...part 3

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! When do the dancing puddings come on?”


The first man and 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 where the priests had been concealing  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 back through the crowd to the fringe of the woods.  His Guide followed looking at the ground, his expression unreadable.  In the safety of the tree, Nick turned on him.

“You are supposed to be the ghost – OK not-ghost,” he corrected himself as  he saw the Guide’s expression, “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?  Have you hidden it?  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 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 Ttolerance with the trauma of the bloody 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 minority alternative religion.  They looked like that because they are desperate – for victory, for the snow to recede, for good harvests, for the evil that lurks in the woods  to be held back, for the dead to leave them alone.  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 mist 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, because it was defeated.  We didn’t hide in our man-made light to make us think there was hope,  because the Light had come.  We did not build walls of material goods to keep out the voices and the eyes in the mist. 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 they will have nice stuff, 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.