The Grim Reaper's Christmas, by Jaclyn Dolamore
“I’m asking for a new guitar,” Stan said. “How about you, Leslie?”
Leslie rolled her eyes. “Stan, you always ask for a new guitar. How many guitars do you have? Anyway, my Christmas wish is that that girl who won Arestin Idol this year would just crawl back into whatever hole she came from.”
“You’re right. That’s more important than anything. Feeding the poor, whatever. Dictating the career decisions of an admittedly untalented stranger? You are a generous soul.”
Leslie nodded. Stan could be sarcastic all day, but she would do the world a favor if her wish came true. She glanced at Anubis. “And what are you asking for, Nubie?”
Anubis shrugged. “It’s just as silly, but…I want a day off.”
“A day off?”
“A day where nobody dies.” It wasn’t that Anubis didn’t appreciate the circle of life. But when somebody died on Arestin, they went through him. He sensed the passage of each and every one, like a flicker in his soul. He appreciated his important job, but he hated that people had to die on Christmas.
The line moved forward to Santa. Leslie sat on his lap and suggested a long list of wishes, of which the fate of reality show television winners was just the beginning. Santa should have moved her along, by all rights, but for whatever reason, he didn’t seem to mind her sitting on his lap.
Anubis walked slowly up the steps, lifting the hem of his black robe with one hand, and half the people in the waiting crowd snapped pictures - the Grim Reaper talking to Santa! What a photo op!
Anubis ignored all of that. He whispered in Santa’s ear, “I wish to have Christmas off this year.”
Santa winked, his eye strangely old-looking in Arestin, land of shapeshifters and anti-aging potions. “Done,” he said, sounding too wise for a mall Santa, and not nearly fazed enough by Anubis’s presence or wish.
“That was really Santa,” Anubis whispered when he returned to his friends.
Leslie burst into laughter. “If only Santa’s wishes came true! But people have to die, Nubie.”
#
Christmas was the only morning of the year that Leslie woke before anybody. Her eyes opened to the dazzling sight of the tree, still lit with hundreds of white lights, the stockings full to bursting, the piles of presents. She dashed upstairs and tried to shake Stan awake.
“Stan, it’s Christmas!”
“No…”
“Stan, wake up! It’s Christmas morning!”
Stan pulled a pillow over his head.
Leslie groaned and ran back downstairs. She didn’t dare shake Det awake, and Anubis didn’t have enough sway to get the present thing going. She turned on the TV to the Christmas Parade.
“Coming up, a special performance from Arestin Idol winner Elle Bandarslan!”
“That Santa was a big fake!” Leslie screamed. “I knew it!” She ran upstairs to the guest bedroom where Anubis was tucked under the covers, looking as adorable as a sleeping doll from Hot Topic.
She grabbed his shoulders and shook him so hard that his eyeballs could have fallen out. “ANUBIS! BANDARSLAN STILL HAS A CAREER! So much for your Santa!”
Anubis blinked away the fog of sleep. It took him a moment to register Leslie’s words. But he realized - something was different. He felt no flutter of passing souls. It was Christmas, and no one was dying.
#
Anubis felt a little scared that his wish had actually come true. “Let’s not mention it,” he whispered to Leslie. This was much like telling a colander to hold water, but he tried. They heard Det’s footsteps a few doors down, and went to wake Stan again.
Everyone gathered downstairs. Det picked up the remote to turn off the TV, and paused. The Arestinian national news had broken in on Elle Bandarslan’s performance, to Leslie’s excessive delight.
“Hello, this is Donna Sabarr with an emergency broadcast. Something strange is happening on the streets of Arestin. People are…not…dying.” The camera panned to reveal an angry looking man in a wheelchair, swathed in bandages. “This man,” she continued, “jumped from the top floor of a Morningdale apartment complex at 5 am today. While normally, he would have died on impact, instead he lived, and healers at Morningdale Regional did their best to patch him up.”
“That’s right,” the man said. Underneath him popped the words, 'Failed to Commit Suicide.' “And I’m going to find out who’s responsible for this! What kind of world is it where a man can’t even commit suicide on Christmas Day? My wife left me and took the kids, I ain’t got money to bring ‘em presents, and I just got fired from my job at the cheese factory. And I can’t even jump off a building anymore?”
