Andrea Lepri - The Last Christmas On Earth

Fearing that something might have happened to his parents, his heart skipped a beat, then he tied his polo shirt to the barrel of the bike and got up on the pedals flying down the steep descent, regardless of the pebbles and holes that might have led to a nasty fall.

James had been pacing back and forth in the garden for hours and was now close to exhaustion and hopelessness. Starting from the early morning he spent the day trying to think according to the habits of his son: every time that was approaching some important appointment for Harry, like the 2 pm tv series or the snack at 4 pm, or the Egyptology collection at 5 pm, he had hoped to see him coming back home. Instead still nothing! He stopped and checked the clock once again, it was past 8 pm and Scooby-Doo had just begun, but there was no shadow of Harry.

He shook his head discouraged and began to roam like a robot back to the large garden, chasing away mosquitoes, and due to the anxiety he had not even noticed that he was reducing his favorite flowerbed into mush, the one adorned with violets that in few days would have welcomed the big Christmas fir tree.

He felt a sense of physical discomfort and unhooked the first two buttons of his shirt as if that simple gesture could help him feel better.

Although they were in late December, that year the summer seemed not to want to end. Instead of snow and ice, the lawns were covered with fragrant flowers and the temperature continued to be around thirty degrees. For this James had taken the bad habit of chugging Budweisers one by one, cursing the heat and humidity; consequently, his stomach had definitely grown and his persimmon colored Deputy Sheriff's uniform had begun to be tight.

Even though science was still far from finding a plausible explanation for this incomprehensible phenomenon, experts from all over the world were in agreement that the climate had by now definitively gone mad and things would hardly get back to normal. To support their theory, which initially many had judged absurd, in many places of our planet, deserts had begun to seem like prairies and vice versa.

Entire ecosystems had packed their bags and quickly moved in search of better living conditions, leaving many scientists speechless. James stopped and looked up at the starry sky, then covered his ears trying to feel far, at least for a moment, from the noise that surrounded him. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, breathed deeply hoping that once opened again he would be in his bed, finally awake, thanking God because it was only a bad nightmare. Optionally, in order to hold his son immediately, he would even have agreed to be the victim of some joke orchestrated by an author of tacky Reality Shows. Instead, when he opened his eyes and uncovered his ears, he was still in the middle of the same chaotic shouting, the same traffic of frosty fluorescent bodices, the same colored flashes cutting through the darkness and of the same confused barking of tired dogs. There were those who gave orders and those who distributed tea and hot coffee, someone with block and pencil asked questions everywhere taking notes, a guy placed in front of a field radio marked portions of a topographic map using a marker pen from the gigantic tip.

James got back to his wanderings and his wife Eve took his arm, accompanying him in his furious gait and pulling back trying to restrain him. Another woman would have been dragged away by his volume and his firm step, but she was a bit taller than him, thin and muscular, the classic Northern European woman with long ash-blond hair and blue eyes so clear that at first sight they might even have looked albino. Tired of being pulled like a trailer, she gave him a yank forcing him to stop, then he looked in her eyes.

"What?" he said annoyed.

"Really? You should look your face in the mirror, then you wouldn't ask me what" Eve replied. James snorted.

"Why don't you let Dr. Parker give you a sedative?" She urged him immediately, using a tone James thought was too thoughtful.

"Do you still insist on this? Do you want to tell me why I should take a sedative?" He replied nervously. Before Eve could even answer, Dr. Adam Parker interfered.

He had a fine mustache and round intellectual glasses combined with a fancy butterfly, he looked like a mannequin escaped from an antique shop.

"Mr. James, please listen to me! You have not been sleeping for much longer than a day, your eyes are completely bloodshot and the veins on your neck and temples are extremely dilated. I am telling this for your own health, you should rest because going on like this you may collapse within a few minutes. I'm sure that if you would allow me to check your blood pressure, it would be off the charts" he explained to him seriously, staring at him with his tiny clear eyes.

"Until I won't see my son again I am not willing to rest, understood? Indeed, if waiting here means collapsing, that's fine!" James argued with a raspy voice looking over at the doctor: he was trying to identify who was sharing out some coffee outside in the crowd.

"How I feel is not your business, and if..." he was saying till Hellen arrived. "Excuse me," she said placing a hand on James's forearm trying to get his attention. Eve noticed the gesture and glared at her jealously or perhaps simply claiming her ownership; Helen defiantly stared at her while placing the Sheriff's star pinned to her chest and then again to James.

"I must return to base, I have to plan tomorrow workday," she told him tightening the grip on his arm as a sign of solidarity, then Eve gave her again a piercing glance.

"Sure, I see" he nodded nibbling his upper lip.

"Good. If you have any news, call me please"

"Yes Sir, I will keep you updated. Thank you for doing this" he replied sadly because he feared that instead, for that evening, there would have been no news.

"Don't give up, I'm sure that anytime now you'll see Harry riding his bike up there, at the top of the driveway," she said trying to encourage him.

"I really hope you're right... but I just can't understand why he did it. Lately, we hadn't even scolded him, we didn't give him one reason to run away from home..." he concluded shaking his head slowly.

"I don't think he ran away from home, otherwise he would at least leave you a note so you could feel guilty" Helen objected after thinking for a while. "Anyway try to hold on, you'll see that everything will work out. See you Tomorrow" she concluded, then she walked away towards the patrol car, deliberately ignoring Eve. Before getting on the Jeep she stopped to give instructions to agents and volunteers so that the next day at dawn, unless news, everyone would already have known what to do without wasting precious time. Eve focused on James.

"Love... I would rather prefer not to insist, but why don't you drink herbal tea? Maybe something that won't let you sleep but help you at least to relax".

"So I wasn't clear enough" he snapped so loudly that everyone was looking at them, "I am not going to relax! If you didn't notice yet, I'm in this condition because despite all the efforts we made so far we can't find our son! There is no sign of him or his mountain bike within five miles, and if you really want to know what I don't understand is how can you stay so calm, and above all why we haven't decided yet to call someone expert! By now it is clear that Harry has been kidnapped and despite all their goodwill these people will certainly not be able to help us find him again!"

"Oh really? Then if that's what you think, why aren't you looking for your child on your own?" The Beagle breeder, who gathered the canine units, told him bothered. His partner answered with a blank stare, shrugging his shoulders.

"A kidnapping? We are a very normal family that lives in a remote village of peasants and fishermen, who should have kidnapped our son? And what for?" Eve said, shocked.