Saturday, December 26, 2020

ERIN CHRISTMAS

 Erin Christmas

by

Charles Mitchell Turner



     The oppressive midsummer sun spread a stifling mantle above the divided land. Inside the city walls hummed a smug citizenry, like a throng of fat bees. Outside were the drones, struggling with heartbreak and starvation. Of these, an old man foraging for food came up with a few grubs and a questionable root that had a pungent odor. So absorbed and light-headed became he, the oldster absently wandered too near a checkpoint, coming on, head down, rheumy eyes barely open, the ravages of time hounds at his heels. 

     He had no business out on his own. Going by appearance, he might carry plague; one could not know. And so, the fearful young soldier attacked to drive him away. 

     The dotard had no idea of the blows he received, in fact already lay on the ground before becoming aware the gargantuan youth in gray fatigues and heavy boots came at him more. His mind relayed pain in a detached, unemotional way. It is probable he would have been beaten to death but for the staying hand of an older, less murderous fellow in a captain’s uniform. The two troops moved behind the gate, allowing him to crawl away. He pulled himself off the hot asphalt, losing consciousness in the bush, nearly smothered in his own mucus.


     One eye opened to the lower east side jungle. He was on a mat of decayed cardboard, with a chunk of foam rubber under his head. The closed eye felt grossly swollen. A filthy rag testified to the cleansing effort made to his wounds.

     He sought a point of familiarity, perhaps some landmark he knew, but the hurting kept him from lifting his head. He could not see so far anyway. He relaxed on the makeshift bed, drifting out of consciousness.

     After an indeterminate time, he roused to feel himself being raised and spoons full of warm broth pushed through his lips. The one eyelid laboriously lifted, revealing the blurred vision of a woman with a red growth about her mouth and glassy white eyes. Her witch’s tangle of long brittle hair rivaled his own matted, mossy growth, white hair with a beard hiding his craggy face. He grunted appreciatively, greedily swallowing the watery soup.

     For her part the crone was silent, her nut-brown face a solemn mask. She slid the last of the flavorless liquid down his throat and eased his head back on the pillow. She carried the utensils off to clean them, using what medium G/d only knew. She put them in a sack by a pile of seemingly worthless belongings. The old man mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

     Again he drifted away in sleep.

     A commotion deeper in the hobo jungle awakened him. It was a whole day later and he felt somewhat better, although he found himself unable to walk. The woman was gone, apparently foraging, the one vocation left to the poor outside the city walls. He propped his aching bones against a tree, straining his ears to learn why a group of inhabitants was being so noisy. To his gaze, they were like a body of dark liquid. A drop squeezed from the whole, a small figure swinging its limbs in great anger. The being came into somewhat of a focus, bending before him.

     “There you are,” it said. “Why did you not come back?”

     “I could not,” he began. “Walk,” he concluded after a bit.

     He knew his beloved Pumpkinpulp.

     “Problem? Over there?”

     “Ah, not really. The big one called me ’dwarf.’ The drunk said, ’No; he’s a midget.’ Sassyfrassin’ junedunkers.”

      “That was it, the whole of it?”

     The elf had not the heart to inform him that he was the problem.

     “Get that old bones away from here. He snores something fierce and he stinks.”

     And, while it is true everyone in the jungle was dirty, he did have a particular stench that made even Pumpkinpulp blanch.

     “Move him or we will,” a manlike woman had threatened.

     “I will move him,” the diminutive one responded angrily. “You bunch a simians. That man is a saint.”

     “An unwashed saint.”

     “A rotten saint.”

     Now, the small one, regarding him with hands on hips, smiling sardonically, had to agree with them. Such a stink! Perhaps when the nearly divine dies the decomposition is accelerated because the fading one has experienced life to the nth degree and so would taste death in equal intensity. 

     “Let’s have a look at you,” the small one said dubiously.

     The clothing pulled away revealed that a leg tended to gangrene.

     “Ouch. A long, unrelenting ache.”

     In one ear was blood.

     “Have you tried standing?”

     “Yes. It’s hopeless.”

     “I want to move you.”

     “A travois. I saw a donkey -”

     “Before or after your head got kicked?”

     “I think I imagined it.”

     “Those junedunkers spoke of the woman who brought you here. Cursed her for a she-dog and more. I saw her corpse where they dropped it. She had a donkey, all right. They robbed it and her food.”

