17 minute read
A Holly Jolly Christmas | Levi Wood
from eunoia | Fall 2022
by PACT EUNOIA
Calm Day
Titus Santiago & Hailey Pust
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Poem
The day is short running out of time The sun is falling into the horizon The bugs are crawling not knowing their insignificance to the world The still pond was a like a mirror
It reaches for me and I see my flaws Another person I don’t even recognize A tear rolls down my cheek and drops The ripples cause my focus to shift I see the trees moving slowly as my the heart rate does the same I slip back into the present and look around and see my machines The only thing keeping me alive
That was only a memory Hopefully where I go next has many calm days
Moonlit Thieves
Claire Tessum
Poem
Under the dimmest harvest moon A man, in cloak, mask of raccoon Waits for passing clergymen To leave the dirty streets and then
The raid will soon unfold
The rich deserve the coming theft, His home's in ruins-- what is left They hide their shadows in the light Since the moon shines justice-- what is right But until the day, when balance is made, The compass of the rich will fade
And with their rivals unafraid, The wealth is hard to hold
The man is cold, but still believes To right the wrong, he still deceives. He gently blows the flames of riot So men like him will not be quiet And Robin's await their morning to sing For hope that one day the light will bring An uncloaking to behold
A Holly Jolly Christmas
Levi Wood Fiction
Maya gripped the hammer tightly, hoping she didn’t mess this up. Again. She lifted her shaking hand over the wooden creature in front of her, ready to strike.
SMACK!
Maya lifted the hammed again–still shaking from exhaustion and cold– before being relieved by the booming toll of the massive gold bells looming over the worker’s heads. She got up and went to eat.
“You okay?” Nathan asked glancing at her blue hands. “That can’t be healthy.”
“Stop your jabbering. I’m fine.”
“Seriously, you need some gloves if you want to keep your fingers. If they freeze, you know what’ll happen.”
“And where would I get some gloves? Yah’ see a supermarket around here? Maybe it’s hiding in the oatmeal!”
In response, Nathan grabbed the lowest layer of his pajama legs and tore off a narrow strip at the bottom. He wound it around her hand and repeated the process with his other pant leg and her other hand. “See? Premium fine linen gloves perfect for the coldest of days.”
“Oh. Um… thanks.” Maya smiled and rubbed her hands together. She would like to admit her hands felt a lot better but didn’t want to for whatever reason.
The throbbing humming of the fan blasting air from a massive heater behind it made it feel toastier in the kitchen than in the factory, but not by much. Maya stopped shivering and got to the enormous line that had built up. Now was the kind of time she wished she had a coat. She spotted Charles Churffly up ahead and glared at him jealously. He had a fine winter coat, as well as hiking gear. Out of everyone here, he was doing the best.
“What do you have against Charles? The poor kid has had enough.”
“And I’ve had enough of being cold all the time!”
“When did you get here again?” Nathan paused abruptly with an eyebrow raised.
“A few weeks ago, maybe a little longer. It’s hard to tell around here. Why?”
“He’s been here 37 years,” Nathan said with a grave expression. “He’s got no more family still alive anymore.”
Maya stared off into space for a second, before elbowing Nathan in the gut playfully. “Ha! You almost got me! The kid’s, like, 13.”
“You’ll quickly find you don’t age much here. It could be the cold or some hidden eldrich magic.”
“Sure. Very funny.”
“I just saying, have a smidgen of sympathy for these kids.”
“Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s get some oatmeal.”
“I think I’d rather eat wood horses.”
Three weeks ago…
“Maya! Get down here! Your concert is in 15 minutes!”
“Sorry, Mom!” Maya yelled as she slid down the stairs and out the door. She then skidded to a stop. She swung around, shot back upstairs, and snatched her saxophone before darting into the car.
Maya’s Mom quickly pulled out of their driveway onto the road.
“You need to be more prepared!’
“Yes, Ma’am— ”
“You're not even wearing the coat I picked out!”
“Sorry, Mom.”
Later…
Maya grumped a little at the prospect of going to bed. The concert had gone terribly. She had played her solo with the grace and elegance of a mutilated goose who had survived getting run over by a plane. Then her mom scolded her for not practicing enough, because of course she did.
“At least tomorrow everything will be better.”
Even Later…
Maya suddenly jumped to her feet before stumbling into a wall and falling. She caressed her head, woozy from a splitting headache. Maya glanced around the room. She was surrounded by thick steel walls. Other noises other than a sharp ear-splitting whine began to emerge. She was shaking now partially from fear and partially from the sudden blast of cold that had blanketed her—not that she wasn’t used to cold, but this was COLD. The entire cage vibrated, before violently shuddering as it hit something.
