Foundation?

BBC News Story today.

Discipline and creative purpose.

Discipline without creative purpose is worse than useless.

from here.

I almost forgot my pastoral T-shirt for December....

Twain: Explore Dream Discover

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain

Nick's Carol, verse the last.

The clock began to strike twelve.  Nick stopped breathing and waited....nine...ten...eleven...twelve.  The echoes faded leaving only a suggestion of disturbance in the air, and then that too was gone.  He breathed again and was about to say “Well, come on let’s get it over with,” when the floor vanished and said “Welllaaaaaaragghgggghhhhh!” instead, as he fell at considerable speed.  There was no light to illuminate his context, and only the rushing of air to let him know he was falling and pointing the right way up.

Thump!  He hit the floor, fell, tumbled and landed in something which was dry and crumbling beneath his face and hands.  He did not feel hurt, but that didn’t seem an especially convincing reason to look up and face whatever awfulness lay before him.  So he didn’t and just lay there, taking in data with ears and nose: trees again, and these must be dry needles or small leaves, and there’s a very slight breeze rustling in the boughs of something.  Oh goody, another wood.  “Maybe I can just sleep here. Maybe it will go away.” Deep inside he knew this was a futile hope, not least because he was already, technically speaking, asleep.

There was a stirring nearby, not the wind but a something.   He looked up.  Okay, this one had obviously read the book.

It was night, but the moon shone brightly enough to lightly silver the dark hood and cloak of the tall figure.  Nick scrambled to his feet, no easy task when one has the geometric proportions of a space-hopper, and brushed from his beard and hair the dead leaves of the large yew trees which formed a circle around them.  “Right,” thought Nick,  “night-time, Yew trees in a circle, cloaked figure.   Feeling bad, feeling bad...try speaking.”

He cleared his throat. “This is Christmas future?”

The figure remained silent, and although his face – was there a face in there? – was obscured by shadow, he had the sense he was staring at Nick.  “You will show me shadows of things which have not yet happened, but will happen in the time to come, is that not so, Spirit?”  It said nothing, but slowly raised its shrouded arm. Nick’s eyes widened at this gesture, and took a step back from what he knew would be the skeletal hand.  Then noticed that at the end of the sleeve was an ordinary hand and in it was a torch, an electric torch.

“You’ll need this!”, said a voice from within the hood which with his other hand the Guide pulled down. “It’s dark!” he said cheerfully, by way of explanation.  “Parky, isn’t it?”  Nick remained frozen, mouth open, waiting for normal transmission in his brain to resume.  Wasn’t this the bit with open graves and silent terror?  The Guide raised his eyebrows and then shook the torch in Nick’s direction in an encouraging manner. Nick took it, and decided to close his mouth.

“Long night for you!” said the Guide.  Was he a Cockney?  That hardly seemed foreboding.  “Mind you I would have thought you’d be used to that, tearing off ‘round the world in one night.  ‘Ere, how come your reindeer don’t catch fire?”

Nick was staring at the torch as if he hadn’t seen one before and then stared at the man instead.  The head protruding from the dramatic cloak was, in its own way, also dramatic – plentiful and somewhat unkempt black hair and a sharp black beard, with dark skin and angular features.

“You’re thinking ‘how can an imposing figure in a black cloak talk like that?” aren’t you?

And why he doesn’t comb his hair, thought Nick.

“ ‘And why doesn’t he comb his hair?’ Well the thing is, I don’t normally look or sound like this. Technically speaking, I don’t look like anything.  I just thought I’d try it out for the night.  It’s been a while, you know.  So I thought: powerful Dickensian exterior, but underneath Merlin-esque imposing looks, with a hint of John the Baptist, plus barrow-boy nuances.  I don’t get to do this kind of thing often these days, so you gotta grab it while its going.  Four for the price of one.”

Nick was not sure whether to feel terrified or just slightly short-changed.  “Where am I?”

“Graveyard.”

He settled for terrified.

“Right, me old ducka,” continued the Guide.

“Mucca.”

“Mucca, that’s what I said. This way.”  He marched off between two of the yews. Nick trailed forlornly behind.  On the other side of the trees was, perhaps unsurprisingly a lot more darkness.  Clouds had drifted across the moon and all he could see was the vague outlines of shapes, angular shapes, still shapes.  Gravestones.  He felt depressed.  Jiggling was off tonight.  They walked for a few minutes and then the Guide stopped and said, “This’ll do!”

