"All I want for Christmas is You" A Short Story by Osnar Chávez

 

Certain things do not change. As a child you endure recess alone with your thoughts, same when you become a teacher. Other educators glimpse at me with disgust. Elementary school children do not denominate as "cool" to dialogue with their history “teach.” Not even the Christmas spirit alters traditions. Solitary, I eat my reindeer cookie. Cannot recriminate them. The scar, dividing my right cheek like a hemorrhagic cauliflower not chosen from the store due to its aesthetic deficiencies, is tough to ignore.

I hear what they are talking about at other tables. Football, the new superhero movie, VTS (what's that?). Despite the hustle and bustle of the place, irritating screams and embarrassing cries, to my left something hijacks my attention: Santa Claus.

"I'm going to ask him for a Mimtendo Witch 2."

A deceived child, Santa Claus is unable to give away something that is rented.

"Do you really believe that? Santa does not exist.”

Shit. Another non-loving parents’ kid sabotaging the innocence of others. How am I the one who eats alone?

"Not true!”

He is right. Not as he thinks, but he is. I wish he could be preserved this naive. I wish I could have had myself. Yet, I know the truth.

I wish Santa Claus did not exist.

***

Christmas Eve. 1994. As a child I claimed that my parents didn't understand me and that my adoration for the trendy boyband was a lifestyle and not a phase.

"No, son, this cookies are for Santa." Mother snapped at me.

She assured me that his slaps carried tenderness. My skin disagreed.

My mom went to the living room carrying the plate. Did not turn the lights on. Disappeared.

Time started.

Like a clumsy Tom Cruise, I slipped to get those crackers from the pantry. My parents hid them high, but I knew where to stump my right foot to propel myself and hunt them. Was convinced that my parents did not notice, despite the unconcealable wear and tear of the wood due to the extraordinary situations it endured. I was not anguished by my actions. At worst, I would only be worthy of coal tonight, but cookies seduced me as a teenager in a strip club for the first time.

Mother returned.

I slipped. Fell to my feet and covered up my crime.

Mom smiled. Did not inquired anything. I was skilled in the art of deceiving.

"We have already agreed that are only two cookies a night.”

I was not present at that deliberation.

Mom went to bed with me. Buried myself in blankets. She led the pre-sleep prayer, kissed my forehead, and had there been classes the next day, she would have promised to wake me up early tomorrow.

“… and deliver us from evil. Amen," she finished.

She left. Closed the door. Darkness. I wish the prayer had worked.

I slept.

 

The decaying automatic door of the garage made the house shake like Mexico City in 1985. Woke me up. No light filtered from the hallway into my room. Did not check the garage. I chose to believe my parents had already departed.

Ran into the living room. Did not light it up. I could discern the target, those chocolate chip cookies. Took them to the kitchen.

With light suitable for the human eye, I enjoyed my stolen goods with milk. Of a glass? No! There would be evidence (washing it was not considered). It was drink straight from the packaging.

Delicious dessert. An aesthetic, metaphysical and alchemical experience. I was a blue rat enjoying a mixture of pasty and silky dough; with nuances of exquisite, deserving a fifth state of matter, chocolate; which was swallowed with iced milk that performed as a washer of the throat to open way for the next portion. Every bite was an explosion of flavor, every crumb on the ground a tragedy. Within three minutes, the plate was clean.

My overwhelmed senses failed to notice what had lurked in the living room when I returned the bowl. An asexual sensation tickled my scrotum. I disregarded it.

The high-pitch squeak prevented me from doing the same. A scrape on the ceramic plate. Cautiously turned. The scarce blaze of the public lighting of a social interest neighborhood hardly allowed my mind to understand.

A slimy red ball the size of the couch. I would not claim it had a face, but a mouth? Sort of, a bottomless hole full of fangs. A jaw that seemed to dislocate to regurgitate badly wrapped packages bathed in ooze ready to be deposited next to the pine. All this surrounded by a homogeneous living mass of swirling white appendages with sharp claws on every tip. One broke the pattern, the one scratching the dish. Inspecting. Looking for cookies.

I was paralyzed by the presence of this Darwinian nightmare. Creature rejected all laws of nature and reason.

It did not find his midnight snack. Only me.

The orb glided towards me.

I ran. Tripped. Kissed the ground. (Should have taken physical education seriously.)

I turned. The gelatinous flesh sphere climbed the step of the living room without hesitation. Assumed it would not be delayed as I was. Wittingly, I stood up and fled.

The pellet was committed to its task.

I did not fall in the same mistake. Fell into another. Imprisoned myself in the garage.

I detested that space. Once a giant centipede appeared and I still shiver at the memory of it (must admit, at that time, it was more manageable). When it rained, the room froze to the point of needing two jackets. The archaic motor of the retractable door drove all the dogs two blocks away into insane barking. And the single dust-covered lightbulb allowed more shadows than lighted areas. Still, it was preferable than the monster.

The false notion of protection was torn apart when the claws attacked the door. I took a step back. Each scratch gave existence to a tiny slit in the entrance, inviting a halo of light to enter. Even so, it was insufficient to understand the thing. Entered effortlessly, almost mocking my gullible attempt.

I took refuge in the shadows (stupid in hindsight, the monster lacked eyes). The plan turned out effective, until the bag of coal on which I was leaning failed to cooperate. It scattered, making a black powdery mess and exposing me.

The blob swirled towards me. I backed off, but failed to get through the wall. The creature's tentacles carefully…? began to feel my cheeks. The slimy skin left a gelatinous fluid where it passed. Was difficult for it to remove its extensions away from my skin. Both fleshes, so different, but compatible, sought to melt together.

Caressed my arms and legs. Paradoxically, was unpleasant and comforting. It wiped away a tear. An unusual warmth. Felt my neck and ears. Accelerating breathing. It explored my hair and chest. I enjoyed it. My eyelids. It was a complete sensory experience, seeing was superfluous. Turned myself in.

A tentacle wrapped around my groin, bordering on my crotch. Detonated something. Instinctively, I grabbed what was within reach and used it to assault. Coal.

The creature rolled away. A howl of pain. One of his claws slit my cheek. It escaped.

Leaving a path of my own scarlet liquid, I followed that of drool, vestige of that night's visitor. Finally, I understood. How it entered and how it disappeared: the chimney.