Chapter Three - No Stop Signs, Speed Limits

Santa Claus hung in suspended animation.

Light as bright as a thousand suns surrounded him.

A noise that sounded like massive tidal waves crashing against stone walls pounded his ears.

Gale force winds began to blow. Santa’s red felt hat almost flew off and his long snow white beard swirled about. The wind blew so hard that Santa’s face formed a grimace as his skin was pulled back.

Santa flailed his arms as he tried to grab something, anything to hold on to. But there was nothing.

Then he began to fall.

Down and down and down he went. Arms and legs stretched out, Santa formed a plump, red X as he plummeted through the formless light.

The wind screeched as it rushed past Santa’s ears. Somewhere in the distance, muddled by the roar, he thought he heard voices.

As he descended, Santa Claus began to spin in circles. He spiraled faster and faster, completely out of control. Then he became dizzy and his mind began to spiral as well.

“This is kinda like skydiving,” Santa thought. “Except I don’t have a parachute and I don’t see any ground to land on.” Santa thought back to when Blitzen had talked him into skydiving. When the time came Santa was petrified and Blitzen had to shove the big guy out of the sleigh. At first Santa was angry. Very angry. Livid with rage, you might say. But when Santa noticed the beauty of the land below him, he calmed down. The evergreen trees had a light dusting of snow on them; the mountains stood majestic in the distance; the clearing where he was to land still had green grass. Santa smiled at the sight of it all in his mind.

The voices Santa thought he heard before became clearer. He could tell now it was the reindeer, talking and laughing. He could picture them standing around holding cups of eggnog while enjoying one of the parties they had at the North Pole after all the toys were delivered on Christmas Eve. They began to sing Christmas carols. Mrs. Claus and some of the elves joined in. Santa didn’t like to sing so he just watched and listened. He enjoyed that.

Santa always enjoyed the parties. It was good to relax after a hard year’s work of making toys, and then a very long night of delivering them to boys and girls all over the world.

The downward spiral of Santa Claus continued, but he wasn’t paying attention to his descent. No worries. He gave it no thought at all. He was busy looking at the pictures in his mind.

All those Christmas Eves with the reindeer. Gosh, they worked hard, pulling that sleigh with me in it. I could probably stand to lose a few pounds. Might make their job easier. They had to be so strong, especially flying into the face of hurricane winds or during blizzards. The blizzards were tough on them. The blinding snow. Didn’t matter. We could still land. Good radar. The crawl down the chimneys. The little ones fast asleep by the trees decorated for the holidays. Plates of cookies and glasses of milk. Up the chimney again. Another roof. Another chimney. Ornaments on the trees sparkling in the light from the twinkle in Santa’s eyes. Up the chimneys. Down the chimneys. Rooftops. Snow. Sleet. Rain. Wind. Toys. Cookies. Milk.

Snowsleetrainwindicehailcoldsnowsleetrainwindicehailcoldornamentstoysboysgirls.

Santa smiled at the remembrance of it all. Every last moment of it. Every last moment.

As he fell Santa began to spin so quickly he became a blur.

His mind went blank.

The light was gone.

The noise was gone.

There was now only darkness, a silent darkness.

To be continued...

Chapter Two - Surrender to the Void

Santa Claus was flat on his back, staring up at...nothing. Darkness surrounded him. He knew his eyes were open, yet all he saw was black. No dark blue night sky above, just blackness. He turned his head to the right, then to the left. The same. Just black.

“I must be dreaming,” he thought, yet he felt awake. Sort of. Awake and asleep at the same time. He also felt weightless, which was actually kind of nice. Santa was getting tired of lugging all that weight around.

Without the usual effort and strain Santa sat up. “Hey! I can see myself. Excellent.” It was true. He could see the end of his long white beard which rested upon the mound of his large, round belly. The red of his suit, with its bright white trim, stood in stark, colorful contrast to the black space around him. Only his black boots seemed to get lost in their surroundings.

“What am I sitting on?” Santa wondered. He put a hand down, felt no floor or anything at all beneath him, but there he sat, supported by what?

