THE HIGH TABLE

“GET OFF MY STOOP you GODLESS inbred scum!” And that’s when she hit my face with pepper spray. Somehow there was ice on the stoop that I found and instantly slipped on and the steps chewed into my back on my way to the pavement stones. 

The wave of nausea hit my stomach again and I couldn’t stop my mouth. “Yowr a fawking old hag cunt!” yea, I’m drunk. What of it?

“That’s right, Jack Burger! And I’m dangerous too.” SLAM! The door sounded like it exploded when she closed it. I would’ve found myself the fury to get up and come back at her, but the next thing I heard tore my heart from my chest. It sounded like she was screaming in anger, but it ended in a long screaming sob. 

Way to go Jack. You made an old woman cry by existing. There were days when that would lift my heart to a beaming smile. Everything is so fucked and raw right now.

I just wanted to talk, and find out what the fuck happened back in October. I was going to stand and apologize when a pair of big boots stood on the pavement next to my face. “Get up.” The voice was deep and all too familiar. “What did I tell you, get up!”

A thick hand grabbed me from the back of the neck. “You WILL get up and go to the gym, Jack Burger!” There was that surge in the pit of my stomach that made me hate this man. I started walking completely against my will, toward the gym. It’s a fucking cheap magic trick. It’s the only one ‘e’s got. The whole world is full of cheap magic tricks right now and it seems I’m the only one who doesn't got any. 

Pardon me if I rave like a half crazy arse and talk about Halloween and why my body just gets up right now and I’m walking uphill to the old gymnasium where the Coach and his boys work out. 

I got sorry drunk last Hallowe’en and the whole town went mental. Then everyone was killed. Everyone but me and the Coach. It was like a terrible walking dream and I fought a bunch of horror right here in the square and met up with the the Pumpkin King of Bristol and splattered his head with an iron stanchion from the graveyard fence over there. 

See, everything explained. Right as rain. 

And I hear you ask, how’s that different from every Saturday in your last year? I’m glad you asked. See, after I sobered up I found the whole city is now very different. No, everyone's back in place. Mostly. 

The old woman that just sprayed my face with mace was the Mother Superior in the St Joseph’s School for Boys where I grew up. Mom was a skank and Dad is fuckall somewhere so they put me in an orphanage and this bitch beat me into the muscled up freak of a fighting drunk that you love now. 

But no, after Hallowe’en, she’s different. She’s quit the convent and become normal, whatever that means. But not just quit, turns out she quit five years ago and St Josephs is shuttered and… five years? How did I miss five years? Or did I?

I’m not wistful to have all that back. But fuck it, that’s wrong. Last summer she was there having some bake sale for kids. They raised fifteen pounds to fight world hunger. I was thinking, way to go sister, that’ll fix it! But now, we ain’t even trying. No sale, no kids, no school. 

Everything that was good here, is now just, not. Prices are up, people are mean, recent crimes make my life of delinquency and brawling look like a church picnic. It was like the Halloween king was the force  keeping everything going. And fuck off if you think I’m apologizing for splatt’ring his brains across the commons! What he did to my friend Butch. It was ugly and the finest example of cruelty I witnessed. 

He had officials in his Pumpkin court. One was The Archbishop. It turns out on this side of night, he’s The Coach. I get it, he’s training me. And fuck me, I have never had a trainer like him. He tells you to drop and give him 50 push ups, that’s what you do and your life is on hold until yor done. 

Every time I ask him about what happened he assigns me 100 push ups and walks away. My shoulders are jacked and wide right now and you could break stones on my back, but I’m still rackin’ the world for clues. And Mother Superior isn’t in the mood to talk to me without being a homicidal cunt. 

The weather is turning to shit. My balls crawl inside me to get out of that blast of air. There’s talk about a brutal storm coming tonight and I guess I’ll get some workout in the bag going. I grab the handle of the door and slip on the ice. 

It’s not so bad I landed on my arse, but I have the pressure in my head put there by coach to get the fuck up and get inside. The pavement is a shining sheet of ice. *WTF* ice?

I get to my feet and the pressure in my head to get inside is making my eyes water and my chest hurt. Defiant I stand there. I’m seeing it happen with my eyes. There’s ice growing on the pavement. Starting at my feet and spreading outward!

Just about when my guts are ready to puke, I grab the door handle and walk in, skating on the ice there. Finally get my arse in the door and slam it shut. Standing a bit to close for comfort, but just damned fine for foreplay, there’s the Coach. 

