A link to my past.

I may have fixed December.

Or, to lightly paraphrase both Charles Dickens and Gonzo, who was also Charles Dickens at the time: my stepfather was dead, to begin with.

I started this newsletter back in July noting that December was a difficult month for me. This is largely due to Christmas, which I've always loved, and two things more that concern it.

The first is that my idea of Christmas is very rooted in nostalgia, and my childhood is long gone.

The second is that December 25th also happens to be my stepdad's birthday.

You can imagine, or will be able to eventually, I'm sorry to say, how it feels each year to be broken by a frog speaking of meetings and partings. That is the way of it.

But I felt okay this year, and even managed to enjoy some of it again.

In his absence, as we did during my childhood, I've celebrated his birthday first before I considered it to be officially Christmas, because he spent his childhood birthdays being overshadowed, and we always tried to do what we could to make up for it.

For the first few years, this wasn't exactly a celebration, so much as it was a wordless eulogy: I woke alone, ate a prepackaged slice of cake, and cried.

But time changes all wounds. In year five, I had an epiphany, and I decided to speedrun a portion of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in his honor. In the ancient days of the Super Nintendo, my brother and I would ask him for help when we were stuck, excitedly show him when we got somewhere new.

I still get cake. But now, I get joy, too. I even look forward to it. Two minutes faster this year, by the way.

What an incredible invention human art is. One of the people who raised me, a parent for 9,492 of my days, is mostly out of reach, only as clear as the limits of human memory will allow him to be.

But this game we shared, from the moment the Triforce comes into the opening screen to the first notes of the Dark World, is a memory I can still experience through physical sense. Not a simulacrum, but the thing itself.

They may not have intended it, but the story of the people who made that game is now also a story of them giving me something to remember my dad by.

That's what I think art is: story told through craft. Not just the story in the craft, but the story of the craft, as well. If the output were all that mattered, a well made forgery would always be worth the same as the original, but it's not. You can't separate the input from the output, the verb from the noun.

Even if the story is as simple as "I thought this was cool," or "I like this flower," "I was here," or even, "He was here."

Even if the craft is as simple as a handprint on a cave wall or in the surface of a sidewalk.

Art is where we hide away little pieces of life for safe keeping, knowing our bodies can't hold onto it indefinitely.

Parts of the internet will probably continue trying to make human art seem less valuable in 2026, but it won't be.

A craft with no author, no story, no life given as coin to create it, is a mere coincidence. Interesting, perhaps, but not told.

It's the telling that counts. It means we aren't alone.

Speaking of stories, I have two of them for you this month, along with two opening lines for you to choose between for next month.

Voting for next month's story goes through the 10th, by the way, to give me time to write.

Story number one is a continuation of the winner from last month, which I seem to have too many ideas for and will therefore be continuing for the foreseeable future, and the second one is just something I felt like writing.

Here they are.

Crows and the things they pine for: part two

Ren flew, and while he flew, he thought, and since the air around him lacked the sounds of either Terry's agreeable ramblings or the construction workers' disagreeable-yet-ultimately-underappreciated clamorings, Ren had nothing to stop the thoughts from thinking.

So the thoughts kept thinking, and those thoughts started to have thoughts of their own, until eventually, they all converged on a single, much more actionable thought: Ren still hadn't eaten.

He shook his head, blinked his eyes white a few times, and realized he had gone much further than he meant to.

Ren had left the city before, but generally in the same way that a human might leave the city: hand firmly attached to the railing.

But the sun was setting, and there are no rails in the woods at night.

Ren looked over the area below and found a metal path, which at least meant some level of civilization nearby, and civilizations tend to keep food around. He wasn't exactly thrilled about the mouse idea, so this would have to do for now. What would Terry say if he flew back the same night without even having secured a single meal?

Probably nothing, honestly. Terry was kind. But what would some sort of Judgemental Terry say instead?

"Nothing good, nothing good," Ren muttered as he landed on the path, talons carefully placed between the holes in the grates.

He hopped a few yards down the side, peered through the dense branches of spruce, and listened closely.

No people in sight nor sound. But not nothing—there was a murmur growing closer, a mammal, by the sound of it, and a voice he couldn't place.

"Hello? Would one of you happen to be a mouse? You sound a bit mousy, and I'm hoping to meet one tonight. Or would you happen to have any idea where I can find some human food around here? Creamy and green, perhaps?"

The voices went silent for a moment before a violent crash swept into the branches of a nearby tree.

"Why on earth would you be here if you wanted human food?" the odd voice asked.

Ren peered through the increasing darkness, but found no face from which a voice might come, until he saw something else entirely: a bright, greenish glow, about twice the size of his head.

He froze.

From Moab to Mars

There were a lot of bad years before Nance came along. Then there was just one. Drunk driver. Some people, you know?

