The Chris(tmas) Spirit

A Sixth Caustrian Tale

         Oh, the joy!

         The sheer bliss!

         Here I was lying down in my subconscious bedroom, well covered and cushioned and almost completely well rested in my bed. Yet there was, as they say in basketball, no harm, no foul, no ambulance. I wasn't in agonizing pain, I wasn't bleeding, I wasn't bruised or battered in any way--heck, I didn't even have a crick in my neck from lying down too long!

         Maybe I was hallucinating.

         In fact, when the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come walked in my room replete with dark cloak and hidden face, I knew I was hallucinating.

         "Daina," it said to me in a muffled but eerie voice.

         "W-What?" I squeaked, trying my best not to think about how Uncle Scrooge nearly bought the farm at point in the Disney version of this classic.

         "Speak up!" it commanded me. Cover me!, whispered my brain to my mouth. I'll think of something, you just ramble!

         "Look, I swear up and down I haven't been stingy the entire year, well, not counting the time my brother wanted to start the car and I didn't let him, but that was because he was buggin' me the whole morning and he kept callin' me a big lipped ho..."

         "What are you talkin' about?" it demanded, throwing the hood of its holocaust cloak back with one hand and moving the muffler away from its face.

         "Naomi?" I gasped.

         "Who'd you think I was?" she replied, looking at me as if I were insane. "Could you not do that deal with your eyeballs? You look like you've just..."

         "Seen a ghost?" I asked, flopping back onto the pillows in a massive relief effort. "Really, Naomi, it's so much more you to purposely scare someone to death instead of doing it accidentally." She raised her eyebrows nonchalantly in response, then burbled quite distinctly. "Excuse me?"

         "Excuse you," replied Naomi.

         "You just said something," I frowned.

         "No, I didn't..."

         "You did."

         "I didn't..."

         "Enn," I said, using the nickname I'd given her.

         "Dee," she returned, using the one she'd given me. "Now that we all know each other..."

         "You made a weird sound."

         "No, I didn't..."

         "You did!"

         "No, I didn't...!"

         "Cut it out, Naomi!" I hollered exasperatedly. This time she made a loud "ahh" sound. "See, you did it again!" I accused.

         "No, I didn't and if you'd let me finish, I'll tell you who did!" she retorted.

         "Who?" I echoed, not aware we had company. But even as I spoke, she moved the folds of her cloak to reveal the most angelic child I've ever seen, excluding my nephew (who's not really my nephew, but that's another story entirely). In fact, he looked to be the same age and build as little Christopher, which put me into a completely different mood. "Oh my God, is that a baby?" I breathed, taking him from Naomi's arms. Again, I got no answer but the nonchalant raising of eyebrows. I looked down at the cherub in my arms and he smiled at me and burbled again.

         "His name is Joshua," said Naomi, taking him from me.

         "How old's he?"

         "A year and a half."

         "Oh, he's so cuuuuute!" I gasped, unable to control myself. Suddenly, I was stricken by a thought. "Alright, where'd you get 'im?"

         "Found 'im," she said, turning to leave.

         "Could you be more specific?" I returned.

         "Outside Pyrope," she replied, turning to leave again.

         "Where?"

         "In the woods!"

         "Enn!"

         "Dee!"

         "WHERE?"

         "Some freakin'..."

         "Watch your language!" I hissed, glancing down at the baby.

         She paused exasperatedly before continuing. "It is none of your busi-ness. The baby is not for you; it is for Chris-tine," she enunciated, then flounced out of the room.

         "For Chris...!" I thought aloud, then dashed after her. "Waitaminute!" I demanded, stopping her before she could knock on the door. "Are you outta your mind?! Christine's not old enough to take care of a entire baby!"

         Naomi paused. "Are you suggesting that babies come in parts?" she asked.

         "Na-o-miii!" I whined, gently bumping my head against the wall beside her.

         "Jeez, I coulda built my own insteada paying all that cash..." I pivoted my head on the wall to glare at her. She grinned and went on. "She's a responsible kid, she can handle it. Besides, she's been buggin' us, so I did us both a favor," shrugged Naomi.

         "You wanna do us both a favor? Go impale yourself on a rusty stake," I growled from the same position.

         "Aww, come on, you're not putting this in the proper persepective. I mean, babies are cool, right?"

         "Well, yeah," I began, turning to lean against the wall and shoving my hands in my pockets, "they're cute and all but..."

