One of my weirder pieces, written for and sold to the late lamented Pulphouse for a Christmas issue that never appeared.





The first surprise was the letterhead, which looked far too official for any self-respecting toy company. They all went into the shredder, anyway: it was difficult enough keeping up with his mail without having to read that sort of crap, especially with deliveries to the North Pole taking as long as they did. He sighed, and reached for his bifocals. 'Commission for Moral Hygiene.' Hmm. Probably complaining about excessive brandy in the Christmas pudding, he thought, as though that was his fault: he never touched anything stronger than beer.

A minute later, he stubbed out his cigar in his coffee-cup, feeling his skin creep like a glacier.

Dear Mr Claus

It has come to our attention that you employ a large number of elves in your organisation. According to our most recent information, the vast majority of these elves are unmarried men, and we have received complaints from concerned parents that this creates an unhealthy image in the minds of impressionable young children, especially as the words 'elves' and 'fairies' are used interchangeably by many people.

You will surely agree that we cannot allow the taint of suspected homosexuality to sully the image of Christmas. Therefore, we request that you provide us with a list of all elves in your employ who are unmarried males, for our further investigation. We hope that it will not be necessary to withdraw our patronage for your organisation.

Yours faithfully,

Pat Rearkle
Secretary

He sighed, and then reached for the phone. "Freedle?"

"No, boss. Freedle's sweeping out the stable today. It's Gronk."

Santa grunted. "Okay. You read this letter from the Commission?"

"Uh... I may've glanced at it."

"Okay. Organise a meeting for" he glanced at his watch, "seven. I want everyone there. This could be trouble."



"Who is this Commission for Moral Hygiene, anyway?" asked Twizz.

"It's a collection of special interest groups that occasionally clubs together to increase their nuisance value," replied Freedle. "The leftovers from the Moral Majority, the Coalition for Better Television, the Mothers for a Decent America, the National Rifle Association... Fringe groups, all of them, but they do have some war surplus Patriot missiles, and plenty of deer rifles." All the reindeer shuddered, especially Rudolf. "Besides, they can picket shops and schools, blacklist TV stations, pull books out of libraries..."

Santa nodded. "A few million postcards to their congressmen, and I'll have to stop at the border and fill out a customs declaration every year. It's hard enough doing everything in one night as it is, even with the time twister. Not to mention what'll happen if some officious bastard wants to unwrap all the parcels... We can't afford to ignore this one."

"Haven't we had problems with this Rearkle before?" asked Bibbety.

"Yes, when it occurred to him that my name was an anagram
of 'Satan.’ I sent him a recording of one of his sermons played backwards at half-speed: if you listen carefully, you can hear him say he wants to lick peanut butter off of Sinead O'Connor. That was the last I heard of the matter."

"You don't think it'll work again?"

"No, he's probably gotten it out of his system by now. Anyone else have any ideas?"

There was a long silence before Snork suggested, "There's the Tooth Fairy. She's single."

Freedle laughed. "She's also a dyke."

"She is?"

"Sure. How do you think she uses so many dental dams? Besides, she's only six inches tall: her palace just about comes up to my chin. You want us to put you through the shrinkotron?" (He was joking, of course: the only things that couldn't be shrunk to fit into Santa's sack were lifeforms and batteries, neither of which were commonly found under Christmas trees).

"And even if she did agree, and they did fall for it," said Gronk, "what about the other three hundred and sixty four of us? How many women would want to marry a metre-tall immortal who lives in a high-rise igloo?"

There was a depressed muttering, and much shaking of heads. Fritz put his hand up, and said, "Could we appease them? Give out lots of AK-47s, or -"

"Hell, no!" Santa shouted, turning as red as his suit. "It's bad enough having parents wrapping up war toys and pretending they come from us without us getting into the act."

"What about the new, censored Bible?" suggested Snork, stammering slightly (he was the firm's librarian and rarely spoke audibly). "The one where they call Mary 'the good girl', because kids aren't supposed to know what a virgin is?"

Santa shook his head. He remembered Mary well: it wasn't every virgin who asked for a baby for Christmas. He'd been happy to oblige her at the time, but after all the fuss it had caused, he'd resolved never to risk it again. Well, not for another two thousand years, at least.

He looked around the room sadly. None of the elves had ever wondered where they'd come from - not after seeing the stork bringing in the new arrivals, anyway - but he knew, and the irony was that Rearkle was partly right. All of them had been human men who'd loved children, but never had any of their own - some gay, some priests who'd taken their vows of chastity seriously, a few castrati. Gronk had been Joseph Merrick, better known as the Elephant Man. Snork had been the Reverend Charles Dodgson. Twizz had been Richard Plantagenet. Fritz had been a young SS officer executed for refusing to kill children, even if they were Jewish.

Santa stared at the letter, then screwed it up and threw it into the recyler. "I wonder if the Pope ever has days like this," he muttered. "The Hell with it. Let's just call their bluff and see who the world would rather have. Let's get back to work." He watched the elves bounce out, followed closely by the reindeer. He walked to the chimney and slid back to his office. To his surprise, Gronk was already waiting near his desk, a cold beer at the ready.

"Off the record, boss," he said, "can we just tough this one out? He seems awfully determined."

"This too shall pass," said Santa. "Rearkle will find another cause, or get arrested for fraud, or both, and we'll survive. We always have before. I survived being investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, didn't I?" He gulped down the beer. "Was there any more mail?"

"Just a bill from the Coca-Cola company," said Gronk. "We owe them royalties for the costume."

Santa sighed. "Whatever happened to charity? Okay, take it out of petty cash."

First published in Twenty3: A Miscellany.