The elf raised the wooden stamp as high as his bruised elbow allowed. He paused, scrunched his eyes, and listened intently, hoping that someone, something, anything, would intervene.His heart ached as much as his arm. It kerthumped in his chest. A chest that didn’t rise or fall—because he couldn’t breathe, because insight paralyzed him.
That was it! Personal paralysis was the only prevention. He’d freeze in place, his body a willing sacrifice for the children of the world. Please, Lord, take me now. Don’t let my arm fall to the paper, to rubber-stamp the end. He’d turn to stone, a monument that people could adorn with flowers and lighted candles each year to acknowledge his intercession. He hoped teddy bear tributes would abound, and he could scoop them up and save them in bins so he’d have less work in Santa’s Workshop next season.
He’d earnestly tried to promote and preserve the rite, that all California Writers Club members would take part in the club’s annual oral read but few rose to the occasion. In addition, many neglected to participate in NaNoWriMo.
So Santa refused to accept the members’ applications to be good girls and boys. Christmas was in crisis.
Earlier, Mrs. Claus had tried to sweeten Santa with more cookies, tea, crumpets, Makers Mark, and juicily tender roast beef. But Santa insisted. He wouldn’t fly the sleigh around the world in a mere 24 hours lickety-split. He was down for the count. Their word count.
As a result, meteorologists predicted blizzards in Africa, famine in Brazil, and animals released from all zoos roaming freely and wreaking havoc. Cotswold cottages would zoom up to skyscraper height, while Wilshire Boulevard, LA’s Golden Mile, would be cut to a half mile.
Already, rivers flowed backward, and grapes shrank without a whimper or whine to decimate California’s wine industry. The moon’s cycle shifted days forward, then back again.
The California Writer’s group members were writing and rewriting until their fingers bled. But the truth couldn’t shift with a flick of the return key. The truth was not stranger than fiction—the truth was worse.
Members could only write shitty first drafts.
By nightfall, Rudolph’s red-lighted nose flickered off, and all the reindeer unhitched themselves from the sleigh. Santa shed his suit and plodded upstairs. soon his snoring resounded, and then all was calm. There was nothing to be done.
At midnight, the elf retrieved the dreaded stamp from its triple-locked box at the back of the toy closet. He sighed, his shoulders sagged, and he slogged as if through drifted snow without boots. He stamped the document on Santa’s desk. Made millions of copies to send around the world, saving one for the archives. He stuffed envelopes, licked stamps, posted online notices assured to shatter children’s dreams, and drained the Makers Mark.
It was over, finished, no more. Santa made plans for a vacation on the California coast.
We humbly implore a writer to come forward – someone who is a word nerd to the max – to willingly write and then read aloud. Any audience will do. The world can not allow this calamity to stand –
Someone must save Christmas – will it be you, Constant Reader?
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