"Well?" he said.
"Yes," Aunty Em blurted. "Yes, dead, Bertie. All dead."
The man took a deep breath. "Thank you," he said. "Sometimes I can't believe that it really happened. Or else I forget. You make it easy to forget. Maybe you think that's good for me. But I need to know who I am."
"Buddy," said the dog, brushing against him. "Buddy, my Buddy."
The man patted the dog absently. "I could give up. But I won't. I've had a bad spell the last couple of weeks, I know. That's not your fault." He heaved himself off the couch, came around the coffee table and knelt beside the girlfriend. "I really appreciate that you trust me with this gun. And these bullets too. That's got to be scary, after what I said." The girlfriend watched him scoop up the bullets. "Kathy, I don't need these just now. Would you please keep them for me?"
She nodded.
"Do you know the movie, Miracle On 34th Street?" He poured the bullets into her cupped hands. "Not the remakes. The first one, with Maureen O'Hara?"
She nodded again.
He leaned close and whispered into her ear. His pulse soared to 93.
She sniffed and then giggled.
"You go ahead," he said to her. "I'll come up in a little while." He gave her a pat on the rear and stood up. The other biops watched him nervously.
"What's with all the long faces?" He tucked the Glock into the waistband of his pants. "You look like them." He waved at the painting of the somber farm folk, whose mood would never, ever change. "It's Christmas Day, people. Let's live it up!"
· · · · ·
End Interaction 4023066
· · · · ·
Over the years, Aunty Em gave the man many more Christmases, not to mention Thanksgivings, Easters, Halloweens, April Fools, and Valentine Days. But she always said—and no one contradicted her: not the man, not even the girlfriend—that this Christmas was the best ever.
Chris McCulloch (Jackson Publick)
SECRET SANTA
Brett McBean
CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
DOREEN WAS IN the kitchen when Lucas awoke.
She was slumped in one of two bar stools that were parked side-by-side at the bench, a Peter Jackson angled between her right index and middle fingers, listening to the radio. The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was in almost total darkness; the only illumination came from the lounge, and the multicoloured lights wrapped around the Christmas tree.
“Mummy, look, I can see Santa!”
Doreen flinched at the sound of her six-year-old, muttered something unpleasant under her breath, then reached over and flicked off the radio (“...the fires that are ravaging the Victorian bushland are spreading...”). She drained what was left of the Jim Beam, took a deep drag of her cigarette and, with an even deeper sigh, slithered off the stool and headed into the lounge room.
Lucas, her darling baby-boy (not a baby anymore, kid’s growing up – and that thought was like a sledgehammer to her chest) was sitting up straight on the couch by the front window. He was wearing only his red briefs and the sweat on his slightly chubby body glistened with blue, red, green and yellow. Like his mum, his blond hair was plastered on his head, looking like he had just stepped out of the shower. The fan, perched in the middle of the room, turning like a watchful eye, blades spinning, didn’t do much to cool anything – damn thing just ate up energy.
Doreen, slumped against the lounge room arch, took another drag and, blowing out smoke, said, “What was that darling?”
Without turning around, Lucas (as he had recently asked to be called; he had just gotten into the Star Wars movies) said, in a whisper of awe: “I can see Santa. He’s coming. He’s really coming.”
Doreen remained under the archway separating the dining room from the lounge. She wanted to go over and sit next to her son, wanted to hold him, comfort him. She knew, in time, she would have to. But she also knew that once she did, she would never get back up again.
Luke had fallen asleep some hours ago watching Candles by Candlelight on TV. Doreen had only been half-watching; she was more interested in what was on the radio – the updates on the bushfires. Luke had desperately wanted to stay up and wait for Santa, but the six-year-old in him conked out at around nine-thirty, just as the fires reached the Brayshaw property, ten kilometres away. That’s when Doreen had switched off the television and turned off all the lights. She had settled in the kitchen, the radio on low, the bottle of Jim Beam still half full, and waited, in the dark, praying Luke would stay asleep.
“Come and look, Mummy. I see him, in the distance. His sleigh. It’s red.”
Doreen wiped her stinging eyes and stepped into the lounge, a trail of cigarette smoke following like a white cloud of doom.
Doreen took a seat next to her son. She stubbed the cigarette out in the glass ashtray, adding the butt to the ever-increasing mountain, and then turned to her son. She brushed damp strings of hair from his forehead. Sniffling back tears, she looked out the window.
“See?” Luke said, pointing. “That small red light in the window. It’s him, isn’t it? It’s really him.”
Doreen looked. Saw the reflection of one of the Christmas lights that wound around the mangy old plastic tree. She managed a brief smile. She tousled his hair. “I reckon it is,” she told him. “Santa’s on his way.”
“Bringing lots and lots of presents?”
It wasn’t so much a question as a statement; after all, Luke had always received presents in the past. Every year her bedroom closet had been filled with stuffed toys, action figures, computer games, DVDs, and of course the perennial favourite: new clothes and underwear.
Not this year.
This year all that clogged up her closet were clothes that were already in danger of becoming out of fashion; worn-out shoes; boxes of photo albums – things that would burn easily.
