This is a wee non-autobiographical but seasonal story

Almost the shortest day of the year. My spirits have plunged and my self-esteem is rock-bottom – as usual. This is the time I retreat inside myself and ruminate on what a ruin my life has become. The fatal law of gravity is that when you are down, everything falls on you. It already feels like I’ve been dead for a year. The world is a mess, war-torn, full of disconnected people, vain people, angry people, hateful people and all this pain and anguish isn’t helped by my most recent pastime of writing whining poetry.
I went out for a solitary lunch to interrupt the ruminations and prepare myself for my duty call. The pub was warm and welcoming. Someone in a dark corner was playing the piano softly. The music was calming. The golden, ruddy beer made me feel mellower still. The tune was taking me and, as I waited for my pie to arrive, I realised I was smiling.
When I stepped back out onto the street, the sun was breaking through the clouds making slate roofs shiny. Today, weirdly, I imagined myself as an archangel, only for the afternoon, of course, but for a while I could convince myself that I was a good person. It was, after all, only a few days since my last visit.
I walked familiar city pavements and turned into her hidden quiet street, her decaying house overlooked by several ugly new-builds. Even here, close to the Ivory Towers and Dreaming Spires, developers never seem to honour tradition.
I tugged on the big brass bell-pull and heard it ring inside, then a bad-tempered, ‘I’m coming. I’m coming.’
She opened the heavy outside door just a crack. A perplexed frown creased her forehead. Then recognition. ‘Oh Henry. You decided to come back. After all these years.’
The crimson thread of kinship runs through us but she mistook me for her philandering, long-dead husband.
‘No, I’m Sean.’
She still didn’t look pleased but she did open the door wide enough to let me in.
She was gripping a wicker carpet-beater as if she might need to defend herself with it. ‘There’s cake,’ she announced wafting the weapon towards the kitchen.
Soon we were sipping tea. Her hands automatically straightening and repositioning the doily and table mats that I’d inadvertently moved.
I raised the cake to my mouth as she said, ‘Don’t be picking the cherries and sultanas out now Sean. I know what a devil you are for that, and I don’t have a dog any more to eat the crumbs. He died you know.’
There’s nothing worse than being interrupted by false accusations when you eat.
‘That was Keiran, Mum. I never did that.’
‘Ah yes, you were the one who’d never put on clean socks, aren’t you?’
‘Yes Mum. That’s me.’
How cruel that her need to criticise and control, a habit that had driven away our dad, hadn’t softened as dementia had taken hold of her.