Det glanced at Anubis. “Do you know anything about this?”
“Yeah!” Leslie offered. “He made a wish to Santa!”
The reporter went on. “In hospitals, old people struggle to draw their dying breath only to find that they can’t seem to die. And the zombies, it seems, are feeling better than ever! Still, the natural order of things is disrupted this Christmas, and all over the world, people are trying to die. Who is responsible? And will Boxing Day restore death to the world?”
“Hmm,” Det said. “This hardly seems like a good idea.”
“What a great day to go skydiving!” Stan cried.
“Yeah, and Nubie saved that man from committing suicide! Det, you just have to call that cheese factory and get his job back!”
Det raised his eyebrows. “Men make their own fortunes, I’m afraid. Well, who wants coffee?”
#
Anubis opened his presents and tried to be excited, but a great emptiness had seized him. All was quiet in his soul, and he realized he had grown used to the feeling of other souls passing through him.
In the afternoon, he went down to the hospital where he often volunteered to talk to terminally ill people about death. As he walked inside, he felt more and more nervous about his wish. Who was he to tell people when they should and shouldn’t die?
He went into the lobby and approached the woman at the counter. Her face was pale and stressed. “It’s my fault,” he said.
“Your fault?”
“That nobody can die! I made a wish…to Santa.”
She laughed as if this were a joke, and then paused, as if realizing that - well, there had to be some explanation, after all. “Really?”
“Yes.” He nodded wretchedly. “It’ll be back to normal tomorrow.”
“That’s good to hear. Sometimes…you know…people are ready to die. Even on Christmas.”
As Anubis left the hospital, snow was starting to fall, peppering his black robe with flecks of white. The streets were quieter today, and Christmas trees glittered in the windows of apartments. It seemed that his wish had hurt people instead of helped. He couldn’t believe that, of all people, he had misunderstood the importance of death.
It was too late to take the wish back. But at least he could set one thing right. He got out his cell phone and called the news station. “Please…can you put me in contact with the man on your morning news who tried to jump off his apartment building?”
Anubis used his teleportation magic to travel to the news station, and he waited and paced while they tried to find the man again. As the news spread that he had stopped the deaths with his Christmas wish, people told him bad news in turn - of the victims in nasty car accidents who lingered in pain, and stories of that sort.
“Be careful what you wish for,” person after person told him.
“It was a SANTA at the MALL!” he cried.
Finally, they found the man Anubis wanted.
“I heard you lost your job at the cheese factory,” he said.
The man looked miserable, face scratched and bruised. “I’ve been working such long hours… I didn’t mean to, but I fell asleep and got fired. I wanted to see my kids, but if I can’t even afford any presents…” He shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” Anubis said. “But maybe it’s not too late to set one thing right. I can take you to see your kids, with piles full of presents.”
“But my kids are in Otare, and no one’s open to sell presents on Christmas.”
Anubis smiled - this was one Christmas wish he could grant. “The Grim Reaper can teleport anywhere in the world - and Arianni’s department store is always open when you’re friends with Det Arianni himself.”
#
The sun was setting by the time Anubis and the man - his name, Anubis had discovered, was Norid - arrived on the doorstep of a tiny little house in Otare. Norid’s arms were laden with bundles, and Anubis pushed his wheelchair. His two broken legs jutted out in casts.
“I don’t know if they’ll be that happy to see me,” Norid said. “My wife and I - we haven’t divorced yet, but we’ve been having so many troubles, without any money. She moved back up here with the kids to live with her mother. I stayed in Morningdale for my job - but I couldn’t stand to tell her I was fired.”
He knocked on the door. A woman answered. Her face turned pale, but a smile broke out on her face, and tears sprung to her eyes. “Y-you - s-someone told me they saw you on the news - "
Two children came running out, screaming with joy, pouncing on all the presents. “Daddy! Daddy!”
She hugged him, even around all the presents. “I’m so glad you’re all right…so glad!”
“But - I lost my job at the cheese factory.”
“I don’t care!”
“Um,” Anubis said. “How would you like working at a cookie factory?”
“A cookie factory!”
“I’m sure you’ve seen my Chocolate by Death line at the grocery store? I’d be glad to find you a place at my company. I know it’s not cheese, but…who doesn’t like cookies?”
And that was how Death saved a life on Christmas Day.
-End-