I've wanted to let every year since that one be a bad year too, but Nance didn't like how easily I could write off life. Came from some sort of nutso optimist family.

Of course, it's easier to trust the future if you've never missed a meal. I didn't trust the future, but I trusted her—she could see things I couldn't.

I wonder if she saw the car.

I pull off into a trailhead parking lot near Moab, Utah. Three days of rest-stop bathrooms, vending-machine snack cakes, and a Billie Holiday cassette. Solitude. I brought better food than that, but I can't digest things very well when I'm nervous.

I don't know what good this can do, but it feels important, so I took a sabbatical from work for it. I'll probably regret that later.

I woke up after a nightmare once, I can't quite picture it at this point, but it was bad enough I'd soaked the pillow in sweat or tears or both, and Nance was there, since I never really dream when I'm alone anyways, but I asked if she believed in an afterlife. She laughed and said, "Sure. You and I can hang out up on Mars after this, okay?"

Maybe not always such an optimist—that ended up being our biggest fight. Woke the neighbors. We weren't perfect. But I'm not out here to think ill of the dead.

Mars'll be visible to the naked eye tonight, and I'm gonna see it through that damned arch she wanted to show me so bad.

I leave the car in the corner spot, feeling a bit sorry for any birds that happen across the glare from the sun shade I stuck up under the windshield. Maybe they're used to it. I can't bring myself to look back at it, not even to make sure I locked the thing.

Hours pass. My bag is significantly lighter, but I still haven't managed to eat any of the jerky I brought. Too heavy. I slam a handful of walnuts down and follow it with most of a bottle of water, using the last drops to wipe my hands off on my pant legs. They dry by the time I look down again.

But soon, the sun is setting. There's a lizard next to a sign with a picture of a snake on it. Wrong one, little guy. Close, though.

First thing bigger than my thumb I've seen all day, now that I think about it; she didn't tell me how lonely it was out here. I guess I don't mind much.

It's there, though. I see it. Up ahead.

Honestly, I don't quite get it yet. Maybe I'm just more used to rocks that don't make me feel so small. Then again, maybe the stars—I look up and turn a quick three and sixty without stopping—oh God, the stars. It's not even dark yet, and there are so many.

This is gonna work.

I'm sitting under the arch now, up against the side. Gotta wait out a couple of clouds that decided to show up. I wouldn't mind a light rain, as long as it doesn't decide to spend the night.

You'd be proud of me, Nance. Or maybe mad at me for taking so long. I'd take either right now, smirk or scowl. I'd take that lizard, honestly; I don't wanna be out here like this much longer in the dark.

The clouds are on their way out, finally. It's late. And who shows up? My new best friend, it looks like. And he brought about eighty of his other friends, which must be why the ground feels a bit off.

The train's pretty close now, though, so I guess maybe they just don't like the noise.

I look up at the engine as it lets out a whistle, can't tell how many cars it has. Looks black at the moment, but so would anything out here.

I was right about the noise, though. Not a lizard in sight. I pull one of the rocks I'm always carrying around from the pocket of my church pants and throw it at the engine, but it's too far. It whistles again, steam hisses from somewhere.

I throw a second one, but I put everything into it this time, and it goes. Nance'll have to want to hang out again after a throw like that.

The train lets off a third whistle, but it sounds all gravelly this time, maybe the rock got stuck in there somewhere, and the front light goes reddish orange as it turns toward me.

I throw my last rock, only it's not a rock: it's a shell we found on the beach once during low tide.

I can't get up fast enough—the engine bolts over, sinks its fangs into my leg.

It's not great, but it's not like I've never been stabbed in the leg before. It doesn't hurt so bad after the first few seconds, to be honest, as long as you don't try to move it.

Anyways, I'm alone again, and the stars are out. I'm looking up at the arch, and I see it, just below the edge by about ten degrees.

Green, green, green-eyed Mars.

And now, a choice:

From a story tentatively called The witch of the wool:

Do mushrooms usually grow through snow?

Or, from a story tentatively called Cabin fever for a coward:

This was it: the last sound he was ever going to hear was the tireless rattle of an off-kilter bathroom fan.

That's it for this month, and this year, in fact!

Thanks so much for being some of the first people to follow this project, and happy New Year's.

I was here.

Martin

P.S.:

What was your favorite art or story you experienced in 2025? Any kind of story, really. Book, movie, painting, gossip from the other side of a gas station pump.

Here are some of the things that helped add color to my year, in no particular order:

• Ring (book)

• Mockingbird Court (book)

• Minari (movie)

• The Summer Hikaru Died (series)

• Memoir of a Snail (movie)

• Donkey Kong Bananza (game)

• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (game; not finished yet)

• The Phoenician Scheme (movie)

• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (book; still reading)