A Story For Christmas - Dead Santa

Here's a fun Christmas story, just in case you've already exhausted all the offerings on Netflix or Prime or whatever.

No intro required other than that it's not fantasy, it's not sci-fi and it's probably not one for the kids.

DEAD SANTA by Mjke Wood   While Shepherd watched his stocks go down, depleted, on the ground. The Angel of the Board came down and… “Mr Shepherd? Sir?” “Huh?” “Are you okay Mr Shepherd?” “Oh, it’s you, Angela. Yes, I was just… thinking.” Angela Booth was HR director for Shepherd Brothers department store. Her office, right at the top of the building, in the apex of the roof, like the top of a Christmas tree, earned her the nickname Angel of the Board. “You know what, Angela? No, I’m, not okay. You have shares in the company? Of course you do.” Shepherd stabbed a finger at his pink Financial Times. “Have you seen this? Their value, today?” “I know they’ve been slipping of late.” “Slipping? They’re down the toilet. We’re finished, Angela. Department stores are finished. We’re a broken business model not fit for the twenty-first century. Nobody shops in department stores these days.” “Well, right now that might not be the case, sir. There’s something you need to see. It’s why I came down,” said Angela. She held the door open and beckoned her boss to come out onto the mezzanine from where the entire store could be seen. Shepherd joined her at the balcony rail, and surveyed his domain, five levels down to the sprawling, ground floor perfumery department. “There’s a queue of people.” He looked at his watch. “It’s only ten-thirty. Why are they queueing? Something’s happened.” There hadn’t been a queue in Shepherd Brothers in years. “I think they’re queuing for the basement,” said Angela. “Follow me,” said Shepherd, setting off at a trot. The familiar smell of a thousand perfumes hit Shepherd’s nostrils as he came off the escalator. He followed the line of people down the stairs to the toy department. The grotto. “What’s going on?” he demanded of Mavis, head of department for toys and leisure. This month she was playing the role of Tinkerbell. Mavis tipped the scales at plus thirty stone, and, kitted out with tiny wings, a wand and an off-white frilly tutu, she was a force of nature. “All these people, Mavis. What the hell’s Santa done now?” Shepherd Brothers had the best Christmas grotto in the city. When all other grottos had gone minimalist and cynical, Shepherd’s grotto was a haven of magic where traditional Christmas could still be found. Ian Shepherd stood by tradition, even while controlling the department’s cash flow sometimes felt like holding back Niagara Falls with a flour sieve. The grotto, Ian was sure, would have been a hit, except for Santa, aka Peter LeFey, drafted in each year from dispatch. Ian’s father, Donald Shepherd, the older of the founding Shepherd siblings, had always insisted on Peter LeFey for Santa, because he was rotund, red-faced, and wore a white beard that was entirely natural. Peter LeFey was also a drunk, a lecher with the young mothers, and hated children. Shepherd knew he should have sacked Peter years ago. But getting someone to dress up in a red suit all day for less than minimum wage was challenging. Peter LeFey was the only staff member willing to do it; it got him out of dispatch for a whole month each year; it placed him within reach of all the young mothers, “who couldn’t resist his charms”, as he liked to boast. Peter LeFey was, of course, delusional. He had no charms. But in the Shepherd Brothers basement they had learned to work around his shortcomings. “Why are they lining up to see him?” said Shepherd. “Looks to me like he’s asleep.”

“Maybe that’s his secret,” said Angela. “He can’t get up to much debauchery, that way. The mums feel safe.” “He’s not asleep,” said Mavis. “I, er… I think he might be dead.” “What do you mean, dead?”