“Now tell me Burger, how is it I got here before you when you left after me?” His voice was a simmering pot of man juice in my ear and he makes me think wicked things. He even managed to get his shirt off before I got ‘ere. 

“You know me Coach, I was lookin about and thinking things… like questions. Trying to figure out why a nun would want to pepper spray me…’

“Because you’re a fuck up Burger, tha’s why!”

I had it with this bullshit it’s being served at me by the shovel. “Then help me fix it! This is all fawked and isn’t comin round with a few push ups!” I shove him in this massive thick chest. I’m proud as a hairless schoolboy when I see the strength I got made him stumble. Ok it was more like steppin back an inch. But it was something.

But that impressed him too. He looked down at his chest and then a simmering look at me. Yea, I’m a bad boy. I’ve heard it all cunt. He gears up for another lecture. “You want to fight me Jack? Maybe that’ll fix the tidings of the Black Night will it? I have one job to do, and I aim to do it. You Will…”

And that’s when I busted him in the face. 

He hit the deck with a splat. I felt the clench in my gut and wasn’t having any more of this magical orderin’ about.. I circled him as the other men in the gym came round to see what was up. “You’re gonna fix me with spankings and detention?! You got one trick and I just shoved it back down your throat. You will get more pain from me if you don’t start explaining what’s happening here!”

That’s when everything went to shit. The other boys got their twats in a bunch over me hitting the Coach. He tried getting up, shouting at the others. Someone punked me from behind. I had to nut him, just on principle. He hit the deck mewling.

And then the doors blew off.

The huge gymnasium was suddenly filled with a blowing chill that ripped bills and fliers off the community boards and tossed our gear around. This was all suddenly hauntingly familiar. Shit came apart last Hallowe’en just like this. “NO!” bellowed the Coach. I felt that. I also watched him change. Stood and revealed the bearlike power of muscle and fur. He stood a few inches taller than a minute ago. I knew the rest of the blokes had no clue what happened, but I just saw the Archbishop manifest. 

“This house is warded. You have no warrant here!” he shouted this to nothing we could see. The boys backed off him and the door and several fled for the back exit. Then I saw it. I don’t know how they got in but a shimmering veil parted before The Archbishop. The middle intruder seemed largest. They were tall and gaunt, with white and blue skin, sapphire eyes and black fingernails. 

“Your Grace,” the middle one said in a voice that sounded like windchimes mocking the poor. “Bristol, this forsaken city. It’s unwarded it seems. There is no Law here, so there is no need for me to have a Warrant."

The Archbishop was having none of this. He stood tall and solid. “Boys, You Will stay behind me.” It wasn’t hard to see why. He pushed his voice and did it to protect us. He was the only bloke here with a clue what was happening. I found myself right behind his right side. The Archbishop went back to work, “These Demesne are warded by my authority. You are not welcome and are hereby trespassed!”

“All that noise is true, unless I challenge your authority.” It happened so fast, the spear appeared in his hand and flew at The Archbishop’s shoulder. He tried to deflect it with a purple wave of light and failed! I expected blood, but the whole damned thing froze on impact

“NO!” The coach shouts as he sinks to his knee in pain. “I’m keeping him here. He’s contained! Do not do this!” I catch him as he sinks to his knee. A wound like that would kill anyone I know, but he was still talking.

I grabbed the spear and felt my hand frying from the intense cold of it. I pulled free, shaking my hand. I lost a patch of skin as I pulled away! I felt the world spin and a weight left my shoulders. I stepped in front of the wounded Archbishop. Something’s happening. My hand is healed. But I’m more interested in the fucker that just hurt my coach. 

“I think he said it fancier, but yur supposed to fuck off now. Sssst! Get on. Nobody needs you cunts here.” I wave my hand in the middle fucker’s face like he’s some stray cat lookin to shag the shelias in the neighborhood. 

See, the key to winning a fight is knowing when you’re in one. I’m Jack Burger. I already know there’s no freakin way this night will end without me breaking some ice. Let’s just get this started. 

I heard a CRACK behind me. The Archbishop broke off the spear and was holding it. I felt a quiet fury in my blood starting up and I dunno, I thought grabbing that broken shaft would be a good idea.  It sizzled in my hands a moment or two and then suddenly became MINE. 

