🎅🎄🎁
When the lights turned back on again, the interior of the tube had been decorated to resemble a Winter Wonderland.
All passengers were awestruck. Even Mitzi was surprised enough to arrest her zealous cookie munching.
The first feature that caught Sam’s eye was the red velvet now embroiled into the walls of the tube. Although festive in its own right, what it reminded her of most was of all was of a plushier version of one of those Hollywood red carpets.
There was now also a Christmas tree, that’s top had been bent out of shape due to the constricted dimensions of the tube’s roof. This fir was decorated with plastic ornaments that were certainly seasonal, but that, based on the noncommittal and artificial way they hung on this tree, seemed to be of a cheap variety.
“Can’t believe they copied Kylie Jenner and got all their Christmas decor from Target. Guess she’s more of an influencer than I realised,” thought Sam.
Just a few meters closer to Sam, along the ridges of the roof of the carriage, was a mistletoe. The dark green leaves of the arrangement were adorned with a red satin bow that reflected the warm light pouring gently from the twinkling lights set up to embellish the circumference of the tube windows.
A chill permeated the air. Fine, silvery particles floated like angels, congregating and dispersing once more with an overly ostentatious energy.
It all seemed too good to be true. Many of the passengers considered the possibility of this change having been elicited as part of a trick they play on one of those t.v. shows run on the premise of making money off of pranking people and recording their reactions.
“Can’t wait till my ex sees this on Channel 4. She’s gonna hate herself when she realises I’m famous,” whispered the second ugly sweater wearer.
“Here comes Santa Claus here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus lane…”
The interior of the tube floor began to blur and to darken, moving about in smooth spirals as water sometimes does in the sea.
It was a black hole.
From the inside of the black hole crawled elves. They sat perched up around the opening, encouraging the passengers to come closer.
None of the awestruck travellers seemed convinced by the safety of the proposition. Sam cowered to reside behind Tannon who was taking shelter on the tail end of the pram. The rest of the passengers had been blessed by the fact that the father operating the contraption allowed it to be used as a defence to separate the passengers from their presumed extinction.
This was no use. Little by little, the ill-fated voyagers began to be sucked in.
“Mommaaa!!” yelled Jasper from the carriage, who was still better off than his sister, who could do nothing but flail her miniature arms sporadically about.
But even the children were less dramatic than Mitzi, who, upon comprehending what was currently taking place, let out a sound that could have convinced anyone that she was nearing the doors of death:
“AHHhhhHHHhhhHHH!!”
“This is bad,” Sam concluded, clutching her novel ever tighter into the front pocket of the orange corduroy material of her vest.
A force was exerting energy from the opening, causing the passengers to lurch forcefully towards the opening. It was as if they were an army of tin soldiers being sucked along with a stream of murky water into the opening of a drain.
The people in the tube were being drawn imperceptibly into the abyss one limb at a time. From the perspective of the passengers this felt as if they were having their bodies become abstracted in the way all objects do when observed from the inside of the plexiglass of a speeding car.
The babies in the carriages were first to go. They disappeared one teensy part at a time and their heads were the metaphorical cherries on the tops of the sundaes.
The elves sat around the pit were racked with evil laughter as they observed the passengers squirm with endeavoured avoidance.
Then Sam started to go too. There was no point in resisting. Besides, this was perhaps the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. Maybe she’d have something to write her own book about after all.
“It’s a Christmas miracle,” she thought.
🎅🎄🎁
Once on the other side, the passengers found themselves whole again, sitting in rows on a sleigh pulled by reindeers: there were three pairs of these horned beasts connected to ropes tied in front of the sled. Each set of antlers was to exert equal amounts of effort in order to keep the passengers in the air.
They flew above London. Above the snow-covered roofs and decorated houses, above the smoke ascending upwards from the synthetic chimneys. Above the families sat around fires. Above the laughter and the Christmas spirit.
It was a shame that none of the passengers had their eyes open. They were in a coma and may have even been presumed dead were it not for the way in which their muscles twitched with ephemeral motions from time to time.
The sleigh hastened on and the reindeer galloped deeper into the unknown.
“Here comes Santa Claus here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus lane…”
Up in the sky beside the former tube-goers was a dark shape. He flew on a sleigh just like the one the passengers were currently seated atop. The man driving the vehicle was big, fat, evil and jolly. Sat on the bench behind him on his sleigh was a woman. She was also wearing a tar-tipped version of a Christmas uniform and her long braids were trailing out far behind her. The sleigh upon which these were sat was nearly indistinguishable to the one currently pulling the passengers along.
Just as suddenly as the black hole that had come about on the inside of the tube, a white hole now constructed itself out of thin air in the sky. This time, however, instead of being a black void, the opening was a speckle of light energy.
The mob of passengers were yanked through the opening like a needle through an open hole.
🎅🎄🎁
“Ouch, where the hell’re we?” asked Sam as soon as she woke. She was on the floor of the underground of a different city. Instead of the blue hints that had been a major feature of the Piccadilly line, the hints on this train were orange. The air here was also much murkier and more oppressive than it had been on the tube in London.
“Here comes Santa Claus here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus lane…”
Then appeared the orchestrator. He had a beard and was dressed in a traditional suit of red and white. He was even carrying a sack full of presents. The last accessory was probably held by him purely for the sake of effect, but made it no less fitting to the circumstances and to the rest of his attire.
“Hullo and welcome to my temporary den,” said Santa Claus, “I am sorry I have not yet managed to decorate in here so this appears to be just a normal New York City Metro,” he apologised.