Half of their belongings were now in boxes, ready to be taken to nowhere. Ever since losing her job at the bank two months ago, they had been placing their lives into boxes.
Doreen turned her eyes to the imitation pine tree. She had bought it twenty years ago, when she and George were first married. They didn’t have the money to buy a real tree. It didn’t matter. There had been presents under it – as there had been for the next eighteen years after that. Only then the presents sat under a real tree, with real pine smell. Even when George left, five years ago, taking with him his Porsche and her faith in love, there were presents under the tree. The fake plastic tree remained in the closet, while real ones were brought in, decorated, watered, and then discarded once New Year’s Day rolled around, left to brown and die outside, until eventually it was taken away.
Nineteen long years the plastic tree had waited. And just over twenty days ago, with Luke sulking and Doreen spitting angry, resentful remarks at her six-year-old (“We can’t afford a real one this year”; “Stop your whining and be happy with what you’ve got”; “A real one is too much effort to take care of anyway, and besides, with the water restrictions...”), the plastic tree had finally been given its second showing.
I’ve come full circle, Doreen thought with bitter humour, eyes hard on the empty space under the tree.
When she turned back to the window, she saw another light. This one was farther in the distance, and a lot bigger. At the moment it was an orange hue, like the sun was setting. Only this was no sun; similar in many ways, but different in one very important fact – it was edging closer.
As tears stained her ruddy cheeks, Doreen cleared her throat to speak. Though her voice still cracked and popped like an old vinyl record. “Do you want to take a cold bath, Luke?”
Eyes fixed on the hovering red light in the window, Luke barely shook his head.
“Aren’t you hot? Wouldn’t a nice cool bath feel good?”
“I don’t want to miss Santa.”
“You won’t, honey. I’ll come and get you when he arrives.”
“I want to stay and watch the light,” Luke said, pouty.
“Okay,
” Doreen sighed, rubbing her temples. “You stay and watch the light.”
Something small bumped into the window. Doreen gasped. Reflected in the Christmas tree lights, she saw a beetle flapping against the window.
“Look Mum, a Christmas Beetle,” Luke said, his attention momentarily diverted from the red light.
“So it is,” Doreen said and watched as the beetle flapped for a bit and then left. It was smart, it knew what was coming. It was leaving the area, leaving for safety. It obviously had somewhere to go.
Unlike them.
They had nowhere to go – no home, no family. Everyone else in the area had evacuated. Some had even stopped off and told Doreen to get away, take Luke and leave now. It wouldn’t be long before the area was awash with flame.
"Do you have somewhere to go?" each of them had asked, breathless, faces sweaty.
"Yes", Doreen had lied. "Yes, we’ve got somewhere to go."
At that, they had left. And Doreen had gone back to sitting on the couch, staring at the TV.
It had been over three hours since the last person came by, telling her to leave.
“I think it’s getting closer,” Luke said, his gaze back on the light in the window.
Doreen turned her bleary eyes to her light. “Yes, I think you’re right, darling.”
Unlike Luke’s imaginary Santa light, her light really was getting closer. Instead of an orange hue in the distance, she could see flames now. And smoke. Thick, curling smoke that turned the clear summer night into something resembling a foggy Christmas Eve in England.
“I smell smoke,” Luke said, sniffing the air.
It was the smell of burnt timber, Eucalyptus and an end to their pain.
Doreen wrapped her arms around her son.
“Maybe it’s Santa’s sleigh,” she said.
“Like an old train?”
“Yeah. Maybe the elves stoke the fire. That’s how come Santa can fly all around the world in one night.”
“Wow,” Luke said, his elbows resting on the arms of the couch, chin digging into his palms. His gaze remained fixed on the red light. “I wonder what Santa will be like when he gets here.”
“Tired, probably,” Doreen said, closing her eyes off from the burning light. “He’ll probably be tired and want something to eat and drink.”
With the smell of smoke, hot and acrid, filling their world, Doreen continued to hug her son and together they waited for the light to arrive.
Teel McClanahan III
LAST CHRISTMAS
I’D KNOWN SOMETHING was wrong as soon as I'd begun making my list. Most years I'd check the list twice, but this year I went over it again and again, sure there was an error somewhere. But there was no error. Not with the list, anyway. I began to wonder what I'd find when I went out this Christmas Eve, and whether I'd have anything to do next Christmas.
The elves took the list as though it were the same size as any other year. There was no hint of despair on their cheerful faces as they returned to the workshop practically empty-handed. Last year's list had reached nearly two hundred million names. This year there were only a few hundred names, and only a small handful of children had qualified as nice. Just as disturbing was the odd lack of letters; most years I have the joy of reading through hundreds of thousands of hopeful letters, full of dreams and wishes, sent by post, by balloon, and by flame from all around the world. As the Christmas season approached this year, there was only one letter waiting, and no others have since arrived.
