Forever After

6



“Just so you know in advance,” Chip explained to the demon by his side. “I think this is a stupid idea.”

The 221 bus plodded along at a stuttering pace with a succession of flicking streetlights lighting its way. The driver, a chunky man in his twilight years, watched his passengers through the rear-view mirror with an expression of bewilderment permanently embedded on his wrinkled face.

Sampson, still dressed in his Santa suit, was watching a youngster at the back of the bus, a boy of no more than thirteen who dressed like someone much older, his trousers and hoody far too big for him; a mass of dangling chains around his neck. He had initially scowled at Chip and Sampson, as he no doubt did every adult he saw, but he now viewed them with an air of childish curiosity, or so Sampson liked to think.

He had never experienced life as a human child but he had encountered plenty of children. They possessed an innocence he adored, a sense of the fantastical and the impossible that stayed with them and refused to leave, even when faced with glaring evidence to the contrary.

That level of belief and innocence remained in every child until adolescence. The world had a way of beating it out of the unfortunate ones and those forced to grow up too young, but he was a firm believer that the faith in the impossible still lingered and could be restored.

“I mean you can’t even do the door thing.”

“The door thing?” Sampson asked distantly.

“Walking through them,” Chip clarified simply. “Not anymore at least.”

“Well, if you hadn’t taken away my powers...”

“Not my field of expertise mate, although quite frankly I wouldn’t feel comfortable sitting on the bus next to a demon a few loaves short of a bakery.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sampson wondered, pulling his attention away from the curious youngster at the back of the bus.

“You’re insane,” Chip translated

“I make it my duty to bring joy and hope to children all over the world, you’re trying to stop me, maybe you and your friends are the insane ones.”

“Nah, mate. It’s definitely you.”

Sampson, looking a little offended, turned back towards the boy at the back, watching him slyly through a reflection in the opposing window.

“Naff can’t do the door thing either,” Chip noted to himself. “Seems the two least interested in helping your fat arse out are the two who have to do the most.”

Sampson didn’t reply, he barely heard. The Christmas spirit had now gone from the face of the youth. His eyes were fixed on the large sack in front of Sampson, he didn’t ponder whether there would be a present in there for him, but rather what he could get at the pawn shop for the contents.

The bus stuttered to a stop. They remained seated but the youth stood. Despite being on a bus he glanced around himself, almost as a criminal instinct, and then plodded forward with his eyes on the bag. Samson was too dejected to stop him, but Chip called to him without even looking up.

“Touch that bag and I’ll break your f*cking arms,” he said brusquely with a great deal of believability.

The boy was already reaching out; he withdrew his arms as if his hand had brushed hot coals. He quickened his steps and disappeared off the bus without turning back, Sampson watched him skulk away -- his hood up, his hands in his pockets, his back hunched -- and felt sorry for him.

“And you wanna give these delinquents’ toys.” Chip said.

Michael hated the aspect of giving gifts at Christmas. He had enjoyed it as a child and, as an adult in the living world, he hadn’t objected, but in the afterlife he hated it. He hated the greed and the selfishness on display in the mouths and minds of every child in the Western world. He hated the inept inattentiveness on behalf of the parents, who put their financial futures, and thus the future of their children, into jeopardy by blowing their household budgets on stacks of worthless pomp and plastic, half of which would be forgotten about until the following Christmas when it would be discarded in anticipation of even more worthless stacks of shit that could sit unattended and unloved for another year.

He remembered enjoying the feeling of waking up on Christmas morning and diving into a pile of presents. As an adult, with the benefit of hindsight, he could appreciate the warmth and pleasantry of being with family during those moments, with the parents in pure devoted mind-sets, the world frozen in motion for a week or more, and the dreams and ideas of the child allowed to flourish, but he knew that as that child the only thing he cared about was unwrapping and playing with those presents. There is no sentimentality with the young.

“Cheer the f*ck up,” Naff told him as he drove them both across town.

