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Christmas morning winked; lazy

Five, nineteen the start of crazy

The first rumble of little feet

Eyes shut tight in hopeful retreat

The tell tale creak of a handle turning

A heart beat quickens, stomach churning

A slip of light, fierce and bright

A demons claw appears in sight

“I will not cry, I will not shout

I will not curse, I will not pout”

A resolution bravely made

An empty promise that won’t last the day

And now the door swings sharply wide

And with lucifers lungs there is a cry

“It’s too early” you yell, “not til six I said”

A futile attempt you realise with dread

And like that, all of a sudden

They’re everywhere, must be a dozen

Screeching, scrabbling, fighting fierce

Drowning in noises of a fledgling curse

Next it’s the opening of presents bought

A feasting on retail flesh, fresh caught

In their tearing grasping reach

Ignoring your futile desperate beseech

In silent fear you weep and sit

As yet another thoughtful gift

Turns to yet another shredded stack

Of ungrateful discarded plastic crap

The latest craze: Furniture of celebs

Stormzy’s footstool, with just two legs

Selena’s bedroom door, always open

Elton’s bathtub, always floating

What’s this? I hate it! I didn’t want that!

They cry, they curse, they spit and spat.

They Scamper for Santa’s merry discards

Shameless, blatant, blameless, disregard

“I see now, how today looks for me

It unrolls grim; a Dickensian prophecy.

Chained to the oven, covered in scum

Surrounded by ghosts of chores yet to come”

You stir from your thoughts, with a sudden blow

The pains just beginning that much you know

But it won’t last forever, soon will be free

Then realise with horror it’s still only 5:19

“That’s it!” You cry, as the rage builds

“Enough. You little bastards” and it fills

You up to overflowing. And pop...

“I raised you better, please just stop.”

You throw them to the floor as you rise.

And smile to yourself at their surprise

“You little ungrateful demon shits.

All I do, every year, all of this.”

“And what do i get? Some bubble bath.

A plastic bracelet. Don’t make me laugh.

Do you even care, just one jot?

Just some gratitude, it’s not a lot.”

You scoop all presents, up in the sheet

Silent shocked faces follow, meek

Down stairs outside and into the bin

Followed by petroleum, and a wild grin.

“Well now you’re done. Time to burn.”

Tear filled faces, silent and stern,

A match is dropped, a cloud of light

Melting hearts and home furnishings alike

At least that’s what you want to do

But you know that you couldn’t go through

instead you watch kids (and clock in between)

Flashing red forever 19, 19, 19...”

Hidden in the words of this weeks story are the titles / near titles) of the 22 songs (at a pinch id accept 20) which the spirit sang to Obadiah as they flew. Please list all the songtitles in order in feedback to win a prize. Come on now “Are you ready …for love?” (that doesn’t count!) .answers before xmas.

Obadiah Sprudd watched the candle in the wind as it struggled and died. He’d been sitting there for hours ever since he’d let the sun go down on him that afternoon. Everything was familiar in the office of Danielmy Brothers accountancy though the brothers themselves had long departed to their families for Christmas.

To be completely truthful he wasn’t looking forward to Christmas. Though he was not a miser (he gave generously to the poor and always tried to be of good cheer), he just hated all the tinsel and glitter and stupid jumpers with sequinned robins stitched on. He preferred a dull brown morning suit to all that frivolity.

He went up to the roof to look across the city, to his astonishment, fake snowflakes, another of his pet hates, were descending from the heavens, floating down like a thousand tiny dancers.

Then from the sky there was a huge crack of noise and through the clouds and snowflakes came an extraordinary traveller, a gaudy rocket man who was sitting in a magnificent contraption which appeared to be part piano, part candelabra, part bathtub.

“Are…you a spirit? A man or a morsel” stammered Obadiah. The spirit stood up, it wore a feather boa, spectacles covered in fake jewels and a pair 6 foot high workman’s boots.

“Spirit Darling? Don’t mind if I do! What’ve you got?” he exclaimed. “I’m your fairy godmother and I’ve come to put some sparkle into those lovely blue eyes.

Though terrified Obadiah couldn’t help asking, “Those shoes you wear, what are the bottoms made of?”

“Obadiah you will never know anything about my soles.” prophesised the spirit.

“Now come along, Chop chop. Let’s step into Christmas!”

Just then a chimney sweep emerged from the shadows “Wait for me” he cried as the bathtub rose into the air. The spirit ignored him. “Always deny the passengers who want to get on!” he declared as they rose heavenwards.

