Pinkiwi.
“Sure sure… let’s just get this done.”
As they worked with the unconscious men they had fun staging the photos and debated which would be their favorites. On occasion, Grumpy would wake each man up momentarily to give their faces more expression. The CEO was posed on all fours with a big dog bone as a bit clenched in his teeth with a tiny girl standing on his back pulling his reins hard. His look of astonishment was real as he was wide awake for two whole seconds.
He was also chosen for three of the girls to walk along his naked back while balancing on their stilettos. They managed to make it look easy. They held up their whips and grinned dramatically while pulling up his head by his hair.
The girls, being of elven background and being really short, looked a lot younger than they were. A discerning eye would notice their adult proportions but most horrified eyes would jump to a shocking conclusion. Most humans wouldn’t believe these barely adult elves had reached fifty years, each. Christmas elves take that long to reach physical maturity. As for emotional maturity, many never do reach that point.
They staged ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’. They staged a mass tickle party. They staged opening of presents with the men as presents and whatever strange ideas that popped into their heads. Santa was becoming increasingly agitated, his movements more forceful and jerky as he directed his players. His right eye began to twitch. Grumpy watched him nervously. They shot pictures for hours and at the behest of Mr. Perfect, staged one just for him and for their own amusement. They pulled the CEO just outside on the deck to get the breeze and settled him into a chair. He was as heavy and non-responsive as a sack of cement. Mr. Perfect posed proudly on top of the oil executive’s head, his Earth flag rippling in the wind above him, the pole clenched tight between his testicles. Grumpy now jabbed the man with his needle, waking him up for two seconds of dazed bliss.
“More games?” the exec muttered, grinning goofily. The flash of the camera made him blink but then his head nodded back onto his chest for more sleep. Santa stood staring at the man long after Mr. Perfect had jumped back into Grumpy’s sack and the others had assembled their things to go, his eye twitching, his hands fisting.
The noise of a cutter broke the silence. They looked starboard and noticed the smaller boat churning towards them in the dark water, still toy-sized in the distance but growing larger by the second. Perhaps the radio silence had alerted someone that something was amiss or perhaps some officials were arriving for an early appointment.
It was time for them to leave, but by the time they turned back to look at their leader, Santa had lifted the CEO and was dangling him over the side.
“You you you!” Santa shouted at the man. “You think we don’t know your record? Africa! South America! You piece of shit! You come here to the last wild place, the last clean and free place and you want to shit all over it! Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t drop you over the side!” he demanded.
The CEO was wide awake now and writhing in Santa’s grip, gaping like a fish and emitting a sound between a cry and a whine.
Santa crushed the man between his hands undecided on whether to squeeze him to death, rip him apart or simply drop him into the icy water. They all sounded nice.
“Santa, you can’t kill him,” said Grumpy. “We’d have to kill the whole lot. We’re outnumbered. We’ve got to go. And besides, there will always be more to replace them.”
Santa shoved his face close to the man and screamed, “Why? Why do you want to fuck up this whole world?” He shook the man like a wet towel.
The cutter was getting close, perhaps close enough to see.
“Santa! Put the man back down on the deck. We need to go now!” Grumpy darted back in with his needle and not only jabbed their photo model with the tranquilizer but Santa as well.
“Help me get him into the basket,” Grumpy asked his fellow elves and they leaded a now quieter Santa to the wicker lift that waited for them, already packed with their equipment.
As they were pulled back up into the village the elves peered nervously over the edge, hearts pounding, not knowing if they had been seen. But it was quiet still.
While everyone else retreated to bed, a sleepy Santa, Grumpy and Chancy looked at the photos and downloaded the best into the internet, carefully labeled as to whom, what and where. Finally, The Big Rush pulled them away.
Mr. Perfect decided to climb to the top to experience the view. Gripping a rope between his testicles and wrapping his upper length around the rope, he inched up like a worm, his tacky jelly skin giving good traction. Earlier in the day, Mrs. Claus had given him a little harness, rope and carabineer so he could climb safely and he employed those now. The wind was fierce after all. He made good time to the top and after switching to the main rope down the middle, he found a good place near the front and watched the Arctic’s 24 hour day. Erect, arched, his purple jelly head cleaving the wind, he meditated and pondered the lack of a solid standard of shared knowledge among human kind. It was simple for the little robot: what is, is. It was beautiful, just him, the sky and the rush of the wind.
The photos inspired a long shark feed of prurient fascination, appalled delight and outraged negations. Strangely, even after a long dissection examining the veracity of these documents, individuals found themselves sticking to their first judgments, either repudiating or embracing them according to their own emotional convenience. In his bed the following night trying desperately to sleep without the familiar rocking of the waves, Santa wondered if truth was even relevant. Frustrated, he told himself that even if the facts had to contend with an endless sea of bullshit right now, the reality of climate change was going to roll right on over all of those contrary beliefs profoundly and violently all too soon. Santa shrugged and sighed, shaking his head. He rolled over, finally relaxing into sleep.
Months later, the floating village had involuntary guests: the namesake of their trusty vessel and a few of his influential friends similarly inflicted with strange ideas and unrestrained verbosity, one a shrill, sour faced blond with impressive lung power. She was saying something about liberal plots in a voice that could cut cheese.
“People,” announced Santa to his guests, his velvet baritone cutting through the blonde’s noise, “I want you to meet a very deserving and worthy family who is very eager to meet you.”
And with that, he lowered his guests in the wicker basket slowly down to a mother and her two children who waited on the ice for them far below, thin and hungry in their white coats.
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Global Warming Santa Page 3