“For what?” Nick’s mouth was dry and he was desperately wishing he was somewhere else, a long way from here.  He did not deserve this.  He knew he didn’t.  He had brought immense pleasure to billions.  His life was about giving, not taking, about lights and smiles and music.  How could this be happening?

“Turn your torch on then.”

The button on the torch became, in Nick’s mind, the weight of granite and the touch of poison. He didn’t want to touch it.

“If I turn it on, where should I point it?”

“Errr....over here, this one will do.”

Nick turned to the darker blackness of the headstone and pointed the torch.  He did not want to see or feel what was inscribed there.  As slow as death, he moved the switch and the light flicked on.  He stared in horror at the words before him.  The words took a moment to sink in, and then he said, “Never heard of him.”

“No?”, the Guide peered at the name on the grave, “Oh well.  Try this one.”

Nick turned the beam onto another stone. “Nor him.”

“You’re not very good at this are you, me old miner?”

“China.”

“China.”

“Are you sure you’ve done this before?”

“Course I have!  I’m what you might call a Professional Messenger.”  He drifted off in a the dark a little, “Here’s a likely looking one, I mean look at the size of it!”

Nick followed and played the torch over the impressive tomb.  It was four times the size of the other stones, towering above the two men, and had ornate carving down either side, and the words were not carved but inlaid with what looked to Nick like titanium.  He swallowed hard and started to read.

“The whole earth mourns the loss of one we can never replace,” tears started to form in Nick’s eyes, “the strength and security he brought through generations was matched only by his endless generosity – oh that’s nice,” sobbed Nick, “very nice – and we rest our hearts in the knowledge that his sons – my sons!  They take over? – will continue the great work and tradition.  To his detractors – ha! All those whiners about the T-MOC -  we say: you can’t prove anything!  We have the negatives and he was nowhere near the betting shop the night Big Jimmy went down...”  Nick’s mental equipment was under a lot of strain, and the air was starting to feel very close and stuffy, but one thing was clear:

“ This isn’t my grave!”

“I never said it was.”

“Well which one is mine?”

“None of them.  You have a timeless existence, you won’t die. Not in the normal sense anyway.”

“Then why am I here?!  All this forbodingness and darkness and graves.  What’s it all about?  If my grave isn’t here, whose graves are they?”

“Everyone else’s.”

“Everyone else? Which particular everyone else? Like who?”

“Like, everyone else’s.”

Nick paused as a number of interpretations suggested themselves.  A particularly dark one was jumping up and down at the back of the queue, but he tried to ignore it.

“Yes, but when you say everyone, specifically who are we talking about.”

The Guide fixed his dark, unnerving eyes on Nick’s.  “We’re talking about Everyone.  This is Christmas Future.  This is the Last Christmas.”

The air, which had been feeling uncomfortable and odd for a while, suddenly convulsed and a shattering concussion of lightning hurt Nick’s ears.  But the shock of sound was nothing compared to the shock of sight.  The percussive flash illuminated ranks of gravestones around him in every direction, for as far as he could see.  In the next flash he looked beyond to the walls of the cemetery: there were no walls, only more graves where any sensible cemetery would have stopped.  Again the sky arced with electricity, and illuminated the retreating hills that climbed to the distant horizon.  The furthest hill, miles away, was not smoothed in outline by the distance, but serrated with a thousand tiny, angular, black full-stops.  Nick knew in his heart that every tiny point was a grave, and that every hill would be the same. The cemetery was gargantuan; it felt like it was the world.  The lightning ceased, the sound rumbled away and silence returned, a silence Nick now realised that had, until the storm, remained completely unbroken by anything except for himself, the Guide and the wind.

“Everyone?” asked Nick, weakly.

“Everyone.”

“But why bring me here, why show me myself alone in the world?  Did I cause this somehow?”

“No.  This is death at work, this is the curse of the Fall.  I remember it well.”

Something stirred in Nick’s memory, something from the story, the question to the third ghost.  “But is this what certainly will be, or only what might be?”

“Err....both.”  Nick’s slightly reviving hope went limp again.  What did that mean?

“So why bring me here?  What can I do about it? I can’t stop people from dying, I’m Father Christmas – I deliver toy trains and jiggle my belly.”