They soared above the city past Saturday night fighters and honky cats, revellers dressed to the 9s. All the time the spirit was singing songs from his bathtub piano, some sad, some jolly. “you must be wondering why I chose you” said the spirit “Well it was something about the way you look tonight, so dowdy! I thought look at her! She needs tarting up!”

“err Thank you” said Obadiah uncertainly, he was even more afraid of camp than he was of ghosts.

“It’s no sacrifice at all!” replied the spirit as they hurtled around space and time.

“I beg you of you tell me one more thing?” said Obadiah “Do you haunt other mortal men such as I?”

“of course not, I’m only part time love. The rest of the time I’m a piano player!”

Just then there was another enormous jolt. The bath tub lurched and they were thrown momentarily into darkness falling at pace through the cold air.

Then suddenly their carriage righted itself and descended gently back to the roof top of his office. Obadiah felt that something strange had happened to him in the darkness of the freefall.

“You ok honey?” said the spirit.

“Well, I’m still standing” replied the clerk.

“Now you’re all spruced up- my work is done! So get out of my bath and don’t go breaking my heart!” Said the spirit, who then ascended back to the heavens never to be seen by Obadiah again.

As Obadiah returned home through darkened streets he paid no heed to the mocking chants of urchins for a new feeling was upon him. For the first time in his life he no longer felt self-conscious. What was a man’s life if it contained no frippery or sparkle? He asked himself. “Can you feel the love tonight?” he shouted at a passing dustman before entering an all-night Christmas tat shop.

Arriving home at 5.19 am he was amused to observe that his wife Mary and Little Ben his frailest son had decorated the tree with a single dun coloured bauble as per his normal rules.

Obadiah set to work.

When his family came down they couldn’t believe their eyes. The room was a veritable palace of tinsel. Sticks of rock, in animal themed flavours, including crocodile, were festooned in a shimmering monument to bad taste, a cure for Christmas puritanism laid out by his own healing hands.

But gaudiest of all and unbeknownst to Obadiah himself was his own attire. He was dressed in a large flashing Christmas tree outfit with glittering green platform shoes! He hadn’t had time to look in the mirror since the bathtub landed. This is what the spirit had meant by spruced up!

“Husband” said Mary “You have truly changed the spirit of Christmas in this house!” He sensed that he may have gone too far, even for her. “Well someone saved my life tonight” he replied as he tried to kiss the bride he’d wedded ten years earlier. Sadly, a polyester branch that was protruding from his chest made this operation impossible.

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storyclub.co.uk is NOT the promoter of this quiz. Quibbles, gripes, etc, to be taken up with the author....

Warning: This story contains graphic sexual violence

Christmas Morning.

5:19 a.m.

A shaft of blue light pierces the darkness of my bedroom. A flashlight. Or a camera. My brain too foggy to register what’s happening.

An angry whisper from my bedroom door. My limbs freeze beneath the cool bedsheets but I perspire from fear.

“Move and I’ll shoot you dead in the face.”

Now I see the barrel, the blue light attached on top. I make out a gloved hand and a shadow man.

I wet myself and feel shame. I ruminate on this, my mind floating away. I was watching a documentary on Elton John before bedtime. He has a golden bathtub.

I am no longer here.

“Lay on your stomach. Do it slowly. You scream and I shoot.”

I turn over. The sheet beneath me, soaked. Urine and sweat. My skin is clammy.

I am about to vomit. I resolve not to choke on it. I turn my head to the side and spew over the side of the pillow.

A hand yanks the pillow away from me. My head tumbles to the mattress. I’m falling away.

My hands are pulled behind me. I cry out and the back of my head gets clipped hard. I see stars.

I float farther now, and wonder what Miss Havisham had for breakfast before she died. I must have read that book twenty years ago.

My wrists are zipped up tight behind me. My red fluffy pajama pants are stripped off me.

“You pissed yourself.” Not a question. I sense glee in the statement. Not his first rodeo.

My underwear comes next.

“Be a good boy and I’ll let you live.” I don’t believe him. I don’t believe anything anymore.

Isn’t it Christmas? I’ve got presents under the tree. Who will open them when I’m gone?

I stare at this tiny speck of light on the wall. It illuminates the smallest pimple of white paint.

I name it Jason the White Pimple of Paint.

This makes me laugh. He stops to punch me in the eye. I feel the swelling immediately. My eye closes.

Goodbye, Jason.

I smell aftershave. It’s like salt on the wind.

