proceeded over and nudged the door open for the nandroid who, struggling to open it, had tried to balance the bin on one knee to free up a hand.
	“Th-Thank you Sir,” she shyly spoke before slinking out the door, lights in hand and cheeks glowing. The narrow city street was quiet except for Emmy who, setting the bin on the small porch, scanned her surroundings. The street was cleared and plowed, save for a few errant chunks of snow and slush puddles crowding the gutters, and large, dirtied mounds of snow rose up to tower over the shoveled sidewalks. A lone snowman, adorned with a winter toque and matching gingham scarf, stood watch over the snowy row of townhouses, his stick arms haphazardly stuck into his sides by a snow architect far shorter than he. Smiling, Emmy propped the ladder which had been left overnight on the porch against one of the stone corners which flanked the front door of the immaculate home, its gunmetal grey and red accents beaming through the white snow and grey skies above. Emmy, rope of lights in hand, ascended the ladder and began to pin the lights upon the stone walls of the home, the roping gently following the sharp curves of the arched windows, spiralling up columns, and zigzagging gracefully across the first story, creating an intricate webwork of tiny lights turning the pristine, white walls into Christmas fishnet.
	As the slim nandroid worked, humming as she ascended the walls of the home with lights in hand, a hunched, scraggle-faced man emerged from the twisted, dark home across the street. Stalking, head held low, to his mailbox he let out an audible sigh as he watched the domestic robot work. He grunted as he opened the mailbox, pulling out a smattering of bills and soulless coupons, folding them underneath his arm and creeping back up the short walkway to his front steps. As he stepped slowly, dramatically even, upon the first step, however, his be-slippered foot caught no purchase on the icy step, the transparent, unnoticed ice catapulting his whole self backwards onto the concrete with a noisy thud. Across the street, Emmy turned her head away from the knot she was untying in the lights, seeing the prone shape of the middle aged man sprawled and writhing on the pavement. Gasping with her brand of machine learned shock she descended the ladder with the agile accuracy of an android mind, leaping from the ladder and twisting her form to land on the ground in one smooth, choreographic action. As her preservation protocols booted up she sprinted across the street, she called out to the man now groaning on the ground.
	“Sir! Are you alright, sir?! I will alert medical authorities if you need assistance, sir! I can directly contact local dispatch to come to your aid with your consent, sir!”
	Groaning, the man propped his back against the steep steps behind him. “I don’t want no damn robot to come and help me!” Propping himself up and sitting on the lowest step, he tried to straighten his back, wincing in pain and hunching back over.
	“Sir, I do truly recommend you seek some immediate medical assistance! If you can provide me with a name and some close family contact that may come to help you-”
	“I said no, goddammit!” He tried, arms behind him, to push himself upwards again, but his arms wobbled and failed and he fell to the step once more, grunting in pain.
	“A-Are you sure, sir?” Emmy’s questing face and innocent eyes narrowed at the man hunched before her, his vain attempts to attain verticality causing her eyebrow servos to narrow and twist at the man beneath her. “May I help you up at least?”
	“No! Your kind took my job, and now you’re gonna take my legs!? I can,” struggling, he rolled forward with all of his might, “live on my own!” Rocking forward he leaned off the step and, doubled over near parallel to the ground, began to ascend the steps before him. He shakily reached his hand above him and grasped for the doorknob, the letters spilled and forgotten on the pavement behind him.
	“Sir? Your mail, sir?”
	“It’s always something with your kind, isn’t it! Always serving! Leave the letters, leave ‘em for God’s sake!” Emmy backed further away and, leaving the bitter man to his business and returning to her side of the street, forlorn and trying to push the thought from her mind as she returned to the ladder.