“But you are powerful. And you are fast. And everyone listens for you. And you won’t die. And, if you don’t mind me saying, you seem to have remembered the what and forgotten the why.”

“But that won’t make people live forever!  That can’t overturn death.  I can’t bring eternity to a finite universe.  I’m not eternal – I may not die but I had a start, a beginning...sometime...it’s hazy now. But I do know that I’m limited.  I can’t open up a hole into forever and let it flow into the world.  Who can do that?”

“If there’s one thing tonight should do, it’s highlight your memory issues.”

“If someone could do that” Nick carried on regardless, becoming more agitated, “then they would have done it long ago.”

“Someone can, and someone did.  Think, Nick!  Think!”

There was light from above again, but not from a storm this time.  The sky was clearing, and as the stars appeared once more over the silent world, one star shone more brightly, so brightly that the edges of the graves shone, and Nick could see the Guide’s features once more. His eyes reflected the light of the great star, at which he gazed with beautiful smile.  “Well, I haven’t seen you in a long time...”

Nick gazed at it too.  “There’s something about it, something long ago...”

“Come on Nick!  Strike a light and push your granny down the stairs, mush!”

“What?!”

“Nick, what are you for?”

“What am I for?”  The star was bothering him. Its light seemed to be inside his eyes, though he was looking at the Guide.  “I...don’t remember...what I’m for...”

“Oh Nick, look, think.”

Nick turned back to look at the star, and in that moment there was a great rustle by his side, and when he looked back to the Guide the cloak was just completing its empty journey to the ground.   In his confusion Nick was aware only of a movement, of a great wing gently brushing his face as it moved upwards. Nick span, but saw nothing, and then, looking up, there was for a moment a lesser light in the sky, approaching the bright star.  It entered the halo of light around the star and was gone. And then the star was gone too. All was darkness.

Slowly he realised he was back in bed with the covers over his head.  He pushed them back. Early sunshine was in the room, and the sound of penguins passing the window, singing their breakfast song, filled the air.  Nick sat up and swung his legs round for the umpteenth time in the last few hours.

Remember, remember...you must remember.  Remember what you are for... Something was happening in his head, in some dark recess, in some locked attic deep in his mind someone or something had awoken and was banging on the door to get out.

He was up in a moment and over to the window.  He called to a penguin who was loitering a short distance away singing his annoying song.

“Oi, you!”  The penguin continued dancing about and singing.  Nick collected some of the snow off his windowsill, formed an icy snowball and took aim.  It detonated with such force that the penguin flew head first into the drifts.

“Gosh, I’ve wanted to do that for years, “said Nick.  The penguin picked itself up and looked about.  “Oi, you, penguin!  What day is this?”

“Eh?”

“What day’s today?”

“Why, it’s Christmas Eve,” it squeaked.  The penguin was experiencing a strange emotion: Nick had for centuries worn a permanently light-hearted and jolly expression.  He was unsure how to respond to this alien  new look of...determination.

“It’s Christmas Eve!  I haven’t missed it!  Right, get round to the stables and tell Rudolph to fire up the Team.”

“But it’s not night-time!  What about night-time? You’ll be seen, people will want to talk to you!  What about the presents?” The Penguin’s squeaks were filled with alarm.

“Load up the presents now.  And we’re going this morning.  And get me the PR elf.  Change of Policy.  It’s time to talk.”

“To who?”

“Everyone.”

-----------

Copyright The Masked Badger 2010

Nick's Carol verse 3

His eyes snapped to the ceiling but the ceiling stayed exactly where it was.  He waited.  On the periphery of his hearing there was a sound: voices, distant, tinny, jumbling together, and lots of them.  Like a crowd of people stuck in a huge bucket at the bottom of a well.  But it t was getting louder, nearer.  He sat up and looked around.  The sound was coming from the walk-in cupboard in the wall opposite the end of his bed, which had so recently been a forest floor.  He heaved himself out of bed again, took his coat from where it had replaced itself on the bedpost (no blood stains), in case there was more snow involved, and walked to the doors.  For a moment he leaned close and listened to the sounds from within; definitely voices, lots of people, echoing round.  Grasping the handles, he took a deep breath and swung the doors open.  Trees again.  In the cupboard.  And smoke, emerging in puffs from somewhere towards the back.  He touched the trees.  Plastic?  Plastic...Christmas trees, in my cupboard?

