Silent Night, PART 1

It was the eve of Christmas.  The children lay snuggled in their beds, dreaming about sugarplums (whatever they are) and of Red Rider BB guns and of dahoo-doray singing in the morning.  The air was crisp, and the houses were adorned with icicles and tiny lights.  The world was silent and still.  Even the snowflakes had stopped midair.

Santa Claus was coming.

He adjusted the time-stop settings on his sleigh, making sure the entire time zone was frozen in the same moment.  Then he programmed the whole system for a smooth landing on the nearest rooftop.  The reindeers' metal joints creaked as they slowed to a halt.  He'd have to oil them soon.  And Rudolph's nose needed a new lightbulb.  "Good work, boys," he said, offering them carrots.  Even cyborg reindeer got hungry; although admittedly they ate less often than regular reindeer would in these working conditions.

Zipping up his low-friction silence jacket, he slipped down the chimney and into the living room of Little Suzie.  Despite having an unfortunately sappy name, Little Suzie was a happy child, and she had asked for what every girl wanted that year:  a working lightsaber.  Taking pity on her parents, he gave her a plastic telescopic one instead.

Oh, good—she'd left cookies and milk.  In order to keep up his strength during an extended time-stop, Santa needed lots of sugar and protein.  It'd be nice if they left out a hunk of steak every once in a while, he thought, but for some reason everyone wanted to serve him dessert.

Carefully, he placed a statue of the baby Jesus in the trough of Little Suzie's nativity scene.  The most important part of his job.

The next home didn't have a chimney, so he entered via his newly patented matter relocator (which was convenient, because Carlos had asked for a cello, and his brother Yunior wanted a new bike—both of which would have been hard to fit down a chimney).  Santa had a lot of high-tech gear.  His elves worked all year to make this night's seemingly infinite journey as quick and efficient as possible.  Time-stop was great, but it wreaked havoc on his sleep cycles.  After being awake for ridiculously long amounts of time (Mrs. Claus had calculated it a few years ago, but Santa didn't want to know), he was exhausted, and slept for weeks.  It was a good thing he was quasi-immortal, or he would be aging way faster than the rest of the world.

He was anxious to get all the puppies settled; they were having a little too much fun in his bigger-on-the-inside bag of presents.  It was hard to chase them all down.

It took a while, but eventually all the children's gifts were delivered for that time zone.  Santa was ready to move on to the next time one, but first he slipped into a church for a quick prayer.  When he had initiated the time-stop, they had been in the middle of Midnight Mass, and the choir was frozen in the middle of a grand "GLOOO-O-O-O-O-OOO-O-O-O-O—"  After his prayer, Santa released the time-stop, and they finished:  "OOO-O-O-O-O-OOO-O-O-O-O-ria."  If anyone noticed a man in a red silence suit slipping out the back doors of the church, no one said anything.

It wasn't until about halfway through the next time zone that Santa heard the ominous thumping noise.




TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW in Silent Night, Part 2....