------------------------------------------------------------------

	Having finished the decorating of the home, Emmy descended the ladder once more and folded it, placing it back on the stoop beside the door. Turning her head back to the street, the dusky light of day was giving way to the moonlit grey skies of a Winter night, complemented by the orange glow of the street light constellations adorning the quiet road. Coming down the road a lone car turned the corner and pulled in behind the townhouse; the Mistress was home, and the young lady too! As the pair wrapped back around the home to the front door Emmy stood, beaming, at the two ladies before her.
	“Welcome home Mistress, welcome home young Madeline! I have a most pleasant gift	for you!” With a flourish of her snow-white hands Emmy reached down and grabbed the plug for the lights, holding the male and female ends before her with dramatic hyperbole. “Without further ado,” she chimed, pulling the two ends of the cord together as they weaved together seamlessly, the home erupting in a flowering lattice of colored lights and silver roping, turning the stark blue-white home into a veritable lighthouse, the twinkling snow below just adding to the splendor.
	“Oh, Emmy, it’s magnificent! How long did this take you,” the Mistress said.
	“Just the latter half of the day, it was the Master’s recommendation.”
	“I love it! I love it! I love it,” Madeline squealed as she charged Emmy’s legs, wrapping herself tight around them, the puff of her coat letting out a wheeze and closing the gap between them. Hoisting her up Emmy cast her eyes across Cherry Street, where the dark home sit, pensive and cold, waiting for some modicum of care or love. And in the single, yellowed window Emmy spied the silhouette of a hunched man stalking past the window, just before that light too was extinguished, leaving the opposite bank of Cherry Street as black and quiet as the front porch of #26 was brilliant and glowing. Emmy’s smile wavered as the Mistress of the home passed, ruffling Madeline’s hair as she entered the home. “Be sure to put the lights out again once it’s late, Emmy,” she said as the door closed behind her. Madeline looked up at the now frowning nandroid, the pure synthcomposite of her face betraying her worry and growing sadness.
	“What’s wrong, Emmy,” Madeline questioned. Her small, bright eyes searched Emmy’s face for the missing smile, the upturned eyebrows and jovial attitude so typical of her now disappeared, her face forlorn.
	“I’m worried about the gentleman across the street, Madeline. He had a fall today, and I don’t believe he’s in good health either.”
	“You should ask daddy about it,” Madeline said, her own face losing the cheer and joy the decorations had brought. “He knows all about this kind of stuff.” Madeline gently let herself out of Emmy’s arms, just holding her gloved hand and looking across the street, a gentle gust of wind ruffling the snowman’s scarf as the pair entered the home.

