Young Writers Society

"F**k!" Santa yelled as he felt his rear sizzle beneath the flame of the fireplace. He rolled out of the fireplace screaming and thrashing on the ashen floorboards. "F**k! F**k! F**k!" He cried over and over. Thankfully the toy sack hadn't been damaged; his sack, on the other hand...

"Santa?" A sleepy girl with disheveled blonde hair yawned and gazed up at his singed beard. She had a crusted trail of saliva beginning at the corner of her mouth and ending at the edge of her chin. Gross. Children were gross.

"Why hello, little girl!" he grinned as sincerely as he could while suffering from third degree ass burns.

"Why are you smoking?" The girl must have noticed his steaming face wig.

"Shit!" Santa thought. "Now I really want a smoke!"He fished around in his pockets and withdrew a cigarette and lighter. "Don't tell mommy and daddy, okay?" he told the little girl. Judging by her google-eyes and excessive drool issue, Santa figured the girl was too retarded to care if he smoked or not. He coughed wretchedly and withdrew a crumpled list from the interior of his arctic fox lined coat. The coat made him look like an infected hair follicle, but it was what the snotty kids wanted.

"Let's see..." he puffed. "Okay, one Betti Spaghetti for you, whatever your name is," he gestured toward the girl.

"My name is Siri."

"Yeah, whatever...hang on...Siri?" The girl nodded. "I don't suppose you have directions for the North Pole from here?" She shook her head. "Damn," Santa muttered. "My GPS died, along with Rudolph. I guess his giant-ass red nose wasn't a genetic defect after all. It was an infection. Frickin' killed him too."

Siri's bottom lip looked as if it was going to devour her snub nose. Her eyes were weepy and she sniffed and snorted back mucous like a pig with a sinus problem.

"Wow! Listen, don't cry! I have a whole farm of reindeer back at the Pole. I could pin a red nose to any one of them." That was a lie. Santa would simply punch one of them in the snout. The antlered bastards deserved it for all the candy cane filled poop they produced.

"It's not that," the girl blubbered. "It's just, I didn't want a Betti Spaghetti."

"What?!" Santa doubled checked his list. Sure enough, retarded Siri wanted a Betti Spaghetti."That's what you wrote!" Santa exclaimed. He hated it when these little brats suddenly changed their minds.

"I only put that because I knew mommy would spell check my list."

"Okay...so, what do you really want?" Santa inhaled his last puff of tobacco smoke and tossed the butt in the fireplace.

"I really want a Silence of the Lambs Hannibal Lecter Doll. You know, that one where he has the straight jacket on? Mommy tells me I'm a freak for wanting stuff like that. She says eight year old girls are supposed to like Frozen, not Hannibal."

"Hmm. So you're a psychopathic eight year old who admires Hannibal, eh?" Santa began unpacking the applicable toys from his sack. He could see the girl nod in his peripheral. "Fair enough," he said. Now it all made sense. Only a psychopathic little girl would leave the fireplace on, knowing perfectly well Santa would be dropping into it. Perhaps she wasn't so retarded after all.

"Lucky for you, I just happen to have a Hannibal Lecter doll. I was going to give it to this loser who still lives in his mom's basement at the age of forty but..."

The girl clutched Hannibal's plastic smugness with a valor that could only be understood by watching a documentary on the hunting style of the Tasmanian devil. Santa had seen this documentary several times while stoned. He understood.

"Now before I go, where are my cookies?" Santa's belly was rumbling. More oft than not, kids would leave cookies out for him, only to have them greedily devoured by their parents.

"Oh, yeah!" Siri jumped up and down excitedly. Santa hadn't noticed before, but she's clearly slopped spaghetti sauce all down the front of her Hannah Montana nightie. It was uncanny how the slop redefined Montana's face. She more accurately resembled the current version of herself: a shit-faced pop star. Santa preferred her shit-faced; she was more relatable for him.

“I baked gingerwoman cookies!” Siri ran into the kitchen, Hannibal Lecter in hand.

“Well, good for you for being politically correct.”Santa hobbled after her.The lymphedema in his left foot was killing him. He moaned when he smelled the acrid scent of burnt cooking. Great. He would have to satisfy his hunger with blackened tar cookies. Santa sniffed again. Something wasn’t quite right about the smell. It had more of a savory quality to it. A turkey?Perhaps it was the essence of burnt cookies and roasted Christmas turkey.

“HOLY SHIT!” Santa cried when he saw what Siri had baked. Bits of blackened fingers and toes oozed purple juice on a ceramic plate.

“Let me get the ginger!” Siri said and rushed off to the spice rack positioned next to a microwave spattered with a mystery substance Santa preferred to keep a mystery.

“Oh, God…the red spots on her nightie…” A wave of nausea wracked Santa’s overweight body, washing his appetite away. “I don’t understand…Siri was on the good list.” There must have been a mistake. His idiot elves were always making mistakes. Santa would have to snip a few of their ears as punishment.

“Um, Siri, where is the rest of the ginger woman?” Santa asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

“In my belly!” Siri giggled.

“F**k! You ate your mom?!” Siri slurped a ginger toe in response.Santa wanted the number of whomever it was that pedicured Siri’s mother’s toes. He had some serious fungus he needed removed.He simply couldn’t continue wearing expensive leather boots with the fear of his curled toe spears poking through.

Santa sighed as he watched the girl feed upon her mother’s phalanges. What was he to do? He couldn’t take away her gift and replace it with coal. It was too late for that. But, he also couldn’t leave a psychotic girl orphaned on Christmas Eve. Did the girl have a Dad?

“I better not eat too much. I need to save room for the ginger man.” That answered Santa’s question. He had a thought, just then.If Siri’s parents were on the naughty list, then they got what they deserved. No moral dilemma, there. Santa would steal some cash, a GPS, and be on his merry way. He checked the list and, sure enough, they were on the naughty side.

“Phew!” He wiped a sheen of sweat from under his iconic hat and excused himself from the kitchen. He managed to find a wallet stuffed with ten dollar bills and enough coin for a week’s worth of McDonalds. Credit cards, debits…excellent. He could retire as Santa—he and the Missus. They could borrow the identities of Siri’s parents and take leave for Cuba. Before he left, he printed directions from google maps. Siri was still eating. What was he to do about her?He gazed at his list in thought. A policeman wanted to catch a criminal for Christmas. Santa pulled out his obsolete year old iPhone and made an anonymous call to the cops.

“Merry Christmas, Siri!” he called from outside the front door. His reindeer had been kind enough to jump down from the roof. Though, they had also decided to soil the lawn with their malodorous droppings. Santa tumbled into his sleigh just as he started to hear the wailing of sirens.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” he laughed, splaying the reindeer with his whip.

***

From that Christmas on, people were forced to buy gifts for their loved ones as oppose to relying on a perverted old fatty.

THE END