A Christmas Tale (Sleighing Santa) Ch 2

Chapter Two
Putting Plans into Effect

“I’ve been on a very strict diet you know;” Santa told his psychologist at his daily session, “I can only eat these very light in calorie cookies, which are kindly prepared by an ex-dietician”.
“Sorry Santa but I’m on a very tight shift today, we’ll have to get back to the weight issues later but for now let’s just discuss your megalophobia; one of our main issues, how is that going?” his Psychologist asked as he pulled out a notepad and pen, “has there been any improvements?”
“Um yes, it’s going very well indeed actually, everything is exactly the right size; all my workers, all the toys, all the people that I give the toys to, everything’s the right size except me, oh and the TV that’s in your waiting room. It’s far too big, you can tell; none of your patients can concentrate with it there.”
“There is nothing wrong with the TV; it’s all in your head. Once you learn to overcome your trepidation of what is towering, you will have a better understanding of yourself and you will lose your self-consciousness about being tall and fat. I suggest that you...” Santa never heard his advice as his sentence was cut short by a diving reindeer and his piercing scream; “GET DOWN”. Even though Santa was a bit weighty, he was easily thrown of his feet by the combined force of both the reindeer and the explosion.

“DAMN IT”, yelled Warren as he watched the recent events from his video surveillance camera, “They’re alive, well except the Psychologist; he’s dead, I can tell by the way his head is laying three metres away from the rest of his severely burnt and mutilated corpse”, he sighed admiring the power of his bomb, “But Santa is still alive, damn him, and so is that leaping moose or some other animal from that blasted cervidae family, the one wearing the black jumpsuit and balaclava, if I find out who he is I’LL KILL HIM”.
“You mean I’ll have to kill him”, said the slowly advancing assassin-snowman named Ian Cole Mann the snowman that Warren had built to kill Santa. “You should really start trying not to voice all your thoughts; you’re probably going to give the plans away.”
“It doesn’t matter if I give away the plans”, replied Warren angrily, “they’re all useless anyway.”
“Relax Warren, it will all work out eventually” the snowman said calmly, “Besides I thought you wanted a more personal approach to killing Santa, I don’t think making an assassin-snowman really fits into that category. You should be happy that I agreed to help; not that many people would want to help kill Santa.”
“What’s the next plan?” enquired Warren as he turned the surveillance cam off and leaned in closer.

While the two antagonists started the scheming of their latest dastardly plan, the protagonist; Santa was walking back to his cottage with the peculiar events of that evening going through his mind. He was very distressed by what had happened so he tried to use his calming technique; “Ho ho ho, ho ho ho, ho ho ho, oh it isn’t working, ho ho ho”. Santa tried to calm down but it was too hard, the explosion and everything else that had happened was still a vivid image in his mind. He decided to muse over what happened to try to make some sense of it: The masked reindeer had dived and thrown him out of the way and covered him from the explosion; his thick coat must have been enough to protect them from the shrapnel. After getting back to their feet they soon realised that the psychologist was dead. The reindeer covered the body with a tablecloth and then started to explain to him how there had been an attempt on his life. Santa found that this was obvious but couldn’t understand why anybody would want to kill him. The reindeer went on to say that he could protect him only if he could become one of his reindeer so that he would then be able to watch him for most of the day. Santa in his haze didn’t really know what to do, so he wearily accepted the offer.

Rudolph was back in the pub massaging his sore back where the shrapnel had hit, drinking his whiskey as he, like Santa, reminisced over the evening’s events. He knew he had to do something after Warren had told him of his newest and most devious plan; he had told him he had built a magical snowman that would help kill Santa. Warren had constructed a bomb and instructed the snowman to plant the bomb in Santa’s psychologist’s room so that when Santa came for his daily visit he could set off the bomb and kill Santa without damaging the factory (which Warren plans to take over after Santa’s "accidental" death). Rudolph was then forced to devise his own plan; he would wear his black balaclava and jumpsuit so if Warren were watching, he wouldn’t know who was rescuing Santa. After donning his masking clothing Rudolph had run as fast as he could to get to Santa in time. It turned out that Santa had got there a lot earlier than usual but Warren still hadn’t set off the bomb so Rudolph hoping his timing was correct, leaped at Santa; throwing him to the ground just as the bomb went off killing the psychologist and destroying his office. “But at least”, thought Rudolph as he gulped down the last of his drink, “Santa will be alright, and will be able to make at least one more Christmas trip”.
“DAMN SNOWMAN,” yelled a familiar voice; interrupting Rudolph’s thoughts, “can’t even kill one simple Santa, thinks we should put real poison into the cookies, what kind of idea is that!” Warren stopped his angry murmuring when he saw a recognizable visage in the form of Rudolph’s distressed face, “Rudolph, what are you doing here?”
“I …I always come here”, Rudolph stuttered in reply, “I come here most days actually but ah… ah what are you doing here.”
Warren sat down on one of the bars stools next to Rudolph, “Oh, just trying to relinquish some frustration”, sighed Warren, “You know that magical assassin snowman that I created. Well, he’s a real idiot, can’t think of one original idea. He thinks I should put poison in Santa’s cookies; that’s what I’ve been doing for the last twenty years, stupid snowman”, Warren went on but he had started to mumble in an inaudible fashion so Rudolph had to ask him to speak clearer, so he would be able to further elucidate his devious plans “I think I’m going to just have to push him of a roof or something; it worked in that idiotic, fabricated Tim Allen movie. And then when I’ve killed Santa I’ll go after that plan- ruining, jumpsuit-bound… elk and then when I find him I’ll turn him into motor fuel to power my new hover-deathcar”. Rudolph eyes narrowed at the idea that an elk had come to the North Pole and that it had saved Santa but he was also relieved that Warren doesn’t expect him to be the soon-to-be motor fuel in which they spoke. Rudolph’s relief was short lived though, when he realised that if he did get caught; how literal the threat was. So he decided to change the subject. “Yeh that Tim Allen movie was idiotic; they spelt Klaus with a c, the Germans spell it right with a k”, said Rudolph resignedly as he drank more of his whiskey and thought about what else he could say, “Hey you know wha’, I’ve got a new job; working for Santa, as one of his flyin’ reindeer, hear that; I’m gonna flyyy. And then… and then all those other reindeer are gonna accept me as a real musical composer; la la la, see I’m really good…”
“Shut up”, said Warren happily, interrupting Rudolph’s quest for concurrence of his talent, “I just thought up an ingenious plan and you can help, I must now go home and further establish this plan, goodbye”. He sat up and left without ever buying anything.
“Ah, can’t… ah, can you at least tell me the basis of this plan until it’s properly organized,” Rudolph shouted out after Warren but he had already left, he would have to find out what the plan is tomorrow. He was too tired to chase Warren so instead he put his head down on the bar and sighed. “I’ll have seven more shots of Whiskey, please,” he asked the bartender.