“This way!”  A man’s voice, British this time, a little well-to-do, but with some slight Celtic nuance.  It came from further in, roughly from where more puffs of smoke emerged.  There was only one way to get this over with, so Nick pushed through the scratchy trees, following the regularly ascending clouds which, as he walked through their remains, he smelled as pipe-smoke.  There was light ahead and then he finally stepped out from the fringe of the woods.

It was a shopping centre, a big one.  The floor was polished honey stone tile, the ceiling arched above them to a glass roof dimly showing the onset of a dusky winter’s evening.  Some way ahead was a balcony overlooking the floors below, and receding into the distance down either side of this level were the flattened conformity of commercial units. A large number of people wandered through the brightly lit hall, entering and leaving shops, brushing past vast and gaudy decorations, savouring the tinny music and responding with the tinny echoes of their myriad voices.  Over the sound-system, tinny Greg Lake sang that he believed in Father Christmas, with tinny cynicism.

“The present, I assume,” said Nick, having taken all this in.

“Oh yes”, said the voice,  “welcome to Christmas present.”  The tone of his voice suggested “and you can keep it,” with a hint of satisfaction, as though the mere sight of the Mall was the final point in a conclusive argument.

Nick turned back to see who his Guide was.  Standing against the rows of Christmas trees ranged before “Discount Christmas”, was someone who did not look much like he should be in Christmas Present at all. More like Christmas-Austerity-After-the-War.  He was dressed in a well-worn tweed jacket and unremarkable, formal trousers that had seen better days, with what looked like stout walking boots of the old kind, protruding from the bottoms.   A chunky tie bound the broad wings of his shirt collar.  All of this combined with his thinning hair and ruddy cheeks, made him look like a farmer out for a Sunday walk, and he certainly seemed out of place here.  He replaced the pipe for a moment and smoke swirled about his face, his twinkling, lively eyes shining through. Nick continued,

“Right.  No sheep...or anything?”

“No, no, no.  No, Christmas here is nice and clean.  Clad in synthetic marble, treated with antiseptic, climate controlled, lights beautifully sequenced.  No.  You would never find blood or lambs here.”

“You sound disappointed. I can tell you it’s no bad thing after what I just saw.”

They wandered towards the balcony, people weaving around them, even though they had no idea there were two extra people crossing the walkway.

“Yes, no bad thing.  But do you ever think, especially with your many years of observing humanity, that people tend to swing the pendulum from one extreme to another?  Never seem to settle somewhere in the middle.”

“The pendulum can swing as far as it likes from killing cute farm animals in a wood, as far as I’m concerned.”

“A fair point.  But is this real?  Doesn’t it feel like a dose of ether?  Like one big anaesthetic?  To keep you from feeling...something?”

“Yes.  The wrong end of a big pointy knife somewhere painful.”  They reached the balcony and leaned on the rail, the Guide replacing the pipe and puffing thoughtfully.  Presumably smoking was banned in here, but who would know?   “And all that running about, trying to find something to keep back the darkness, filling up the emptiness – that’s all gone.”

They watched the chaotic rush below:  the multicoloured frenzy of hundreds of people heaving through the walkways; people clutching lists, tensely ticking off successes and underlining lamented failures; the hollow looks of disappointment because the last available one was sold an hour ago; the joyous pride and warmth of heart registering on the faces of those making their way to the car-park, arms overflowing with victory; the occasional elderly person, sat on one of the few, begrudgingly provided benches, watching sadly, alone, here because it was warm and not their empty home, to where they knew, eventually, they must return.  Every one of the thronging mass desperate for that one thing to carry out into the encroaching darkness of the winter night.

“Maybe,” said the Guide and continued to puff, illegally.

“Oh look!” Nick’s heart warmed instantly. “It’s me!  I love it when they do that.”

The balcony formed a large oval, and framed the scene below where the Mall owners had sacrificed some shop-space to erect a large Christmas scene.  Plastic snow banks led up to Santa’s igloo. A large mechanical Polar Bear, swung its head back and forth, and here and there a penguin wearing a woolly hat moved its beak so as to sing a tinny rendition of “Winter Wonderland”.

“Gosh,” said the Guide, “singing penguins.”

“Yes...it can get annoying after a few years of that outside your window.  At least you can switch these off.  But look, you can’t beat that!”

The top of the igloo was missing so that watchers from above could see what the gaggles of queuing children could not:  Santa, in his igloo-grotto, sat upon his throne, smiling benignly at the child on-a-stool-not-on-Santa’s-knee-because-this-Complex-has-a-child-protection-policy.

