Last year
We talked a long time. I thought the creature’s voice would be grating and scary, but his tone was soothing, his words all comfort and rationale. He explained everything; Santa, his lists, the naughty and the nice… He told me the difference between the punished and the free.
“The unrepentant,” the little troll said, “are everywhere. One of them lives right here.”
He handed me a piece of paper, customer order 070146. For a second I wondered how he got it, but then I realized I was talking to a two-foot tall elf dressed in black with the yellow eyes of a predatory and I stopped wondering about the trivial.
I had in my hand the address of the man who’d slain my wife. He’d been punished, yes. The police had found him before the blood dried on his bumper. But he wasn’t sorry, not the way he should’ve been.
“The naughty one takes his little boy to sit on Santa’s lap,” he said. “Santa doesn’t like that.”
“I don’t either,” I said. “It’s not right.”
“Perhaps we can remedy that injustice?”
He held a tiny hat in his small hand. His fingers, more like claws tipped with talons the color of rotting teeth, waved the pointed hat at me, gesturing, offering, ordering me to take it. I snatched that hat. The felt was thick and rough under my fingers.
“Put it on.”
“It won’t fit.”
“Believe,” he said, “and it will.”
“The unrepentant,” the little troll said, “are everywhere. One of them lives right here.”
He handed me a piece of paper, customer order 070146. For a second I wondered how he got it, but then I realized I was talking to a two-foot tall elf dressed in black with the yellow eyes of a predatory and I stopped wondering about the trivial.
I had in my hand the address of the man who’d slain my wife. He’d been punished, yes. The police had found him before the blood dried on his bumper. But he wasn’t sorry, not the way he should’ve been.
“The naughty one takes his little boy to sit on Santa’s lap,” he said. “Santa doesn’t like that.”
“I don’t either,” I said. “It’s not right.”
“Perhaps we can remedy that injustice?”
He held a tiny hat in his small hand. His fingers, more like claws tipped with talons the color of rotting teeth, waved the pointed hat at me, gesturing, offering, ordering me to take it. I snatched that hat. The felt was thick and rough under my fingers.
“Put it on.”
“It won’t fit.”
“Believe,” he said, “and it will.”
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