August snow had fallen, on the embroidery Patricia had extorted from me.

You already know this, of course!

None of you, however, can imagine what happened, some time later.

But let us go in order and rewind the tape illustrating the story, looking at it with new eyes.

I was embroidering in the summer heat with hunched shoulders a poinsettia, in a remote and lonely corner of the house, in a mood as sharp as a flint. As I cast the stitches, I laid out with meticulous care a dense web of electrified boundaries, virtual and only imagined, but equally deadly. For when my gaiest little ones dared to cross its threshold, they would fry upon hearing the fierce growl from my bowels and, to follow, the harsh, rasp-like voice that greeted the unfortunate with a sharp What do you want?

Here, for example, came, just as a mosquito hissed with cruel insistence at my right ear and a drop of sweat slipped from my left temple, Anita gaily with a vanished air: Mommy dear! What beautiful embroidery! Will she adorn the drawing room for our lovely Christmas party?

     Nonsense! Nonsense! Merry Christmas here, merriment there, serenity, presents, blah blah! What melancholy nonsense!

And then Mario… Sugar mama embroidering with gold threads, I finally found what to get for Christmas!

     A little bit of judgment! Yes, bravo! Bravo! Go study and don’t bother those who have something to do!

Anita and Mario to Alfredo who was approaching: Stop, you wretch! Don’t come any closer! Bettenizeer is not in a good mood at all today!

And when the Max finally, after casting a glance at the embroidery, exclaimed How nice! Are we going to the snow at Christmas? I chased everyone out reiterating that I would rather go to hell! And that I had work to do… Me!

I thought that summer prevented ghosts from coming out to shake consciences and that certain insane habits were only consumed on Christmas night.

I was therefore transfixed when the ghost appeared before me.

You know how the process is: the ghost of the past will come to visit you, then the ghost of the present, then the ghost of the future. If you walk out that joyful door, announcing to everyone that this is going to be a great Christmas, we’ll all be saved a lot of hassle.

    Will they come, if they have nothing better to do! They fill the rooms without restraint with hubbub, with chains, monstrous howls, and tedious lectures! Never will agony be worse than embroidering mistletoe and bows!

Shortly the sequel to what inexorably was.