The Knight that Arrived First

Last weekend, I was verbally abused by a teenager screaming at 300 decibals, while her mother –- and every other stunned customer in the store — looked on in silence.  That little episode has prompted me to tell you the story about why I came to write Silent Knight.

I just know you’re familiar with the pre-season insanity that most people call Christmas Shopping.  I was stuck in the middle of it on Saturday afternoon, waiting my turn at the cash register, and wondering why department stores insist on playing Christmas music loudly.  Is the volume designed to convince us we’re having a good time despite the seething hoards?  That’s when I was jolted by a voice behind me saying; “Excuse me, bitch, but we were here first.”

I turned around, and was startled to find the teenage girl was actually speaking to me.  While I scrambled to wire up my dropping jaw, and get my stalled brain in gear, the girl went off on a vitriolic tirade that lasted what felt like about five years.  Her vective was full of expletives that even had me blinking, and I write for Ellora’s Cave on a fairly regular basis, so I’ve heard all the four letter words before.  I looked at her mother, standing next to her, my eyes widening, and the mother looked right back at me.

After what was surely only a few seconds, it finally dawned on me that this little angel thought I had pushed in front of them in the queue for the cash register.  So rather than put up with more verbal abuse, I moved over to another queue.  As it happens, I made it to my cash register faster than they did.  I won the battle of self-discipline — I didn’t wave at them as I left.  But oh, how I wanted to!

Thing is, here I am, well into the work week and I still can’t stop replaying those moments in my mind.  I keep wondering if I did accidentally step in front of them, or what possessed the girl to go off in that lunatic fashion (her temples were throbbing!) and why the mother just stood there.  What did I do that deserved that treatment?

That moment would have lasted, objectively, about fifty seconds.  Sixty, tops.  But because of that moment, for the next few months at least I will be very careful about making sure I’m truly at the end of the queue and not jumping in front of anyone – especially any teenage girls and their mothers.  And it will probably spill over into any waiting situation where I might be seen as “pushy” – waiting rooms, restaurant lines.  In other words, that sixty seconds will have an impact on my behaviour.

That’s the reason I wrote Silent Knight – to explore the impact people can have on other people’s lives.  There has been a good handful of people in my life who have had a profound influence on me, and on the decisions I have made, and the choices that have led me to where I am now.  Some of those people were like the teenage girl – essentially strangers.  Some I knew for only a few short weeks.  Others remain dear friends of mine even if they are on another continent.

It’s the fascination of the long term impact of strangers thrown together that kept pulling me back to writing Silent Knight.  Two people together for three days…and the choices about her life that the heroine, Sophie, makes after that.  If you’ve been to my website and read the note on the book’s page, you’ll know that the writing of the book took several years, but something in the story kept it alive for me, kept me writing it.

It wasn’t until I started combing through my Contacts list this Christmas to build gift and card lists that I realized that a good many people who have made me the me I am now are no longer a part of my life.  And with almost an audible squeal of rusty gears, my brain made the connection to Silent Knight.

Silent Knight is one of my favourite books (that I wrote).  It’s only now I’ve figured out why.  Life is so interesting, isn’t it?

First appeared on Stories Rule! in November, 2007

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Tracy Cooper-Posey © 2007. Cannot be copied or distributed without permission, or without this copyright notice attached.