Manger Danger

This week’s new flash fiction is dark Christmas noir.

Manger Danger

Christmas can be a magical season. Can be.

In the movies, or in a souvenir plastic globe, snow is pretty and clean, like Ivory snowflakes. In the real world, it’s just cold, wet dirt.

Cus trudged back into his chilly, dark apartment. A broker would call it well ventilated. Laid down his package. A little gift for himself. From, well… himself.

He added it to the growing pile of other such presents. All unwrapped. A candle. A gingerbread. A potted poinsettia.

Cus was in between. Between jobs. Between women. He was bored. A bored Cus is a dangerous thing.

Yesterday Cus opened a door and stole a pair of ice skates.

Today he opened a window and stole a trumpet. He had no more use for the horn than for the blades, but he didn’t have a say in the matter. It wasn’t up to him. He did what he was told.

It came from Pete’s liquor store out by the parkway. It had kept Cus busy all month. It was a cheap cardboard version of one of those Christmas countdown calendars. Really not a proper timetable at all, just a single sheet. Showing a bushy green Tannenbaum, bedecked with shuttered windows and doors. Numbered 1-25. Every morning Cus would open the number corresponding to the day’s date, displaying a different iconic Yuletide symbol. Mittens. Nutcracker. Drum, etc. Cus made the daily unveiling ritual into a kind of game. A challenge.

Whatever the calendar revealed for that day, Cus would steal. Hence the trumpet. Added to the heap of unwanted trinkets.

It was a natural for him. The larceny and the time tracking. Cus had some experience sitting alone in a cramped space crossing off the days.

Cus had a mind to order up some company for the night. Female. But it was Christmas Eve. Nobody available. Just like in the Bible. No room at the inn.

The next morning, the 25th, Christmas Day, Cus awoke early. Made some instant coffee with scalding tap water. No, he did not need room for cream and sugar, as he’d been asked at the diner once. Just once.

He shuffled to his talismanic wall-hanging, more from habit than any real interest. Besides his booty hoard, it was the only sign of the season in the place. Unless you count dandruff.

He opened the final little cardboard flap. And said hello to the Sweet Baby Jesus.

Cus had not given any thought to where his little game might lead. The natural conclusion. He hadn’t registered until just then that today’s was the final portal. He was no theologian. It would not have surprised him if behind door #25 was a tree. Instead, it held our savior.

He considered the cartoon baby in the crèche as he sipped his grainy cuppa.

He’d have a busy day ahead.

You look in the dictionary and “advent” means “arrival”. Of something, or someone. Often something big.

Doesn’t say it has to be something good.