From books. Christ, they could have learned it from books. But books were being banned.
She touched the warm wet spot on her head from where she struck the wall.
The jubilant folks singing carols outside her door were singing full-throated about eternal life, and she let herself wonder about comfort and joy.
She let herself wonder if Jesus of Nazareth died in a happy city. If what He wanted her to know was different from what she was told, that it was all for the best, that ringing bells could make it all go away.
Maybe it should go.
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This is an exactly 100-word flash fiction piece for a tradition of writing ghost stories on Christmas Eve. We acknowledge a sinful and hopeless world, and welcome the dawn in full awareness that Christmas day brings us light.
Advent Ghosts 100 Word Storytelling is put on by Loren Eaton at I Saw Lightning Fall. Read the 2024 stories now, with some new stories appearing through the week.
Search tag “Advent Ghosts” to read all of my 100-word stories for this project over the years on Esse Diem. Then join us!
Esse Diem 
INTERESTING. O.K., I’m curious: Is the end a reference to Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells”? Because that poem has a pair of stanzas that are regularly expunged, an added poignancy when considered in light of your story.
If you click the link (Albert Camus under the photograph), it provides the context. It’s one of my favorite last lines of any work, and eternally relevant, sadly. I thought about writing about vaccines, but that was getting kind of gnarly. I landed on this cautionary tale that deals with both a literal plague, and the plague of fascism.