Sam was crestfallen.
“Do ya want some gingerbreeed?” asked Mitzi, who had managed to stay drunk even after being unconscious.
“No thank you my dear Mitzi, I am quite full at the moment,” replied Santa, clearing his throat upon noticing her staggering gait.
“I have actually gathered you here today to ask for a personal favour,” he announced, “I wish more than anything to request something important of you,” he said in a sad voice.
It was now that Santa seemed to hesitate ever so slightly. His forehead wrinkled as every last one of the tissues in his faced tensed. When he finally spoke again, his voice was veiled with shame.
“You may consider what I will ask of you to be unexpected, but it is quite important. What I will request of you is to momentarily concentrate your thoughts on the loved ones who you were all travelling to meet this Christmas. For you see, I am trying to get back my dear wife, who has been captured by the evil version of the Christmas spirit I accidentally conjured up in a bout of anger following the news of Trump’s impeachment. I have done my research into the old books explaining these conjurings and have discovered that I may be able to reverse his evil powers and to get her back with the power of love. I would have asked my elves to help me with this, but every one of the old books I have consulted claim that the love I harvest must be of the human variety,” explained Santa.
“I thought you brought them here for market research?” wondered the Elf sat next to him.
“Shut you mouth Tom,” said another Elf seated behind the first who had spoken.
“Fuck you, I just wanna get off this fucking tube!” protested Mitzi, who didn’t really seem to understand what was going on or the fact that they were no longer on the Piccadilly line.
“Ok, the way we’ll do this is by each of you doing what I’ve just asked of you while seated in the chairs and hooked up to a set of electrodes. We have constructed this system especially to allow us to draw from you the emotional energy that arise in you when you imagine yourselves to be in the company of your beloved,” said Santa.
The mother of the boy wearing the Santa hat was for a moment pensive. She was weirded out by the situation, but had in her relationship therapist practice consulted with Santa-like men many a time before. Santa was one of the most common types to appear in her office: a possessive and toxic partner who has become dangerously attached to an ex-lover.
“Have you considered the possibility that maybe the evil spirit hasn’t done anything wrong? Could it be that maybe your wife just wants to be with him instead of with you?” she inquired.
This was enough to stop Santa in his tracks. He dropped the sack of presents. The mass came down with a ‘Clonk’, bruising the slippery wood of the floor.
“I haven’t considered that,” replied Santa Claus with his lower lip trembling so that the whole rest of his beard shook as well, “I guess it wasn’t really going all that well between us towards the end before I accidentally conjured that spirit. She was always at her book clubs and what not and…well the intimate part of things had sort of diminished to a null if you catch my drift,” he admitted.
The assemblage of elves seated around Santa Claus glanced directly at each other while simultaneously trying their best to avert their gaze. Their behaviour was the international hallmark of guilt.
“Uhhh, actually, Mr. Claus, I must admit that we have been keeping something from you,” said Tom, grappling for his tiny smartphone from his elf pocket. He used his slim fingers to point at the screen and to open Instagram and to search up ‘YaGirlMrsClausXXX’.
When he had finished, on his screen was displayed a photo of the former Mrs. Christmas, kanoodling with an exact replica of Santa Claus, who differed only in that he was wearing a pitch black Santa suit instead of a red one.
“See, we would have told you about this before, but you refused to give us justification for why you wanted to conduct this process of abduction, so we all just assumed you were going along with the plan we discussed at our last grand Christmas meeting,” Tom remarked.
Santa scrunched his face so that his beard and cheeks drew upwards. The corners of his mouth turned downwards so that the ends of his lips nearly reached his jawline. Soon he could take it no longer and was bawling his eyes out.
“I just feel like it’s so damn unfair that I’m out here working my ass off to make everyone else so joyful while I’m so sad on the inside,” complained Father Christmas.
“Life’s unfair,” answered Sam from the midst of the stupefied ground, “But I don’t think that using some sort of magic to bring to you someone who doesn’t feel the same about you will make you feel any better,” she added.
“I want revenge,” said Santa Claus.
“Need alone is not enough to set power free: there must be knowledge,” whispered Sam.
This had been all too philosophical and emotionally rousing for the elves, who wanted nothing more than to get back to their gift making business.
The second elf who had been seated next to Tom turned his head from side to side. He was waiting for the right time. This particular elf was known as Kevin. It is probably important to mention that Kevin was secretly working for Evil Santa.
Kevin was holding a tiny remote receiver in his palm. In moments, he pressed the button, alerting backup. The ‘ELF gang’ as they were officially known, snook up behind each of the passengers who had now huddled into a mass at the centre of the carriage. Hidden in each of their tiny Elf pockets were tiny foldable candy cane batons. Getting hit by one of these hurt more maliciously than would have been expected from such a device. One by one, every last one of the passengers was whacked in the head.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing,” asked Santa as soon as he witnessed his unconscious captives being dragged along by the elves.
“Sir, we are adamant to continue our plan of conducting our market research. We sympathise with you and understand that you must be going through quite a lot in this emotionally turbulent time, but as they say, the show must go on,” explained Kevin, who Santa now understood to be the covert leader of the rebellion.
Outside they noticed the same dark figure speeding along. He pulled up near the window and gave them a wink.
“We got em good,” reported Kevin while flashing a thumbs up to the figure on the outside of the vehicle.
Tom the elf then crawled up behind the Santa sat in the carriage, clonking him over the head with the thickest candy cane of them all.
🎅🎄🎁
WAST WRTNG 