The reindeer were flying in formation towards the angels. "Donner, this is Cupid!" said one into his headset. "There's
just too many of them! We can't take them!"
"It's all right, just hang in there!" Donner replied. "I'm taking Blue Squadron down to Sector V, you wait for Rudolph
to get out of the frying pan and pull into a Delta Attack Position, do you read me?"
"Roger, Donner," Cupid said. "But their deflector shields are too strong!"
Just then a code red emergency signal sounded in the two animals' ears. "Attention, this is Prancer. Blitzen is down.
Repeat, Blitzen is down."
"Listen," Cupid persisted, "Good reindeer are dying in this battle, Donner! We can't go on like this!"
But he had spoken too soon. Miraculously, like some sort of bird, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer soared into the air
over the angels. There was a break before the storm when neither side moved at all, and then Rudolph began to sneeze out powerful
laser torpedoes at the angels. Large chunks were completely obliterated within seconds.
"Yes! Way to go!" Donner cheered him on. There was much rejoicing on the reindeer headsets.
Things were not going so well for the elves, who were fighting on the ground. "Say, Rocky, tell me something," said one
angel to his friend. "If these elves are immortal, why are they dying in battle like this? Also, if they are immortal, but
they have children, why isn't there a major elf overpopulation crisis?"
"Shut up and fight," Rocky answered. "You ask too many questions."
Floating in the air next to the ceiling in a magnificent showcase of talent were Santa and Jesus. It seemed to be an
even match; when Santa would strike, Jesus would quickly dodge, and whenever Jesus attempted an offense, Santa would block
it and laugh.
"You are no match for my power," Santa chortled.
"Oh yeah? That's what you think!" Jesus roared. "Super heavenly ball of light!" Jesus sent his projectile rushing toward
Santa with his bare hands.
Santa absorbed the attack with his stomach. "Blizzardmon, I choose you!" he commanded. A small ratlike creature appeared
between the combatants and began blowing snowflakes at Jesus.
Jesus summoned the power of the winds and sent Blizzardmon flying away into the sky. "Kamehameha!" he said, turning
himself into a Super Saiyan.
In the middle of all the commotion, young Sarah Scott sat scared to death on the workshop floor, hugging her
dog, Snowball. "We've got to stop this!" she cried to him. "We simply must!" This is when an idea came to her, as ideas often
do to heroes in these sorts of stories. "Listen, Snowball, Santa is so dependent on other people to do his work, he must have
some sort of air conditioning unit! We've got to find it and turn it up really, really high! Then this whole place'll go down
like Atlantis, unless they listen to us and stop fighting!"
Snowball gave her the sort of agreement that a dog does, without actually saying anything. The two of them
stood up together and made their way past Santa's great throne, down a hallway and a door with the name "Mrs. Claus" embroidered
in gold on it, from which behind snoring could be heard. And there, on the wall at the end of the hall, was the AC. But before
Sarah could touch it, a tall man with pasty white skin and black eyeliner, crazy black hair and freakishly long fingernails
leaped in front of her.
"Oh please," she said impatiently. "Am I in the middle of a Tim Burton movie or what? First we've got that really
nice juxtaposition of fire and snow and now Johnny Depp's jumping out of the bushes."
Johnny looked amazed. "You mean I didn't scare you?"
"No," she said. "Not at all. Couldn't scare a fly. Or make one laugh either, for that matter."
Johnny began to cry.
"Oh, please, you big sissy!" Sarah Scott was normally a very nice girl, but in this case she just had to kick Johnny
Depp right in the nuts. He hopped away on one foot, squelching with pain. She shook her head at him as he left. "Most overrated
actor of the past five years." Then she was distracted by a low rumbling.
The walls of the workshop completely caved outward. The entire scene of the angels, the reindeer, the elves, Jesus, and
Santa Claus was exposed out to the middle of the night. And a laser blast came rocketing towards where the little girl was
standing. It hit Snowball square in the stomach.
"No!" Sarah screamed. Her life was suddenly in slow motion as the dog fell onto the snow, as she reached out her hands
to catch him and failed. She could no longer hear the fighting that was going on a few yards away from her. She could hardly
even still see Snowball because her eyes had suddenly released everything they had in them. She fell forward onto her
dog, soaking his fur with tears. Snowball turned his head slowly and looked at her, a strange joy in his eyes. His eyes spoke
to Sarah.
Sarah, it's okay now. It's Christmas. Just let it be okay... for now...
He licked Sarah on the cheek. He raised his paw as if he was going to stand, but it fell back to the ground again disturbingly
fast. "Please... no..." she whimpered. She grabbed his paw, wanting to help him, but he made no effort. She massaged his small
footpads. She had always liked the way those felt on her dog. It was a strange pleasure of hers.
The love between animal and human is completely indescribable. Perhaps it is because deep down, all we really are are
animals in the first place, and no matter how hard we try to separate ourselves from them, our roots will refuse to change.
It is a love that cannot be explained in words of any vocal language; it is a love one does not have to talk about to understand.
It is, perhaps, one of the strongest emotions on Earth. And how funny that it is so often overlooked, as if there were more
enjoyable things to be done than share life with a dog, who will never double-cross, never lie, and will only love without
caring about things that have already passed or will pass in the future. If only people could be like that.
Sarah Scott stood up clutching Snowball's body in her arms, never wanting to let go. She marched out onto a large ice
precipice jutting out of the snow, and shouted at the top of her lungs, "LISTEN TO ME!"
The battle ceased. To hear a little girl shout in this way commanded every participant in the bloodfest. There was a
meaning behind her words that hadn't been there before.
"Listen," Sarah said. "Just... listen. Christmas is the one day of the year when people are nice to each other. Every
other day sucks because people are always judging each other based on their backgrounds or goals, and it's just silly. I mean,
sure, America's a little dumb sometimes. You could probably illegalize anything if you looked for the right faults in their
federal documents. But it's really not such a bad place. It lets people like me speak out the way I am right now. You shouldn't
be so hateful towards it, the world really is a better place with it around. And who really cares who the Messiah is, or if
he's still coming? Who really cares how much money you make? Does it matter in the long run? Why can't we all just love each
other? It's what I do. I don't really care what this holiday's supposed to mean or anything... I just know that it's a day
where everyone gets together and eats a lot. And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, we really should try to make every
day like Christmas. If we all just stopped with the guns and the knives and the mean words, it wouldn't be all that hard,
would it?"
When Sarah Scott was done, everyone cried. Every angel. Every reindeer. Every elf. Santa Claus cried. Jesus Christ himself
cried.
And then everyone else cried, without really knowing why. People in America, people in Britain, people in Canada just
began to cry. The Mexicans, the Russians, the Japanese just started crying. Said one crying African mother to her son, "I
don't know why, but I'm just happy. Just happy."
An epidemic of kindness spread across the world. All the conflict just ceased to be. Santa Claus went out and delivered
presents to all the people of the world, including the non-payers, and also dumped the cash that he had gotten as he went.
Jesus went down the gates of Hell and opened them, allowing the sinners to freely walk in Heaven. And they were nice to everyone
too. It seemed that Sarah Scott, a four-year-old girl who had simply believed in Christmas when no one else did, had managed
to solve all the world's problems.
The next day when Sarah got home, her mother, Marylin, was waiting at the door to hug her. "I love you, Sarah, and I'm
sorry for everything," she said.
Sarah's father, Thompson, emerged from another room and joined in on the hug. "Sarah, I hope we can just forget about
everything that's passed and be a family now. The way we should've been from the beginning."
Sarah smiled. "I love you, Mom. I love you, Dad." she said. And Christmas was saved.