Did he shower?

He’s panting like a dog. His breath is like beef jerky.

I vomit again, which pushes him out of me.

He lets me finish. Thoughtful guy. I laugh again.

The next punch lands on my kidney and I can’t breathe.

I feel warmth inside me. Does he have any diseases? I’ll need to get checked.

“You want some water?” The question begs more laughter but I defer to crying.

I feel cold metal against my temple.

“Should I let you live?”

I don’t know what to say. I just lay there. My brain floats away again. It’s almost time to feed my cat. She likes her breakfast early.

The sun shines through my thin blue curtains before I realize I can scream without dying, so I scream away.

It’s Christmas Day.

Amelia, so winsome and sweet. The single item on her Christmas list took her twenty minutes to describe, her halting lisp raising inside of Bill Tubbs a great warm feeling. Here was the innocence of childhood!

But Virginia. She sat next to her little sister, rolling her eyes and dropping sarcastic hints that questioned the very existence of Father Christmas at all. Two sisters. One was candyfloss, and the other with the heart of a sour prune.

Whatever had made him accept this invitation from an old university chum?

Ah yes…

Early next morning, five nineteen in fact, and Bill left his room to creep downstairs. He toured all the ground floor rooms of that mansion to be sure that only he was stirring. And then…

Oh, that kiss of silk as his kimono whispered down the skin upon his arms and slipped to the floor.

Bill Tubbs: nude again.

He was now a fully-fledged exhibitionist. Not the weird, willy out in the park kind of a chap, but the kind who pranced in dangerous places, drunk on the threat that he might be caught.

Drunker still on the terror that he would.

He skipped into the sitting room to dance in front of the fireplace resplendent with empty stockings. He gasped with glee when he saw the Santa outfit laid out on one of the sofas. He donned the hat and beard with a giggle, then pounced on the treats left for Santa.

Sherry glass in one hand, mince pie in the other, Bill began to dance and spin once more, and so caught in the moment that it took him three full turns to comprehend the wide eyed little face gazing at him around an armchair.

Bill stumbled, dove for cover, stumbled two or three more times for emphasis, and then peered cautiously from the skimpy cover provided by the Christmas tree.

In a breathless lisp, Amelia said, ‘Why happened to your clothes, Santa?’

A flash of inspiration struck Bill. ‘The Chimney! To get down the chimney. Can’t get down the chimney in my suit.’

Amelia nodded.

‘What about your pants? My pants are really little.’

Bill said, ‘Um…’ Another flash of inspiration. ‘They got caught on a protruding nodule of brick. Sad to say, but Santa’s pants are stuck in the chimney.’

Amelia nodded thoughtfully.

‘Off you go to bed now, Amelia. Otherwise you won’t get what’s on your Christmas list.’

Amelia squealed. ‘My dolly!?’

She disappeared. Bill Tubbs could hear the quick pad of her feet as she ran, and he sighed. This was it for Bill – no more nudey prancing. This resolution he made on all that was Holy, upon Elton John’s bathtub, and upon all the wizened bones that shook and growled for poor Scrooge that night he was shown his future self. It would be fine – a naked dancing Santa? Of course it was a dream.

When all was quiet, Bill began to sneak a leg past the bristling needle branches. He froze at a cough.

Virginia was sitting on one of the sofas regarding him with an evil smile.

‘Hi Santa. I’m sorry I ever doubted you were real.’

Bill shrank back into cover.

Virginia was smiling.

She said, ‘Do I still have time to write a Christmas list?’

It was 5.18 on Christmas morning and the only people left were mostly unconscious.

Carla was slumped against the DJ booth doggedly swigging from a bottle of prosecco, but her heart wasn’t in it anymore. Jake was nestled against the famous Miss Jenni Taylia’s waxed and glittered chest, both of them fast asleep under the magical glow of the discoball.

The deserted dancefloor was stickier than the bottom of Elton John’s bathtub and Alex thought there was something strangely peaceful about being practically alone in an empty club in that no-man’s-land between closing time and dawn. A calm descended over him as he poured himself another glass of fizz.

Outside the street was deserted and silent. Not a creature was stirring, apart from something horrible rummaging in the bins across the road

Alex inhaled another line from Jake’s meaty thigh and watched vaguely as the electric numbers on the till flipped round to read 5.19.

As they did, the strangest thing happened. Somewhere, out in the darkness, a bell began to toll, slow, heavy and ominous. Jake was certain the club was nowhere near a church, but, he argued, his brain fizzing as the white powder cast its spell, funny things happened to sound when all was still and quiet. Or so he’d read.