Michael groaned in reply and turned his head to glare disinterestedly out of the window. They had already been to two of the houses on their list. In Michael’s eyes that was just another two kids who would wake up tomorrow morning to one extra piece of mass produced tat -- a sugar-coated start to a day that would probably end up with them crying and screaming at their parents, the result of an exhaustive mix of emotions and an overload of sugar.

“I don’t recall you ever being this annoyed about Christmas,” Naff noted. “You usually just hole up getting drunk for a few days.”

“I don’t recall ever being asked to be f*cking Santa Claus before,” Michael replied.

“Touché.”

The next stop on the list was an end-terraced house in one of the estates on the edge of town. The street was dead as they pulled up. Further down the road a domestic dispute raged behind closed doors -- the calls and clatters of drunken violence broke into the night like a distant whistle. A few lights in a few windows flickered on and off -- televisions and computers playing to those overexcited and unable to sleep or those already asleep and unable to move.

Michael recognised the street. Just two weeks earlier he had picked up a job from one of the houses. A young man, no more than twenty. He was living alone and had evidently tired of his monotonous and pointless existence. He tried to kill himself with a bottle of whiskey and what he thought were painkillers that he had stolen from his grandmother. The tablets turned out to be iron supplements for his grandmother’s anaemia. Instead of a blissful slide into the abyss, he had suffered a painful and seemingly endless battle with his own internal organs which had eventually given out on him a few hours after the whiskey had worn off.

Recollection of the misery he had encountered on his last visit only furthered his bad mood. Grabbing the sack from the trunk he sauntered towards the house with a lazy and reluctant swagger.

“Cheer up,” Naff said as he tottered behind Michael who was slumping down the side of the house like a creeping stalker. “It’s Christmas.”

Michael ignored his cheery friend. At the back of the house he heaved the bag off his shoulder and walked through the door, in the darkness and silence beyond he slowly and carefully began to unlock a myriad of deadbolts, hoping to open the door and let Naff and the presents inside. A noise behind him awoke his attention and he froze.

During his first year on the job he had taken to walking through whatever door he pleased, enjoying the freedom that the ability allowed. That habit stopped after an unfortunate experience in a locked, and assumed empty, toilet stall where a half-naked man had been vigorously masturbating to the lingerie section of a clothes catalogue. The experience was traumatic for him, but it seemed to spur the man on.

He needed the ability; people had an unfortunate way of dying behind locked doors, but no longer desired to use it for anything unnecessary.

A small voice, almost a whimper, filtered through the thick silence.

“Christmas soon,” the voice was saying in a softened, reassuring whisper. “Don’t worry.”

The voice of an unseen child whispering into the darkness is innately creepy and would have sent chills through Michael’s body when he was alive, but now, in the world he had been forced to adopt, the ghostly voice suggested the possibility of unfinished work.

He followed the sound of the voice to the living room. A spill of moonlight cut through the closed curtains at the front of the room and shed a glow onto a small patch at the back, behind a dining room table and tucked away into the corner. A small boy sat on the floor, hunched over a large dog; its ears pricked to the air, its chest gently rising and falling.

The boy was stroking the dog with great care and affection, soothing the fading beast with every gentle repetition -- whispering meaningless absurdities into its ear as he did so.

He had been around death enough to recognise the presence of impending doom that hangs in the air like a weighted inevitability. The dog was dying and probably wouldn't see morning. He felt a twinge of sympathy in his heart. There were no tears on the boy’s small face, no quivering in his voice.

He quietly walked back to the kitchen. The key wasn’t in the back door. Nor was it on the nearby ledge or the counter. He searched around for it quietly -- not wanting to alert the boy or the dog in the other room -- and then headed outside.

“Problem?” Naff asked.

Michael threw a finger to his lips, “Be quiet,” he said hastily, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “There’s a kid awake in there.”

“Too excited to sleep?” Naff asked in a sufficiently lowered tone.

“His dog’s dying, looks like he’s comforting it.”

Naff grinned. “Sounds like a surprisingly unselfish thing to--”

“Shut it,” Michael warned, pointing a threatening finger.

