A Christmas Twist Read online



  A Christmas Twist

  A short story

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright 2013 by Gabriel Belin

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance

  to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A Christmas Twist

  The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.

  George Carlin

  Prologue

  Somewhere near the North Pole . . .

  Everfrozen Land is cold and remote. So cold, that even time stops its everlasting run there, and flows slowly and uncertainly. That endless, icy wilderness covered with snow is so far from the civilized world that it’s become a legend. Even for those who know about it, that wild land is just too far away to be worth talking about.

  Nothing about Everfrozen Land is simple. It is, in fact, a kingdom of ancient magic, a dominion of dreams and desires where, since the dawn of the human race, every single child sends a letter containing a wish for a Christmas present.

  This land was the home of the most unusual creature ever to haunt the human imagination — the Good Old Man, Santa Claus.

  But recently and unexpectedly, just a year after Santa Claus finally managed to find a brave enough, or some say, stupid enough young man to marry his daughter, Loutyfrost, a quite disturbing event preoccupied Everfrozen Land’s inhabitants — Loutyfrost had given birth to Santa’s first grandchild. Not one but two — a pair of twins. The problem was: they were girls. Granddaughters. Despite an everlasting spell to be gifted only with grandsons, Santa Claus had acquired a couple of beautiful granddaughters.

  That was not all.

  The girls, being infants, didn’t look like their mother. Not even a bit. Loutyfrost, some say, was just a younger copy of her mother — Santa’s wife Grandma Frosty. Well, let’s just say that no one had ever called her beautiful, except her mother, which didn’t count. The girls looked so different and cute, they just didn’t seem to fit in Loutyfrost’s family. Nor did they fit in that frozen world. That was clear to everyone who’d seen them.

  Now, almost three months after the birth of Santa’s granddaughters and just before Christmas, the atmosphere in Santa’s Ice Kingdom deteriorated sharply. Some might say as sharp as the hand of Grandma Frosty when barking her commands to the dwarfs serving the castle.

  * * *

  It is not enough to say it was cold. It was so cold that even thoughts could become frozen in Everfrozen Land, which is exactly what happened to the thought in the head of the Elf. The Elf scratched his head and flew straight to the first open window on the castle’s front turret. He was carrying a message. An important message from the supreme ruler of the Sleepy Woods, he repeated in his mind, the Prince of the Northern Nights, the . . . There was no more time.

  The Elf entered the castle, deftly made a sharp turn over the heads of the two polar bear guardians, and continued his flight along the huge corridor leading to the enormous door of Santa’s office. With a concern. A serious concern.

  I

  Flying could be a leap in the dark . . .

  He didn’t belong to the biggest of bipeds. Some also said he wasn’t the smartest.

  The Elf was flying into the room when he abruptly stopped. More specifically, he stuck like a wad of chewing gum onto the ample rear of Grandma Frosty. He might have screamed (but later on couldn’t remember). In any case, he lost his voice together with his breath at the moment he flattened onto the mighty mound before him.

  Grandma Frosty did not budge an inch. At least it appeared so to the two terrified dwarfs next to Santa’s desk. But the Elf moved. Vigorously.

  One of the dwarfs remembered that he and his brother moved in the very same fashion after a slap from the Good Grandma. In this case, though, the Elf undoubtedly was speedier. He landed right before the feet of the Good Old Man. In his head the thought that he had something to report wrestled with the brain reverberations left by Grandma Frosty’s heavy slap. The thought didn’t have a great chance for success, so the Elf took his time.

  He was about to realize that flying could be risky business . . .

  II

  In Santa’s Office just before noon . . .

  The change in the letter was instantaneous. While taking it from the Elf, Santa Claus thought it was written in the distinguished penmanship of Maximilian Wolf. The Good Old Man began to read the brief contents.

  Dear Santa Claus,

  I was as good as gold and more. I regularly fed Tomcat, I regularly cleaned his toilet and I regularly played with him in the evenings. Well . . . later, I also played with a girl. Regularly.

  Now, could you please turn the following little list into a Christmas present?

  17-inch Michelin winter tires on BBS wheels for my BMW, together with new upholstery for the seats, the SPARCO steering wheel that I liked in Düsseldorf — and a Snow White.

  “What?” asked Santa aloud and cast a look at the kitchen door. He waited a moment. The dwarfs next to the desk looked questioningly at him. He shook his head, fixed his glasses and continued to read.

  A PS was added.

  I would really appreciate it if the Snow White has the following attributes — height 6 feet, legs long and slim, blonde, blue-eyed, lips highly functional, tattoo and two piercings, the second one below the navel . . .

  Santa Claus pondered over this. “Soooooo . . .” Max Wolf was as good as gold the whole year. He fed the Tomcat regularly. Well . . . the accident with his neighbor’s parrots shouldn’t be counted. He had bought a short, red skirt for his boss (a splendid, blonde cougar), and then Max had helped her put it on.

  Remarkable. Santa Claus half-closed his eyes, savoring the image, then was startled and looked around.

  Grandma Frosty was fiercely clattering about the kitchen with cutlery, pots and pans. If she could read his thoughts, he would probably be initiated into the “Dented-Headed Dwarfs Club.”

