Rice

The door into the lounge was opened by a bit more than a crack. Davy thought that, although he might get away with opening it a shade wider, what he could see through the gap was quite enough.

In perfect view was the Christmas buffet table. Draped in a white cloth, it bore a splendid array of grapefruit porcupines spiked with cheese and pineapple on sticks, or cheese and wrinkled- looking silverskin onions, Twiglets, alluringly displayed in a lazy susan and alternating with carrot sticks, a gelatinous looking dip, and, pièce de résistance chunks of celery with cream cheese squished into the ridges in the middle.

As Davy watched, a braceleted hand reached out, and tipsily shoved an empty glass on to the edge of the tablecloth, the maraschino cherry on a plastic cocktail stick, lurking at the bottom. The scarlet fingernails flashed briefly.

The gap between the door and the door jamb was illuminated. Davy caught a glimpse of dislocated green shantung, and a flash of a man's white cuff, then the glint of whiskey in a glass.

He opened the door just another inch, this time to reveal the drinks bottles, and another hand reaching for the port. Bottle and hand disappeared back into the melee. Beside the bottles, the forlorn Christmas tree drooped, with its tarnished lametta and haphazardly placed baubles. 

Davy returned to his room, and the English homework due in the next day. "A Christmas contrast." The instruction was "Write a short piece, on a Christmas theme, in which you create a contrast."

So far he had no ideas.

Taking the pack of cigarettes and the spare lighter which he'd removed from his dad's wardrobe just as the party got going, he slipped out of the back door of the bungalow and into the garden.

From the side of the bungalow, he could see the southern watchtower of Changi Jail. Eyes stared blankly at the night sky from under the sentry's helmet. His rifle was propped against the parapet, slung from his shoulder by webbing. 

Davy could see, beyond the roof of the sentry box, and the walls of the jail, Orion treading the southern sky. But red Betelgeuse was no longer a gem on the warrior's shoulder, rather a spur on his boot.

Beautiful Mintaka, third star of three stars, had stridden backwards.

The British prisoners held in Changi jail by the Japanese, would they have seen Orion from their cells? Would they recognise him, even though inverted, from of the winter skies of home?

Liberation had been fifteen years ago. There were newspapers in the school library with photographs and first-hand witness accounts. Father Jacob Varley, given, one Christmas Eve, a small bowl of raw rice, had taken threads from his thin bedding, punctured each grain with a needle he'd made from a fragment of chicken bone, and created a rosary. Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be. The Mysteries. The pauses between the beads were marked by tiny scraps of nutshell.

Fr. Varley was starving.

Davy lit a cigarette and watched Orion's Belt gleam like strung rice.

The patio doors opened and Davy heard his parents' cocktail party swill out into the night garden, glasses clinking and voices raised. "Merry Christmas!" someone shrieked at the sentry, who remained impassive in his concrete turret.

Davy went back inside, through the side door, to where the English homework lay, waiting for him to make a start.

Siobhan.