Forever After - By David Jester Page 0,64

Naff was quick to assure.

“Hell,” Chip added helpfully.

“For fucks sake Chip!”

“You’re taking me to hell?” the big man looked hurt. His heavy frame sagged under the weight of his own depression. “Oh. OK.”

He staggered over to the couch and slumped down with a heavy sigh. His broad back arched painfully; his head aimed at his big boots.

“I’m sorry,” Naff offered.

The big man sucked in a large lungful of air and pushed it out in a longwinded sigh. “You do what you have to do. If you want me to go with you, I’ll go.”

“I can’t take you back with your powers,” Naff told him. “You have to relinquish them.”

Santa gave another long and tireless sigh and slowly rose to his feet, standing right in front of Chip and eclipsing him with the shadow of his stomach. He held out his hands, his arms outstretched, and turned his head away dismally. A number of moments passed without his hands being cuffed or touched, he lowered them slightly and turned back to Naff, the studious office worker had sat down and was filling out a form, using a thick TV guide to rest on.

“What are you doing?” Saint Nick asked.

Naff didn’t seem to hear. His bookish eyes scanned the paper, scribbling quickly and intermittently on its surface. He turned over a sheet, folded it to the back and then tapped the end of the ballpoint pen against his teeth. “How big would you say you are?” he wondered with his eyebrows arched inquisitively.

Santa seemed taken aback. “I have no idea.”

“Twenty stone easily,” Chip said knowledgeably.

“I don’t think so,” Santa replied, looking a little hurt and sucking his stomach in automatically.

“Maybe twenty-one, twenty-two,” Chip pushed, gauging the stomach just above his own head. “Twenty-three at a push. No more than twenty-four.”

“What’s going on” Michael interrupted, watching the scene with strained discombobulation.

“Twenty-five, put down twenty-five.”

“I’m taking away his powers,” Naff answered matter-of-factly, jotting down a rough estimate on the form, deciding to go for one of the few numbers that Chip hadn’t mentioned -- the grimy hobbit tended to be wrong when he was so sure he was right.

“Seriously?” Michael said with a touch of awe. “This is how you do it?”

Naff ignored his friend and continued scribbling.

“This is your job?” Michael said when Naff had finished and stood, more of a statement than a question. “You live a truly sad existence mate.”

“Somebody has to do it,” Naff said out of the corner of his mouth. He handed the man in red the forms and a pen and pointed to a marked spot at the bottom of the first sheet.

“Well, yeah, but surely there are better ways than this.”

Santa reluctantly scribbled his signature, a cursive and flamboyant script. Naff took it from his large hands with a bright smile, a smile that soon faded upon seeing the scribble.

“This says Santa Claus,” he noted.

“That's my name.”

“But--” he paused, looked from the big man to the form and then back again. He shook his head, “Never mind, it’ll do. I’ll be right back.” He disappeared out into the hallway and up the stairs, leaving an awkward tension in his wake as the three men stood around unsure what to do with themselves.

Michael stuffed his hands in his pockets; Santa feigned interest in the cards on the mantelpiece, squinting to see them from a distance of two metres. Chip craned his head upwards to stare at Santa’s beard.

“Where do you get your presents from?” the little one asked after a few moments of thought.

Santa looked down at the questionable thing peering up at him. “Excuse me?”

“Surely you can’t go spending thousands of pounds on toys just to give them away. You get nothing from the kids in return.”

“I get satisfaction of knowing--”

“Nothing,” Chip reiterated. “It’s hardly a self-sustaining business is it? And on top of that, you have travel costs, suit hire, food expenses. Wrapping paper isn’t cheap these days.”

“I don’t...” he struggled to finish his own response.

“I mean you could make them, but then there’s a limit right?”

“Right?”

“Well, yeah, you can’t go around reproducing brand name products can you? You can get away with it a few times but eventually they’ll catch you and fine you. It just takes a few loud mouthed runts to mouth off and you’re fucked. You can’t afford a fine; you barely make any money as it is.”

“Right.” Santa nodded. He had no idea where the midget was going but he prayed that he would stop before it required any input