     Pumpkinpulp took the filthy rag and wiped the old one’s nose. 

     The old one said, “At one time I could have summoned a hundred elves, a thousand, even.”

     The helpless one sneezed, prompting the elf to grimly employ the rag again. As he did so, he remarked he would return in a bit; he had some bargaining to do with the big man running the miscellany of cutthroats over there.

     “Perhaps that fellow might be persuaded to move you if I pay with one of my best knives.”

* * *

     The Richcity streets were quiet in the low afternoon. Erin, the adventurer, strode with a swagger down a residential one, with a thought to seek out a friendly countenance and use the wearer of the face to insinuate himself into the population. He knew he could make a wonderful soldier or anything else he set his mind to, given the chance. So sure was he of his charm and spunk, he had not a doubt it would transpire.

     He wore a cheery grin as he rounded a corner and spied a rosy maid cuddling a kitten, looking down over a patio rail. Did he detect a returned smile? Vainglorious, he strutted before her, grinning broadly at the comely features that could do so much for him.

     “I am Erin,” he proclaimed. “May I chat with you?”

     The fair damsel motioned him near, becoming dryly sober.

     “You are an outcast,” she stated. “What good are you to me?”

     “I am resourceful, intelligent, strapping, an insatiable lover …”

     The maiden flushed. She spoke out to her father in the recess near the door.

     “He is near enough,” spoke the lure.

     A bearded man, with cruel gray eyes, came from the shadow, training a long barrel at him. The maid had, fortunately, alerted him a half-second too soon. He eluded the rapid-fire potshots, traipsing between rows of apartment dwellings and regaining his path to the outside world. 

     He scaled a twisted oak tree, dove over the parapet into the jungle of growth, jumping from the matted foliage to the moist earth below. The brash adventurer jogged deep into a nearby hobo jungle, threading between lean-tos and debris from fallen buildings, followed by suspicious eyes. He ducked under the low branches of a great willow tree, hiding in its hanging leaves, laughing over the ease with which he had avoided paying a penalty for being caught inside a Richcity’s walls. He might have lingered indefinitely but for a commotion at a cluster of rusted metal shelters. He stepped out to witness the antics of a tiny fellow being chased by a man of brawn.

     The hulking one grabbed the smaller foe, attempting to wrest an object from his grip. The tiny one’s hands were incredibly strong. He wrested it free, plunging what proved to be a knife into the greater one’s flesh. The big man shot a piston-like blow to the elf’s jaw, sending him crashing into a pile of rubbish. Pumpkinpulp rebounded, weapon at the ready. 

     The wounded man staggered away; the dirk not worthy of his life.

     “Keep it, you insect,” he shouted.

     The elf made a face over the insult but sheathed the blade.

     “Show’s over,” he said to the young man by the willow, standing motionless, dappled by leaves and sun.

     Erin turned to go, the breadth of his shoulders and the swell of his arms apparent.

     “Wait up,” the elf said. “I would pay you to assist me.”

     Erin paused.

     “Pay? With what?”

     “How about this knife?”

     “You don’t need it?”

     “I have several. How about it?”

     The young one had been sidling up as they spoke. Wily Pumpkinpulp edged away, prepared to fight as often as necessary to protect his property.

     “I am not one for labor,” Erin admitted. “I am an adventurer.”

     “So you’re a thief,” the exasperated elf said. “Look, I have an injured comrade to move. He is mostly skeleton, but it is a matter of miles. Help me and the blade is yours.”

     Erin compared his own poor knife, dull, nicked, point broken off and stuck out his hand.

     “Let me look,” he said.

     The small one pointed.

     “The old one is propped against the tree, yonder.”

     “At the knife.”

     The elf held it up, comfortably out of reach. It was a work of beauty, of the finest, sharpest steel.

     “Such a handle. No way it is slipping.”

     “Friend -”

     “Don’t call me that.”

     “- I will do it. But, if he is diseased, that knife will be the death of you.”

     “Don’t worry. Gather stuff to make a gurney. If you could scrounge a set of wheels, even better.”

     Erin went off to find the items, fretting that the mission seemed too much like actual work.

     The ancient elf discovered that the old man had weakened in the past hour, his ravaged body slumped against the rough bark, eyes closed, no detectable movement. Feeling no breath on the back of his hand, the hob raised with his thumb the one working eyelid.