He took the intended present from the top of the bag and scanned the house and the door. There was a cat-flap at the foot of the door; the rubberised door gently lolled in the breeze, but the present, a boxed toy of some sort, was too big to fit through.

“I’m going to have to open it.”

“You can’t--”

Michael cut the protestations short. “If I don’t then he doesn’t get it,” he said sternly. “Unless you have any other suggestions.”

He waited in the silence. A breeze kicked up behind them and billowed out Michael’s coat. The noise of the distant argument, now settling down into sporadic screams, passed on the wind.

Naff didn’t say anything.

Michael opened the present as carefully as he could, taking great care not to make a noise. Even if the kid didn’t hear then there was a good chance the dog would.

“I can’t believe I’m standing out here in the freezing f*cking cold opening a f*cking Action Man for some spoilt little shit,” he remarked under his breath.

Naff sighed.

“I mean seriously,” he continued as he picked apart the paper. “What does it f*cking matter? One more present, one more piece of shit for the pile,” he groaned. “Why did we listen to the fat f*ck in the suit?”

“Maybe he has a point,” Naff said. He stuffed his hands inside his pockets to brace against the cold. “I don’t care what you think, this is kinda admirable: giving these kids some extra joy, some extra love.”

Michael groaned another disagreeing reply and ripped the final shred of paper from the toy. He began another tirade, another complaint against the season, but stopped short when he saw what was in the box. His words ruptured in his throat.

“What is it?” Naff wondered, sensing the shock on his friend’s face.

“It’s a dog’s toy,” Michael said softly. He held up the box. Inside was a small chew-toy in the shape of a slipper. “I don’t--” he paused, looked instinctively back at the house.

“I don’t get it. What am I missing?” Naff asked.

Michael didn’t answer him. He gently opened the box and removed the toy before slipping it through the cat-flap and retrieving it on the other side. He took it to the living room, a shade of darkness covered his face as he crossed the midnight threshold and listened to the boy, still whispering in the corner of the room.

“Santa’s gonna bring us something special,” he was saying happily. “We can play one last time.”

Michael slipped the toy inside a stocking that dangled temptingly from the fireplace. It was marked with the child's name but had been filled with a wealth of toys for both man and beast.

He checked on them before he left. The dog seemed to see him standing there, its black eyes, glistening against the reflective light of the moon, seemed to be staring right at him. Its ears were pinned to the air for any sound he might make, but it was reluctant to move. It didn’t even lift its head. The boy didn’t notice Michael at all; he was using the dog as a pillow, his head resting on its rising and dipping chest as his hand continued to gently stroke it.

“What was all that about?” Naff asked when Michael joined him outside.

“Nothing,” Michael said, attempting to restrain his emotion.

“You look different,” Naff noticed, hopping around him like an excited and quizzical child. “Something happened in there didn’t it?” he exclaimed, “Ah, what was it? What was it? Tell me. Did someone finally pull that stick out of your arse?” he asked, practically skipping with joy.

“F*ck off Naff.”

“This is bloody heavy,” Chip complained. He slugged a wrapped box through the living room to a fireplace, where a selection of presents had been laid out between three bulging stockings.

Santa watched the tooth fairy struggle with the box, nearly trapping his fingers between its edge and the soft carpet as he plonked it down with little care or attention, before cracking himself upwards with a jolt and holding his back with a pained expression.

“I think that one’s a train set,” the fat man noted. He glanced around at the room and smiled. It was alight with tiny, multi-coloured lights and bristling tinsel, all neatly and carefully placed -- covering the frames of paintings and pictures and dangling from light fixtures. An advent calendar was open by the stairs, all but a few of its chocolate filled doors stood open.

“You like this, eh?” Chip said, watching the fat man’s expression.

Santa nodded, feeling massively cheered up after the depressing incident with the youth on the bus. “Very much so.”

A hushed sound caught both of their attentions and they turned towards the stairs just in time to see a little head pop out and then disappear. The sound of hasty footsteps on creaky steps followed and Santa ushered for Chip to hurry up. Before he heeded the advice he heard the gleeful chants of a little boy who had made it to the top of the stairs and was calling to his parents.