“You can’t get much better than that!”

“It doesn’t bother you that he’s pretending to be you?”

“No!  Goodness no!” and he gave a little jiggle to show how jolly he felt about it. “No, I’m only available one night a year while the kids are all unconscious.  This is a way for them to experience just a little of the uniqueness of the T-MOC.”

“Ah. And what would that be precisely?”

“Well, they meet their favourite person in the world, and receive a wonderful gift, and go away with joy in their hearts.”

“Yes, I suppose they do.  Except, it isn’t really you.  And the gift isn’t a gift,”  he pointed the stem of his pipe towards the ice-encrusted sign stuck jauntily in one of the snow banks that read Only £7.50. “And we both know they will have forgotten what the present is by the time they reach the window of Toys-R-Us.”

Nick turned in annoyance to the Guide, who remained passively observing the conveyor belt of children being helped, by elves, in at the front and out at the back of the Grotto.  Nick was used to this kind of fanatical criticism, but it had been a long night, and on this night especially, he expected better treatment. 

“Look, nothing is perfect in this world.  Why deny these kids a few minutes of happiness, a few minutes with someone who is like me, carrying me in his heart, bearing The T-MOC to these kids. It’ll wear off, I know that.  I’m not naive.  But out there is darkness and a real world they have to grow up in which is going to be hard, so they need something...more than life, ordinary life, offers them.”

“But that is precisely my point.  Do you not think they need something more?  And you are, if you will forgive me for saying so, a supernatural entity, someone who can be everywhere in a night, who has access to power of which mortals only dream.  Do you not think you could do something more than permit these children to settle for a fleeting moment of happiness? Something more for this world of tears?”

“No!  That’s not me!  I get out once a year, shed some happiness, and go home again.  It’s what I’m for.  Not global transformation.”

“I wasn’t necessarily thinking globally, not initially anyway.  I was thinking more, one heart at a time.”

“I warm hearts for a few hours, I don’t change them.”

“No, but a man of your considerable ability, do you not think you could use your influence to point them somewhere they can?  Wouldn’t that be more significant than  two minutes in a plastic igloo with a fellow in a stick-on beard who’s desperate for the day to end so he can go home?”

“It’s Christmas Eve!  Why even say things like that!”

“Actually, it’s not Christmas Eve.  This is three weeks ago – there’s another twenty one days of this uniqueness, here under the constellations of super-brite LEDs.  Three more weeks of fruitless searching for something.”

“What is your problem?!  So what if the uniqueness stretches into November, or October?”

“Ah, always Christmas but never winter.”

“And what’s wrong with a bloke in a stick-on beard bringing this uniqueness?”

“Nothing at all.  You misunderstand me if you think I’m against all of this.  I’m just suggesting that it may need something more.  And it all depends on what you mean by unique.”  He pointed again with his pipe to a shop front on their floor, just a few yards to their left.   A hastily written sign proclaimed He’s Here!  There in the window itself, surrounded by polystyrene snow, was another Santa.

It produced a slightly odd sensation to see two of himself at close quarters but Nick did not see this as a big issue, not really. “He’s just helping to spread it a little more.”

“As is he,” the pipe waved in the opposite direction.  Another Santa had pushed a handcart of toys before another large store.  He fiddled somewhere in cart’s depths and started another tinny recording of ‘Winter Wonderland’.

In the lane snow is glistening sang Frank. A veil of tears for the virgin birth, sang Greg, whose turn on the loop-track had come round again

“And that one,” the Guide waved another trail of smoke. A major department store, whose first floor emerged a little way further down, had now positioned elves at the door who were pretending to play plastic trumpets as Santa emerged triumphantly from within.  His beard was somewhat better than the man with the handcart, who turned his music up in the hope of disguising this fact.

Later on we’ll conspire, as we dream by the fire, sang Frank.  “‘Till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn, and I saw him and through his disguise,” intoned Greg.

Nick was starting to feel dizzy and the competing noises of canned music and kids shouting, and the startling increase in clones of himself was starting to make his legs feel weak.  And then a voice cut through:

“Oi!! I don’t recognise you!  You’re not licensed!”  Another Santa had emerged from  ‘Discount Christmas’ behind him.  He looked very much like a Discount Santa and had the attitude to go with it.  In the process of shouting he had also attracted the attention of the other Santas who were now making their ways toward him.

