It is 23 December, some time in the future, and a storm rages outside the house. Inside there are supplies and an expectant mother sleeps. Is it safe to venture out and fetch her gift?

In this post-apocalyptic story the novelist and short story writer Sarah Hall (The Electric Michaelangelo, Burntcoat) imagines a mysterious landscape ravaged by weather: is it still Christmas, when the world seems to have stopped?

Warning: contains scenes that younger listeners may find disturbing.

Read by Emma Haslett.

You can read the text version here. This article was published in the New Statesman in 2014.

If you enjoyed this listen to Margaret Atwood: why I don’t write utopias

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