I turned to the three intruders. “You’re still here?” The tall on in the middle got this disgusted look like I pissed on the walls of the church… again. 

“He’s unlicensed!” He says this like I’m a dog or some shite. 

“I don’t even go on the papers!” I don’t know what they’re talking about, but I’m fast on my feet. If The Archbishop was supposed to keep me contained as some kind of bargain with these fucks, they just missed that I have this habit of killing underworld Kings. Without a license and everything.

The fight started. I slash at the face of this hissing leader and then clock his left hand punk in the tits sending him sliding across the gym floor. The middle one dropped back ordering to his escorts, “Make corrections with prejudice!”

The three blokes got big. I know I started this and fuckin might as well be the shield. The other guys can fondle their holy beads but I stand over The Archbishop protecting him. Expecting a three on one fight… they ignore me!

Moving like spectres of ice, they move through the room hunting down the men in the house and slashing them to ribbons with their spears of ice! Instead of splatters of blood, they hit a man then kicked him hard. One after another they broke into a thousand ruby pieces of frozen meat. My hand grips that spear shaft and feel it crackle. I don’t know these boys from Adam, but they didn’t deserve this as punishment. 

“STOP!” My voice shakes the room and the icy fucks freeze in fear. No shit, literally stop in place. “You were told to get out!” I am making this up as I go along, but they don’t know that. A shift of glances between them, ended their delay. They were told to make corrections…. Without prejudice. I guess that meant not listening to my shit.

They flew back into action and I had it. I picked one and took aim! The spear hurls at him like a blue rocket gaining size and speed on the way. When it hits him, the pieces fly like glittering stars. The spear carries through him into the wall beyond!

The eruption through the old brick building brought dust from centuries down from the rafters. The icy winds from outside tore through the hole unabated now. 

The big bloke must’ve ran out of shocked looks reacting to dog farts over the years so his outrage had no script for this act of defiance. I hold my hand open and like I said, I’m making this up as we go right? The spear came back to my hand and hit it like a crack of a whip. I turned it to the leader.

But it seems he still has speeches left. “As Magister of the Council of Days, I declare Bristol Judged. You Jack Burger are unlicensed. You did not take the crown offered. You are using…”

I swear, if you had a choice to do something in a magical world, why for all the gold in the world would you want to be a boring gasbag like this fuck? I toss the spear at him and he had to shut up and dodge. I lose my SHIT! “OUT! Get OUT!” the wind was keen on my will right now. I wish to fuck there was some way of explaining that, and right now I’m just going with it. He had to duck from the cold arctic blast that came from me and leave his speech unfinished. 

I’m left alone in the great cave of this broken gymnasium. The Archbishop looked bad. He was wheezing and his face was pale blue. I’m not a medic. I’m more like the opposite of that. With gin. I just knew even the little Match Girl from that pathetic Christmas story had a weird last moment because the cold slowed everything down. 

“Hang on Coach. We’ll get you fixed.” I strip off my shit. The night cold feels amazing. Fuck if I can tell, it usually takes half a bottle of Tesco Value Gin for me to ignore cold like this. I kneel next to the shivering coach, knowing this is going to get much worse. 

I scoop him into my arms and watch the hair on his chest whiten. “No…don’t do this.” Fuck, he’s big on no, but short on why. This is all I got.

“I can’t lose you Coach. Hang on,” and I started to run. The run through the city is feels like the smoothest Polaris bike ride, you know, the bikes those posh fucks ride in London. 

They take him from my arms at the emergency room at St Mary’s. I know the place well, many faces know me and turn and keep walking. I get him signed in. Sweat runs off me as I stand in this building. It’s so hot in here. 

I don’t know what just happened. I just threw that spear. So many boys are really dead back there. He said the city’s been Judged. I really don’t like the sound of that. I don’t know so many things. I just know Jack. I would rather do something stupid than sit and wait for permission. I leave the hospital as night falls.

The doors close behind me and I start my walk back to the Churchyard. I don't know what I’m going to do if he dies. I guess I have to come up with that plan on my own.

So I get all surprised when the little man that comes up and hits me in the back. He nearly gets his head rocked off. Lucky someone taught him how to  duck. “Woah mister! I’m from the hospital! Stop already!” He’s an American. He’s got nice teeth and handsome shoulders. But something about his voice, I expect him to try and sell me a car.

Maybe it’s something in my eyes, but when we meet eye to eye he stammers and is suddenly nervous. “Go on, talk already!”