Santa decided to stand. Again, he didn’t feel the usual strain of lifting his weight.

“Maybe I’m in outer space,” he thought. “Those reindeer really get off course sometimes. But how do we get back? And where are they?”

There was no sign of any reindeer around. No sight of them galloping in the distance, no sound of them bickering about who got them lost.

That’s when Santa noticed there were no sounds at all. Silence. Complete, utter silence. Not something Santa remembered hearing, or not hearing. His compound at the North Pole was always very noisy, what with elves making toys all year, banging their little hammers and talking and laughing as they worked; the clomping of reindeer hooves in their stable; Mrs. Claus swearing at him about something he’d done or said he was going to do but hadn’t.

In the place Santa was now there was nothing. No sound at all. The silence made his head hurt.

He wondered if he would hear his own voice if he said something. So he spoke.

“Hello,” he said to the void. He could hear his voice so he thought if there was someone or something out there, it would respond.

The void did not answer.

“Hello,” he said again in his loudest, boomiest, Santa Claus full of piss and vinegar on Christmas Eve voice.

No response.

“Swell,” Santa said out loud. “I don’t know where those reindeer are, but when I find them, that’s it. This is the last straw. They leave me stranded here in the middle of nowhere. I’m probably in some damn cave in Norway or something. They know I hate spelunking.” Santa looked around. “Who the hell am I talking to?” He sighed.

Santa turned around as slow as molasses in January. If there was something out there he didn’t want to miss it.

But all he saw was a dark void that stretched endlessly in all directions.

Or so Santa thought at first. Then he noticed a pinpoint of light a great distance from him. He also thought he heard a sound, low and faint, like what he would hear as a child when he held a sea shell to his ear on trips to the beach.

“Damn tinnitus,” he said. Then he squinted at the distant speck that seemed to be growing brighter and getting closer. “Is that really a light or am I imagining things?” Santa wondered.

He turned away from the light. “What the hell is happening to me?” he muttered. He rested his chin upon his chest and stared at where the ground should be. “Is this some sort of dream? Or a nightmare? Or maybe a hallucination? Did Blitzen spike my eggnog again? I warned him about that.”

Santa lifted his eyes to where the sky should be. His great white moustache and beard almost hid his frown. “If I’m drunk or high, I’ve got to come down and figure out a way out of here. And I’ve got to find those reindeer. If they’re still around.” He turned his head toward the light. “Maybe that’s them.”

The light was no longer a speck but now was a large round beam like the light at the front of a speeding train. And the sound, the whooshing noise, was getting louder.

“Blitzen and the gang should be here soon.” He nodded but still frowned. “Yep. Then we can go. Uh-hmm. We’ve probably missed Thanksgiving dinner. Vixen will be pissed. Mrs. Claus won’t be too happy with me, either.”

The light and the noise were closing in like a jet coming in for a landing.

“Yep. We’ll be able to go home.” Santa nodded again. “I just want to go home.”

With great speed the darkness that had surrounded Santa was replaced by the light. It was so bright that Santa had to squint at first, then hold up a hand to cover his eyes. The noise was no longer the gentle sound of the surf coming. It was now an ear splitting thunder like a thousand rockets exploding.

“I don’t think it’s the reindeer,” Santa said but he could no longer hear his voice. He tried to move, but found he was frozen in place.

“Damn it,” he thought. “What do they say? Get away from the light? Or go to the light?”

It didn’t matter.

The light came to Santa Claus.

To be continued...

Chapter One - Santa Claus Down

It was the dead of night and most rooms in the White House were dark. Santa Claus stood still in a corridor and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He had brought his night vision goggles with him, but they had fallen out of the sleigh when his reindeer had to perform an evasive maneuver to avoid colliding with a flock of geese. Santa’s goggles were now in the depths of an ice cold lake somewhere in Newfoundland.

Satisfied that he could once again see, Santa moved with great stealth toward the President’s bedroom. With a gentleness that belied his great size, Santa placed a red gloved hand on the doorknob. It turned with ease and Santa pushed the door open.

