Tag Archives: short-story

I received permission from R.G. Ryan, the author of this, to share it with you. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read.

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The first time I heard it, I was six.

I was standing on the third stair up—high enough to feel brave, low enough to run—when the house made a sound it had never made before.

Not a creak. Not a settling groan. A clatter. Bright and sudden, like something important had arrived and tried not to announce itself.

From the bedroom, my father muttered something about raccoons. My mother shifted under the covers. But I didn’t move. Because I knew what it was.

I leaned toward the living room, peering into the dark, and whispered what the poem had taught me. “A rose suchek ladder.”

Behind me, my mother’s sleepy voice floated down the hall. “What did you say, honey?”

“It’s the ladder,” I said.

“What ladder?”

“The rose suchek ladder,” I repeated patiently. “From the poem.”

She smiled in her voice. “Oh. You mean ‘there arose such a clatter.’”

That version sounded wrong in my mouth. Like a coat that didn’t quite fit.

“No,” I said, softly but firmly. “I mean the ladder.”

She didn’t argue. She never did on Christmas Eve. “Well,” she whispered, “come sit with me. If it’s a ladder, let’s listen together.”

So, we listened. And there it was again. Another careful clatter, followed by a hush so complete it felt like the house itself was holding its breath.

I knew then, with the quiet certainty only children have, that something had arrived.

Years passed. I learned the correct words. I learned to say them cleanly and properly. But I never forgot the other version. Because children don’t hear language the way adults do. They hear possibility first.

And sometimes—often, I think—they hear the truth before we train it out of them.

This year, it came back because of my grandchildren’s laughter.

They were all piled on the couch, wrapped in blankets, cocoa balanced dangerously on knees, watching that old Christmas movie where Santa falls off a roof and the world tilts just enough to let magic leak in.

Then the line came up. Twisted on purpose. “A Rose Suchek Ladder.”

They laughed and repeated it immediately, tasting the words. “A ROSE SUCHEK LADDER.” Saying it like it meant something.

And something in me—old and patient—sat up and listened.

Later, after everyone was in bed and the house had settled, I found myself alone with the Christmas lights glowing softly. I don’t know why I stayed up. Practical people usually don’t.

But Christmas bends practical people toward wonder whether they approve of it or not.

I was standing near the fireplace when I heard it. A clatter. Clear. Familiar.

Then another sound—lighter this time—like a rung being set carefully against brick.

My heart did something it hadn’t done in years. “A rose suchek ladder,” I whispered.

The air shifted. Not dramatically, not enough to convince a skeptic. Just enough to feel remembered. And, for a moment, I saw it. A ladder, yes but not wood or metal. Pale and delicate, as if braided from winter itself. Its rungs looked like rose stems, stripped of thorns, smoothed by patient hands.

And down it came—slowly, carefully—the shape of a man. Not the noisy version. Not the cartoon. Someone older than hurry. Someone who still treated the moment with reverence.

He stepped onto the hearth as gently as snowfall. He noticed me. I know he did. For a second, I expected to be scolded. Adults aren’t supposed to be here for this part.

Instead, he nodded. Not as a king to a subject but as a craftsman to someone who recognized the tools.

Then he lifted one finger to his lips. Not in warning but in invitation.

I didn’t speak. I didn’t move. I just stood there with my hand on the mantle, feeling my heart thump like a kid’s again.

Santa turned slightly, and I saw it then: the ladder wasn’t just for him. It was a way in and out of the thin places. The places where belief still mattered. The places where words could still become doors.

And I realized something that made my throat tighten: Adults don’t stop believing because the world proves them wrong. Adults stop believing because the world trains them to stop listening.

He moved quietly, leaving gifts where gifts belonged, the way someone tends a garden in the dark; without fanfare, without ownership.

When he returned to the fireplace, he placed a gloved hand on the ladder, respectful, careful. Before climbing, he glanced back once more, and though he never spoke, I understood.

Don’t explain this away.

Don’t steal it by trying to prove it.

Just keep the doorway open.

Then he climbed. The ladder shimmered and vanished, rung by rung. One pale rose petal drifted down and settled on the hearth.

Morning came the way it always does—noise, paper, joy in all directions at once.

Then my granddaughter stopped and pointed. “What’s that?”

I followed her finger. The petal was still there.

I picked it up gently. “That,” I said, smiling, “is proof the ladder was here.”

She leaned closer. “What ladder?”

I knelt so we were eye to eye and whispered the words the right way—the way that opens doors. “The rose suchek ladder.”

Her eyes lit up. And somewhere deep in the house, old and patient and listening—

there arose such a clatter.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

R.G. Ryan

Christmas 2025

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R. G. Ryan –
R.G. Ryan is a novelist, musician, and essayist whose work explores the intersection of faith, culture, and human responsibility. A native of California’s Central Coast, he writes about the places—and the values—that shape us.

@rgryan on Stubstack and. @RGRyan777 on X

Author of the Jake Moriarity Series that I love and highly recommend. 

Book 1 – Watercolor Dreams