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'Run That By Me Again,' from a real newspaper column of stuff and nonsense

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Aerodynamically, it's impossible

By
Bob Markwalter

"But how can they fly? Aerodynamically, you know, it's impossible."

The man looked at the boy, hung an ornament on the tree, then glanced at the couch, where the boy's grandfather sat, smiling.

"He's a very bright young man," grandfather observed.

"So, how?" asked the boy.

"Well," said the man, fixing a hangar to another ornament, "well ... Dad, why don't you field this one?"

Grandfather laughed, caught the boy's sober stare, sobered himself, and answered, "Magic."

"Magic?" asked the boy.

"Magic."

The man rolled his eyes and hung the ornament.

"Science," said the boy, "does not recognize magic."

"Of course," grandfather replied, "which is why science cannot explain flying reindeer or jolly elves sliding down chimneys."

The boy settled by the tree, the man reached for another ornament, and grandfather said, "You have to remember how it all began. Santa wasn't always what he is today. No, he was once an ordinary toy maker and he lived in a little village a great deal like this one, except it was all in the long ago, of course, when they had candles and feather beds and such."

"What century was that?" asked the boy.

"They were too busy to keep track," grandfather explained. "Now when winter came and the snow fell, Santa loved to sit in his workshop making toys, and the boys and girls of the village loved to slip through the front door of the shop. They would sit in the cozy warmth of its toys and tools, and smell its delicious smells, for Santa's wife spent the winter baking, feeding Santa and the children all sorts of tasty things."

"Their cholesterol levels were no doubt astronomical," observed the boy.

"No, everyone was very healthy and happy," grandfather said, "for they exercised regularly and Santa's wife was a low-fat cook. Well, almost everyone was happy, because when it came time to sell the toys, there were always a few parents who could not afford to buy them. Santa gave these children toys, of course..."

"Because elves are jolly," observed the boy.

"Something like that, which should have made everyone happy. But there was one little boy whose father was very proud, and who refused to let his son keep any of the toys Santa gave him. 'We will not accept charity,' the boy's father told Santa as he returned the toys, and before Santa could say a word the man was gone."

The boy's father hung an ornament and asked, "Is this going to get political?"

"Magical," grandfather explained. "For Santa decided that he would slip into the boy's house one night to leave some toys under the Christmas tree."

"I thought ..." said the boy.

"Then stop it for a minute or two," grandfather gently told him. "Now when Santa arrived at the boy's house, he found it locked tighter than a drum - the boy's father was the only man in the village who locked his doors. Santa pulled at his beard, scratched his head, then climbed to the roof and shinnied down the chimney."

"Wasn't there a fire?" asked the boy. "This being the dead of winter and all?"

"Of course," grandfather answered, "but there was also magic, and the next morning the whole village wondered how Santa's toys could have gotten under that tree. The doors were locked, after all, bolted from inside. So the boy's father let his son keep the toys, magic being more accepted in those days than in these, and before long Santa was dropping down all the village chimneys, every Christmas Eve."

"Are we going to get to the reindeer?" asked the boy.

"Yeah," his father said.

Grandfather smiled. "One year, as Santa was getting ready to make his rounds, the door to his shop creaked open and a very small, very cold, and very hungry little girl stepped through it. She was shivering terribly, her nose was running, and her little lips were blue."

"Gosh," said the boy.

"Santa and his wife soon had her warmed by the fire, wrapped in a blanket with her feet in a tub of warm water while she ate cookies and drank steaming cocoa. Then she told them a story. She was from a village not far away, on the other side of the Dense Forest, a village so poor its people kept Christmas with only crusts of bread and boiled cabbage."

"Wow," said the boy's father.

"She had heard of Santa's Christmas toys, and had walked all day and half the night through the snow and wind of the Dense Forest, hoping Santa might visit her poor family and friends."

"He did, didn't he?" asked the boy.

"Santa rounded up all the toys in his shop, and Santa's wife packed up all the cookies, brownies, gingerbread, and other good things she had baked. They hitched two prancing horses to their sleigh, but soon realized the horses could never pull such a load through the blowing snow and howling wind of the Dense Forest. It seemed the poor child's village would be dreary for another year."

"Are we almost to the reindeer magic?" asked the boy, climbing onto the couch beside his grandfather.

"Almost," grandfather explained, "for just then Santa heard bells jingling. When he looked out into the street, there were eight reindeer, all in harness, just waiting, it seemed, to be hitched to his sleigh."

"Wow!" said the boy's father.

"Well, Santa hitched up the reindeer, Santa's wife bundled the child in blankets and set her in the sleigh, then Santa kissed his wife good-bye and started into the night, for they would have a long journey through the Dense Forest, even with the reindeer pulling."

The boy sat very close now, and his grandfather wrapped him in an arm.

"The reindeer trotted off toward the Dense Forest, and as Santa felt the sleigh begin to glide over the snow he glanced over his shoulder at his wife, who was waving from the bright doorway of the toy shop. Then, as the bells jingled and the child giggled in the seat beside him, the little toy maker felt his sleigh rise into the sky, and before he knew it he was circling above his little village while the reindeer pranced through the air as if they owned it."

"Gosh!"

"It was but a few minutes ride through the Christmas sky to the child's village, and Santa set the reindeer down on the roof of each little hut, then climbed down each chimney to leave toys and goodies. All the while the child sat in the sleigh, here eyes bright now, her smile beaming, her laugh ringing clear as the bells of the reindeer."

"Like magic."

"Like magic. Soon all the little huts had been visited, and Santa turned to ask the child where she lived, so he could take her home. But she was not there, and when Santa looked about for her he heard her laugh ringing in the air, first from one side of the sleigh, then from the other, then from all around, until it lost itself in the jingling bells of the reindeer."

"I think I hear it," said the boy, and he bounded from the couch to press his nose against a windowpane.

The two men stood behind the boy, looking out into the night and the snow that fell softly, and the boy's father asked, "Why didn't you tell me that one when I was his age?"

"Maybe I didn't know it then," the other told him, his eyes as bright as the boy's, his ear cocked to the window.

Copyright 1996, Robert A. Markwalter

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