         "And she'll have it forever, 'cause it's elven, y'know." she said confidentially. "A very wise investment. You oughta think about gettin' one for yourself, a little older, maybe, broad shoulders..."

         "It's elven?" I echoed, suddenly interested.

         "Yeah, look at his ears." She pulled the blanket away from the baby's face to show me.

         "I'm lookin'," I nodded, seeing nothing but regular human baby ears.

         "Hey, what happened to his pointy ears?" she demanded, fiddling with the baby's ears. "He had 'em when I got 'im..."

         I sighed deeply. All I had wanted to do was sleep, just sleep in my own room, in my own bed, uninjured and undisturbed in any way...

         "Willya just tell me where the heck..." I began.

         "Watch your language!!!" she mocked, with a grin.

         I sighed and rolled my eyes.

         Naomi raised her eyebrows briefly and kept grinning.

         Joshua cooed and put a finger in his mouth.

         "Enn," I began.

         "Dee," she said.

         "Please tell me where you got it," I said, throwing major emphasis on the word "please".

         "Whaydya mean "it"? This is a living, breathing elven, well (here she paused to recheck the ears), human baby we're talkin' about, here!"

         "We're gonna be talkin' about a strangled-to-death fairy adult in a minute."

         "Al-right, I bought it!" she exclaimed. "Are you satisfied?"

         "You bought it," I echoed skeptically.

         "I said that, Dee. Pay attention."

         "Right," I smirked. "Next you'll be tellin' me you bought it from a brownie named Looie who stole him from a big stupid Dakeeni."

         "Oh, come on!" she snorted in disbelief. "His name just so happened to be Acorn and he's never even met a Dakeeni!" I sighed again. "What the heck kinda brownie name is Loo-ie, anyway?"

         "It's a Spielberg thing," I muttered.

         "Huh?"

         "Forget it. You're not giving Chris that baby and that's it," I said, folding my arms. Naomi did her eyebrow thing again, then turned to knock on Chris' door. I grabbed her hand before it hit. "What're you doin'?!"

         "Giving Christine the baby," she replied, going to knock again.

         "Oh, no you're not!" I snapped, smacking her hand away from the door.

         "See? I knew you'd make a thing outta this, Dee."

         "I don't care, you're not giving Chris that baby."

         "Watch me!" she said, going to knock again.

         "Oh, no you're not!" I returned, slapping her hand again.

         "Oh, yes I am!"

         "Oh, no you're not!"

         "Oh, yes I am!"

         Angrily, I grabbed her cloak and jacked her up against the wall. "OH, NO YOU'RE..." Before I could finish, the baby began to wail pitiously. Naomi and I simultaneously looked at the baby, then each other in shock.

         "See what you did?!" griped Naomi, snapping out of her immediate reaction into irritation.     

"I did?!" I retorted. "You brought it here, you..." Again I was interrupted, this time by the voice of an older child.

         "What's goin' on out here?" came Christine's inquisitive little voice.

         I glared meaningfully at Naomi before turning to Chris. "Hi, sweetie. I..."

         "Oh, a ba-by!" gasped Chris, using her kid vision to see straight through me.

         "Hiya, kid," began Naomi quickly, handing Chris the bundle in her arms. "Merry Christmas. His name is Joshua and he ain't pottie trained." She waggled her fingers at me with a brief grin, then disapppeared.

         I couldn't do anything but get monosyllabic grunts of sentence beginnings for a few infuriated moments. "I'm g...wh...she...vrsh...woo...mmm...I..."

         "Look, he likes me!" said Chris. I looked down and noticed the baby was quiet again. Great, I thought. As if this wasn't hard enough already.

         "Uh, Chris, you watch Josh and I'll be right back," I said. "I have to introduce something sharp and relatively unsanitary to a few of Naomi's vital organs," I added to myself as I headed toward my room. "NAOMI!!!" I bellowed, slamming my door. "Get your butt in here, now!" There was no response, so I began muttering to myself. "I don't believe this. I said, "don't give her the baby", "don't give her the baby" and what does she do?"

         "Gave her the baby," came a voice from behind me.

         "Gave...AHHH!" I hollered, jumping like I'd been hit with an electric current and grabbing the front of my shirt to keep my heart from doing the same.

         "I really think you're overreacting, Dain. It's just a baby," said Naomi, shrugging her shoulders calmly. "The kid seems to like it..."

