A Christmas Carolling Read online

A CHRISTMAS CAROLLING

  It was Christmas Eve and the daylight was fading quite rapidly now. Everybody was waiting with excitement and anticipation for the night. It was finally the time their busy preparations had been leading up to, the time they had been looking forward to for these past few weeks. A sense of warmth and joyfulness filled the atmosphere as people sat in their homes drinking mulled wine and munching on mince pies. Tuneful choruses of Christmas carols carried softly through the night air while decorative lights glowed delightfully in the darkness. There was a dusting of snow on the ground, bringing a classic Christmas look to the scenery. Large garden fir trees had been adorned with colourful lights. The air was still, yet alive with expectancy.

  The hours passed and the air outside seemed to be getting even stiller and quieter. Bedroom curtains were drawn back from time to time, children’s faces gazing out excitedly into the night sky, hopeful of catching a glimpse of Santa’s sleigh, absorbed in excited anticipation. There was a sense of joy and delight that could be experienced by all. All, that is, except for Rodney Screwge, an English teacher at a school not too far away. He was in his mid-forties, bearded and of a very miserable demeanour, bringing misery and despondency wherever he went.

  Interestingly, however, he was also quite wealthy, though this was a closely guarded secret of his. Something of a connoisseur of wine, he was the owner of an array of fine wines. He enjoyed, also, on occasion, expensive, expertly made chocolates, produced by Belgian and Swiss chocolatiers. He was careful and selective about the food he ate, often dining on some of the finest food available. He was very committed to his work and to the study of literature and found he had neither the time nor the predilection for excessive indulgence.

  Quite deliberately he forced himself, each year, to not believe in Christmas, to reject it in its entirety, dismissing as utterly ludicrous the whole notion of Santa Claus, having no time whatever for all of the attendant revelry and traditions and whatever meaning any of it held. He especially despised the joyful anticipation and the excitement others were experiencing at this time of year. He gained a sense of satisfaction from seeing the streams of harassed shoppers hurrying through the crowds in towns and cities, knowing the pressure of it all was taking its toll, ruining any sense of enjoyment or pleasure they may otherwise be feeling. In spite of this, once the hustle and bustle had died down, the joyful atmosphere of Christmas remained, inspired above all by the multitude of Christmas lights and adornments.

  Outside, the decorations, the peaceful stillness and the crisp layer of snow created a delightful ambience. With the cool night air virtually motionless, the cold had little effect.

  “Ah, what a load of old nonsense,” muttered Screwge to himself as he traipsed along the road, a few snowflakes coming to rest on the barrel of the shotgun sticking out of the bottom of his long coat, underneath which he carried the weapon.

  There had been no particular reason for him having it with him; it was simply that he had been cleaning it but his mind had been so preoccupied with a work of literature he had read recently that he could not have been bothered remembering to put the gun back, instead walking, quite mindlessly, out of the house, still holding it. He was also ever so slightly intoxicated from drinking a twenty-year-old apricot brandy. Upon realising the gun was still in his possession, he had quickly concealed it inside his coat.

  While Screwge was well known in his neighbourhood and throughout the town for being grumpy and gloomy anyway, he was known to be especially miserable, disagreeable and morose at Christmastime. Interestingly, however, he was heading for the carol service at the local church, though he was in two minds as to whether he should really bother. He attended it every year, but only in an effort to alleviate the intense, crushing gloom which overshadowed his daily existence at this time of year. It was not because he was at all interested in anything about Christmas. It was merely that all the singing caused him to experience some faint sense of pleasure and enjoyment.

  Just then, a heavy rushing sound became audible. At first, he could not determine its cause or from which direction it was coming. Then, on looking upwards, he witnessed the most breathtakingly incredible sight. A sleigh being dragged across the sky, apparently by a team of reindeer, whizzed past overhead. Seated in the sleigh appeared to be a somewhat portly, red-suited figure, who seemed to be in command of the vehicle.

