Global Warming Santa Read online

Global Warming Santa

  By Jessica Friedlander

  Copyright 2012 Jessica Friedlander

  Thank you for downloading this free ebook.

  He cracked with the summer thaw. His mind. His heart and his raison d’etre. It was more than the fact that Santa Village had had to evacuate itself onto pontoons. No evidence of the previous incarnation of the village as a winter wonderland could be found. It was now an endlessly creaky, sprawling, undulating, webbed amalgamation of ropes, rope bridges, blocks of foam, colorful Japanese net floaters and whatever miscellaneous floating debris had came close enough to appropriate. It was more than the sudden invasion of his space by gargantuan shipping fleets: Monstrously huge cargo ships lunging perilously close to his home at all hours now. The Oil Company was now sniffing close to his doorstep. It was more than seeing his friends the polar bears starve to the point to where mamas were eating their babies and not even recognizing him, Santa Claus, in their hollow-eyed madness. It was more than being forced to recognize his obsolescence in the face of increasingly cynical, jaded kids scrabbling to fill a spiritual void with mountains of the material, much of which Santa noted with horror, made its way to the growing plastic continent of the Pacific gyre, the floating garbage dump of divine immensity. This malaise felt more than the sum of its parts. Profoundly more. He needed a new mission. As he was new. Who would recognize this man in red and white? Like his friends the bears, depleted, shrunken, no longer jolly. Merely old. Most of his elven staff had already departed to search for jobs in China and other places.

  Now he was spending most of his time watching and re-watching Ingmar Bergman films on his old flat screen TV, taking potshots at the crewmembers of the whalers and shipping fleets with his Mauser Karabiner as they sped past his pontoon. (They never noticed him or the depleted and adrift Santa Village,) hitting the bottle and complaining to the even more depressed Mrs. Claus who often couldn’t even get out of her bed, so seasick from the endless rocking of the pontoon.

  He had taken up the interesting hobby of scrimshaw because of the newly available bounty of bones from the great starvation. Even his reindeer were not immune from this grim scene. The bears had gotten three: Rudolph, Donner and Blitzen, and the survivors were greatly despondent, thin and listless. Now bones were proliferating over every building and surface of Santa Village.

  At this moment Santa was leaning on the safety rail and taking a bead on a tiny figure that was moving at the bow of an enormous ship. What else could it be but a person? He knew the bullet wouldn’t even come close but he sure liked to try.

  “Santa.” The elf addressed him, curling his lip at Santa’s rank odor. “I am really really sorry to bother you but the fellas have all gotten together and we want to talk with you about something really important.”

  “Shhhhh!” Santa replied. “This takes concentration. Shut up for a minute.” Santa braced himself, aimed his rifle and while softly humming the song I Did It My Way squeezed off the shot. Waited. Nothing. The figure continued to work... “Damn! What did you have to go and interrupt me like that for?”

  “Santa,” please please please. Come with me. Oh and you know, Ollie and Winkle have got a big ol’ hot bath waiting for you so you can use it first. Me and the boys will be waiting for you in Shop Number One with herring snacks. You know how you love those! Comon now!” The elf reached up and tugged at Santa’s ragged coat. Santa was wearing only that and his boots, having given up on civilized propriety. Minke the elf politely averted his eyes from the offending area, just below eye level on him, and hard to ignore as it was loose with age and had a lot of movement when Santa walked.

  “Comon now Santa. You know you’ll get even better opportunities. When’s the last time you enjoyed a bath? Huh?”

  Santa let loose a blast of wind that lifted the back of his coat a bit and sighed. “You guys just want to deprive me of the little pleasures I can find. There is nothing that any of you can tell me. I mean, haven’t we all been together forever? It’s over. What else is there to say? I mean, I would just put the rest of the reindeer team out of their misery right now, blam blam blam!” He illustrated by cocking and aiming his finger. “If not for the fact that they are what’s left of our transportation. I am this close!” pinching his thumb and index finger close together and shaking it down in Minke’s face. “This close!”