“I mean like, he hasn’t breathed in over an hour. Hasn’t copped a handful of any of the mothers. Hasn’t sworn. Hasn’t touched his hip flask. People are focussing instead on all the magic of a Shepherd Brothers Christmas. They’re loving it.” “Don’t be stupid, Mavis. He’s not dead.” “Feel him.” Shepherd reached out a hand and touched Santa on the back of the neck. “See,” said Mavis. “Cold as a fishmongers slab.” Shepherd pulled his hand back as though burned. “Why haven’t you done anything?” “Me? Why me? And done what? Tell all these children that jolly old St. Nick’s kicked the bucket? That there’ll be no more Christmas presents, ever? Please leave, kids, while we haul Santa off to the morgue? Do you want to tell them?” Shepherd thought about it. In his mind he was arranging mental images of how his toy department usually looked – devoid of customers and cheer. Complaints department, inundated. This, instead, was how a Shepherd Brothers grotto was meant to look. Lines of happy smiling faces; cash registers ringing like Christmas bells. He saw images of how his sales graphs usually appeared, like the ski jump at Innsbruck. He took out his smartphone and checked the live sales data, and felt his knees go weak. Come January, if this continued, his pink Financial Times stock market figures would be making front-page headlines. “And nobody has noticed?” Mavis shook her head. “They seem to enjoy my patter as Santa’s mouthpiece, though some of the kids have complained how he seems a bit cold to the touch.” Shepherd thought. His mind whirled, doing sums. Profit calculations. Possibilities. “Can we warm him up a bit?” Mavis stared. Angela gasped. “Well, it’s no less hypocritical than you hauling kids up onto his knee for the last hour, like everything’s fine and dandy.” “I’ll tell you what. Angela?” “Yes, Mr Shepherd?” “Nip up to Home Appliances and borrow a fan heater would you?” Angela gave him a look. “Just do it, okay?” Ten minutes later a warm breeze was emanating from beneath Santa’s red coat. Shepherd smiled. The plan was working, although Santa was doing kind of a Marilyn Monroe impression, with the hem of his coat flying, his beard sailing in the breeze. Worse. Peter LeFey’s solution to being dressed in fur fabric in the hot basement all day was to keep his trousers pushed down to his knees while going commando, so now he was flashing his crown jewels for all to see. “Jesus Christ, cover him up before anyone notices,” said Shepherd. He should close this down, he knew. It wasn’t right. But those sales figures on his phone were flying. He summoned Angela once again and sent her back to Home Appliances to swap the fan heater for a two-bar electric fire. A shrewd solution. Half an hour later, things were good. Better than good. The lines of customers were growing. A rosy glow had returned to Santa’s cheeks. The store photographer was snapping away, selling family group shots in record numbers, and not one person seemed to realise they’d be sharing on Facebook a Christmas photo of their little darlings perched on the knee of a corpse. The store music system played Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, and Shepherd, thinking of the imagery, tried to stifle a giggle. This was how Christmas should be. He could even smell the chestnuts and the smoke from the fire. Fire? Shepherd’s nose twitched. “Fire!” He didn’t shout the word, he hissed it, for the ears of only Mavis and Angela. “Bloody Santa’s on fire,” he said. Mavis held out her arms to hold back the throngs of children. “I’ll close the grotto. We’ll get everyone out.” “No, wait,” said Shepherd. “Just… I don’t know. Divert their attention. Tell them there’ll be a short break while… while Santa feeds his reindeer or something.” They’d used that one last year while they poured coffee down LeFey’s neck to sober him up. Shepherd yanked the plug for the electric fire and grabbed the foam extinguisher. In under a minute the burning Santa was under control, but foam was everywhere. A mess. “Look children, it’s been snowing,” shouted Angela. The children cheered. “Brilliant, Angela,” said Shepherd. “Tell all the staff to keep this quiet. I won’t forget their loyalty when I hand out the Christmas bonuses.” There would be Christmas bonuses this year. A tenner each, at least. Christmas was saved. Shepherd Brothers profits and reputation were saved. On his way out of the basement, Shepherd overheard two rosy-cheeked, smiling children talking. “Hey, Tommy. Have you come to see the dead Santa?” “Yeah, saw him on TikTok. It’s viral. A million hits. They say he’s stiff as a plank.” “And cold, like frozen turkey.” “Not any more. They set fire to him,” said another. “Woah, that’s way cool. I’m so getting on his knee for a selfie.”

