A Holiday Intruder
Someone’s in the House
Nick sat up in the bed suddenly. It was hard for his old bones to move as quickly as they used to, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins helped him lift his extra weight.
He could hear noises coming from the living room. And maybe even sounds from outside.
His wife was still lightly snoring in the bed and he did his best not to wake her. He knew what he had to do. She would only get in the way.
He rolled expertly off the side of the bed, his hand reaching under the pillow as he went. It came out clutching the grip of a sawed-off shotgun.
He action rolled across the room in a deft maneuver that simultaneously stripped him of his burdensome robe but also looked kickass. It was especially impressive when you considered his age and roundness of belly.
He poked his head out of the doorway and rolled across the hall. He thought he heard someone walking so he did that thing hot women and Jackie Chan did in the movies: he used his legs and arms to hold himself up at the ceiling, the shotgun deftly held by the elastic of his crimson sleep pants.
He felt the strain of gravity. Things weren’t quite as light as they used to be. Time to lay off the cookies.
He dropped to the floor, dashed down the hall, and did a flip over the railing. He parkoured from wall to wall and landed silently at the bottom of the stairs.
He dove into the living room with his gun raised. He flew through the air impossibly slowly, as if magically in slow motion and shouted, “Merry Christmas, Mother Fucker!”
The figure in the living room laughed. “Do we have to do this every year?”
Nick laughed and dropped the gun. “Sorry it’s confusing, I always forget.”
“It’s all down to how timezones interact with Christmas Magic. I have to deliver presents to every house at midnight. Instantly. With magic. I’m in every house at the exact same instant. But it only takes a few minutes of work. Then I go home and go to bed. And then I show up at midnight to deliver toys to my OWN HOUSE. And every year I try to pretend I’m fucking Rambo when I’m really just wasting chimney magic to try to look cool and almost shoot MYSELF while I’m trying to deliver presents to ME.”
“I know that, idiot. I’m you. Stop mansplaining.”
