Christmas Rite

The winter night was crisp and lovely. For Jack, there was nothing sweeter or more wonderful than the frosty pine-fragrant air of Flagstaff as the first snows began to fall. He was wearing his favorite green porkpie hat, for which he was well known about town, as he had worn it daily since coming to Flagstaff the day after Christmas the previous year. Pair that with his red scarf, and you had an unmissable man on the bustling holiday streets of Northern Arizona. Jack’s long, dark coat twinned with just about every other male patron walking down Flagstaff’s main drag that night. But the hat and the scarf were unmistakeably his.

As he walked cheerily past the many shops that were now decorated in the festive lights, colors, and plants of the season, flecks of snow were beginning to dust the shoulders of his coat. Over the scent of the pines, Jack could smell the wonderful winter aromas that wafted from each shop of his quaint new town.

From the bakery, swirling cinnamon permeated his senses in sugary blasts. A few steps later, he picked up the yeasty, hoppy aroma of his favorite brewpub, which was well known for its spiced holiday porter. Then, the unapologetically unrelenting smell of gourmet hot chocolate drew him in. Jack went inside the cafe for a hot cocoa that would warm him, body and soul. The cafe was wonderfully decked out for the holidays, with wreaths, bells, and mistletoe as far as the eye could see.

He sat at a table by the window, the glass to the outside world just slightly fogged on the inside and frosted on the outside so as to obscure his view of the passers-by. It was like the view of Van Gogh’s Starry Night had refocused in downtown Flag. Families, students, and dogs, all nestled in warm winter clothes carried on in poetic bursts of laughter that were still audible inside the cafe over the somber instrumental rendition of Silent Night being played over the sound system.

He continued to people-watch while sipping his hot cocoa from the tranquil warmth of the cafe. He could see a family across the street carrying bags with the logo of the bakery he’d just passed. Each carried one small bag, and with their free hand were now reaching to the ground to scrape up the small sheet of snow in their hands to throw at one another as they giggled in jubilance. To call these “snowballs” would be an overstatement of magnitude. But they couldn’t help but rejoice in the first snow of the winter. He also saw shadows flicker in alleys. Shadows he’d been looking for and knew would come.

He smiled to himself, knowing that tonight was to be his last night on Earth. He could already feel the ritual beginning. The five o’clock shadow on his face had quickly become a respectable three-day beard in a matter of minutes. And the button on his trousers had just popped off.

###

Jack knew they’d find him. But he also thought that Flagstaff would be as good a town as any to hide until the next Christmas. There was a job to be done that he was no longer willing to do. He’d held the position since roughly World War I, and he hadn’t liked what he’d seen since that time. Greed. Gluttony. Capitalism. That was never what the season had been about. Not in the early days, anyway. But try as he might, the corporations had taken over Christmas, and the small trinkets and tokens from the North Pole that used to pass for jaw-dropping gifts had now been relegated to stocking stuffers, thrown away at the next trash day.

They would find him, surely, by his porkpie hat and his scarf. But some traditions just could not be disavowed that easily. Sure, he could skip Christmas this year. But the magic in those adornments was what allowed him to bring the snow and the subsequent smiling faces. They were also what had caused him to gain another ten pounds while finishing the last of his now lukewarm hot cocoa, the final drops of which spilled out onto his now formidable and steadily whitening beard.

As he left the cafe and its several patrons in the confusion of witnessing a man age rapidly before their eyes, he stepped back out onto San Francisco Street where the light dusting of snow had now turned into a full blanket. The bell of the door rang a jingle as it closed behind him, which always brought a smile to his face, even as shadows moved in the corners of his eyes.

He strolled steadily south toward the college campus where he knew of a small lake that had surely frozen over just enough now to complete his plan. He passed under pines and beside old brick buildings that had stood on this Earth just about as long as he had. He marveled at their timeless and regal beauty, knowing this would be the last time he’d see them. But all good things must pass in the end. He knew many of these things, the trees and the buildings, would likely come down soon. Maybe in a year or maybe in a decade. But they’d be replaced with something new.

The snow continued to fall, and Jack happened upon another traveler that seemed just as smitten with the snow as he was.

“Ahoy,” said Jack to the man, perhaps twenty feet from him now.

“Is it too soon to say Merry Christmas?” the man asked with a laugh.

“The timing couldn’t be better.”

They embraced and then walked side by side through the campus in the soft snow. The man was a professor of economics at the university. He was young and he and Jack had become acquaintances, or perhaps even friends over the last few months. Jack only hoped he didn’t look so different now that he would confuse and frighten him.

“The economics of Christmas are unsustainable when you take into account the global supply chain, the rise of the middle-class of most of the BRIC nations, and the increasingly clear impact of our industry on the heating of the planet. I tell my students that everyone, artists, advertisers, apple growers, we are all economists. And being such is not simply about growing the economy through the fundamentals of supply and demand anymore. You have to look at every variable that impacts short and long-term means of production and its subsequent demand appreciation or depreciation.” He was a wonderful speaker. Not once did Jack feel like this was a lecture, but just a conversation with a friend.

“I don’t understand. I was always under the impression that economists were industrialists and capitalists who wanted to get a TV set and a Toyota into every household in the world?”