“The uhm… man that you dropped off. You’re Jack right? He’s been asking for you. Said it was important.” he stops and takes in breath. “Are you .. uh, ok?”

I just watched about 30 lads get turned into cubed steak and I blew a hole in a building with my right arm. I guess I’m not ok. But who’s gonna fix it? This guy? Pffft… “I’ll be fine mate. It’s a skin condition.”

“But you’re covered in frost. You’re… Jack right? I got the right guy?”

Jack.

Frost.

I finally get it. Oh gods in heaven! I am legendarily dense. “Take me to the man. Now!”

…..

The door slams open with the little American behind me. I see the Coach with tubes and bandages. I get a quick look and he’s bleeding inside. Ice damage. It’s a bitch. It breaks things deep inside worse than a bullet. At least that has a line it follows. 

“Jack Frost?!” That's all I could say to him. “You knew it was going to happen! And you tried to keep me inna box!”

“Jack, you wouldn’t know a box if you were a cat looking for a place to shit.  You Will leave us boy. There’s talk going,” his voice wheezed but his authority never skipped a second. The American spun on a heel and left. I felt the lurch in my gut knowing what he just did. 

“I will fucking punch you if you do that to me. Now get on with it. What do we do next?” I’m good at faking it, but the sheer amount of damage from my last stunt made me fear another try. 

“You figured it out. Didn’t cha? There were consequences from you refusing the crown.” he said in a voice way too slow for my tastes. 

“I didn’t refuse anything except … everything!”

“Jack. If you waste time bickering this gets worse. They’re out there. Now. Listen up. In the night world, there’s forces kept at bay by the wards set by the Pumpkin King. He’s a bastard, but that’s the kind of barking dog that keeps the scum off the fences. We don’t have a dog no more. You killed him. All we have is you.”

“I’m a king? What did they give you, that fentanyl shit?”

“You’re not a king, Jack. You’re a patch on a hole. Your Jack. This gets complicated so listen up. Jack be nimble, Jack the Pumpkin king, Jack Ketch, Jack Tar, Jack the Giant Killer… that’s all you. The stories? They were all about the same guy in different clothing. Jack. And right now, because it fits. You are Jack Frost.” he bites his lip looking for words. 

“I don’t know what we do now. I’m the keeper of rules and traditions. You’re not the rules Jack. You’re why we make rules.”

“Nice story dad, thanks. What do we do?”

“The Magister has judged us without wards and told the wide world about it. You have to convince them there’s consequences to fucking with us.” His cough rattles in his chest in horrible ways, and all of a sudden. I could feel the sweat standing on my skin. It was getting sore uncomfortable in here. 

“How do I do that?”

He smiled. “Go show them the consequences. Keep the damage down if you can…”

….

I get outside in the cold and it feels GOOD. It’s much better than I dreamed. I don’t know what my powers are or how they work. I don’t get a Luke Shywalker or Obi Wan to teach me. And frankly, I’d probably piss on their shoes if I did.  

I inhale and exhale hard!

I make a cloud of breath mist like I did every winter night of my life. No big wind or a storm. Very disappointing. Ok that’s nothing. I don’t have time for this shit. I lean back into the hospital doors. I hear a crackling behind me. I turn and see the frost pattern. Butt cheeks. I laugh a little. So that’s how it works, body contact. It's up close and personal. Like what happened on the nun’s steps. They froze because I stood there too long. Then the side walk. I need to touch something. I was hoping for some kind of distance weapon. FUCK!

The doors shatter into a bazillion cubes of frozen glass… Well it seems screaming fuck will do the trick. I blink a couple times looking face to face with the American again. He was standing on the other side of the glass. 

He looks at me in the eyes and then averts his eyes fast. “You’re Jack… Jack Frost, aren’t you?” He stammered so cute. I love to shag the little guy but that might just kill him doing that now. The lesson is learnt though. My emotions will amplify the frost trick. 

“It would seem so. Now you listen. Stay indoors till morning. Don’t go out tonight, or I’ll come back and spank you personally.” Consequences. He quivered at the thought. I need to get out there and learn some things, and maybe try not experiment on the working hospital in the area. 

“Yes Jack… sir. I’ll be here.” Oh fawk. He’s gonna leave me his telly number. Touching. 