“They can see me!” cried Nick.  He turned in desperation to the Guide, but he had vanished and nothing remained of him except one small puff of smoke that drifted slowly upwards, towards the glass-encased night sky.  A hand came down heavily on his shoulder – Discount Santa had reached him, and the others soon arrived.  A new jumble of angry not very-jolly voices joined the Mall.

“You’re not approved...where’s your licence?  He comes here, on our patches...!”  

A small crowd gathered to view proceedings, unaware that they were watching the Genuine Article being attacked by a hoard of doppelgangers.  It made a nice change from watching competing parents punching each other outside the toy-shop.

Hallelujah, Noel, be it heaven or hell...  Greg had gone solo.  Where was Frank when you needed him?!

They swarmed around Nick and all he could see was red cloth and white fur swirling before him, their voices jumbling with Greg’s.  The Christmas you get you deserve.  They were on top of him and he could feel himself falling as he struggled against the crimson tide and then finally succeeded in throwing off his blankets onto the bedroom floor.

He was up and sat on the edge of his bed in a moment.  All he could hear was the sound of his own blood pumping at speed.  Nothing else stirred in the darkness.  

This time he did not try to sleep.  He stood and looked out of the window at the starlight reflecting on the ice.  He was feeling very tired indeed, and disturbed.  The people in the woods were bad enough, but this last dream had involved images of himself, like broken fragments, shards reflecting something...   It made him feel uncomfortable, but he was not sure why.  “This is Christmas,” he said to himself, “that’s how Christmas looks What’s the matter with it?  Nothing, that’s what.  That’s how Christmas is. That’s how Christmas has always been.”  He wiped his brow.  “Isn’t it?”

Nick's Carol verse 2

He looked at the door.  Nothing.  The window, also nothing.  No noise.  For the umpteenth time that night, he started to breathe regularly again, lay back and looked at the ceiling.  Which wasn’t there.  What was there was dawn breaking over a forest of pine trees, gently dusted with frost.  His world shifted ninety degrees, as his prone position became the vertical, and the bedroom wall, with its walk-in cupboard, became now the horizontal axis of the world.  The bed covers were gone, and he found himself stepping out not into the cupboard, but onto frosty ground.  He turned, but was already pretty sure of what was behind him:  more trees, no bed.  He gave a sigh.  It wasn’t as though he were a stranger to strange things – anyone with a dozen reindeer which can hit 25,000mph, without combusting, has seen a thing or two.  But this was magic out of his control and not at his beck and call, which was the way he preferred life.  Plus it was on this most inconvenient of nights.  Most disturbingly, if this followed the traditional route, he was about to be confronted with something from his-

“Past!  Correct!” said an accented and abrupt, though annoyingly cheerful voice.

Twenty paces away at the edge of the nearest rank of pines stood a man swathed in dark robes with a floppy black beret affair on his head.  He was a little on the plump side, with slightly hooded eyes and a...well, a bit of a knobbly face really, if Nick were honest.

“Are you...” Nick began, took a deep breath to cover his increasing unease, and started again. “Are you the, ahem, Ghost of Christmas Past?”

“I don’t do ghosts.” Abrupt and forceful seemed to be his style.  “But this is the past.  Come on.” He turned on his heal and walked into the woods.  His accent was middle Europe somewhere, Nick was sure, and its lilt was familiar.

“Where are we?  When are we?”

“I have no idea what it’s called now.  It was Saxony once. Or later, rather.  Things change.”

They were crunching through the woods at a good pace, over frosted needles, the light staying bright and crisp even through the layers of branches.

“It’s very Chrismassy here,” said Nick, hopefully.

“This is Christmas past.  You’re here to see the True Meaning Of Christmas, what it is when all the fripperies are removed”.

