You wanna know how I got here? Don’t worry kid, you will remember soon, just stay put. C’mon stop bothering me kid, I got a job to do. What? You want me to tell you how I got here? Fine, if you will stop bothering me, I’ll tell you, but let’s make this fast, we’re on a tight schedule.
So I was just a snot nosed kid just like you, no offense. Anyway, I was seven. I think of Christmas eve, I’m so hyped, just like any kid. I can’t wait for Christmas day so that I can see what the jolly old fat mans brought me. Boy, those were the days.
Anyway, my little brother and I had tried to stay up so that we could see Santa. We were going to stay in the living room behind the couch but my mom told us that, “Santa won’t come if your waiting for him,” and there was no chance that she would let her babies lay on the cold hard ground waiting for old saint nick when we had perfectly good beds in our room. Now even then I knew her game, no kid could stay awake in a warm bed on a chilly night especially if they had warm milk like me and my brother, and you know what my mom was right.
The clock hit eight o’clock and my brother was out like a light. I figured that I would brag to him how I got to meet Santa and he didn’t in the morning. I know, real d**k move, but I was a kid, what did you expect? But that whole plan didn’t work anyways, that warm milk hit me like a brick and I was out not to long after my brother.
I woke up groggy, angry at my self and having to use the bathroom real bad. I could not believe that I blew my chance to rub that I met Santa in my brother’s face. Then I looked over to the clock on the dresser and realized that it was only eleven thirty five PM. I could have scream with joy but that would have woken my brother up and this plan would be for nothing. I got up to go to the bathroom bringing my blanket so that I could wait on Santa. I decided that it would be best if I check to see if Santa had come yet, so I walked down the hall passed the bathroom to the living room.
As I turned the corner, I froze and looked in shock as I saw my father stuffing his face with the cookies and chugging milk me and my brother had left for Santa while putting presents under the tree. He turned to grab the last cookie and finally noticed that I was there standing frozen in my Pj’s. His face dropped then he walked to me with a sullen look on his face and pat me on the shoulder and said, “You were bound to figure it out sooner or later kiddo,” he was going to say more but I ran to my room with tears in my eyes and slammed my room door forgetting completely that I had to use the bathroom.
What, of course that’s not how I got here, I’m setting the rest of the story up, geez, be patient and you will hear the rest, man. You guys keep getting more annoying as years goes by, anyway, back to what I was saying before I was rudely interrupted.
It was a year later, eight years old and don’t believe in Santa. I though that I was big man on campus. In school, I would tell everybody, “There’s no such thing,” or, “You’re being such a baby believing in that stuff I’d say,” hehe what a time. Anyway, I’d tell all of my friends that stuff, but I could never bring my self to tell my brother the truth. He had been really bummed that he had fallen asleep and had vowed that he would in fact see Santa, spoiler alert, he fell asleep again.
That night I lay there thinking how pissed he’d be that he fell asleep again, but I thought that it would be better if he still had his belief instead if it being crushed like mine. I moved to go to sleep, when I felt my stomach rumble, with a sigh I got up as quiet as I could, so as to not wake my brother. I opened my door and walked down the hall to go to the kitchen. As I did, I walked past the living room and the scent of the chocolate chip cookies that my mom helped my brother make, hit my nose. I looked at them with a deviant smile seeing that my father hadn’t gotten to them yet. This would teach him I thought. I walked over on my tip toes to the plate of cookies with the tall glass of milk next to it and smiled even wider, and then grabbed some of the cookies.
I had no idea how my mom made these cookies but they were still soft and chocolate melted in my mouth as I took each bite. I knew for a fact that I wasn’t going to sleep after the sugar rush that I was going to get but I didn’t care after eating every last bite. I made the crumbs on the plate into a smiley face for my dad when he came to eat the cookies. I then grabbed the glass of milk and chugged the entire thing.
I moved to turn and go back to my room when I heard a creak that sounded like it came from the roof. I followed the sound, that I made out as foot steps. They stopped at the chimney, then I heard something like two stomps, then all of a sudden the fire in the chimney went out. After seeing this, I snapped out of my shocked paralysis and ran back to the hall and hugged the wall peeking around so that I could see the living room. I heard shuffling and saw that there was dust and snow falling down the chimney. I just stood there wide-eyed as I saw a set of boots appear at the bottom of the chimney, then a crack appeared at the opening of the chimney were you but the wood, then it started upward directly in the middle. The crack reached almost to the roof, then the chimney swing open separating the two halves like the doors of a salon in a western.
I stared eyes wider than I thought possible as Santa Claus himself in a spotless red suit just like you see. That big man in cartoons walked out of the chimney. It was so red, it was practically glowing and it didn’t have a speck of dust as if he didn’t just slide down a chimney. Then he started to walked around the room, and I realised how big he was. He was taller than the Christmas tree and his head almost touched the ceiling. His stomach was massive. It almost looked as if he had an exercise ball under his suit but the way it slumped made me know it was real. His belly was almost as big as the large red bag that he had slung over his shoulder that had the shapes of boxes of all different sized. Then there was his long beard that white as snow resting lightly on top of his large belly that completed his look. He moved around the room with a jolly bounce in his step all the while. He softly sang the words to Happy Holiday until he moved to the empty plate in front of the tree and then he froze, staring with a flat look on his face.
