The Saint’s Clause // Chana Fisher

The Saint’s Clause

//Chana Fisher

Standing in a light green building in a dark grey suit, Tom, our protagonist, appears in a hunched position examining his coffee. The great debate of the morning had begun: sugar or no sugar. Please the doctor, or please his own semi-irrational thoughts. The innate desire for the packet of white specks seized Tom to put the sugar into his coffee. Tom sighs, slumps to his desk, and begins his job. Next to Tom sits Jerry and next to Jerry sits Gary and next to Gary sits Owen. For Mr. Owen Wilble, life is the color blue; Mr. Owen Wilble travels the skies and seas building fortresses that loom high to the top of his computer screen.

But for our friend Tom, there are no hidden castles with hidden mysteries. For our friend Tom, one may argue, life is grey. Now grey is not a disinteresting, non-controversial color; in fact, there are great debates about the spelling of the color. The debates, however, may be passionate for a few seconds before the desire to return to mundane events creeps into the minds of the debaters: this is the life of Tom.

When Tom finishes his work, he takes his computer, lightly places the laptop into his bag, grabs the top of his satchel, and begins to leave for the weekend. The right foot trots before the left foot and left foot trots before the right foot. Tom begins to whistle as he examines the cracks on the sidewalk. Too bad, Tom thinks, a person was here one day and may or may not have been passionate about fixing the pavement. The person left one day, and the pavement stood to be walked on without people remembering either the people who produced the cracks, or the people who produced the pavement. Maybe we will remember the owner of the pavement company, but we will not remember the crack producers because we can not remember what we can not see.

As Tom contemplated the cracks on the sidewalk, a small man, who Tom could not see, stepped directly on Tom’s right toe. A slight aching pain began to creep up Tom’s leg. Tom stops his contemplation and begins to acknowledge the pain that has risen to his head. Tom glances at the small man with a large frown on his face. “Yo, watch where you're going,” the angry little man shouts.

A confused Tom dismissively states, “Um, sir, you are the one that stepped on my toe, but I do apologize for not paying attention to you. I hope that you may forgive me eventually.” Tom then begins to walk away towards his shabby apartment. The small man follows Tom to his shabby apartment. At first, Tom, who is whistling down the block contemplating the soup that he will eat for dinner, does not notice the short stubby man follow Tom's feet step for step. Tom does not notice the man until he feels a short, stubby finger sear directly into the back of his jacket. Tom turns around with a slight angst written on his face and sees a short, stubby man with a short stubby finger pointed in the direction of Tom’s face.

“Yo, dude, I am instructed to bring you back to the pole.” In response to the absurd statement, Tom scratches his head and begins to move his legs back and forth at a quick pace. When Tom reaches his apartment, he struggles to grab his key from his pocket, turn the knob of his door, and lock himself in his bathroom. Tom knew the event that was about to occur: when Tom was ten he had a dream that travelled to the North Pole.

In Tom’s life, his dreams did not come true: Tom dreamed of being an astrophysicist, of having a loving wife, of playing with a cute, curly brown dog. Tom once pet a cute curly white dog, but left the encounter with a bruised, bloodied hand, and a new mild disdain for pets. Tom, therefore, was scared of the idea of having a dream become reality: Tom was scared to live in a world of exploring his desires. Tom, therefore, sat on the floor of his bathroom, and began to pray. Tom began to pray for a heat wave to cause the man to dehydrate, stop to buy water, and magically melt during the process of drinking his water. Tom began to pray for the normalcy of his mundane life to reoccur. Tom’s neighbor, Shurly, would have said that Tom praying is a funny sight because Tom is indifferent to God; maybe that’s why Tom’s prayers did not come true.

As Tom sat mumbling in gibberations to the powers that may or may not be, a knock resounded on his bathroom door. “Yo, dude, uh you left your front door wide open, that’s probably not so safe, so I closed the door and we really have to leave,” said the short, angry man. Tom fainted.

Tom awoke in a large room with great heat. Tom was confused. He assumed that he accidentally turned on his thermostat instead of his air conditioner. As Tom began to stand up, he realized that he was not his home, rather he was in a narrow room with large black stripes that appeared to be pillars blocking his path. Tom scratched his head, yawned, and placed his hands in the solid black pillars. “Hello, is anyone there?” Tom called with mild curiosity.

“Fuck, dude, you scared me, I thought you would sleep for like another 30 mintues or so, uh man, I was trying to get a solid nap in before I have to go back to work, shit.”

“Uh, my dearest apologies, I mean, I am really sorry. I hate to have naps interrupted, but why is it so warm, I thought the North Pole was supposed to be cold, uh, very cold, sir.”

“Okay, first, what is up with the sir? What is this, like the year 14000 hundred or something? And no, the North Pole is hot. Like super hot. Like Louisiana in the summer heat, and let me tell you Mardi Gras is in the winter for a reason.” The little man shrugged himself off his tall chair, plopped on the floor, and opened the door. “You know, you're really not good at locks and shit because the door was open. Follow me.”

The two men walked through the extreme heat of the room to an even more overbearing amount of heat outside. The pavement was blue, the trees were pink, and the sky was purple, but the heat was red. A flaming heat that seared the eyes of Tom and prevented him from seeing the pretty colors that surrounded his exterior. Tom could not view the beauty of the colors, but he could see the short men and women that trotted up and down the path to and from the different workshops and factories. Tom could only describe the men and women in one manner: angry. An anger as silent and overbearing as the heat gleaned off the faces of the people.

“Uh, sir, not sir, why are these little people so angry, is it the heat?”

“No, you get used to the heat after a while. The people are angry at the clause.”

“Why would anyone be angry at Santa Claus?” The little man raised his eyebrow in a humorous manner.

“Santa Clause is not a fucking person. Santa Clause is the Clause that we live by. We all own the factories, we all own the stores, and we all do work. We all produce the toyssome toys we keep, some toys we sell, but the money goes back into the circle, and it makes us all angry. It makes the place hot. You can leave- but we are stuck, stuck by the fucking clause that we did not make. You know, dreams are funny. I can dream, and I can have passions, but the outcome is the same. We all have the same outcomes, the same slightly different lives because of the clause.”

“You know I live by a clause too, the Constitution.”

“Dude, your clause is not our clause. We are the saints, our lives for others, for the whole, not for ourselves. You chose to be indifferent, but by being saints we don’t have a choice but to serve the people after we're gone in this absurd place. You need to go back home, and live your life for yourself, just you. Don’t be fucking indifferent because you have choices and you need to start making your dreams passionate realities.”

Tom woke up freezing on his bathroom floor.