“Oh like I haven’t heard that before.”  Cynicism and the weariness of the season got the better of any fear. “That’s all I ever hear, why bring me here to hear it again?”  Frosty fronds were poking his face and leaving sparkles in his beard, none of which helped his mood.  “Hang on, it’s not one of those confounded nativities, is it?  Done outdoors for realism and atmosphere?” He waved his hands and wriggled his fingers dramatically as he stomped along, warming to his theme. “Same thing every year – half an hour of Christmas-is-nearly-here, dancing snowflakes, crackers singing about presents and damn stupid reindeer falling down chimneys.  Then ‘Ooh, but what’s the T-MOC?’ And wham! Suddenly we’ve time-travelled to Bethlehem via some idiot magic fairy, and “Ooh a kid in a trough, now we know the T-MOC! It’s not about presents after all! Now we can gorge ourselves on cholesterol masquerading as food and empty the industrial output of the Far East into our lounges, all with a clear conscience!” And then back as quick as a flash to the dancing puddings.  Good thing too. Fat lot of use, except to try to make me feel guilty.”

The man stopped, turned and fixed Nick with piercing eyes.  “I like nativities.” This was delivered as a statement of fact universally to be accepted, not a preference. “And no we are not visiting a nativity”.  He turned and continued.  Nick followed slightly more subdued. He knew he could obliterate this man with one well-aimed belly-flop, but instinct warned him this would be a Bad Idea.  

Soon his attention was distracted from his mixed feelings of righteous indignation and impending doom, as through the trees he caught sight of some kind of building.  As they drew nearer it became apparent that a clearing had been formed in the woods, and on a small rise, a wooden structure had been erected.  Rough hewn wood, dark brown, formed a building big enough to provide stabling for maybe six of his own reindeer.  As they neared the fringe of the clearing it became apparent no reindeer were involved, but there were animals.

A crowd of people were forming – ordinary peasants by the look, but here and there someone grander, that is to say their robes were not so ragged and the glint of gold adornments could be seen.  Nick was unsure on specifics, but he knew this Past was a long way back; he couldn’t remember seeing people quite like this, although his memory did seem to be patchy these days.   None of the people seemed to be able to see Nick or the Guide, but this was hardly unexpected under the circumstances.  A handful of them were bringing animals with them, a few sheep and goats, a pig over there, and maybe that was a donkey coming through the trees.  A wooden building, people gathering with a look of happiness (well some of them), sheep?  Nick knew what this was;  apparently spectral Guides were not committed to the whole truth!

They walked to the front of the crowd forming at the foot of the mound.  Nick relaxed again, and looked up at the entrance of the stable, at the two joyful, grey-haired men in long robes who stood at the doorway.  The people around the mound were murmuring reverently, too quietly to pick up much of what they were saying, but one word he heard several times and he was pretty sure he knew what it was: Yule.  One of the robed men beckoned and, slowly, some of those with animals climbed the gentle rise to the entrance of the building using their staffs for support.  Ha!  Getting the shepherds into position.  Nick elbowed his guide gently in the ribs, which seemed rather physical for a ghost, “You had me going there!  Well I might as well enjoy it, nothing like the T-MOC!”

The first man and his sheep reached the threshold where the robed men stood.  They both looked up and smiled and, as they raised their arms to the sky, the crowd knelt.

“Devout lot,” said Nick, impressed.

“Oh yes,” the Guide replied, though he did not look as pleased about this as Nick had expected.  Nick turned back o the Stable in time to see the festival begin.  What he did not see was from where the priests pulled out their long, jagged knives, which they then used to simultaneously sweep along the sheep’s throat from each side.  Nick took a step back, eyes wide, “Whoa!  What kind of nativity is this?!”  Blood fountained from the struggling sheep, as the men made their best effort to catch the hot redness in a wooden bowl.

“I told you,” said the Guide, “this is not a nativity.”

“But you said this is Christmas past!  I never saw a Christmas like this!” Further comment was cut short as one of the men produced a small bunch of twigs, dipped them in the bowl of blood which was held over the twitching, prone form of the ex-sheep, and sprinkled it over the temple doorway, and then flicked large drops out across the crowd.  Nick was too shocked to react and some landed on him – it barely showed on the red of his suit, but the white fur trimming was dashed now with crimson.  Nick looked down with horror, and started to back through the crowd, to the fringe of the woods.  His Guide followed looking at the ground, his expression unreadable.  Nick turned on him in the safety of the trees.

“You are supposed to be the ghost – OK not-ghost,” he corrected himself as the Guide’s dark eyes were suddenly and fiercely upon him, “of Christmas past.  That’s not Christmas past.  That’s not Christmas ever!  What are you doing?”

“You know, for the man who is supposed to be the epitome of the Season, you seem to know as much about Christmas as a donkey knows about playing the harp.  Do you not remember this time?  How it was?  Have you forgotten, has it faded?  As the new decades slide into your soul, do the old ones gradually fall out the back?” 

