Thursday, December 17, 2009

12 Tales of Christmas, Day 4

The teacher, above all, took pleasure in imparting his store of accumulated knowledge. Such hard-won stuff! Whether with a student, or an old friend, his authoritative tone inserted itself into every discussion, however trivial the theme. He considered it his solemn duty to correct people whenever they uttered an unfactual statement, or employed a word in an incorrect way (or that contradicted his vast understanding of language). Perhaps it was subconscious, involuntary, the habit of much teaching. One snowy morning the teacher was discovered at his desk, slumped over. By chance or treachery, he had suffocated on an apple.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

12 Tales of Christmas, Day 3

There was a sound in the night, and it woke Andrew. He drew back his covers and slid from his bed. In the hall he quailed...maybe it was just his older brother Matt, about to pour syrup on his sheets again. On the hearth, by the Christmas tree, Andrew caught a glimmer. It was a book, sparkling green and red. He lifted the cover, turned the pages. It was Santa's Twice-Checked List! 'He must have dropped it,' Andrew whispered, and set it back for Santa to find. But not before finding his brother's name and changing nice to naughty.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

12 Tales of Christmas, Day 2

The reindeer were thin as the icicles flanking their stalls. Their captor, the Fat Man, had plucked them from the warmth of their own world, and locked them into a perpetual nightmare. They subsisted on slop the dwarfs brought, tittering grotesquely, while the fat man, who was as fat as he was old, feasted hourly. Each year the reindeer, pleading and remonstrating, were forced to bear the Bottomless Bag. It held the weight of a mountain. They shrieked and groaned; they wanted to die, but the only thing heard over their screams was the fat man's booming: HO HO HO.

Monday, December 14, 2009

12 Days of Christmas, Day 1

Our tale begins on a cold wintry eve. Christmas lights are winking, snow is frosting cornice and eave, and the wind bears the joyful strains of carolers. Through a window two young lovers appear, he tenderly holding her leg, his nosed pressed against her ankle as in a sensuous caress. What lovely...but wait! Now he shifts and we see the splotches on his face, we smell a foetid stench, we see the leg is attached to no body. We see sinew and ganglia. And as our tale closes—indeed our very life--we see the zombie crunch off a toe.