A Short Story
23 December 2025



In case anybody needed another reason to burn me at the stake.

- 

She woke up in the middle of the night as usual. Her bare feet touched the hardwood floor of her bedroom, which creaked under her weight. Still asleep in her core, she took the familiar path down to the kitchen, where she grabbed a tall glass and let the sink flow. She stood still as the sound of water filled the glass.

As she sipped and made her way back upstairs, guided by the flickering lights of the Christmas tree, a tall figure in her living room registered her presence exactly when she did. They stared at each other in disbelief. Nobody screamed.

She had seen him before. Tall, dressed in a heavy red coat, his long arms carrying a large canvas sack. She tried to make out more of the sight, while still holding her glass full of clear water, coloured blue by the night. The sack appeared dripping wet. Santa looked startled, interrupted in the middle of his work.

As she did her best to observe more of the scene, she noticed the unusual shape of the presents he was carrying, oblong and terribly dirty objects. Her eyes locked on him, she came nearer. He stood frozen in his movement, his conviction of being able to finish the job without being spotted shattered.

She walked toward the tree, more and more certain of what she was seeing. Those weren’t presents. That was meat, red wet dripping meat piled in Santa’s sack. The rug was drenched in the mess, bits and pieces everywhere. She stared into Santa’s eyes in disbelief. He stood there, still and petrified, staring back into her round face.

She went back to the sink and grabbed a roll of kitchen paper and a fresh bin bag. She kneeled on the floor, attempting to clean up the mess. She scooped up bits of brown hair and other matter and threw it all into the black bag. Most of the presents under the tree were splattered with blood, but she couldn’t bring herself to bin months of her own hard work yet.

Seeing her kneel on the floor, Santa bent down too, grabbing the bigger pieces and placing them in his sack, which was too porous to stop the dripping of fresh blood. She regretted not having tied her hair before starting to clean, her hands now too wet and dirty to reach the hairband around her wrist.

As she looked around for more pieces big enough to grab with her bare hands, she noticed a familiar green tartan fabric on the floor.

She stared at Santa, a tear crossing her cheek, her disbelief too great to register what was happening. Santa’s pitch black eyes stared back, as panicked as hers. She continued to clean, grabbing yet another bin bag and placing Santa’s entire canvas sack and all of its contents inside of it. They used up the kitchen paper roll until it was gone, then consumed two more, and eventually used the pink throw from the sofa to wipe up the remaining blood.

By the time the whole floor was mopped, a purple light was coming through the living room window. Looking at herself in the stained mirror hanging above the fireplace, she noticed she was drenched. She headed upstairs, placed her pajamas directly into the washing machine, and stepped into the shower.

She felt Santa’s presence following her. He wandered around her room, picking up photos of her and her husband and staring - his hand tangled in his own hair as he looked at the smiling face of the man he had just slaughtered.

She stepped out of the shower and into fresh pajamas, rolled her wet hair into a bun and instinctively brushed her teeth. Santa, still standing in her bedroom, stared blankly at the grandfather clock. She dipped downstairs and came back up with a fresh black bin bag, and helped Santa out of his coat. She sat him on the rocking chair by the bed and instructed him to remove his boots. They went into the bag too, until he was left in his ribbed long sleeved white top and cotton boxers.

She placed a fresh towel near the shower and waited for him to wash up. She headed downstairs and placed the black bin bag full of Santa’s clothes in the garage next to the others. She removed his boots from the bag, put on a coat and went outside to hose them off, removing all the dirt and remaining bits. She then left them near the boiler, where she knew they’d dry.

Back upstairs, Santa stood wrapped in his towel. She opened a drawer and grabbed a pair of her husband’s tracksuit bottoms, knowing full well they’d be too small for Santa’s waist. She grabbed a black hoodie and handed it to him as well.

They both sat on opposite sides of the bed, staring at the walls, listening to the faint sound of children waking up in the houses nearby. Her hair still wet, she lay down under the covers. Santa did the same. They fell asleep, as both silk pillows slowly grew dark waters stain from their drenched hair.