It never occurred to him that no church bells tolled midnight at 5.19 in the morning.

It was several minutes before Alex noticed the spectral figure staring down at him with hollow eyes and hollow cheeks as the hollow echo of the tolling bells faded. He promptly decided that he’d had more than enough Charlie for one night and that he should get some sleep.

But the spirit didn’t dissolve when he blinked. If anything, it stared harder.

“Alex” it intoned “You are in danger. I have come to save you from yourself.”

“You what?” said Alex.

“Come, I will show you Christmas five years hence.”

In a brilliant flash Alex was transported, swirling through space and time and thinking that the Charlie was a lot stronger than he’d realised when he landed, with a bump, in a snow-covered street. When he opened his eyes he saw none other than himself.

But he was changed. His clothes were old and shabby. His face drawn and gaunt with hunger and want, scabbed, bloody lips and desperate eyes. Future Alex crouched in a doorway holding his hands out for the falling change of distracted strangers.

Then, just as suddenly, Alex was whirling back again,spinning and swooping until he found himself back at the bar, back in his smart shirt and expensive shoes. The ghost was nowhere to be seen.

Panting, stunned, Alex leaned against the bar, his mind reeling with the vision the spirit had shown him, his head filling with all the ways he could be a better man, make a different future for himself.

No more drugs. No more drink. No more casual sex and staggering home at dawn. He was changed now. A good man. That shivering wretch in the doorway would never be him. He felt a profound gratitude for what the spirit had done. It had saved him.

Then he spotted the half-finished bag of Charlie on the floor.

Alex crouched down to pick it up. It was glimmering white in the darkness like crisp, fresh snow. Everyone else was fast asleep. No-one would ever know.

Alex thought again about the spirit then tapped out three delicate little lines on the bar. After all, this was exactly what New Year’s resolutions were for and he had six days till then...

“What the fuck is a Dickensian Prophesy?” shouted Elton John from his bath.

“David..DAVID!”

David was in the kitchen mixing Elton’s Ovaltine, studiously ignoring his husbands shrieks.

“David, I’ve read it here in this book thing, what does it mean?”

David couldn’t face trying, once again, to explain something hard to someone so thick. David loved Elton, there was no doubt about that, but it wasn’t because of his intellect. Elton liked to think that he was an intellectual, a philosopher and sage. He said that was why people were drawn to him, the likes of Princess Diana and Gary Barlow for example. What Elton didn’t know was that the people drawn to him on the basis of his mind were invariably even more stupid. David on the other hand was genuinely quite bright and was beginning to feel the need for some mental stimulation.

Bernie Taupin loved Elton too and he was quite clever, but he was just a very nice man,unlike David who could on occasion be an absolute cunt. However, he knew the very kind heart that Elton possessed underneath the bling and the desperation. David took Elton his Ovaltine and a custard cream, something that was a traditional christmas eve treat for him apparently, the fact that they had only just got in after a glitzy night out didn’t mean that Elton was going to forgo it.

“David, what’s the time?”

“It’s 5.19am Elton”

“Are the boys awake yet, has santa been ?”

“Yes santa has been and no, they’re fast asleep. Give me that book, lie back and have a nice soak, there plenty of time.”

“I love christmas”

“I know you do Elton, and so do I”

David looked at Elton with his large white belly and his sequined bath cap and felt at once both affection and frustration.

He left Elton and went to the living room, sat on the chair by the enormous 10 foot Norwegian christmas tree and drink a seasonal tipple, after all, the sun was still over the yard arm given that dawn hadn’t happened yet.

The life he led was domestic and glamorous, nappies and stardust, but it mostly revolved around other people. He could feel the old itch in his feet and he knew his predilection for flight. He had left a lot of men whom never really deserved to be left, and a few who did. David remembered the young blonde in Rome, whose downy stomach was so flat he could balance his wine glass on it. He remembered the gorgeous gypsy man in Sitges, who whispered sweet nothings in his ear as they lay together on the beach. There were more of these sweet and sultry memories, so tempting and he could feel his resolve weaken, his wedding promises start to spin away.

Something moved across the periphery of his vision, David turned to look towards the window and saw a streak of light cross the sky. Upstairs little footsteps padded across their bedroom floor and David heard small muffled voices.

“David, David, the boys are awake, I can hear them” called Elton

“Nappies and stardust indeed” thought David, “nowhere else I would rather be.”