  Even worse, he thought. In his case, Grandma Frosty would probably be especially intent on distinguishing him with a black eye.

  Some said she was willing. Damn willing, Santa sighed. She also had a driving license for a tracked personnel carrier — her most loved vehicle and toy. All who ever glanced at that vehicle claimed that it suspiciously looked like a giant bulldozer. Only Santa Claus and a handful of dwarfs knew that Grandma Frosty had actually been awarded with a golden Decoration of Labor from the Great Northern Empire, where she was an operator of a giant crane and everyone knew her as Marusia.

  But that was another story from another world . . .

  The Good Old Man shook his head and scratched his beard. “Yeaaaaaahhhhhh . . .” Living together with ex-bulldozer drivers proved to be an unendurable burden and not at all in keeping the communist past of Grandpa Mraz, as they called him long ago. Anyway, there was a fresh idea in his head — he would send Grandma Frosty to Africa. With a mission. To scare off the crocodiles and hippos wherever she went. To save people’s lives.

  Marvelous idea! The old man giggled “Whoa, ha, ha, ha . . .”

  III

  A little later the same afternoon . . .

  The Good Old Man stretched his shoulders. “So, how about Maximilian Wolf?”

  Santa Claus softened — how could he not support Max since he himself liked just the same type of Snow Whites mentioned in the PS?

  “One for Wolf and one for myself,” whispered the Good Old Man to himself, and smirked. After all, someone needs to run the kitchen after Grandma Frosty leaves for her blood-freezing mission in Equatorial Africa. And not only the kitchen . . . Santa Claus giggled again and smacked his lips.

  The Good Old Man took his magic quill, winked to himself and began to write an order to
the Elves’ factory:

  About Maximilian Wolf — no car accessories! To be provided with the key of a brand-new BMW M3. The keys to be duly left under the Christmas tree in the guestroom. The coupe to be parked in front of his house — the wheels far from the curb! Next to the ignition, wrapped in chocolate cake, a Snow White with the following measurements . . .

  The Good Old Man went over the attributes in the instructions. He was already ringing the bell on his desk when it suddenly occurred to him to add:

  The present Wolf’s girlfriend, Sarah Ridinghood, to receive a one-week business trip to the company office in North Korea. For the Wolf’s Tomcat — a big aviary filled with parrots in his neighbor’s house and a date with that beauty, the Siamese cat Charlize, from N56!

  He signed the letter. That was enough. If there were some complications later, he would take care of them, of course. But only if urgent. Besides, Max Wolf was smart . . .

  Santa Claus folded the letter and rang the bell wearing a very serious face.

  From the kitchen, the rattle and clatter of cutlery wasn’t much noisier than the thunder and roar of the blizzard outside. Anyway, soon it would cease . . .

  IV

  A few days later . . .

  The Elf didn’t hurry. He knocked at the door, waited a reasonably long moment, then opened it and looked in. Santa Claus was still there. The noisy sip of the warm blue wine was indistinguishably lighter than the creaking of the door hinges. The Elf took a tentative step inside and stopped. He didn’t crash into any hippo-like rear end, so he looked around. Warily. The Elf’s feet moved slowly, and his eyes carefully scanned the surroundings for shadows the size of a bulldozer with a similar firmness.

  Santa Claus took the letter and sent the Elf away. The envelope wasn’t more oily than his own mother’s frying pan, the one she inherited from her mother-in-law a few epochs earlier. Santa Claus opened the envelope and removed the contents.

  It was a piece of thick wrapping paper, on which was written a message in a hand reminiscent of barbed wire:

  Hey Dotard, this Christmas you bring me a man and make me win the national lottery, ’cause if you send me a snow shovel or a shepherd’s crook for gathering the cattle again, I’ll come and make you . . .

  The Good Old Man didn’t finish reading the last phrase. He half-closed his eyes. He nodded.

  “Well, well . . .” he sighed.

  That woman possessed the talent to turn her thoughts into solid matter. A real talent . . .

  The sarcastic spark in Santa’s eyes quickly acquired a steel-like luster. After all, life is hard for everyone.

  Thinking about the letter, he couldn’t get rid of the image of his own grandmother, many hundreds of winters ago. Sitting on a big block of ice, she was chopping dried nettle for the turkeys wearing a similar expression.

  Suddenly he laughed. “That’s an idea!”

  He wrote:

  To be presented with a chopper and a wooden bowl.

  Santa Claus

  Well, it was done. The Good Old Man reached and pressed the bell.

  From the kitchen appeared a blond beauty that could easily make Rudolf the reindeer give up drinking.

  Two high-heeled legs, longer than a yard, stepped into the room, draped with a blond mane and set off by sapphire blue eyes. All breathing stopped. The opened mouths of the two dwarfs in the corner remained motionless in contrast to their eyes studying in depth every inch of the exposed flesh.

  Santa Claus focused his eyes somewhere around the red bikini at the midriff.

  “Some more warm, blue wine, dear Santa?” Her voice sounded like cream with raspberry sauce.

  The Good Old Man smiled broadly. “Ho – ho – hoooo . . .”

  Lucky that he didn’t suffer from diabetes.

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