…

I get out into the night. The gritty dark of it. The Christmas steps seem a good place to start. Right there in front of the grave yard and the boarded up St Josephs.  The street lights all blew on Hallowe’en. They never replaced them. Part of the cancer eating this place, a creeping darkness no one feels the need to fix. I don’t have to wait long and the sound of bad singing hits me. I thought at first drunk carolers, but it comes with that wrenching feeling in my chest. It’s a spell. They’re trying to make people quit.

I go toward the sound in spite of how much it hurt my head to be there. The sound was haunting, it sung of sadness and giving up. “Shut it!” I shout at them. They ignore me. No, there’s one in the front that looked at me and went back to singing. He sings. They follow. 

The ringleader. 

I focus on him, and it’s like he knows I’m coming, the snow starts. Before I reach him, I’m standing in a sideways white out. The snow comes down so hard it's stinging my skin. The creepy singing sound rolls around me and direction is lost. 

I fall. The snow is already deep and I feel it like a blanket I want to stay under. I can’t touch them. But I can touch the snow. “STOP you festering cunts!” The snow is suddenly STRIPPED from the air. Believe it, I can rip the snow out of the air by swearing! It was just enough to see the ringleader’s shocked face!

I rise like a linebacker and hit him chest to back. He’s bones and sack cloth in my arms. I hug tight and squeeze! One lift and suplex! I drop back and his head smashes on the snow covered stones. The failing light reveals the broken piece corpse he really is. He comes apart like a china cup.

The rest of the choir flashes into green light and escapes into the night, like sprites held in thrall and slavery for fuck knows how long. A green light flips through the snow as each of them rush off to their places. 

Before I get a second to feel good about it, I get hit in the back! I don’t have to guess. It’s a spear. Right through the shoulder blade pinning me to the ground. AUGHhhhhh. Stuck like a bug on cardboard. A flood of blood coughs up my throat. That’s a lung hit. I’m fucked.

My hands claw into the snow and I feel burning tears running down my face dropping like diamonds into the snow. I don’t know what to do but die. And so far, I been pretty bad at that too. 

AUGHHH! Another spear hits my back pinning me harder, through my lower back and my guts bleed on the stones. I see the Magister, their leader standing in front of me. Shaking his head, like he’s entitled to some kind of opinion here. Another river of blood coughs from my mouth. 

“Jack Burger. Well, you failed quickly. That won’t bring mercy for Bristol. It’s far too late for that. Too many mistakes. But it does make this evening’s work short.” He waved his hand and a legion of these tall wraiths fly through the city below the Christmas Steps. Screams make it through the snowfall. Human screams. They’re killing my people like they did the boys in the gym. I hear them but only barely. 

I’m angry. So fucking angry. I don’t know what to do with all this… what did The Archbishop do? I didn’t watch. I just heard the spear snap. Then it was mine.

Mine. These spears are mine! They just gave them to me! They’re stuck in my guts, but I can make them mine!

I pound on the stones with all the fury I can muster and scream, “You dickless skanks GET OFF ME!” I roll and the spears snap! I kick to my feet and grab both broken shafts. I never fought with two of these before but it's a night of firsts! 

My body should be in a thousand agonies, but the cold is blunting that. The wounds on my chest and gut are pretty scary so I’m going to ignore them for now. I whirl and the first two fucks break into parts on a single strike. The wind likes circles and I make plenty of them mowing through the legion of white bones fucks in front of me. 

“Stop him. All of you!”

My world of shit gets worse. The whole legion turns onto me as one overbearing attack. Spear after spear stab into me. It hurts. I want to scream from the pain and can’t. One hugs onto me squeezing my breath out, my blood flowing easy to the ground. 

But these fucks left me with one moment of luck left. They’re touching me. Nothing is colder than Jack.  I focus and let out a scream… Feeling them break into shards around me. More come and stab me again. Sure, let’s add stupid to stupid. What could go wrong?

I make it colder. And colder. They shatter against my will and more and more of them come, stabbing me over and over. And I make it colder still. On a molecular level, there’s a movement that slows. That dead point. Absolute zero. When it's so cold that atomic movement stops… The point of nothingness, where the little Match Girl gets her mail, I go there. 

Everything crackles to a stop. Including me. Light stops being real… The next moment lasts literally forever. It’s beautiful. 

Out of nowhere, I hear a slow clap behind me. I expect to see that cunt Magister and his smug face. Not this time. This bloke is all bones, wearing black, a scythe, and an hourglass. Awww fawk. Well it was a good run. It’s Death. Himself.

