Forever After - By David Jester Page 0,54
something resembling awe. He had always assumed it was potpourri. He had seen Chip eating some a few months back, but he had also seen Chip eating his own earwax.
“He thinks he’s jolly Saint Nick, even has the suit and the beard.”
“Is it real?” Michael wondered, intently watching his friend, waiting for the moment he keeled over clutching his stomach.
“What?”
“The beard, is it real?”
“Does it matter?”
He shrugged his shoulders, “Just curious.”
“Yes,” Naff told him. “It's real.”
“What about the belly?”
A pained look of angst spread over Naff’s face. “Can you take this seriously please?”
Michael grinned. “I don’t see what the problem is,” he stated, sure that he saw something crawling around the bowl after the first layer of glued nuts had been excavated. “Some jolly fat guy wants to give kids presents,” he shrugged passively. “Where’s the harm in that?”
“He’s an emotionally unstable demon.” Naff said firmly.
“And?”
“He has powers and he has problems. He could be dangerous.”
“Could be, but isn’t.”
“Could is enough cause for me to want to stop him. And,” he strained over a thought. “There’s another thing.”
“He didn’t get you the pony you asked for?”
Naff shook his head slowly and glared at his friend, before choosing to ignore the comment. “It’s my fault he’s free,” he said sullenly. “I let him out.”
“Ah.”
****
“He slips in through a chimney, or, failing that, he gets in through an open window. He leaves the kids’ presents all neatly arranged at the bottom of their bed and then he stuffs his face with mince pies and whatever sherry or wine he can find in the kitchen.”
“You think that’s why my mother always left a mince pie and a glass of sherry on the mantel, to stop him from raiding the fridge?”
“Can you take this seriously please?”
“What about carrots, for his reindeer?”
Naff sighed. “Well...” he prolonged, unwilling to finish. “Actually.”
“Really!” Michael looked both amazed and amused. “He takes carrots as well?”
“Like I said, he’s mad. Maybe--”
“Are you sure he’s not the real deal?” Michael asked dryly.
“Positive,” Naff spat with a great deal of frustration.
A small creature hopped out from the nut bowl with a peanut stuck to its back. It walked a wavy line across the table, like a drunken man trying to find its way home. Naff squashed the peanut beetle and then flicked the dead bug and tainted nut off the table.
“Hey!” a small sharp voice called angrily from behind him. He turned to see Scrub glaring at him, the miniature man had clambered up onto the bar, his feet in the wastage of a hundred pints of cider and beer, and was pointing an angry finger at Naff. “I saw that!” he bellowed. “Stop making a mess in my bar!”
Naff instinctively glanced around the decrepit room. The floor in the immediate vicinity of the bar was littered with the detritus of a dozen drunken nights: crisps, crumbs, food packets. Pieces of food, scraps of torn clothes, shoes, shoelaces and small coins had wedged themselves into the grimy floors around the tables like lost archaeological treasures.
“Pick it up!” Scrub ordered, his patience rapidly fading.
Naff turned to Michael and mouthed the word: “Really?”
Michael gave a shrug that suggested he do what the little mad man said regardless of how hypercritical it was.
He picked up the nut, offered a smile to Scrub -- who dropped down from behind the bar and allowed his burning facade to cool -- and then dropped it back into the bowl. Chip would probably eat it later.
“So,” Michael said, rolling his eyes, thankful that he still had eyes to roll. “How is this our problem?”
Naff slumped, even more dejected now the merry murdering midget had told him off. “He, Jacky Sampson, that’s his name--”-
“Santa Claus?”
“Yes.”
“I thought he was--”
“If you say Saint Nicholas I’ll rip your throat out.”
“Jesus.”
“Sorry, just a little on edge.” He wiped bead of anxious sweat from his forehead, rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hand and pressed a finger to his temple. “He was stuck in purgatory. I was his intermediate.”
“Intermediate?”
Naff waved a frustrated hand. “It’s like a Probation officer; I’ve told you this before.”
“In my defence you talk a lot of shite and I drink a lot.”
“Whatever, look, I let him go. I told them he was fit for release. I mean I thought he was,” he explained with great pain. “He seemed fine, but, well, clearly he was just faking it.”
“Can’t be that insane then.”
“He thinks he’s fucking Santa Claus.”
“Good point.”
“He started this escapade the same night I released him, that was a