“What is–”
Light streamed through a hatch at the top, and a few inches of snow dusted the ground.
“Move out!” a grumpy voice with the tone of a drill sergeant bellowed. Maya gasped. The whole cage was full of children. They slowly got to their feet and climbed out of the cell. Maya was soon forced to follow since a short little person with a mask dropped down. They brandished a cattle prod and ordered a few people out, one by one.
When she came out, the first thing she saw—other than more little people with weapons, was a large helicopter painted a dark blue color. There was a chain linking it to the cage she had been in. then she turned away from the helicopter.
Maya gaped at the massive steel room they had landed in. “Where is this? Who built this?”
A uniformed guard—also bearing a mask, mind you—gave an order, and shoved the kids onward. They were put in a large warehouse filled with supplies. “Get working!”
Maya picked up a wooden horse’s mane. “Are these… —toys?”
“Welcome to Santa’s workshop, sweetheart,” a vile, rather stink guard remarked.
“I thought elves built the toys— ”
“They do.”
Now…
Nathan grabbed a piece of reddish-orange fabric and quickly rapid-fire stitched it onto the doll he was making. He snagged a little piece of fabric for himself the second a guard looked the other way. “Making toys. Malarkey,” he had mumbled a while back. Every Christmas it was the same story. Helicopters and airplanes and such would fly out with massive crates of toys, and return with crates full of children.
“00034!”
“Yes sir?” Nathan asked, careful to hide the piece of fabric in his pocket.
The guard smiled wickedly—not that Nathan could tell due to the mask, “You’re getting a promotion.”
“To where?”
The guard pointed to the vastly larger section of the workshop. There was a massive danger symbol painted on the wall. Other children before him had etched it into the wall.
“Ah.”
“You’re to report to the weapons lab, IMMEDIATELY!”
Nathan rushed to the crowd of “elves” that had gathered around a platform way up high.
Then some large silver doors opened with a boom, and a fat pudgy oaf in red sauntered out on top of the platform up high. He was smoking a few cigarettes and had a legion of guards around him.
“Alright, you varmints! I heard that you weren’t getting good food or coats and I was HEART BROKEN!” “Santa” yelled, holding a hand over his heart. “So— ” *Clap! Clap!* he clapped twice, signaling a group of chefs and other workers to bring in a few items.
“I have graciously decided to give you some,” he finished with a “less-than-reassuring” grin. It was almost as if he didn’t care about the children and was rather buying their loyalty, but that would be absurd.
A wheel barrel full of coats was shoved into the room, along with a heaping platter of steak, soaked in gravy—not on the coats, of course. Children rushed to grab their warm coats and their heaping platters of food before the guards pushing the stuff even backed away. Nathan followed suit as well.
“Finished?” the bloated whale asked when everyone—except Nathan— had their fill. “Good. There’s even more where that came from! Santa here cares more about you than your parents do. They didn’t even show up.” He smiled wickedly. “Finally, I want to show you something interesting I found.”
A massive crystal was lowered from the ceiling onto the floor of the factory. It glittered with light and made a constant humming noise.
“This is the North star, my little elves, look at it. Don’t you see how pretty it is?”
The now suddenly exhausted children looked at the star. Instantly the children fell into a trance— except Nathan who had the good sense not to look directly at the world’s largest hypnotizer.
“Alright! Get working! We’ve got a busy schedule today!” the oaf shouted.
Nathan snagged a piece of every bomb that came his way, cautious to hide it.
After a while of doing this the lunch bell tolled. The children paused for a moment, before shaking their heads a little confused—brought out of the trance by the bell. The children did not remember what had happened and walked to lunch bewilderedly.
Nathan left in a hurry.
He had to act quickly before “Santa” realized he had “repurposed” those bombs. The entire weapons facility was heavily monitored, but the feed wasn’t often checked, so he still had some time to—
“Ugh! this place is the worst! You’re not even making toys anymore!” Maya groaned, interrupting his thought. “At least you get to work with, I don’t know, explosives? But I’m stuck here, BUILDING STUPID PUZZLES! I was getting to the point I had started taking a few pieces out just to mess with them.”
“Uh. What?” Nathan asked with a hint of confusion, a little dazed from breaking his concentration. “You do not want to be building weapons. Believe it or not but ‘Santa’ uses a giant crystal too— ”
“*GASP* YOU HAVE A COAT?!”
Nathan mumbled a less-than-nice silly word.
