A Contemporary Christmas Tale

[annm4peace]

A Contemporary Christmas Tale

by John Chuckman / December 24th, 2008

It was only a matter of time before Santa Claus himself came under the
Neanderthal-eyed scrutiny of American intelligence. After all, Santa's
citizenship is unknown, and he crosses borders with no passport or other
form of identification. No one knows whether he even has a valid pilot's
license.

Although his image is well known, there is no official photograph on
file with American border control, and he has never been fingerprinted
or body-searched. Most disconcerting of all, he delivers parcels to
children all over the world, including the children living in the Axis
of Evil. His intentions with this activity are not understood beyond
some fuzzy generalization about kindness and generosity to all. Clearly,
here was the world's largest unplugged pipeline to potential terrorists.

It was only after receiving no response to several urgent letters from
the State Department requesting an immediate meeting in Washington that
a decision was made to approach Santa's North Pole solitude. As usual in
such matters with the people now running America , a wing of America 's
most lethal killing machines was employed for the purpose. You never
know what you might encounter in such a forbidding place.

As the planes first zoomed over the icy silence of the North Pole
workshop, one of the pilots decided to swoop down for a closer look. He
was one of those daring fly-boys, and his tail struck the only wire for
thousands of miles around, the North Pole Telegraph, sending his plane
hurling into the workshop in a ball of flames with tons of ammunition
and missiles exploding.

Santa and Mrs. Claus rushed out of their snow-blanketed gingerbread
house to see what was happening, trying to calm the terrified reindeer
running from their stable at one end of the house. The elves, too,
scurried towards the stable, trying to stop the reindeer from running or
flying off.

Above, in the dark vault of sky, the other pilots observed the explosion
and saw missile trails smoking into the air. They also saw the frantic
activity below and quickly concluded their comrade had come under
anti-aircraft attack. So they swooped down in attack formation,
rapid-fire canon tearing into everything ahead of them.

Most of the reindeer fell in the snow, spurting warm blood across the
bluish-white surface. Most of the elves, too, fell gasping for life.
Mrs. Claus received a wound in the head and instantly fell limp. Santa
tried heroically to reach his wife but realized the situation was
hopeless and turned, running into the darkness accompanied by Prancer,
the only surviving reindeer.

The only witness to the massacre is one surviving elf now living
somewhere in Canada under an assumed identity, fearful for his life. It
is only from his testimony that we know anything about Santa's fate.

Realizing the horrific mistake they had made, the pilots dropped white
phosphorus bombs with the intention of incinerating all evidence. The
entire North Pole lit up and Santa and Prancer could be seen in the
distance on a huge block of ice drifting off into the dark sea, the ice
everywhere cracked and weakened by the combined effects of white
phosphorus and years of global warming.

Within in a few hours, the beating sound of a black helicopter
approached Santa and Prancer. The elf, from his hiding place in a
snowdrift, could only make out intermittent sounds across the howling
coldness, but it seems armed men emerged from the helicopter, shot
Prancer and shackled Santa, shoving him into the dark, beating machine.
The elf heard a word that sounded like Guantanamo and Santa has not been
heard from since. Reports of his fate reached the International Red
Cross and organizations like Amnesty International, leading to
inquiries, but these have been met only with silence from American
authorities.

John Chuckman lives in Canada and is former chief economist for a large
Canadian oil company. Copyright © 2007 by John Chuckman. Read other
articles by John <http://www.dissidentvoice.org/author/JohnChuckman/>.