The Guide walked into the woods, to a place where the light shone brightly through the branches creating a pool of white on the frosted ground.  It was clean and pure, and the sounds of thrashing animals became more distant

Nick continued, “My memory isn’t what it was, but I know a Christmas tableau when I see one, and that wasn’t it!  Sheep and shepherds, yes;  ‘Away in a Manger’, yes;  but not hey-ho and blood all over the shop!”

The Guide seemed to wince at the mention of ‘Away in a Manger’, but this swiftly passed and he gave Nick the explanation he needed. “This is Christmas past, Christmas before Christmas.  Christmas hasn’t happened yet.  It is yet to come,  But here, in the forests and villages of so called ‘civilisation’, they have their own ideas.  This is Mid-winter, Yule, or whatever you want to call it.  This is how it was in so many places before.”

“Oh, oh..yes.  Well....each to his own.  I mean, they look happy enough...” He was staring at the ground, and was completely unable to square his desperate attempt at spiritual tolerance with the trauma of the bloody-nativity scene.”

“You have forgotten, “ the Guide was nodding with certainty. “Oh, they looked cheerful.  Around the edges, if you didn’t look at their eyes.  This isn’t your twenty-first century cleaned-up paganism.  They looked like that because they are desperate – for victory, for good harvests, for the evil that lurks to be held back, for many things which in your Present are all assumed. So they bring what little they have and give it to the gods (and you should see what they bring in some places when they run out of sheep). Oh they may have a drink and a feast today.  But when the sun sinks, and the great darkness descends, and they remember winter has yet three months to blow, they will hope that the voices and the eyes in the darkness will leave them be.”

“Well, that’s not nice.  But why show me this?  This is millennia ago – Christmas has come!  This...fear of the darkness, this...running about trying to keep out the emptiness, it’s gone!  Christmas has come, I’ve come,” he said proudly, patting his belly, and giving a little extra jiggle bonus. 

“Oh yes, you’ve come.  But what have you done?  Even in my time, there was fear – fear of the dark, fear of the goblins and elves in the woods – “

“Hey, some of my best friends are elves!”

“Not your green confections.  These were the shadows that waited in the woods.  And Christmas came.  And we didn’t need to throw things at the darkness to keep it at bay, because it was defeated.  We didn’t hide in our man-made light to make us think there was hope, or a point, or to keep the fear at bay, because the Light had come.  We did not immerse ourselves in created things at all,” he gestured to the hubbub of ongoing bloodletting in the distance, “to give us strength, to distract us from the emptiness – because the emptiness was gone.  The Light had come and filled everything.”

“Oh I see!  I see where this is going,” Nick’s ire was rising at this snub, “You had to pull Back-to-the-Future to get in the usual cheap shot?  There are people all over the world who will wake on Christmas morning with joy, because it’s the best day of the year, because everything is light and warmth, because for twelve hours it will be OK.  Is that so bad?  Do you really begrudge them that?”

“No.  No, I don’t.”  He took a step nearer and looked him squarely in the eyes, “But is that all? Was it really the lights and the red clothes and the pretty parcels that stopped all that?” He pointed again to the wooden building in the distance.  “Is that all you can do?  Is that really all you’re for?”

“All? All?!  I bust my gut travelling the entire world in twenty four hours, and you ask is that all?!”

Nick turned in order to march off in righteous indignation.  Sadly he had not noticed how he had backed up close to the tree.  There was an almighty thwack and he reeled backwards and hit the ground hard and sat up in bed.

He was panting.  He was sweating.

It was his room and it had a ceiling across which reflections chased.  He lay back down, watching his huge belly push the blankets up and down with each heavy breath.  Gradually it slowed, which is more than could be said for his tumbling thoughts.   The time before.  That was something he had not thought much about in a long time.  In fact he did not think about it at all, not consciously.  Sometimes it was there, at the edge of his mind – but he pushed it away before it could take hold.  After all, what did it have to do with the way things are now?  As he thought this, he felt its presence far too close, like a howling dark vacuum before time began.  He was vaguely aware that in his mind he had reset the Beginning to much later than it really had been.  That was also a disturbing thought, and he pushed it away quickly, gratified to see the mound before him rising and falling more gently, more slowly, as his vital signs returned to normal.  Just in time for the clock to start striking twelve again...