  “What the bloody hell is this?” shouted Screwge, in a highly exclamatory manner, astounded at what he was observing. Immediately a sense of anger and discontent at having to accept that it was all true sparked inside him. The very idea that Christmas did indeed have real meaning at once felt distasteful and profoundly uncomfortable. “This is impossible!” he bawled, bemused, his voice mostly drowned out by the downdraught, which sent a substantial blast of air downwards, causing him to feel the air pressure driving into him. “This can’t be happening!”

  Grabbing the shotgun, he raised it and fired at the sleigh. The weapon released two loads of buckshot directly into his target. Hastily he reloaded the firearm and fired again. Incredibly, however, each shot seemed merely to dissolve into tiny colourful sparks on impact, four rounds apparently producing absolutely no effect whatsoever.

  Screwge was exasperated and confounded. This was Santa Claus’s sleigh; there was little doubt in his mind about that. But this was quite preposterous. He remained insistent with himself that there was simply no way this could be happening in reality. He fired off the one last round he had with him, hoping rationality and the laws of reality would take hold, hoping it would blast a hole in the sleigh. But on impact, the shot simply erupted once again into a mass of colour that just dissolved harmlessly away to no effect, the sleigh continuing on its way. Screwge stared in shock and disbelief.

  Looking around, he saw that his surroundings were deserted. Nobody, not a single, solitary individual, barring himself, had witnessed this unbelievable occurrence. He could hardly take it in, barely able to contain his amazement, and was greatly irritated at the fact that nobody else had seen this. Jogging to the end of the road, he looked around but still there was no one, no cars, nothing. He had been the sole observer of this spectacular event. It was almost as though it was meant specially for him.

  Just then, he noticed a face staring at him through the curtains, in a bedroom window. All of the noise he had made was surely more than enough to have attracted significant attention. But apart from that one peering visage, there did not seem to be anybody taking any notice. Not a soul had come out to investigate, as he was expecting. He was there alone, in the midst of the silence, the one solitary figure in this scene. The wintry air remained totally still, everywhere silent and serene. He could sense the cold, but the stillness made it far from unpleasant.

  “This just can’t be happening,” he told himself, experiencing a strange sense of awe.

  Repressed, in the recesses of his mind, had always existed the unsettling idea that he was unjustified in his attitude, that there actually was something to this Christmas business after all. He was confused and rather uncomfortable at the apparentness of his long-standing beliefs, the views he had convinced himself must be right, being unfounded and erroneous. This was firm evidence that it all indeed had meaning, that it was all true, that his beliefs were hollow and based on his selfish desire and propensity to disregard Christmas as something meaningless and pointless. In a state of mystified shock, he went on to attend the local church carol service, his voice trembling and faltering on the one occasion when he attempted to join in the singing.

  A couple of hours later, he found himself back in his house, barely able to remember having walked home, so engrossed in his own thoughts had he been. The log fire was now blazing away. The purpose
ly undecorated Christmas tree stood in the corner of the room, pine needles continuing to accumulate on the floor around its base. He thought that if he had the tree but purposely left it totally unadorned, it would serve as an affront to Christmas, a way of rejecting it, something to represent his dislike of and disenchantment at the whole idea. It was a symbolic means by which to dismiss the occasion, a physical way of detaching and distancing himself from the whole affair.

  He tucked into his fourth mince pie of the night. He was eating these simply because he enjoyed them so much, especially smeared lavishly with delectably sweet brandy cream, as this one was, certainly not because they were traditional Christmas food. He took another sip of mulled wine to wash it down. The wine he had made himself, to a special recipe. It was a warming, flavourful, deliciously spiced, sweet wine, but, again, nothing to do with embracing any Christmas tradition; it was simply a matter of his enjoying the delightful taste. Outside he could hear the elevating volume of carols being sung as the singing neared his front door.

  “If those idiots come here they can sing all they like; I won’t be answering