“Historically, maybe. We were lulled into the American dream and truly believed that the party would never end. Do you know what the world population was in 1900?” Jack knew but decided he would rather let the professor continue his sermon. “Less than two billion people. The way we made things back then, if the population had stayed flat, we could have continued living well on this planet for millennia. But now there are more than four times that population and the party is getting too crowded. We’re running out of beer. So economically, it doesn’t make sense for us to push for a car in every driveway and a chicken in every pot, so to speak. We need to get smarter about how we live and work and consume. And that starts with the most egregious offender of all holidays, Christmas.”

Jack smiled. So it seemed Christmas had changed, just as he had changed in the last half hour. Overstuffed, old, and ready to move on.

“Did you know I used to be an engineer?” Jack paused. “How old do you think I am?”

“Oh, I may look young but I’m wise enough not to answer that question.”

“You’re a smart man. I used to build things before the World War. Great big things. Small things. It didn’t matter. We knew that we just needed to keep building to survive. To grow. To win. I guess that has started to change. I knew I could feel it, but I’d never quite had the words to put it as you just did.”

The professor looked away bashfully. “Ha! Well, I appreciate that. I’m not sure my students would agree, but I always try to speak the truth to them, and to you.” Then he looked up at Jack, “Nice beard, by the way.”

Jack and the professor parted ways and Jack continued on toward the lake as the snow began to fall in sheets. Behind Jack, perhaps a hundred yards or so, he began to notice the shadows he’d been expecting all night. He smiled a defiant smile, cocked his head, and said, “Good to see you again, boys.”

###

Jack stood at the edge of the frozen lake. In truth, it was more of a pond. But it was frozen at the top, cold underneath, and just deep enough to do what needed to be done. The shadows were now close enough that he could see blurry faces. They were small and smushed together. Just different enough from humans to give Jack a chill every time he saw them. And their beady little eyes, dark and empty like dolls eyes, made Jack feel like they were always plotting, always planning.

Still staring out toward the lake without turning around, Jack shouted to his followers. “I suppose you’ve come to replace me.”

The blurry figures moved closer. He could hear their wooden shoes clack against the rocks that sprung from the dirt. He could hear a dull hissing noise from each of his onlookers. They rarely spoke. Their eyes did the talking.

Jack turned toward them. There were ten in all. Each was no taller than a toddler. But they were stocky and strong. Their faces were pale to the point of translucent. The faces of the dead. He supposed that’s what happened when you spent a millennium in the frozen north, toiling away at a job you don’t understand. They bared down on Jack, pointy yellow teeth gleaming at him in the shine of the snow and the moonlight. Their black, emotionless eyes unwavering as they creeped ever closer.

Jack wanted to run, but he couldn’t. Not if he wanted his plan to work. He did his best to calm his nerves to make his next statement as believable as possible.

“Join me, my friends. Join me for one last walk through the snow.” Then he turned and began walking out to the center of the lake, hoping with all hope that the elves didn’t realize that was what they were walking on. There was now at least three inches of snow covering the thin layer of frozen ice over the lake. And he hoped that the elves were not as well versed on the geography of Flagstaff as he had become over the last year.

The elves didn’t react one way or another to Jack’s words but continued to follow him out onto the lake. He could feel bits of ice cracking beneath each step and he prayed to whatever deity made him into this beloved seasonal character over a hundred years ago that the ice would hold for just a little bit longer.

“Just a little further now so I can see the full of the moon,” he said to delay the elves in any way he could. He didn’t want to look back, but could now hear their footsteps crunching the snow just feet behind him. They had begun to hiss. It was a higher-pitched hiss he’d heard them make before. It was the hiss they made when he butchered a reindeer and put the raw, fresh body in the workshop as a treat.

He reached what he thought to be the center of the lake and he turned back to the elves. They stopped, looking up at Jack with their black, beady eyes. Hungry eyes. They couldn’t hide their hunger anymore. Thick saliva ran from each of their sharp, snake teeth. Their hisses had become wines like a hornets' nest.

Jack took off his green porkpie hat. Then he unwrapped his red scarf from his neck. He held them in either hand. He could feel his stomach growing. He could feel himself getting heavier by the second. The magic of the hat and scarf were doing their work. But he needed them to work faster. The ice was cracking but had held for now.

“I’ve loved you. And now, all good things must end.” And with that, the elves sprang upon Jack like rabid monkeys, several immediately finding his throat, ripping and biting. Others were sufficient with the legs and arms. And a final one went straight for his heart. Quite the delicacy in the elf world. And they were all so hungry from their travels. So, so hungry.

Now with the additional weight on Jack, the ice began to audibly crack. Jack, with what little consciousness he had left, could hear and feel the ice begin to fall away into the freezing depths. The elves were too entrenched in their meal to hear their doom.

As Jack’s life drained from him, in his final moments before falling deep, deep into the abyss of water and soul, he felt the ice give way. His last act before plunging into the darkness was to throw the porkpie hat and the scarf as far from the breakage as possible, and hope their magic would do the rest. Now it was just a matter of belief.

The elves never stopped feasting, even as their bodies were engulfed in the frigid water. Even as the breath left their lungs. Elves, after all, can’t swim. But they love to eat.

###

The next morning, the young professor of economics opened the door of his apartment, ready for his morning lecture. On his stoop were a porkpie hat and a scarf that he recognized from his friend. He looked at them for a long time. He wasn’t sure why, but they felt right. They felt like the future. And they felt like Christmas. He picked them up and put them on.