------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Master,” Emmy began, entering the parlor where the head of the household sat lounging, book in hand and spectacles low on the bridge of his nose, “May I speak with you concerning our neighbors?”
	“Of course, Emmy, has there been an issue with the lights? We’ll only have them on part of the night and morning. Madeline loves them, by the way.”
	“No, sir, not exactly. While I was putting them up a gentleman across the street had a fall and I went to help him, but he just threw me off. May I humbly ask if there’s any way we can help him? He’s direly hurt, and he cannot get his mail in his condition, I’m sure.”
	“Well, that would be Mr. Anonson… He’s been here longer than any of our other neighbors, I know that much. He was a factory worker, working wageslip to wageslip before he had an accident. He was one of too many replaced by your kind in the industrial sector.” Emmy’s cheeklights flared at the gentle accusation, as though she herself had put the man in the poor house.
	“What do you suggest we do, Emmy?”
	“Well, we could, I hope, have him over for Christmas dinner? Or maybe visit him with some of it? We must get him some help somehow!”
	“Emmy, people at his age are set in their ways, it’ll be hard for us to get through to him. Maybe I should go speak to him?”
	“I think that would be most satisfactory, Master.”
The very next day, the dry, Winter Sun peaking over the skyline of the city, the Master of the household stepped in his finest coat and slacks onto the porch of the townhome. Scanning the still quiet street he began the long stride across Cherry Street to the home of Anonson, coming at last to the old, warped door, the smattering of letters at the step-bottom frosted together from a night in the cold. Reaching down he picked up the frosted postal amalgam and gently separated the mail before stacking them neatly in his hand. Ascending the steps he straightened his tie, and lifted his chin, before giving a sharp rap on the door with the knocker, and waited. He seesawed from heel to toe, waiting for an answer from within. After a few minutes the first evidence of life was the clicking and metallic shuffling of a number of locks being undone. As the Master stepped back the door swung inward, and a hunched man stood before him, supporting himself on the doorframe as he straightened his back and looked up.
	“Hello, Mr. Anonson, I’m sure you’re aw-”
	“Yeah, I know your spiel! You wanna ship me off to an old folks home, lock me away with the loonies and invalids! I’m still going, I’m fine! Give me my damn mail!” Swiping the letters from the man before him Anonson, went to shut the door before an insistent foot found its way into the gap.
	“Please, Mr. Anonson, I have no intention of shipping you away. We just want to help, Emmy is truly concerned for you.”
	“That your house robot?! She nearly grabbed me and threw me in the gutter with how she was treating me! And there she is,” he yelled, pointing past the Master. “Here to take me like she took my job!” Turning, the Master saw Emmy sitting opposite the man on the steps of her own home, hands folded in her lap and a weak smile on her face. She waved meekly before looking away, nervous.
	“Yes, that is Emmy. And I think you owe her an apology, Mr. Anonson. We’re not here to hurt you, we’re neighbors, we're a community; a little family in our part of the city. He gently opened the door to see the whole man, not just the sliver of whitening hair and beard before him. “And family looks out for family.”
	Anonson closed his eyes solemnly, his brow furrowed deep in thought as he grasped at the wooden doorframe, knuckles white. He hoisted himself up, more and more vertical by the second but wincing and clenching his teeth at every instance. The Master reached out a sympathetic arm and supported him holding him steady as he opened the door all the way. “What’s your line of work, son?”
	“I-I’m a lawyer, Mr. Anonson. What’s the context?”
	“I need some help… After my accident, the company put me out here quietly; buying a man a home is no easy feat to win alone.”
	“Well what legal counsel could you need? It seems you won already, you’re here now, aren't you?”
	“But my back isn’t! I worked twenty years for that bastard and the moment one of his projects gets someone hurt he throws ‘em out! I want them to fix my back!”
	“Mr. Anonson, if it happened so long ago I’m afraid there’s nothing they can be obliged to do - you already settled. But there’s everything in the world we can do.” He turned his head back to the still waiting Emmy who, at a nod of his head, proceeded over across the street and onto the stoop of Anonson’s home.
	“Emmy! at your service, Mr. Anonson sir,” she said extending her gloved hand, a beaming smile on her face. Waving it away Anonson’s face turned to a scowl.
	“What games are you pulling! I told you I don’t associate with robots.”
	“Mr. Anonson,” began the Master, “understand this and only this. Emmy is the most gentle, kind, and honest friend and loyal companion anyone could ask for. Under no circumstances would she hurt you or ‘throw you out.’”
	“Well…” Anonson’s brow furrowed and relaxed repeatedly, his eyes quivering as he looked up at the nandroid smiling at him. Before he could answer Emmy extended a small slip written in the gently sloping and delicate cursive script all nandroids were taught to write. “I-I accept, okay?” He snatched the paper from Emmy and unfolded the note in his aged hands. Turning back to Emmy in her thick blue woollen coat, and the Master in his dense overcoat, he dabbed his eyes with his one free hand.
“I’d be honored to come over for dinner Christmas night.”