That's it. Hope you enjoyed it. Best wishes to you and yours. Have a great Christmas.

When Imagination Comes to Life

Now and again, as a writer, strange coincidences and serendipitous moments can happen.

In The Oneiromancer of Mars, one of the early segments takes place in Delft, in The Netherlands. I've been to Delft a few times, I've fallen in love with the city, and have set a couple of short stories there, and I chose it again for some of the scenes in this novel. One of the chapters takes place in a restaurant, not a real restaurant but one that was entirely fictional. I chose a street at random - HH Geestkerkhof - and imagined a restaurant with lots of greenery because it fit with the theme of the book. Here's how I described it:

A feature inside the restaurant was the profusion of hanging plants, their long, green tendrils reaching down almost to floor level from pots suspended from hooks on the high ceiling. Any space between the dangling leaves was occupied by tall potted palms, making the air itself seem green, cool and moist, with scents that, for Minra, had associations with the forest from the home she'd just left behind.

There's more of this, but you get the idea. Again, this was not a restaurant I'd ever seen, in real life or even on the internet. Just fiction.

So anyway, last month, Sarah and I revisited Delft, spending a week in our caravan, cycling, wandering around the narrow streets, seeking out new places we hadn't seen before.

We had coffee in one of our favourite coffee shops, overlooking the canal bridge on Oude Langendijk (yeah, a real place that also gets a mention in the book) then took a random turn down Kromstraat, a street narrow enough to be deemed an alley. There's a jazz club down there, a pub, and then, surprise, my restaurant.

Well, not mine really, but one that looked exactly like the restaurant I had imagined. Maybe even greener than how I'd described.

Here's the photo I took through the open window. 

It looked inviting but sadly we'd already eaten, and it was our last day in The Netherlands, but maybe next time we'll try the food there. Maybe the menu is the same. Maybe we'll get a table next to a mother and daughter called Minra and Lissa. As I say, strange things happen to writers.

The Inside Story of a Failed Book Title.

Been thinking about book titles a lot lately, and realising I should take more care. Much more care. My latest book is, I think, one of my best, and yet sales are a disaster, reviews are non-existent. It is a train wreck and it will never earn back a tenth of what I spent on editing and cover design.

Why?

The answer, I'm certain, is all in the title, which seemed so good when I first came up with it. I was excited. This is a cool title I said to my wife. She'd read the book. She agreed.

The Oneiromancer of Mars.

It mentions Mars. It uses the cool word Oneiromancer. What could go wrong?

I realise now that anyone seeing the title would think: Oneiromancer. Mars. This is a fantasy book. Nice. The book cover too, exactly what I asked for, shouts fantasy! So, readers of fantasy novels might just be tempted to click on the link and read its description. And that's where the disappointment would kick in. It is not fantasy. The Oneiromancer of Mars is science fiction. There is zero fantasy element. Even the oneiromancer bit is explained in cold hard terms of super-deterministic physics.

So, they move on.

And my sales figures stay at zero.

And my hopes of ever using the profits to fund the pre-publication costs of my next novel fade with each passing day.

Science fiction fans might enjoy it, if they ever get further than the title. And the cover. Even those who enjoy both genres—I'm one—would not likely be tempted, at that moment, when in the mood for some sci-fi.

So what do I do? Do I change the title. The cover?

Well, that would be dangerous. The handful of readers who went against instinct and bought one, might then feel cheated if they found another book by the same author, bought it, and discovered it was the same as the last one. And it would be expensive: a whole new cover, change the links in all the other books.

No. I'll take it on the chin. It is one of life's lessons.

In case you are in the mood for some sci-fi, here's what it looks like:

The Oneiromancer of Mars.   is NOT Fantasy. It's Sci-Fi. Really. Book 2 in the Martian Dreams series (Ha! even the series name sounds like fantasy. What was I thinking?)

Book 1 is Old Man in a Spacesuit. (Yeah, that's more like it. Sounds like sci-fi and sold a heap more copies.)