         "JEE-ZUS, NAOMI!" I yelled, still trying to get my breath back. "Don't do stuff like that to me!"

         "Wha-at, I just went invisible for a sec, that's all," she shrugged. "You know I can't just vanish out of a room like that." I gave her a look which she rightly interpreted as something other than forgiveness. "Okay, okay, sorry!" she sighed. "But like I was saying, the kid and the baby are getting along great, so what's the big deal?"

         "It's not that," I sighed, "it's the fact that you're putting the care of a child in the hands of another child. It's like the blind leading the blind, y'see?"

         "When did Chris go blind?" asked Naomi. It was too much. I grabbed Naomi by the neck and began going through great pains to wring it for her.

         "Waitasec, can I just ask you one thing?" she gasped, her voice strained.

         "Is it a retarted question?" I demanded.

         Naomi looked briefly at the ceiling as if considering the question, then continued. "You told me Christmas was about the spirit of giving, didn't you?" I could already see this conversation was headed toward a massive guilt trip in a hurry.

         "Yeeeessss," I drawled, easing up on her neck, "but..."

         "And it all started back in the old days with this kid, uh..." She began snapping her fingers in an effort to remember. "The one you just said a few minutes ago. The one you say when you freak out," she added, pointing at me.

         "Jesus?" I ventured.

         "Yeah, Jesus, that's him. So I went and got Josh," she said. "I thought it'd be a nice combination of the two. I mean, it is a J-name, so I should get points for being close."

         My hands dropped to my sides. She did have a point.

         I shifted my lips to the side and frowned, a look that used to drive my mother crazy. My mind told me the idea of keeping a nearly helpless 18 month old child was ridiculous, but my heart told me Chris and Joshua had probably gotten fairly attatched by now, having had all of five minutes to inhale each other's natural charm. Better now than never, I guess.

         "Look," I said, "it simply can't be done. What about that baby's family, for cryin' out loud?"

         "Family?" echoed Naomi. Finally I was getting through to her!

         "I mean, they probably miss their little Josh, too, y'know," I nodded.

         "Aww, but, Dee...!"

         "Enn," I interrupted, giving her a look sure to induce guilt. "The whole family's probably in tears lookin' for 'im, calling endlessly... Josh-ua! Jooooosh-ua...!"

         "So?" she shrugged. "Humans have to deal with stress all the time. They'll get over it."

         I frowned again. Obviously, the guilt thing wasn't working. Time for Plan B. "And you know how most humans feel about fairies, anyway. The ones who believe they exist, that is." I used my finger and thumb to make a gun. "They call 'em fairy hunters, I believe." I added, pretending to cock my "gun". " And when they find you..." I took aim and made the appropriate sound.

         Naomi jumped visibly.

         "Alright, alright, already, cut it out!" she interrupted, motioning for me to stop. "So whaddya want me to do about it?"

         "Well, in the real world, when you get a, well, shall we say "inappropriate" gift for someone, they can take it back."

         "Dee!" exclaimed Naomi. "Let a kid like Christine go into the Deep Forest by herself?! Do you know how dangerous that place is?"

         "My sentiments exactly," I grinned, looking at her.

         "Wha-at?" she began. "Oh, what is that...that...that, that look? Oh, no you don't," she began, immediately stepping back toward the door. I raced over to it and leaned on it to keep her in the room. "Naw, Dee, I'm not doin' it, man! See, 2 days and 3 nights worth of terribly dangerous stuff is my yearly quota, y'understand?"

         "You're the only one who knows how to get there and back," I said.

         "Yeah, but not necessarily alive and well!" she protested. "Chris could do it."

         "By herself," I said, reminding her of her own words.

         "So I'll draw her a map!" she retorted, rolling her eyes. She wasn't looking directly at me, but I could tell she was getting that fake "so-what's-the-big-deal" attitude.

         "By herself," I repeated.

         "Okay, you go."

         "I have a body to watch."

         "I can do it! Those kids love me."

         "Yeah, rrright, like the Asiatic flu. Besides, I also have a car to drive and planes to dodge," said I reminding her of her two biggest fears in my world.

         She paused for a moment. "Well, I could handle that, too."

         "And, of course, if Eric should drop by to see you, I have to..."

         "Hey, me and the kid got a trip to make and you're holdin' up progress." interupted Naomi, pushing past me out the door. "Hey, kid!" I hear her holler before I followed. "Whaddya say we take the baby camping?"

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