A Christmas Moment

He was born. With a gasp he remembered his previous life. For once it hadn't ended so badly, he hadn't died violently or alone. Oh! Now he remembered all the times he had lived. He was doomed to live all lives because, one day, when he had lived them all, he would understand—become, you know, god.

He wondered where he was. This must be Mother, and her warm breast, which she offered him.

“And Father, he's quite a bit older than the last guy. And who are the three coots offering gifts?

That looks like a donkey! In my bedroom! My folks have shacked up in a manger! Where the hell am I?” He looked around desperately for escape.

Then he yawned. With every sip of Mother's milk the baby's thoughts became a little more cloudy. He forgot the shopkeeper's life he'd lived in Memphis, the cobbler in Macedon, the farmer in Gaul, the dancing girl in Rome. He forgot them all as he started his new life, in a manger, in Bethlehem.

The 3 Wise Asses--Bear's Christmas 2014

The story that poses the question: If there were three wise men, what did they ride?

It was a cold evening, the sky clear and dark as the three wise asses stood tied up beside the humble manger in the little town of Bethlehem. A boy passed among them, giving each a handful of parched grain.

“What's the special occasion?” grumbled the one called Meg, but the others were too busy chewing to answer.

Suddenly, the door swung open and the boss came out. “Bring Meg over here,” he hissed. “Quickly!”

The boys untied her and led her inside the shabby building where the animal was brought before a tableau of a tired looking couple and their newborn child. Meg snorted nervously.

Impossibly, the infant began speaking.

“Don't be afraid, Meg.”

Meg looked around but no one seemed to notice. “I didn't know you little ones could talk . . . for that matter, I didn't know I could speak Aramaic!”

The baby smiled. “You can't, but that won't stop you.”

“Right . . . well what can I do for you? . . .”

“Jesus . . . I guess I just wanted to talk to somebody before all this . . . rigmarole begins.”

“Say what?” the ass brayed.

“You and I are a lot alike,” Jesus said. “We take on people's burdens with very little thanks. In your case, you carry people and their belongings until the day you can't do it any more, then they get rid of you.”

“Hey, Buford-Saul has been good to me.”

“No doubt,” replied Jesus with a laugh.

“Well, what burden do you have, baby?”

The infant sighed. “Just the whole fuckin' world.”

Shocked, Meg backed away a step. “It's not right for a baby to use language like that, even if he is only pretending to talk.”

Jesus smiled sadly. “Here's the deal, Meg. Once I've grown up I'll give people a message of compassion and hope and the secret for a happy, fulfilled life—treat others as you wish to be treated yourself. Pretty simple.”

“Even an ass can remember that!”

“Then I'll sacrifice myself to drive the point home.”

Meg stared at him. “That seems . . . extreme.”

The baby shrugged. “Believe me, it'll be worth it. But what chaps my ass is that I'll barely be with the angels above when men start harnessing the power of my words to their own ends—for power, for money, for plain ornery meanness.”

Distressed, Meg wailed, “What can I do? I'm just an ass!”

Jesus laughed as his mother lifted him to her breast. “At least you admit it, dear Meg, at least you admit it!”

God is only standing there, ego eyes watering like a typhoon. Eye here, eye there, watch 'em join together. A woman wants to hold his hand but he won't let her. The unfortunate occasion of which we speak, begotten son of Pan, standard drift on nightmare Ert, doing some bizarre rendition of a Russian squat dance, extending his long legs and clicking his cowboy heels on the street.

A red-faced girl laughed as she watched him, beer bottle in one hand, a cigarette between her fingers.

Others did the Herky Jerky, catalepting a frantic mosh. That's how it started. The heat and motion had them warping like cardboard, feet planted solidly, firm bodies arched . . .

But I wasn't dancing tonight, things were too damn scary.

The Last Christmas Story

It was Christmas morning and a child played with his new toy, a “L’il Scientist” kit. There were test tubes and beakers, scales and diodes, a microscope and telescope, a mass spectrometer, and a pristine particle accelerator buried in the back yard.

He mixed up chemicals for awhile: turning water into wine and back again, learning the joys of vinegar and baking soda, nickel-plating his sister’s glass eye—until the fumes from the sulfur volcano he’d built caused his parents to suggest he play outside.

Disconsolately, he kicked around the faded clumps of grass in the back yard, sharp wind cutting through his hoodie like a knife through the frog he’s dissected and left in the bathtub. “I guess they ain’t found that yet,” he grumbled while kicking at a rock that turned out to be frozen dog poop. To get out of the cold wind he entered the particle accelerator’s bunker. Soon he was flipping switches and watching the readouts as a deep and delightful thrumming filled the building.

Suddenly, fireworks erupted as relativistic heavy ions collided.

“Let’s see what we got here,” he muttered while wheeling out his new double-ultra-microscope. Broken chunks of gold atoms littered his screen like jalopies at a demolition derby. “Cool!” he enthused.