 YOU DID WELL his voiceless voice echoes. That’s gotta be the creepiest sound I ever heard. I’m not really hearing him, but he sounds like Christopher Lee. Amazing. He looks at his hourglass. It’s got plenty up top, but it stopped. THAT’S QUITE A TRICK AS WELL, JACK. SO COLD YOU STOPPED EVEN ME. 

He moves closer to me. It’s amazing, even in this state, I feel a chill seeing Death. “Am I in trouble?” I ask.  Death laughed. It clutched its chest and rattled for a good minute. 

YOU’RE JACK. OF COURSE YOU’RE IN TROUBLE! BUT NOT FROM ME... AT LEAST NOT TONIGHT. NOW IF YOU WOULD BE SO KIND, IT’S A BUSY NIGHT. LET GO…. I HAVE WORK TO DO. BESIDES, SOMEONE NEEDS TO SEE YOU.

When Death asks for a thing, ya do it. I don’t think there is much choice in the idea. The ice demons around me fall off me in a brittle chiming snow, tinkling like broken glass. It’s hard. So fucking hard, but I let go.

It's like feeling a wind of blowtorches! The pain tears into me so bad! Holding one ice spear I curl on my side and sob like a child. Ohhh it hurts. I’m so cold and my insides are all cut up. I want to go back to the zero point. Please! It was so beautiful there! Everything was so still. 

“Shhhhh it’s ok my lad. Come now, no more tears. Work’s over. Everyone is safe now,” A red glove touches my shoulder and the pain stops. I sob one more time in relief. I’m lifted by strong arms and held against a red fur coat. He sits and holds me in his lap. “You did well. You’re the best.” I see the long white beard and blue twinkling eyes. 

Fawk me. That’s just great. What a night.

I hold my hand into the air and a shaft of the sharpest, hardest ice forms in my hand. The first stab rips into his neck! So does the second and third. Four times in the chest and twice in the gut. The last stab spears into his jewels!

FUCK…. YOU!

My scream shatters all the liquid he ever had into crystals. I get up and the illusionary “santa” warps into the visage of an old hag. Poor bitch has probably been this Magister’s slave for centuries. I look up and he’s standing there trying to find a face more shocked than before. “You stabbed the Santa Clause!”

“Fawk that! I killed your slave. She deserved better but at least she gets to quit YOU!” I like the icy air. I feel it healing, what was taking care of me all along. Not Santa. 

“How did you know?! You didn’t know!” This cunt is beside himself. Lives in a world of magic and can’t take in a moment of wonder. I finally found a worse loser than me.

“Listen up cuz I’m only telling you once. I know Jack. I know what I deserve! A minute in the ol Kingle’s lap?? Like hell. I deserve a lump of coal and a kick in the nuts!” The spear snaps into my hand. His army now a glassy snowdrift behind me leaves him seriously exposed. 

“Now get out of my city or there will be more consequences!” My rage is real and just. I guess maybe there’s a first for everything. The storm that swirls around me is unholy and cold. The Magister looks at me with actual terror. Fawk that gives me wood.

“OUT!”

The wind carried with him as the Magister was evicted from Bristol. 

…

I walked up to the hospital after finding a shirt. They like that in the civilized parts of the world I hear. They boarded up the hospital door, seeing some fuck broke the glass earlier. “Merry Christmas,” they said to me as I walked in. It’s still an emergency room so it was said with the cheer of a funeral announcement. 

The American is there. Like he was waiting for his spanking or something. “I was about to go on break. That storm out there is horrible. You want some dinner? .. Jack?” I look at him. He’s got a silly hat with a bow stuck to his head. Like he’s a present or something. But he’s got a nice smile and apparently he doesn’t care what I smell like right now. I pause with some indecision. “It’s not much, just din at the cafeteria.” he takes my hand. Wow, level 3 flirting. How could I say no?

We turn left and I see out the frosty windows, a streak through the sky, a chain of lights and one red one in front. I’m stopped flat footed. I see him. I really see him. Ol’ Kringle at work.  I look at the American again. I have to wipe my eyes. 

“You ok Jack?”

“Yea, I just got something in my eye….” 

Sometimes you don’t get what you truly deserve. When you deserve a kick in the stones, and the world says, maybe later, that’s called mercy. I’m kind of grateful for that shit. I’ll be needing more. 

Good night.

Published: 2025-12-23, viewed 136 times.