Reindeer in the Headlights

Date: 12/8/2025

I’m pushing my trolley through the park on my post round. My loyal wheeled companion — squeaky, stubborn, and apparently allergic to straight paths. Morning light filters through the trees, giving the illusion of peace. It lasts about three seconds — until I glance down. Bare feet. No shoes. Brilliant. Somehow, between the sorting office and this exact patch of grass, my shoes have fully divorced me. My feet look like two pale, confused slugs clinging to the earth. I retrace my steps and spot a woman doing lunges on a lonely strip of green that seems to tremble with each exaggerated lunge she takes. Excuse me,” I say, “have you seen my shoes?” She pauses mid-lunge. “They might be over there, love.” A finger points to the steps of a tall apartment building. I trundle over. No shoes. Of course. Just a stack of wrapped gifts with a tag reading: To my beloved, Charlotte. Lunge Woman materialises again — now adding pelvic thrusts to her repertoire. I don’t know where to look. “Oh yes, that’s for Charlotte. Our favourite postwoman,” she says proudly. Favourite. The word lands like a paper cut. Small. Sharp. Stupidly painful. “I can take them back to the office,” I say. “In case they get stolen.” She nods vigorously. “Best had. Wouldn’t want the wasps to get at them.” A normal person would have said “thieves,” or “rain,” but no — wasps. I walk away — shoeless, gift-laden, spiritually vacant — and stop at a red postbox. I insert the key, bend down, reach in — Something latches onto my hair. Sticky. Heavy. Crawling. Buzzing. A wasps’ nest. ON. MY. HEAD. I scream. I run in feral circles. The swarm unleashes fiery vengeance on my scalp. Teenagers nearby film the spectacle, howling with laughter. Not one of them helps. One zooms in. Finally, I claw the nest off and fling it into a bush. My dignity blows away with the wind. I slump into the bus shelter, emotionally concussed. My phone buzzes. Instant PTSD. Five adverts stand between me and my messages: Domino ooo-ooo’s. Dani Dyer's insufferable: “Life smells perf with Surf.” And some nauseating Christmas advert about a noseless reindeer who “inspires a whole village,” earning a shiny carrot nose from their collective festive goodwill. I finally open my message. It’s sodding junk mail. I toss my phone aside. “What a complete waste of my life.” My trolley has rolled away. My will to live followed it. I drag myself through the park. Trees sway silently. But behind me — footsteps. I turn. Nothing. I walk faster. Footsteps again. I whip around. Still nothing. Fantastic. I’m being haunted by my own imagination. Then — A tap on my shoulder. I nearly implode. “I’m sorry,” a strange man says. “You left something at mine.” I blink. “Huh?” “Charlotte’s prezzies.” Ah. The gifts. My accidental burden. He power-walks towards a rundown flat that whispers ‘You will die.’ “Come inside,” he says, smiling crookedly. “Yeah no, I’ll just wait here.” He shrugs and disappears inside. I run. Hard. Bare feet slapping the path, breath slicing my throat. “Oh fab!” a voice calls. Lunge Woman again. “You’ve joined the triathlon!” I have done no such thing. Suddenly I’m herded into a race led by a Personal Trainer who could double as a telephone pole. I run. I climb. I sweat. I reach the rope climb and — against reason — I attempt it. At the top, the ground stares up at me like a threat. “Help,” I squeak. “Want me to catch you?” the PT asks. “If you wouldn’t mind.” I drop into his comic-book-hero arms. For one brief moment, safety. Warmth. A soft landing in a day full of hard edges. Then he sets me down and directs us to the final triathlon challenge: video games. I insert a coin, lose immediately. “You’re disqualified!” he roars. “Now piss off!” How festive. I shuffle out with my head down — and look up to find myself at a stranger’s door. No idea how I got here. I knock. No answer. “Come in,” a voice calls. Inside, an Indian woman lies starfish-style on the floor, peacefully asleep. I poke her. Nothing. “You won’t wake her,” booms a voice I know too well. Paul. My ex. The storm I survived. He stands there in an apron, mixing bowl in one hand, wooden spoon in the other. Domesticity painted onto a man who once weaponised it. “I’m baking us a cake,” he says. We watch the dough rise in stony silence, years compressing into the greasy oven window. It’s too familiar. Too symbolic. Too wrong. Because he used to bake cakes only to destroy them. Slice them. Stamp them. Smash them as if sweetness offended him. And I stood where the cakes stood. The oven pings. He serves me a slice. It tastes like regret. Thick, cloying, unavoidable. The world blurs into the bus stop again. A jingle plays. Distorted. Slow. Like an ice-cream van submerged underwater. I follow it to a Christmas food van: Reindeer’s Nose. “Mand!” Ash calls, whisking a bowl, smiling warm and wide. “What’s all this?” I ask. “Oh, just for the festive period.” “What’s on the menu?” She stops whisking. Her face falls. “Well… unfortunately for you,” she says softly, “you’ve already chosen regret.” A cold heaviness grips my chest. “What do you mean?” The reindeer’s carrot nose glows red. Bright. Pulsing. And suddenly everything aligns. Paul. The cake. The sleeping woman. The loop of familiar fear. Regret isn’t a flavour. It’s a trap. A pattern. A predator. A rut worn deep in the snow. “A reindeer never changes its nose,” Ash murmurs. The glow intensifies. And before the truth fully forms — before I can outrun it again — I fall. Thud. The world holds its breath. And in the quiet that follows, one thought settles — soft, simple, undeniable: I can’t keep running barefoot through the same snow forever.