The boy who'd sent the letter wasn't on the list. There were always a few children who would send letters and not survive to Christmas each year, and each year it would break my heart just a little. This one was worse, somehow. The only boy with enough hope and faith left in the world to write a letter asking for something better, and he's gone. No siblings for me to try to cheer up, no neighborhood friends who could use a little something extra under the tree to help them deal with the loss of a friend - there wasn't anyone on the list within a hundred miles of where this boy's letter had come from.
After trying to wrap my head around the total absence of mail this year, I'd turned to my calendar. Most years I start my appearances with a few parades, then have to be in several places at once for the rest of the season. I normally make appearances at malls and hospitals and on television and in many smaller, more intimate meetings with the children of the world. This year, from Thanksgiving right through to Christmas, my calendar is clear. Not even the big parade in New York City asked for me this year. I asked the head elf about it, and she confirmed that the calendar was correct. I barely knew what to do with myself.
After a couple of days reading and re-reading the only letter I'd received this year, of feeding and grooming the reindeer until they wouldn't put up with me any more, and of going over and over the list, checking and re-checking every name, I decided to see how things were going in the elves' workshop. I dreaded what I would find there, and it only gave me more to think about, in the end. I walked right in, as though it were any other year, and asked, "How are we doing, this year?"
"We're looking to actually finish ahead of schedule, with the broadest margin we've had in over a hundred years, Santa." The head elf's expression remained cheerful, her voice even and proud.
I tried to do the same, to keep hold of my holiday cheer despite the tragedy we both realized was probably waiting for me in the South. "That's excellent news. I think we should spend the extra time putting a little more care into the presents for all the good little boys and girls. Perhaps also to put together a little something for each of their families to enjoy together?"
"We're doing our absolute best, Santa, as always. We've already begun to explore ways to bring the family members of good children into the experience. Would you like to see what we've come up with, so far?" I nodded, then followed her around the workshop as she showed off their progress.
"We're already done with coal allotments, and as you can see, it's less than we've measured out in quite some time." I peered into the coal bin, usually brimming with coal for the millions and millions of naughty children, and was appalled by how empty it looked. I didn't say it, but it almost looked like the bin held only the leftover dregs of last Christmas's coal, not a full load. We moved on.
"Considering our schedule, what we're doing is preparing a personalized gift package for each good boy or girl on the list, rather than an individual gift." We walked over to where an assortment of canned and dried foods, seeds, blankets, a warm winter coat, ammunition, and assorted tools were laid out on one of the big workbenches, with elves all around finishing or adding to the collection. "This gift package is for Evelyn Chartrand, age 9."
"Little Evie is the only good little girl left in Montana," I said, unthinking.
The head elf let the comment slide, continuing, "As you know, even without letters we've always been able to select the gift that each child most wants, or, when that's unavailable or has already been purchased or arranged for them, something from further down their wish list. This year, we're unable to give Evelyn what she most wants for Christmas, but we're doing our best to provide her with everything else on her list."
I reflexively thought about what Evie most wanted for Christmas, not realizing how heart-breaking it would be to think about what would be more important to a nine-year-old girl than food and warmth. My face went slack, though my head kept nodding as the elves went over all the little details, and I tried to stop wishing I could somehow fit "my mommy back" into my big, red sack.
"Delivery of this package is going to be a little tricky, but on par with what you're already used to doing for homeless children. Evelyn's father is a bit of a grinch, and we have reason to believe that this sort of a bounty simply appearing in his home overnight might not have a good result. We're working on the final logistics, but it'll be another serendipity-drop rather than an under-the-tree delivery for Miss Chartrand."
"I should have plenty of time on Christmas Eve to do whatever is n
eeded to make Evie's Christmas morning a magical one."
"Of course. Next up we have a similar gift package for Marion James, age 11. Marion also wants a new horse, and I have a few elves trying to make that a possibility. We'll keep you appraised."
I could see that Marion's gift package was weighted more toward the seeds and farming end of the spectrum. I've always had a few children whose fondest wish was to grow up and be a farmer like their father had been, but never had such basics as good seed, tools, and a horse so dominated an eleven-year-old boy's wish list. Marion lived in the tiny town of Oakley, Idaho, and would be the last good child on my delivery route. I hoped the elves would find a way to get him that horse.
On the next workbench over, elves seemed to be working on the sort of traditional toys and Christmas gifts I was used to seeing them work on each year. It was refreshing to see that something in the traditional spirit of the season hadn't been lost this year, yet disappointing to see so few elves working, and so slowly.
"Over here you can see our top toy-builders working on the most traditional of the gift packages we're putting together this year. The majority of what William and Maxwell Page, aged 8 and 7 respectively, want most for Christmas are the sort of things we see every year. The only food items going in this package are sweets and treats. Other than that and a few pair of socks and underwear for each boy, it's all toys so far."
I thought about the Page brothers as I surveyed the elves' work, wondering if perhaps whatever had been going on in the rest of the world had somehow not reached their family's estate on the outskirts of Cardiff, but knew immediately that their home had not escaped unscathed. The only items on either boy's wish list we wouldn't be delivering was "someone else to play with." I picked up a toy or two from the workbench, marveling at the detailed craftsmanship the elves had been able to create without normal time constraints placed on them. "This is all excellent work," I said.
Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology Page 110