The bright golden glow of the president’s bedroom stopped Santa in his tracks. For a split second, he thought all the lights were on. Then it dawned on him that this was not the case. The room was as bright as the sun because of the way it was decorated. The walls were covered in paper with a gold leaf design, the lamp shades were gold, the chairs had gold upholstery. Even the blankets and sheets on the bed were golden. And then there was the president’s hair. It was an odd shade of yellow not found in nature, yet there it was on top of the president’s head.

Slack-jawed and wide-eyed, Santa spent precious seconds taking it all in before he shook his head and snapped to attention. He turned his gaze to the president. The leader of the free world lay sprawled across the king size bed, a cell phone in a gold case gripped tightly in one of his small hands. He was sound asleep, snoring, with a light blocking mask covering his eyes.

Santa grinned. “This should be easy,” he thought. The big guy stepped to the edge of the bed and picked up one of the overstuffed pillows that was strewn about the bed. Gripping the pillow tightly at its ends, Santa moved closer to the head of the bed as well as the head of the president. He held the pillow above the president’s face. “Geez, he really does have orange skin,” Santa thought. He began to lower the pillow when there was a noise from behind him. Santa froze in place.

“Santa, what the hell are you doing?” It was Donner, speaking in a harsh whisper.

“Nothing.” Santa turned to face his reindeer. “I was just going to snuff this guy, then we can go.”

“Really?” Donner asked in a sarcastic tone. Reindeer were surprisingly good at sarcastic tones. “You’re going to kill the president? That’s brilliant.”

“Thank you,” Santa said as he turned back to the bed and raised the pillow.

Donner walked over and poked Santa in his big, round behind with the point of one of his antlers.

“Hey! Quit it!” Santa said.

Just then Blitzen walked into the room. “What’s going on in here? I thought we were going to get going.”

“Santa’s attempting to kill the president,” Donner said.

“It’s not an attempt if I actually kill him,” Santa said, “which I will do if you just leave me alone for a minute.” Santa’s cheeks were rosy; they always got rosy when he was flustered.

“No way,” Donner said.

“I thought we were just having a trial run for Christmas Eve,” Blitzen said. “No one mentioned political assassination. Listen, I just want to get back to the North Pole for Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Yeah, and I just want to kill this guy, so could you both shove off and let me do this?”

“No one move! Everyone keep your hands where I can see them.”

It was a voice unfamiliar to Santa and the reindeer, and emanated from a man standing in the doorway. He was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and a dark tie. Oddly for a man inside a house, he was wearing dark glasses. In his right hand was a pistol, and it was aimed at Santa.

“Who the hell are you?” Santa asked. His cheeks were really rosy now.

“Secret Service.” The agent took a quick glance around the room. “How did you get in here? And how did you get these farm animals in the president’s bedroom?”

Donner and Blitzen looked at each other. “Who is he calling a farm animal?”

“All right fat man,” the Secret Service agent said to Santa, “drop the pillow, turn around, put your hands on your head, and walk backwards toward me.”

“Those are a lot of instructions,” Donner said. “He’s never going to remember them.”

“Yeah, he’s lost a lot of brain cells over the years,” Blitzen said.

“I’m not fat,” Santa told the agent. “I’m just merry. Very merry.”

“If by ‘merry’ you mean fat and drunk,” Blitzen said.

Santa glared at the reindeer. “When we get out of here,” he snarled, “I’m going to turn you into venison jerky.”

“Uh huh, I’ve heard that one before,” Blitzen replied while rolling his eyes.

“All of you be quiet,” the agent said. He seemed unfazed that the reindeer could speak. “I need to call for back…” Before he could finish his sentence, the Secret Service agent collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Astonished, Santa and the reindeer looked just beyond the unconscious agent to see Vixen standing there.

Santa’s cheeks were extra special rosy now. “Sure, Vixen gets to kill somebody, but Santa has to be good and behave himself. Phooey.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Vixen said. “I just rendered him unconscious with a Vulcan Death Grip, which, contrary to its name, does not kill, but merely incapacitates. I think. Well, whatever.” She looked around the room. “So, what’s going on here? Shouldn’t we get back for Thanksgiving dinner? The mashed potatoes will get cold if we’re late. You know I hate cold mashed potatoes.”