  “Santa! Warm bath! Herring snacks!”

  “Okay,” Santa sighed again.

  “Martini!” squeaked a voice near Santa’s ankles. Santa looked down and noticed Mr. Perfect nudging him with his translucent purple head. Although Mr. Perfect was what Santa thought of as an inorganic life form, he was really quite nice.

  Mrs. Claus received him in the mail for Christmas last year from a friend and surprisingly the little robot had achieved the miraculous feat of self awareness within that very first week. Was it due to the extremely clever Japanese engineers or due to the magic still lingering in Santa Village? No one knew for sure. But all had laughed merrily when he first arrived, a foot tall purple jelly penis who moved on tank tread testicles, who could respond to commands and answer back in his squeaky little voice. Mrs. Claus promptly sewed a little black and white suit and fitted him with a bow tie and dubbed him Mr. Perfect. The robot was primarily interested in creating the perfect drink and aspiring to learn Japanese calligraphy at present, although he was a bit of newshound and loved to help out in the kitchen with Mrs. Claus and her elven helpers while they discussed the news. He was extremely polite even in argument with conservative elves and never caused discord. Although this might be due to fact that his voice was sometimes hard to hear, even for the elves.

  “Yes, I would appreciate a martini! Thanks Mr. Perfect!” They all trudged back to the main lodge over the bridge.

  An hour later found them all scattered throughout Work Room One, the lucky ones having secured a spot near the fireplace, large enough without the fire, for an elf family of eight to comfortably sleep. The room smelled reassuringly of pipe smoke, cedar wood and the mulled cider that was being served by little blond Pinkiwi and her twin sister Delores.

  Santa sprawled in his soft kid leather lounger, (a chair the youngest elves were afraid to ask him about). He was now wrapped in robes and scrubbed clean enough for close proximity. His face was shaved for the first time in a millennia and everyone peered close. Many had never really seen the man under the beard in all their lives and the naked face was viscerally shocking in its unfamiliarity. The elves stared. Santa’s eyes were the compelling glacial blue of their previous surroundings and stood out from a lined face now more bullet-shaped than round under skin that clung loosely around the edges.

  The absence of beard was a relinquishment of faith that struck them hard. Not even the elven children could mistake its meaning.

  Only Mr. Perfect was unruffled as he glided up to Santa balancing the martini perfectly on his purple head.

  “Martini!” He squeaked at Santa’s knee.

  When Santa reached for it and took a long, slow sip his audience resumed breathing and relaxed into their seats, the more anal ‘type A’ elves leaned forward, girding themselves to ask their questions and to make their points.

  “Santa,” Minke began, standing up and straightening his spine, “We felt an intervention is in order.” Minke’s eyes scanned his fellow elves trying to silence the impatient wiggling and rustling already rising from their ranks. Rubber faces stretched in grimaces, eyes already popped wide from tension, hundreds of little fingers drummed on knees. “Get on with it already!” those faces implored.

  Santa was chewing meditatively on his fifth herring snack. The plate of herring snacks, moist bundles of herring, goat cheese and green onions, just having arrived on Santa’s side ta
ble, was already looking depleted. Winkle would have to go back to the kitchen for more.

  “We need to know what your plans are! You’re not the only one suffering! Half of us have left already! Without the toy manufacturing, we’re lost!”

  “He’s right!”

  “Amen!”

  “You Santa, you’re supposed to be our great inspirational leader and fuckit Santa, you don’t do anything now but consume dammit!” Minke shouted.

  Santa looked at him, chewing, his jaw muscles bunching and flexing, bunching and flexing. He finally opened his mouth to reply when a brisk knock at the door cut through the tension.

  Pinkiwi ran to answer it as if it might hold the answer to her prayers.

  However, the open door revealed a slender, middle-aged human in a smart navy suit, with a perfectly rectangular face topped