Last Christmas

The clouds parted slightly, allowing the half-crescent moon to shine it’s already borrowed light across the tops of thousands of closely packed trees (Norwegian Spruce if you must know) continuing it’s silent journey until it reached a small cabin in the middle of a clearing in the woods. A large, passive bloodhound named Arthur glanced cursively up to the grey sky sighed and sauntered back into the cabin.

He had just finished the last of the gin and smashed the bottle in the fire, causing a brief roar from the flames, as he saw the dog pad through the front door,
‘Arthur dear boy, you hath returned! I would have been lonely were it not for a good solid litre of London’s original dry.’
Arthur gazed lazily up towards his owner who was now struggling unsteadily out of his chair to his drinks cabinet, well; to most people it was a fridge but here in this cabin its times of holding meats, cheeses and a colourful selection of choice European vegetables had long since passed.
He let out a long breath through his teeth and rubbed his not insubstantial midriff as he scanned his eyes over the meagre choice of beverages left to him.
‘Well boy,’ he mumbled to his faithful companion, ‘Not really much of a choice for me dear fellow’
He reached gingerly into the fridge and noisily clinked out two bottles with an ever deepening frown on his rosy face.
‘Pernod….or Ouzo’
He stated this bluntly as he chewed his lip thoughtfully.
‘Well…Ouzo by itself is a bit strong’ he slurred,
‘But if I water it down with some Pernod….It shouldn’t be too bad.’

He frowned at his own statement momentarily before silently agreeing to himself that he should hurry along and drink the concoction before he realised how foul it would taste.
Raising the glass aloft he said reverently, ‘I christen you…Pernzo’
He sloshed the drink back in one heroic gulp, before his taste buds could get a fix on what he was dousing them with, (although the burning in his throat and stomach could have suggested a few ideas to them) then sank back into his kitchen chair, his eyes streaming and his mouth spluttering,
‘Jesus Christ!’ He coughed, ‘That was different’
Feeling his head swim, he sat down, he laid his face onto the cool, roughly-carved kitchen table before him, and before he could decide if he should go to the toilet or to sleep, he had passed out and done both.

I wonder what I’ll see when I open my eyes, he wondered. It would most certainly be a ceiling, or the sky, but where? Which place had he drunk himself into now? Still, better to wake up with a blinding pain behind his eyes and a sour stomach than to see that loopy old bitch Mrs. Clause first thing in the morning, the best thing she had ever done was leave him, in a way he still hadn’t stopped celebrating.
He opened his eyes slowly, his vision was thick with booze and sleep, but he could make out a festively-decorated ceiling, long wraps of tinsel and plastic bells roped their way across the wooden boards above him, from this he knew he couldn’t possibly be in his cottage, like buggery would he have all this crap up. He wouldn’t have even put Christmas decorations up if he was as pissed as he had ever been (and that’s saying something) he had seen enough of the fucking things to last him a thousand lifetimes.
In fact, he knew where he was pretty much instantly, he hadn’t been there for a very long time, but he could recognise the smell, the cheerful whistling in the background, the distant hum of machinery…yup, he was back in the old haunt, the toy making factory in the north pole, the very place he had got sacked from only a few decades ago.

He struggled himself up and found he was sitting on a gaudily decorated table in the medical room, he slipped off the edge and sauntered over to the door, peeping through the small window he was able to see a sight extremely familiar to him even after all this time, elves prancing about making toys (or on the phones ordering them in bulk from Taiwanese companies) whistling, playing humorous japes on each other, those on their breaks chirpily drinking coffee. Generally doing all the things he had frowned upon in the work-place when he was the boss around here.
As he was frowning intently at all the bloody do-gooders on the shop-floor, he heard the click of a door closing behind him, turning he could see that Dominic, the head elf was now sitting on a chair in the corner of the room head cocked, eying him silently. After a few moments, Dominic spoke.
‘You look like shit, Santa’ he observed as he ripped the filter off a Marlboro red and sparked it up.
Santa hooked his thumbs over his belt and wandered over to Dominic,
‘That’s pretty funny coming from a guy wearing a green tunic with pointy shoes and a hat with a bell on the end Dom, anyway let’s skip the introductions, you don’t like me, I don’t like you. Now what the fuck am I doing here?’

‘We need your help’ stated Dominic bluntly, as he crushed his cigarette out into the ashtray on an occasional table next to him.
‘And I know your going to say that you’ve moved on and you don’t need this gig or you don’t owe any of us here anything, but before you say anything, I think you should know that for the last few months, every now and again I have sent some people to observe you, see if you were ok…so basically what I’m trying to say is, I know how you live, Santa’

Jim recoiled at being called by that name, he hadn’t heard it in what seemed to be a lifetime and, strangely enough, it hurt.
‘Jesus Dom! It’s just plain old Jim now, and why have you been spying on me anyway? Did you worry about me?’ He finished sarcastically as he reached into his own pocket and pulled out his pipe which he proceeded to fill with rough shag.
Jesus no!’ remarked Dominic as he lit another cigarette,
‘Sandra asked me to keep tabs on you, in case you did something you shouldn’t, y’know, something…silly’
Jim coughed at this last statement,
’Sandra asked you to keep an eye on me? Is…is she here now?’
Dominic shook his head,
‘No, she works in admin now and with it being Christmas Eve and all, she has the night off, she’s finished all her work and it’s just the delivery side that needs to be done now. That’s where you come in Jim.’
Jim eyed Dom suspiciously as he took several calming puffs of his pipe.
‘What do you mean this is where I come in? Don’t tell me you want me to go out on deliveries tonight, I have…um…other plans, people to do, places to see.’ He chuckled at his little play on words.
Dom rebutted with a laugh of his own.
‘Look I wouldn’t be asking you if I wasn’t desperate, but the agency that has been sending us the delivery boys the last 30 years till we find a replacement has gone bust, I suppose running a business that can only send out one man to do a job for a single night of the year doesn’t really work financially.’ Dominic mused, ‘and anyway, don’t give me all this shit about having things to do, like I said, I have had people keeping you under watch for a while now and what they have reported back to me hasn’t been pretty.’
Jim knocked out his pipe and put it back in his pocket
‘I don’t know what you mean Dom, I have been going out to various luncheons and expensive dinner-parties, mixing with the social elite since my…err…retirement. He finished, awkwardly.
Dom smirked,
‘Well sadly Jim, I simply don’t believe you, a few days ago one of my spies said that he had seen pawning in your TV for 2 flagons of white cider and a packet of cheese and onion crisps…not the mark of a man working in high social circles I am sure you will agree.
Jim sighed, a soul-deep sigh and in that moment he realised what his life had sunk to, Jesus, if he left here now what would he go back to? Drinking in the woods….hardly how he saw himself growing old. With a newfound heaviness in his gait he sidled over to the small square window in the door and peeked through to the strange familiarity beyond.
‘Dom, if I do this, just one more time…’
Dom raised his hands defensively, ‘I swear Jim, this one last time’
‘How much will I get paid?’
‘A crate of beer, a case of wine and all the rough shag you can smoke for a year’
‘Fucking hell! I am in!’ Jim jumped and clicked his heels together, then raced off to fill his sleigh with the toys he would need to distribute during the coming night.

As the swing door through which ‘Santa’ had just exited slowly swung itself closed, Dom the Head Elf lit a cigarette and blew the smoke at the ceiling, slowly shaking his head with a smirk as he did so,
‘Every fucking year…’