“Mummy! Daddy! Mummy! Daddy,” came the joyous screams. “Santa is downstairs! Santa is downstairs!

“Ah, sweet,” Chip said, despite himself.

The kid continued, “And he’s brought his ugly little elf with him!”

“The little f*cking shit…”

“Come on,” Santa beckoned with an open arm, “the night is young.”

Michael gazed up at the dazzling house in awe, his jaw hung open like a hungry toddler. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered to himself. “It’s lit up like…”

“Christmas?” Naff offered.

“Yeah,” Michael said noncommittally, ducking his eyes from the house -- whose every inch had been covered with glittering, multi-coloured lights -- and feigning an unimpressed look.

Naff waited by the front door with a big grin on his face. He was enjoying their adventure, the Christmas spectacle draped over the house before them and the battle of wills that ensued on his friend’s face.

“After you,” he nodded at the front door.

Michael gave him a vexed stare as he passed through the front door. Inside it was just as colourful and spectacular as it was outside. The walls were strewn with an assortment of glittering tinsel and flashing pinpoint lights. An army of ornaments -- Santa Rudolph, snowmen -- lined up on the windowsills, coffee table and mantel piece. Stick-on snowflakes adhered to the insides of the windows, advent calendars waited by the front door and stockings hung from the mantel.

Michael quickly and silently unlocked the door before walking deeper into the room. At the back of the room a large Christmas tree stood defiantly. Its plastic bristles scratched the ceiling; its arms reached every piece of furniture within a two-foot perimeter.

He stood in front of it, gazing up. On the top of the tree, sitting before a crown of branches that picked at the artexed ceiling, looking comfortable and majestic, was a hand-crafted wooden angel. A great deal of detail and care had been taken over every minute feature; every fold of her skirt, every sparkle in her eye.

Naff brushed up beside him with the sack trailing at his heels.

“I don’t think you hate Christmas after all,” he noted happily. He moved to put a hand around his friend’s shoulder, but then thought better of it and feigned a stretch and a yawn.

“I loved it as a kid,” Michael noted, smiling at the glittering angel on the top of the decorated tree. “Everything about it. I think that’s my problem; that’s why I hate it now.”

Naff gave him a puzzled expression. “You don’t like to be reminded of your childhood?”

“What?” Michael flashed him a bemused look. “No, no. Far from it,” he uttered, turning back to the tree as its succession of flickering lights bathed the room in a sea of temporary blue light. “I miss being a kid,” he explained softly.

“Ah.”

“The innocence. The joy. There are other things I miss of course, you can’t enjoy some of the best things in life until you’re older, but as a kid...” he shrugged, “I guess things just felt...better.” He smiled and turned to Naff who didn’t seem to be taking the information in. “You know?”

“Not really.”

“You were never a kid?”

“If I was I can’t remember. To be honest, I mean, I like them an’ all, but they seem like a completely different breed to me.”

“Kids?”

“Yep.”

Michael watched the tree as a dazzling and epileptic wash of colours swam over its plastic leaves. “I’m with you on that on,” he agreed. “But still, it’s different when you are one.”

The two stood in relative silence, watching the lights in the room flicker from one neon spectrum to another. A gentle buzz from the electric lights and the purr of a muted snore from upstairs were the only sounds to come between them until Naff sombrely noted: “This world isn’t all that bad you know. The afterlife, this life.”

“What?”

“Well, that’s what this is all about isn’t it? You loved Christmas when you were alive and hate it now. It reminds you of what you’ve lost.”

Michael glared at him. He pondered dismissing his part-time pseudo psychology but shrugged it off and offered a simple nod. “I guess so.”

“We can live forever,” Naff continued “We can see the dawn of new civilisations. We can witness and survive catastrophic natural events, wars and human crises. It’s a great opportunity; a great life.”

Michael watched the heightened features on his friends face as they flickered with a fusion of delight and coercion. “I was just beginning to enjoy myself here,” he said softly. “Don’t f*cking spoil it.”