Then he saw a speck of light. Focusing, he realized that it was actually a quickly growing bubble. “Outstanding!” he said, ramping up the magnification. Specks of light were embedded in the bubble like raisins in a muffin. “Imagine that,” he muttered, seeing tiny vortices. He focused on one of the little whirlpools and saw it was composed of millions of tiny sparks, some red, blue, orange, ultramarine and white. He chose one of the sparks near the edge, a yellow-whitish one.

He found that it had dark companions, small clumps of dirt and gas circled about it like horses on a merry-go-round. The big ones looked like swirly marbles and were cool enough, he supposed, but he quickly honed in on the one that had oxygen in its atmosphere and lots of water. He saw land, too, mountains, deserts, and verdant forests. He gasped—roads and buildings! He pushed his microscope all the way to its limit, wishing he’d asked Santa for the triple-ultra kit, until he was just able to make out a small building outside a village, where animals were housed—a barn or manger he supposed. There, three ornately garbed gentlemen offered gifts to a newborn child.

“Billy!” he heard his mother call, “Time for church.”

Reluctantly he turned off the monitor. Too bad, he thought, the bubble universe he’d accidentally created would be gone by the time he returned, evaporated back into the vacuum from where it had emerged. He’d just have to make another one tomorrow, he supposed, turning out the lights as somewhere a wise man noticed that the star that had guided him and the others to Bethlehem had disappeared.

And so will I.

Zardoz

John Hodgman: A brief digression on matters of lost time

Good Eye/Bad Eye

He met her in church on a Sunday morning. Since he was in town for only one day he invited her to breakfast afterwards. They got along so well that he gave her a couple of passes for the evening’s match in Boofterville. To his surprise she showed up with her brother. They returned with him to the dressing room for a few minutes and her brother got his autograph, saying that he was a huge fan. She wished him luck and then they went back to their seats.

He was slated for a later match, against Sgt. Big Bo Scrumble, 400 pounds of fighting Marine. Finally he heard the announcer, slapped the patch over his left eye, did a couple deep knee bends, and made his way to the ring. “And now, at 367 pounds, all the way from Vinegarroon County, Indiana, the most schizophrenic man in professional wrestling—Good Eye/Bad Eye!”

People strained to see which eye was uncovered. “It’s Good Eye,” the disappointing word spread. He stepped into the ring to cheers and shouts. He had just made her out in the crowd when Big Bo attacked him from behind, before the bell had even rung! Before he knew it he was on the canvas and Big Bo was applying a sloppy arm-bar-drag. Good Eye screamed in pain as Big Bo nearly pulled his arm from its socket. He struggled to his feet.

Big Bo kept the pressure on as he shouted epithets: “Ten hut! Stand at attention when I’m talking to you, maggot!” Then he kicked Good Eye in the ribs knocking him back onto the canvas. As Good Eye struggled, gasping for air, Big Bo showed his contempt by performing a few calisthenics while Good Eye pulled himself painfully to his feet.

Things didn’t get any better after that. Big Bo dropped him on his head a couple of times, even tried a DDT, which Good Eye managed to slip out of before he was knocked unconscious. Then Big Bo slapped him through the ropes and he lay on the ring apron, lights whirling around his head. The roar of the crowd seemed very far away.

He could barely make out the referee counting him out as Big Bo capered in the ring to the boos of the fans.

Suddenly someone was standing over him. “He’s killing you!” she anguished. “Ah, ’tain’t nothing,” he smiled unconvincingly through bloodied teeth. Someone tried to shepherd her away but Good Eye stopped him. “Wait.”

“You’ll never beat him, this way. I’m sorry,” she said as she grabbed his eye patch and pulled it over his one good eye. The crowd gasped. Big Bo stopped his prancing and a look of fear crossed his face. “It’s Bad Eye!” Someone screamed.

Without looking back Bad Eye climbed into the ring and viciously raked his fingernails over Big Bo’s face, blood flowing like the Red Sea. After a couple of good forearm shots Bad Eye had him down, stomping him unmercifully with his big black boots. After a couple of elbow drops he climbed to the top rope where he waited like some monstrous malevolent crow while the shaken Big Bo struggled to his feet. As Bo turned around Bad Eye pounced, leaping over his stunned opponent, capturing Bo’s head between his boots and performing a Flying Head Scissors that sent his opponent whirling into ear-ringing oblivion. “1–2–3,” the referee counted, it was over but Bad Eye wasn’t done yet. He chased the referee out of the ring, grabbed a chair, clobbered the announcer and would have finished off Big Bo except Captain Ace Hardy and his tag team partner, XNOID, led a group of wrestlers out of the back and subdued Bad Eye after twenty minutes of frantic pummeling that left the ring area shattered, several tables broken, three wrestlers and two managers unconscious, and the refreshment booth a wreck. Hotdogs, ice, popcorn, and soda were strewn from one end of the arena to the other. The crowd shouted for more.

Finally, six wrestlers held Bad Eye down as he growled and snapped at them. “We can’t hold him long, get that gal up here!” yelled Cap Ace and soon Bad Eye was glaring up at a young woman, tears in her eyes as she gently grasped his sweaty, bloody eye patch. He tried to pull away but she slid the patch across his battered nose until it covered his one bad eye.

Good Eye looked up and smiled.

He was in love.