“Now is not the time,” Nathan mumbled, continually slotting together pieces from his pocket.
“Where did you get it? I mean really! Of all the—wait what’s that?” Maya asked, poking at the contraption in his pocket before Nathan suddenly hid it from sight.
A guard looked toward them for a brief second before shrugging and turning away. *BRRRIIINNNGGGG!!!!*
Alarms started blaring and a stern, clearly angry voice belonging to the human barrel himself started shouting over the speakers.
“Nathan Copper stole pieces from the weapons lab, take them and bring them to me. Keep him alive. Or don’t, JUST GRAB THOSE PIECES!”
Nathan murmured an even sillier word and leaped upward. He needed to move faster. He grabbed a few pieces of string and tied a knot around a fork before he flung it upwards into one of the massive fans blowing the heated air toward the cafeteria. Time seemed to stop briefly during a sickening crunch from the fan. Then the rope got further twisted around the fan, coiling into a thick strand, forcing the fan to come to a complete stop.
“Well, wadda ya know? That wasn’t so bad—” a guard started.
BLAMO!
The fan blade exploded off and cut into the ground, making the guard who had talked no longer alive. The rope fell in a pile—mildly singed—before Nathan tried once again to throw the anchor in another fan. The rope didn’t get stuck this time, rather now getting yanked up like a child eating spaghetti. The smoke and dust had already begun to settle.
“Grab on!” Nathan yelled, clinging to the rope.
“What—” Maya began, grabbing the rope.
Then both of them shot past the fan, barely missing the blades. They landed into the vent system with a heavy thunk, causing the entire shoddy ventilation system to shudder
A loud intercom voice started yelling at the other guards to come over and help, though by the point they had arrived, the dust and smoke had settled, leaving no trace of neither Nathan nor Maya.
“Look around!” an officer yelled, waving the guards over. “They’ve got to be around here somewhere.”
Inside the vent, past the heater and the dan, Maya gasped for breath, clinging onto the metal tubing for dear life. “Nathan? What. Was. That?!”
“Oh, I just grabbed some rope— ”
“But since when do you have NINJA SKILLS?” Maya whispered, doing her best not to yell.
“I exercise. No biggie, You got to stay fit to stay alive.” Nathan replied nonchalantly as he crawled through the vents in search of the one leading to the weapons lab.
“Why are they trying to kill you again?”
Nathan held a bomb out from his pocket.
“Ah. Wait, YOU CAN BUILD BOMBS?! HOW!? WHO EVEN ARE YOU WHAT IS HAPPENING?”
“Maybe you need to take a breather.”
“Yeah, yeah I probably do.”
He was about to tuck it back in before he dropped it into one of the vents. Quick as a wink, he opened the vent and snagged the volatile object with his feet. He carefully started pulling himself up the vent but stopped when he heard a voice directly beneath him.
“What do you mean a bomb’s gone?!” the self-proclaimed Santa wanna-be yelled over a phone. “I need that for the next shipment!”
“Shipment!?” Maya asked in surprise.
“‘Santa’’s a kidnapping weapons dealer. Sells weapons for children. Now would you please quiet down so I can pick this up—” Nathan answered, trying to juggle the bomb back into his hands, as feet weren’t perfect for holding explosives, believe it or not.
“You can’t drop a bombshell like that and expect me to be QUIET— ”
“Shush or I could drop an ACTUAL bombshell!” he almost yelled, still dangling the bomb with his footsies
“Hrmph.”
“How many times do we have to go over this?” the oaf hollered—though now on another phone. “I give you toys and sell you weapons and all you have to do is let those helicopters in, got it? I don’t care if it’s unethical! Listen—buddy—if you don’t buy these, I could just sell them to Russia, Germany, or France. Take your pick they’d all sure love ‘em. Yeah. that’s what I thought. I want that two billion up front—tonight!”
“Why don’t you just drop the bomb now? Get rid of him!” Maya whispered.
“Both you, I, and everyone else would die! These are very powerful bombs!” Nathan countered. He swiftly closed the hatch and continued forward. Then he flipped the bomb back into his hands, before opening another hatch and pulling out a small peculiar speaker-shaped object. “Listen, I need you to go back to the cafeteria and place this next to the wall. Once the wall is down, start running!” he handed her his coat. “They’ll be too distracted with me to stop anyone, got it?”
“NO! You don’t get to be all heroic! You’re gonna get back home too, buster!” Maya said, shoving the coat back. “I’ll do it!”
