Reposted for the holiday season...
AND TO ALL, A GOOD NIGHT
A Contemporary Christmas Tale
John Chuckman
It was only a matter of time before Santa Claus himself came
under the Neanderthal-eyed scrutiny of American intelligence. After all,
Santa’s citizenship is unknown, and he crosses borders with no passport or
other form of identification. No one knows whether he even has a valid pilot’s
license.
Although his image is well known, there is no official
photograph on file with American border control, and he has never been
fingerprinted or body-searched. Most disconcerting of all, he delivers parcels
to children all over the world, including the children living in the Axis of
Evil. His intentions with this activity are not understood beyond some fuzzy
generalization about kindness and generosity to all. Clearly, here was the
world’s largest unplugged pipeline to potential terrorists.
It was only after receiving no response to several urgent
letters from the State Department requesting an immediate meeting in Washington
that a decision was made to approach Santa’s North Pole solitude. As usual in
such matters with the people now running America, a wing of America’s most
lethal killing machines was employed for the purpose. You never know what you
might encounter in such a forbidding place.
As the planes first zoomed over the icy silence of the North
Pole workshop, one of the pilots decided to swoop down for a closer look. He
was one of those daring fly-boys, and his tail struck the only wire for
thousands of miles around, the North Pole Telegraph, sending his plane hurling
into the workshop in a ball of flames with tons of ammunition and missiles
exploding.
Santa and Mrs. Claus rushed out of their snow-blanketed
gingerbread house to see what was happening, trying to calm the terrified
reindeer running from their stable at one end of the house. The elves, too,
scurried towards the stable, trying to stop the reindeer from running or flying
off.
Above, in the dark vault of sky, the other pilots observed
the explosion and saw missile trails smoking into the air. They also saw the
frantic activity below and quickly concluded their comrade had come under
anti-aircraft attack. So they swooped down in attack formation, rapid-fire
canon tearing into everything ahead of them.
Most of the reindeer fell in the snow, spurting warm blood
across the bluish-white surface. Most of the elves, too, fell gasping for life.
Mrs. Claus received a wound in the head and instantly fell limp. Santa tried
heroically to reach his wife but realized the situation was hopeless and
turned, running into the darkness accompanied by Prancer, the only surviving
reindeer.
The only witness to the massacre is one surviving elf now
living somewhere in Canada under an assumed identity, fearful for his life. It
is only from his testimony that we know anything about Santa’s fate.
Realizing the horrific mistake they had made, the pilots
dropped white phosphorus bombs with the intention of incinerating all evidence.
The entire North Pole lit up and Santa and Prancer could be seen in the distance
on a huge block of ice drifting off into the dark sea, the ice everywhere
cracked and weakened by the combined effects of white phosphorus and years of
global warming.