I heard him whisper something that I almost could not make out, “Is this supposed to be funny?” then he said it louder, “Is this supposed to be funny?” then faster than you would expect, a big man like him to be able to move, he spun and looked directly at me and said with a horrifying snare on his face, “Julian Spencer Whitaker is this supposed to be funny?” The sense of wonder that I felt after I realized that Santa was real fell through the floor, as gigantic old saint nick thumped across the floor in my direction with anger strewn across his face. He stood there in front of me and dropped the giant sack on the ground with a loud thump, and said, “Don’t move.” With that, all the will that I had to run away faded away and I just stood there staring at the big man, while in the back of my mind I could still feel a small part of my self shouting run!
I stood there frozen, staring at the robust man as he opened his bright red velvet sack and started to dig around inside it all the while he stared at me. Half an eternity later, he yanked out a doll, now this was no normal do. It was huge. It was about as tall as I was. Then I realized that this doll looked almost exactly like me but if it was a giant wooden ventriloquist dummy. It even had on the exact same clothes that I was wearing. It had my messy curly brown hair and that scar that I had on my chin from falling off my bike. The only thing that was off was the winding key, like you see on old music boxes, that was sticking out of its neck. Santa then grabbed the doll by the head then started to wind the key still looking me in my eyes but by now he had a large smile spread across his face that was enhanced by his large white beard. After 6 minutes of winding he stopped giving a great huff. Then the doll twitched, then it started to shake, then it stopped.
I stared, as the dolls eyes shot open and it raised its arms and started to inspect them. As it did, the joints that were so much like a doll start to connect and the ventriloquist dummy mouth started to shape as the lines on the sides faded away and joined together as they were replaced with human lips. Seconds later, I still stood there petrified staring at a perfect clone of my self. It then started to circle, walking stilted and jittery. Then as it made its second rotation, it started to walk smooth. It the looked me in the eyes, then it slapped me across he face with a loud smack.
“Ah! What the hell!” I whimpered then I listened in horror as it said:
“Ah! What the hell! Ah! What the hell! Ah! What the hell!” each time it progressively started to sound more and more like me. Then Santa finally spoke, at this point I had forgotten that he was even there:
“Ah, looks like you’ve got it. You can handle the rest from here,” he said then he looked to me and said, “Ok let’s go,” then he grabbed me, picking me up off of the ground with one hand and hovered me over the giant red sack and dropped me inside. It felt like I was falling for days as I bounced off of sharp presents hitting every part of my body on something.
I was terrified and cold at the bottom of the bag. There was nothing but presents. The thought of opening some came across my mind but when I went to tear into one the tag that was on it said:
To: Billy, From: Look Up.
When I did, I saw that the top of the sack was open and old saint nick was staring directly down into the bag right at me. Eyes glowing, a terrifying bright red. So I figured that I would just sit in the bag and wait for what ever was happening to end. I don’t know how long I was in that bag and it don’t really matter but every now and then I would hear someone screaming and then a thud as they were dropped in. By the time Santa was done, there was so many people in there with me that I lost count. No one talked while we were down there. It was just people scattered around in different areas or just walking around aimlessly. Then everything shook and there was a rumble as it felt as if the sack was dropped then the world turned upside down and everyone fell out of the opening of the sack. We were dumped into a big white room with bright lights.
Someone with a high-pitched voice came over a speaker that I had no idea where it was and said:
“Now everyone stay calm. Memory loss is normal but it will go away soon. Please stay calm and listen to some holiday classics,” then the song ‘Let It Snow’ started to play and with that vents on the walls opened and white gas started to get pumped in and everyone, every man women boy and girl in the room started to scream. It was blood curdling. I looked around to see that the people who the gas hit first were changing. Their ears were stretched and pulled into sharp points and their noses were elongated their arms and legs started to compress as they were shrunk even before their torso could catch up with them. They started to collapse under the weight that their new limbs could not hold, then the gas finally got to me, and I let out a scream all my own. I thought that my vocal cords would tear because of the horrid screech I let out. The pain was like nothing that I had ever known, but I guess that’s what happens when you are shrunk to a size the human body is not supposed to be after you exit the womb. Ya know, that’s why he needs so many of us because we’re so small, don’t know why he does it that way but that’s how it is, anyway but that’s how it happ-
??: Hey Peppermint. How long is fixing the vent going to take? Hurry up kiddo.
Pepermint: Hold on. Geez Evergreen, I was just talking to one of the kids.
Evergreen: You know we’re not supposed to do that until after, c’mon kiddo hurry up and get out of there.
Pepermint: I’m coming I’m coming.
Evergreen: Close the door.
Pepermint: I got a good felling about this batch.
Evergreen: So what song should I play?
Pepermint: How about, Rockin’ around the Christmas tree, and turn it up loud. I can tell that these guys are screamers.