“That wasn’t a question!” Nathan yelled as he jumped into the hatch, throwing the coat at her, and immediately disappearing out of sight.
“Grrrrrr. You play dirty, little man.” Maya mumbled to herself.
The guards had a tight perimeter around the cafeteria. The lunch was far over now, but nobody was allowed out since they had to check through the crowds.
“Name!”
“Charles, sir?” Charles answered, more than a little nervous.
“IS IT NATHAN!!!?!?!”
“...No?”
“Alrighty.” The guard agreed, now turning to the next person. “Name—OOF!”
Maya fell from the vent onto the guard, knocking him out. Charles lept back. She pointed the speaker thing at a random wall. “Red or blue button?” she shrugged and hit both. Then the entire wall was coated in lasers and instantly disintegrated. “GOOGLY MOOGLY HOW ON EARTH DO CHILDREN EVEN MAKE THESE?!” Maya exclaimed.
“Well, you see, first I think you get hypnotized into doing the thing but I remember the steps—” Charles began innocently
“I didn’t ask you, thunder thighs!” Maya yelled, now racing through the hole and into the soft powdery snow outside—the kind she used to sled on.
“Ow.”
“Sorry Charles, you could say I’m just having a bad day.”
The rest of the kids soon followed, the guards almost opening fire—which they would have—before “Santa” hollered at them to stop a certain “elf” from blowing up the entire facility. This had top priority.
Nathan tapped a few more pieces of his little contraption into place, before sticking it onto the massive jewel. The clock read 59:40, continuously counting down.
“Stop right there! You’re surrounded imp!” “Santa” hollered.
Nathan was about to fight before he realized the guards lined the edge of the factory, all pointing rather dangerous objects at him. He held up his hands in defeat.
“Santa” smiled until he got closer to Nathan. “I have to hand it to you buster. You’ve done a pretty good job. How long have you been planning this?”
“The past few hundred years.”
“I always thought you were good for something. You were the 36th— ”
“Child I grabbed. You’ve been too clumsy to put here for a long time. You planned this whole thing, didn’t you?”
“Yep. You’ve got the whole story. I have lost,” Nathan said with a smile. “Boo hoo hoo.”
“Santa” grabbed Nathan by the collar and held him up over the edge of the platform the crystal rested on. “You’ve caused me a lot of trouble. Any last words before you join the rest of your friends?”
“Yeah. That timer is way off.”
“How off— ”
Inside the explosive, an internal clock chimed, causing a small hammer to strike a little piece of reddish-orange fabric causing a slight spark.
Maya looked behind her at the low-distant factory covered in many feet of snow. From where she was it was almost impossible to tell that it had existed in the first place.
“Is Nathan going to be okay?” Maya asked no one in particular.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Charles replied with a pat on the shoulder.
Ka-BLAMO!
Then everything went white.
The factory was gone. The mountains nearby, shrouded in permafrost—gone. The hole carved into the factory by a laser thingy—gone. Nathan—gone.
Charles winced. “Oh, dear. That can’t feel great.”
Maya shouted an extra special word someone her age shouldn’t have known.
“Come on Maya, we need to get away from this wretched place before we all freeze to death,” Charles said while starting to shiver now that the heat blast had passed.
Maya took one last look at the smoldering crater.
“A holly jolly Christmas indeed,” Maya grumped before turning to Charles. “This is the worst time of the whole year.” she paused, she took a deep breath, she continued.
“Let’s go home.”
THE END.
Contributor’s Notes
Hailey Pust loves bread. Ann Ostendorf is a mom, wife, teacher, singer and dabbles in writing lyrics for songs that usually never see the light of day. Madeline Reinke’s friend made her do this. Sarah Turner hopes her pictures are better than her 8 year old fuzzy picture of a cardinal all puffed up. Maggie Taft is black. Lucia Kerkes says: Drive safe, especially when she’s on the road. Morgan Whitby is a freshman at PACT. She just submitted a watercolor for fun.
Heidi Schmitz is a 7th grader at PACT who loves to dance and is intrigued by all things ocean-related.
Christal Ruppert hopes that her stories have improved since she was a second-grader writing an unfinished mystery about a stolen report card. She still writes about school settings sometimes, since that’s where she lives – er, works – and tries to write young adult protagonists that are as creative, quirky, baffling, and real as her students. Claire Tessum has troubles with writers bl–Levi Wood is the weird guy who made that hot garbage at the beginning and the War-and-Peace-length story that forces you to slam your head into and through the table for some rest. Please don’t hurt me. Firii Yusuf was here.
Titus Santiago loves his creative writing class.
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