Every culture on the Earth, it seems, has a demonic creature designed to punish, terrify, or simply eat disobedient children. Sometimes demons, sometimes cranky witches, children are informed, will carry them away or sometimes just give them a solid thrashing. And no holiday draws them out, at least in Europe, like Christmas. Pere Fouettard (Father Spanking), Krampus, Belsnickel (who brings presents or beatings, according to his own judgement), the Yule Cat (an Icelandic demon feline which eats children who won’t wear the clothes they got for Christmas), Lussi (a dark side of St. Lucia, who would carry off children who weren’t in bed at bedtime)…you get the idea..
You may wonder who in Hell (literally) gets assigned to these jobs. Well, someone who was in my place on Christmas Eve dropped a small, tidily printed volume telling a story I hadn’t read before.
Bruno had never looked forward to Judgement Day, but was finding it even worse than he’d expected. There were no Pearly Gates, just a dusty office with a scratched desk and a shadowy figure who wore no halo and would not be lied to when a question was put to a new arrival.
Bruno, who had been swept to this office still carrying a bag with the jewelry he’d taken from the hotel room, tried to lie. He could see at once that he had miscalculated that jump to the next roof, and had been taken red-handed. But if he did not lie, he did try to put his case as well as he could.
“Well, I never took nothing from any guy who couldn’t afford it,” he said, looking for any change in the shadow before him. “Sometimes, ya get me, they’s a big house an’ expensive car, but ya gets inside and see the guy eats fish sticks when he’s home, and hasta save up his ready cash for pertater chips. Oncet in a while, I even leaves a couple bucks. Ya get me? Not right out in the open—that’d be a insult—but down a chair cushion, like maybe he’d dropped it hisself.”
“You could afford to do that,” came that stomach-twisting voice from inside the shadow, “And could never afford to give up your life of crime?”
“Well, I coulda afforded it.” Bruno hunched his shoulders. “But whatcha gonna do wit’ all that extra time? It was…well, exciting, and…and ya never know how it’s…was…gonna finish. An’ I was good at it. So I….”
“Good at it,” rippled the voice. The shadow inclined forward toward the book on the battered desk. “Yes, after a few early missteps, you were never caught, never arrested.” The head came up again. “And though you stole vast quantities—really, your record is most impressively appalling–you never paid for your crimes. In your lifetime, of course.”
Bruno lowered his head. “That’s true.” Something about the way the shadow said “in your lifetime” took away any other answer. This hearing was pretty much over.
“That’s it, then.” An appendage of the shadow extended toward the book and closed it with a thump. The appendage came up. “I don’t know why I bother. You have already been assigned to work under a certain gentleman in red.”
Bruno opened his mouth for a big breath or a loud scream, and found both impossible. The desk vanished and a huge figure rose before him, bright red indeed, and laughing.
“Ho ho ho. Well, little Bruno, let’s see what you grew up into.”
The big round man with the big white beard put a hand on each of Bruno’s shoulders. “Just what I need,” Santa Claus went on, “I hear you are an expert who can slip into people’s houses unnoticed.”
Bruno could not follow what was happening. He had rather expected to be on fire by now. “But…but you does that yerself!”
“Just one night a year, and I cover the world.” Santa threw an arm around Bruno’s shoulders, which lost the cramp they’d acquired on stepping into that dusty office. “I need someone who can do this on an as-needed basis. Someone with the right sort of…professional skill.”
This had to be a trick, one last twist before he started smoldering. Bruno shook his head. “What kind of….”
“Those infernal imps are always listening.” Looking over one shoulder, the big man leaned in to whisper further details into the dead felon’s ear. Bruno’s face cleared, and then brightened.
“I thought I’d be doin’ something terrible painful forever!”
Santa patted him on the back. “Let’s just say there’s an art to Nice and Naughty Lists.”
And so the stealthy Bruno became Brunapocatch, an avenging spirit of Christmas, slipping by January darkness into the homes of those ungrateful or simply lazy souls who have no intention of using the gift cards they got for Christmas. Leaving the empty envelopes in plain sight so the victims can search for the missing cards in vain, he carries the cards themselves off to homes where they will be useful. Perhaps the victims will learn from this, and change their ways. I suspect this story may not have been accidentally dropped next to the Christmas stocking of a blogger who could give Brunapocatch a little publicity and YOU fair warning. Make plans for those seventeen Starbucks cards people gave you, or you may find empty gift envelopes around January 6.
It wasn’t a warning to ME, Heaven knows. I opened all my gift cards before Christmas and spent ‘em on presents for other people. I expect that falls under a whole nother department.
Blogsy Babbles 