     “Shut it. I am resting.”

     “I am almost ready to move you.”

     “Too late. I am already dying.”

     “My friend -”

     “Help me to lie down. It is all I need.”

     * * *

     The small one sat atop a pile of the old woman’s rubble, looking steadily at the old man. Soon the vigil would end. A montage of their years together ran through his mind, of when the dying friend had been an unknown beardless whelp, all the way to the height of his career when the entire world would break off the fighting in the spirit of perfect peace one whole day each year. They had been a team, although he got the glitter, Pumpkinpulp the grit. No, it was not fair to characterize it like that. Each deserved full credit. But, all things in the universe turn. New becomes old and gets pushed aside. Together this man and the human will to prevail became weak. The powerful built the heartless cities, the masses became hobos. Pity humankind- -the inglorious, reeking bag of bones, the spark feeding the world, must expire. Now, total famine.

     Eric came, towing a cart borrowed from an unattended habitation. He swore he would return it. He wheeled it over to the bed of rotten cardboard, prepared to lift the vile carcass onto the platform.

     “Ah, forget it,” the elf said. “He won’t be moving at all. However, I feel I owe you the knife. So, here it is.”

     Erin greedily snatched the dirk, holding it up to admire it.

     “Man without knife- -not good,” he grunted.

     Pumpkinpulp had dismissed the adventurer from his thought, redirecting his attention to the old one. When Erin persisted in hanging close out of curiosity, the elf snarled at him.

     “Begone, junedunker.”

     “Sorry. I just felt, somehow, involved. Guess I should be on my way.”

     “That would be the gist of it,” the small one agreed. “This great saint from the past, whose sphere has shrunk to a miserable pallet, should pass peacefully, without the idly curious standing around.”

     Erin sheathed the precious dagger, pitching the old blade onto the rubbish heap.

     “Good-bye, then. Sorry about his dying, sir.”

     The ancient one croaked a string of unintelligible words.

     “What did he say?” Erin wondered.

     The next spate they understood.

     “Come here, young man.”

     He looked to Pumpkinpulp for direction. The elf was noncommittal.

     “Come- -here.”

     Erin knelt, putting his ear near the old one’s mouth.

     “Your name?”

     “Erin, sir. I’m an adventurer.”

     “Would you like to hear a story, Erin?”

     “Very much, sir.”

     The one open eye had glazed, becoming sightless. 

     Striving to not be sickened by the smell, the young man attended attentively.

     “There was one like you,” the old one said in a weak whisper. “Pugnacious, saucy, quick-witted, strong. No goals, no ties to anything.”

     Pumpkinpulp had moved in very close, his raggedy hat off, twisting it in his hands. Tears ran unrestrainedly down his cheeks.

     The old one continued.

     “He came to me over twenty-five hundred years ago, the first of his ilk. Nothing special, in the scheme of things, one would surmise. But, one would then be wrong.”

     The eye closed. There ensued half a snore. The tale-teller awoke to resume the narrative.

     “Have you heard of Christmas, Father Christmas? The young man came to me, as I say. He heard and understood and because he assented the world became a better place. It did not descend to become the dismal sewer it is today until a few hundred years ago, when I was struck by an astral fever, weakening the universal will to peace. I recognize in you the same properties that can again save the festering masses from themselves. If you could do it; save the world, make it flower, would you?”

     “I suppose I would. I don’t really understand where you are going with this.”

     “Touch my soul if you want to save Christmas.”

     “How do I do that?”

     “I think you know.”

     “I don’t. I …”

     He took one of the skeletal hands in his own in a caressing move, becoming instantly electrified. He felt the power draining out of his soul and then his body, all in an instant, folding in upon himself, becoming a heap of dross. The recipient sat up, vibrant and youthful. He looked to the elf.

     “As I was the day we met, so I am this day. A new age for humankind has already begun to germinate in most every heart and soul.”

     Pumpkinpulp must grouse.

     “Why didn’t you tell me to bring a youth? Save me the turmoil?”

     “Because, dear friend, Erin as the one and only had to find me, not I him. As I have no last name to call him, in the lexicon he shall be known henceforth as Erin Christmas.”

     “We are to revive the shop, then? The elves will come if you say it.”

     “Yes. Think you could find me some reindeer?”  

       

     

     

     

     

          

     

     

     

     

      

      

              

       

            


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