Christmas came through the well-worn doors side-ways for a mid-August special delivery. He presented himself for laughs andd snickers to alleviate the boredom of the menial.
Behind the glass monuments tippy-toing to reach the top-shelf, hand on hip whore-like, she creased the pearl-dropped face with the trolls insidious smirk.
The place had changed from a cosy hole-in-the-wall to some kind of gaudy temple of sordid worship, with icons depicted on walls the colour of the minds it employed; rusty. From a sandpit to a swamp in the time it took to drop panties to ankles and accept the rampant cock of a fellow employee in a hot and hungry arse."All in one and one in all" the motto shouted over patrons short-changed tips to the endless guffaws to the alcoholic's lack of mind.
Christmas took a stool and sipped cold home-made lemonade through a returnable straw whose deposit was well worth the journey back from the dispensary. He was waiting cooly for chocolate-wrapped Easter, now devoid of pain and blood-stains since he'd become plated.
Christmas knew he'd be late, he always was. Thousands of years, hundreds of light-years from home, and an inch from pleasure. Christmas had hung around for three days all those years ago waiting to hear the words that would turn him into a rabbit and shame the fairy that made a living from tooth-scraps and lifted pillows.
Christmas took them all in at a glance and knew December was a waste of time for most. This was a waste of time for most. It was probably a waste of time for Christmas but he had an appointment and was despearate to give it one last chance.
He glanced through the orthodox sections and down to the leprosy end of Eternity and wondered whether he'd stepped out for a piss or to grab a coffee, or whether today was a day too early in a life-time too late. Too many times the sight of the end had made people stumble at the start, or false start over a back-fire they thought was a pistol, seeing them penalised 5 years, 10 years, life-times of history or a future of life.
So graves continued to gulp down human enjoyment in the name of being sociable and robbers continued to plunder vaults left open by a relaxed frame of mind.
Christmas wondered aloud amid the roaring nothing and saw heads turn for the want of anything better to do and saw eyes draw demurely closed when they understood his contemplation, a brief diversion from the realisation of Death, a waste of life at appropriate times, let alone here in what shoud have been a funhouse.