“I know,” Santa said, “just settle down.”

“Fat boy here was going to kill the president,” Blitzen said, gesturing with a hoof towards Santa.

“What?” Vixen cried. “No one’s killing anybody. We’re going back to the North Pole and we’re going now.”

“But…” Santa said.

“Now,” Vixen said in her mommy voice. She was the only person other than Mrs. Claus who could speak to Santa in that manner and get away with it. “Now, I said. Santa…”

Vixen didn’t need to finish her sentence before Santa began to move. Vixen stepped to one side as Santa walked past her, Donner and Blitzen following behind.

“Santa, you’re not stealing that pillow are you?” Vixen asked.

“I thought I would keep it for a souvenir,” he replied. “It’s not every day you get to visit the White House.”

“Fine, whatever. Just keep moving.”

The group swiftly and silently ascended a semi-secret stairway to the roof where the rest of the reindeer sat waiting with Santa’s sleigh.

“Hey, where you been?” Dasher asked. “Isn’t it time for us to dash away, dash away, dash away all?”

“You know,” Dancer said to him, “you don’t need to keep using the word ‘dash’ just because your name is Dasher.”

“Yeah, well, dash you,” Dasher responded.

“Everybody shut up,” Santa shouted, “or I’ll replace the lot of you with robots.” The big guy threw the White House pillow on the seat of the sleigh and lowered his sizable keester down upon it. With a hand he swept the air in front of his face. “Have you varmints been eating beans again? I told you about that. Yecch. Idiots.”

Santa grabbed the reins in his hands. “Are we ready?” his voice boomed at his reindeer.

“Yes!” was the collective cry.

“All right then! Hi ho Silver, away!” The reindeer didn’t move. “No, that’s not right. Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon!” The reindeer turned to look at Santa. He stared back at them. “Can we just get going please?”

All the reindeer shrugged, took a few quick steps forward, then lifted off from the roof of the White House into the clear night sky.

Faster than the fastest jet, Santa and the reindeer sped toward the North Pole. While reindeer in general are a mischievous bunch, while working they tended to concentrate on the task at hand. While flying they would block any interfering sights or sounds. The only sound they could never block out though was that of Santa’s snoring. He usually fell asleep on long stretches of their flights, and his gasps of air were loud enough to be heard half way around the world, even from the great heights at which they flew.

This time though, there was no snoring. Santa was unusually quiet. Comet said as much to Cupid. “Yeah, normally his snoring makes the sleigh bells ring,” Cupid said.

Comet turned his head to see what the old man was up to, but instead saw an empty seat. “Maybe he’s lying down in the back,” he said.

“He’s never done that before,” Cupid said. “Perhaps we should land and make sure he’s okay. We don’t want the fat guy falling out of the sleigh. He never uses his seat belt.”

Cupid called out for an emergency landing and they set down in a field of hard packed snow somewhere in the Yukon Territory.

Cupid unhitched himself and walked back to the shiny red sled he and the other reindeer pulled through the sky. He peered in and saw Santa Claus sprawled across the floor of his sleigh. Assuming the big guy had taken way too many nips from his flask filled with ‘water’, Cupid proceeded to poke Santa in his big, round belly while shouting, “Hey, rummy! No sleeping on the job!”
Despite this, Santa Claus did not stir. Nor did he make a sound. Nor did he even seem to be breathing.

Knowing Prancer was a trained medic, Cupid called him to the sleigh. Gazing down at his boss, Prancer’s brow furrowed and his mouth formed a grim, straight line. He reached out and placed a hoof on the side of Santa’s neck. Prancer let out a barely audible grunt, then picked up one of Santa’s arms, and pressed his hoof on his wrist. After a few moments he let the arm drop.

“Uh, Cupid,” Prancer said as he turned to face his fellow reindeer.

“Yes?”

“Promise me you won’t freak out.”

“Uhm, okay.”

“I think Santa Claus is dead.”

To be continued...