For the rest of the night Rudolph was in the pub drinking more and more alcohol, all the while fretting for Santa’s safety and of what will happen in the during the day that had already recently started. Rudolph was about to fall asleep when he heard a voice through the gloom of his mind; “Whoa, your nose is like, glowing, like a light bulb,” it was the bartender gawking in awe at his now almost fluorescent nose.
“This phenomenon can be explained by the extreme use of alcohol affecting the blood vessels in his nose, making all the blood go to the top of it, but I don’t know why it’s glowing”, commented one of the remaining patrons of the pub.
“Well he has had two and a half bottles of whiskey that would probably do it”.
“Two and a half, why aren’t you in a hospital, you should be dead”.
“Oh, it’s all right, us Reindeer have very good metabolism, we sustain alcohol much bet...” that was all Rudolph was able to say before he slipped off into unconsciousness.

Santa’s trip back home from his psychologist was usually a long one seeing that whenever he saw an even remotely large house he had to run back fifty metres before advancing again in a different direction. Santa had made all of his properties himself so was able to make them the preferred dimension according to the expected size of the object; his factory can still be big as long as it’s small in comparison to other factories, his factory is the size of a house, his regular residence is the size of a large cottage compared to a full sized house; which is what he would call his cottage, if anybody alleged that he lived in a large cottage he would quickly refute it and ask them to leave.

And on his fifth fifty metre sprint he realised that this process of running away from large houses and house sized cottages was tiresome at best but he couldn’t be bothered to find the fastest routes around the large houses and that’s why on this particular day he was not any faster than usual and got back to his cottage, or should I say “regular sized” house, at around the same time as Rudolph the now red nose reindeer, passed out in the pub. “Honey I’m home”, Santa yelled to Mrs Klaus when he finally got back to his house “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had, absolutely cra…” WHACK.

As Rudolph, Santa and Warren all lay insentient from differently induced unconsciousness’s (Warren being that he was simply asleep) the world changed a bit; it was the beginning of the day before Christmas and while most boys and girls lay asleep they all dreamt of Santa being hit by a baseball bat, as he in actuality had been. The children who remembered this dream told there parents of this horrible nightmare where Santa lay unmoving in the snow outside of his house. Santa never knew of the happiness that he causes every Christmas to the many children of the world, he just makes the toys to pass the time in winter, and he set a random date two hundred years ago to get rid of all the toys that he had made over the winter and gave them to the smallest humans. I have yet to find out how he travels to precisely ninety-one point eight million houses in thirty-one hours or how he has lived for over two hundred years but I do know that Santa does exist and the true Christmas spirit is in us all and that was probably what woke Santa from unconsciousness or possibly it was the smell of the salts that were being waved in his face, either way when Santa did wake up he was happy to see a friendly face staring back at him.

The face he woke to was indeed friendly but it also seemed rather remorseful at the same time. “What happened, where am I, who are you, who am I?” Santa gasped, as he sat up in the snow. “Why does my head hurt, was there an intruder, did you catch the intruder, is he in jail, is your name Mrs Klaus, are you alright, did I get hit in the head with a baseball bat by the intruder that is now in jail. Why is it so cold here, why are you holding a baseball bat and looking guilty”, Santa stopped his unrelenting request for information to take a sharp intake of breath in realisation, “You’re the one that made me unconscious and gibbering, if you actually are Mrs Klaus; why would you do such a thing? And if you’re not Mrs Klaus then…”
“Yes I am Mrs Klaus”, said Mrs Klaus as she started to cry, “I didn’t mean to hit you with the bat; I thought you were dead, I could see the explosion from here, I thought that whoever had set off the bomb, assuming it was a bomb, had come back here to get me. I’m so very sorry but I’m greatly rejoiced by your safe return.”
“There, there Mrs Klaus, I forgive you”, Santa comforted, I know it must have been scary for you to see a giant mushroom cloud coming from the psychology clinic. Viewing the sheer enormity of it would have killed me but luckily my entire face was glued to the floor.”
“What ever happened?” Mrs Klaus queried as she pulled Santa out of the snow and helped him back over the threshold and into their house, “How could you have survived an explosion? Was it really a bomb?” Mrs Klaus continued to carry Santa until they got to the bedroom where Santa collapsed on the bed. “Um yes I think it might be and I fear that I may be in further peril. Who knows what could possibly happen next?”
To be continued…