------------------------------------------------------------------

	Christmas Eve came and went, the bright lights on #26 ebbing and flowing with Moon and Sun, coming to be accompanied by a few small, companion lights just across the street. As the excitement of Christmas morning calmed into the calmness of another Winter afternoon, the hustle of Emmy’s household leaned gently into the night, with Emmy in the kitchen preparing all multitude of confections, beasts, and other culinary delights as the family gathered in their living room. An abrupt knock at the door did little to dispel the festive mood, and Madeline rushed to the door, Emmy and family in tow, to greet their visitor. Upon opening the door, they were met by the low form of Mr. Anonson, dressed in his Christmas best. He smiled, embarrassed at the new family around him and as he entered the home, a new cane in hand, his flushed cheeks and wide smile betrayed the grey hair and crooked nose adorning his head.
	“Oh, you came Mr. Anonso,” Emmy blurted out, her processors buzzing with energy and feeling as the older man walked into the close foyer, guided by a doting, quizzing Madeline who held his free hand and led him to the kitchen table. The two attentive parents removed his cap and scarf and coat, hanging them with care by the door, ushering him into their home.
As Anonson entered the immaculate dining room he beheld a veritable feast splayed across the table, the finest in Christmas comfort food at each corner of the table. Golden mashed potatoes here, a brown sugar glazed ham and stuffed turkey there, and all matter of greens in the inbetweens. Homemade cranberry sauce with an orange peel (Emmy’s twist) filled a glass bowl well over the size of her own head, and an assortment of fresh baked pies (apple, cherry, and more) sat steaming on the hutch aside the table, sitting at attention for the imminent dessert course. And not to forget the carbonfiber cook who readied this bounty sat a bowl of all matter of mouth feels, be they marbles (or pie weights?) to metal screws and washers for her to chew, Emmy’s place at the table was as delicately and beautifully set by the young mistress as any other.
	And speaking of the young mistress, she tugged her errant companion along with her guiding him to a seat directly next to her and opposite Emmy, her mother and father at the table’s heads. As the company finally settled to the table the small man rubbed his head and ruffled his down-like hair, searching for any unfriendly face or scowl, and found none. He knew he was safe, at last, and in the company not of greedy corporate lawyers or equally avaricious nephews or nieces. His shrinking stopped as he squared his shoulders and leaned, slowly, gently, into the plush chair, his old form betraying a man hardened by years of work and labour with his bare hands. As he squared himself he grew, bigger and more imposing, yet gently complementing the young lady at his right who, just a few minutes earlier, had seemed the same size as him. He blinked tightly before casting his eyes around the table, expressions with nothing but love and care around.
	“I cannot express my thanks to all of you,” he said slowly, with all the stoic energy of a statue. “To have been catapulted from my front step, to the ground, and into the arms of a loving, tender family… I cannot describe what it means to an old man like me.”
	“A toast to Mr. Anonson,” cheered Madeline, hoisting a glass of warm cider. All around the table the gesture was matched, each member adding a toast upon a toast and the clinking of glasses followed enthusiastically behind each one. The night passed too quickly for the party and, as the Christmas dinner relaxed into the quiet conversation of family instead of festive feasting, the Master tapped his glass.
	“Mr. Anonson, I’d like to make an offer to you and, know this, it was Emmy’s idea first. With your back and us having the home tied down, Emmy would like permission to go home with you tonight, and stay with you as your friend.” The old man, jarred from the jovial atmosphere, stared intensely at the slight maidbot across from him, her cheek spots burning a cherry red as she gave a small, infinitely loving grin, nodding her head. His brow furrowed and crinkled, again caught in the bind of losing his independence or his health.
	“Emmy… Is that what you want? To help an old man in his twilight years? Not to be here for her,” he suggested, looking at Madeline. Emmy smiled even wider.
	“Absolutely Mr. Anonson. I’d want nothing more than to help you back up, if you’d let me.”
	“And I’d want nothing more than for you to come home with me, Emmy.” He looked down from the faces around him and hot tears began to pour down his cheeks, the salty tracks being wiped away as he let go of all the pain and misery which had haunted him for those dark years. His sweatered cuff swiped at each one, vainly, while a simple nandroid stepped over to hold him in a tight embrace, steadying the shaken statue of a man.

------------------------------------------------------------------

	Every December after that dinner, Anonson and Emmy would march out into the snowy drifts of his compact lawn, the elderly man directing the agile maid like a studied maestro, pointing and swinging his cane this way and that. Before long, a few hours at most, his home was adorned with the most magnificent lights, roped and strung past the gothic windows and black stone walls, each scintillating bulb shining with the brilliance of a Christmastime Sun. And each year more homes in the little neighborhood of Cherry Street were done up in just as much elegance and shameless beauty. Before long carolers would haunt the streets every day until the twelfth of Christmas, dazzling lights would be strung across the street and back, jumping from lamp post to lamp post, each forming its own delicate spiral down to the snowy ground. Bells tolled in the little street and soon a whole city, frozen in the heart of modern life, thawed to the hearth of a street named Cherry. Cherries come in pairs, or trios, or more, one has to remember. And each year when a tiny maidbot and her newfound friend would emerge into the fresh-fallen drifts, first with cane in hand, then a walker and finally a wheelchair, the whole of the city knew not that new lights would be going up, or that carolers would be on the streets, or to expect kids racing up and down the roads looking for sidewalks to shovel. They knew that a pair inseparable was coming out to celebrate the bond of family and love that united them so many years ago, and that the time was come to renew those vows to the world. And when the day came that the little maid came out alone, it was not with a sad expression, but one just as pleased to hang lights and adorn the Winter-bare trees with ornaments for the wheelchair which occupied the porch every day since then.