Chapter 59 — The Super Depressing Chapter Where All Hope is Lost— Merry Christmas!

Santa’s workshop was in ruins— completely and thoroughly destroyed— perhaps, one might even say, obliterated. The Christmas cheer was smashed to teeny bits, the ceiling all but gone, all sense of order and cleanliness ransacked and pulled inside-out into a Silent Hill nightmare of yuletide horrors. The elves shuffled about crying and covered in filth, like the aftermath of a fiery but mostly peaceful terrorist bombing. It resembled the Great Toys R Us Massacre of ‘92. Some poor bastard neglected to lock the doors for the night and a roving gang of orphan children strung out on lethal amounts of ultra-caffeinated Kidney Stone Fuel broke in, had their way with the toys, and when there was nothing left to unbox they gutted the place. Made off with $20k in copper wire, smashed all the fluorescent lights, piled up the Pow-Pow-Power Wheels in a heinous, miniature demolition derby. The FBI, despite all their unmarked vans, and despite tapping every phone in the country indefinitely, never caught those horrible orphans. They could be anywhere now. Even in your own house.

A stray polar bear wandered in through a collapsed wall and nosed around the wreckage, sniffing out edible things from the carnage. An elf casually handed the grizzly beast a bottle of Coca-Cola and it began guzzling the soda in a pacified bliss. It refused to leave until it got several more. Then it departed the scene burping out carbonation from its savage belly. The flammable substance Peter bathed in had solidified into an orange jelly on his skin and clothes, and he was peeling the crap off his face and tossing it away.

Santa surveyed the damage with Yuna, the most intelligent of elves, who had secretly automated most of her duties.

“What did they hit us with?” Santa asked.

“Me,” Peter said. “The Holy Spirit pulled me into space and threw me down right there.” He pointed at the hole in the ceiling.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Santa said. “Teenage boys can’t melt steel beams.”

“The other wings are still operational, but our main floor is kaput,” Yuna said. “We won’t be able to make any more electronics until January, at least.”

“We’re going to be short on new iPhones this year,” Santa said grimly.

She turned away, that red general, and calculated new strategies to save Christmas for millions of consumers.

“We can make up for the shortage with our surplus of last year’s models.”

“No!” Santa said. “That’s unacceptable! The kids want the new model! And if they don’t get it they’re going to stop believing in us! They were good all year!”

“Santa…” Yuna gestured at the devastation. “We’re lucky no one was killed.”

Yuna, the dentist elf, overeager to finally get the chance to practice real medicine, went overboard with the first aid kit. She tied unnecessary tourniquets to stop minor scratches from bleeding, mummified bruised foreheads with unnecessary gauze, and jabbed several elves with morphine until they stumbled around chasing invisible butterflies and giggling dumbly. Elves hobbled around with crutches until they realized it was just easier to walk normally.

“Is everyone accounted for?” Santa asked.

“All the elves are fine, so is Peter, Jumeau, and the reindeer. Am I forgetting anyone?”

“Tchaikovsky!” Peter shouted.

Peter had no idea how to navigate the workshop to that depraved Russian composer’s bedroom, but he did recall cannonballing through it, so he began a frantic climb up the mountainous wreckage. Like a rabbit poking its head out from underground Peter emerged through the floor into the obliterated opera house. All its golden baroque beauty hung baroquen in pieces. He beheld both the entrance and exit wound his body had torn through the once beauteous architecture and marveled at how horribly dilapidated things were. It was almost impressive. Not even a flying pirate ship, firing all canons at will, whilst doing donuts, could hope to smash up the place with so much apocalyptic force.

Tchaikovsky was there climbing among the red theater seats, umbrella in hand to protect herself from the indoor snowfall. She collected loose pages of musical scores, sadly looking at the notation to see how badly the ink had smeared.

“Are you okay?” Peter asked.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Tchaikovsky whimpered. “These are all just… things. The elves can make new ones.”

Tchaikovsky peeled a flattened violin off the floor. Its neck was broken and only the strings held the fractured pieces together. She muttered something about how this was a Stradivarius and then let is slip from her fingers back to the floor. Peter picked up a few pages of a ballet that flapped in the wind by his feet and handed them to her. Together they sat on the stage in silence. The whole Room creaked as though teetering on the brink of another collapse. Tchaikovsky looked at a large leather folder containing the pages to the Nutcracker Ballet and pressed it against her breast.

“You know, I never even wanted to write this ballet. It was a commission.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I was forced into writing it— against my will, I guess you could say. Swan Lake was such a huge success… I didn’t know if I could do it again. And the subject matter— toys coming to life, Rat Kings, it all seemed so childish. Nowadays Christmas is its own genre of movies and music, but back then stories about Christmas were very niche. I was procrastinating terribly. Wrote a few melodies but I was thinking of abandoning the whole thing.”

Tchaikovsky took out a pocket watch, a massive silver puck of Swiss engineering that any horologist would cream themselves over, and popped it open. It wasn’t the movement or complications that she wanted him to see, but a faded daguerrotype of a girl. There was some familial resemblance between her and Tchaikovsky— the dark hair, the intense eyes, the sunken cheeks from a Russian diet of borscht and turnips, and there was also an arcane strangeness— a high school girl from the 1800s— more worldly, more grave. She had the eyes of someone who had watched the slow fall of the Russian empire, and understood its impermanence in her heart.

“Did you know I had a sister?”

“No.” Peter shook his head.

“My parents never understood me, my wife never understood me, but she did. My baby sister.” Tchaikovsky’s thumb brushed lovingly around the silver frame as though it were her pale cheek. “So many stuffy balls were bearable thanks to her. I remember how she danced. After everyone had gone home, in the ghost of the party, she would grab my hand and force me to kalinka with her. I’ll never forget that day in Paris. In the Passage de l’opéra, I sat down for a lonely breakfast and picked up a newspaper from St. Petersberg. And there was her name. And she was dead. And I never got a chance to say goodbye.

“Suddenly, I understood what I had to write. Not a ballet for a silly holiday. But a farewell— an ode to her. Every time it’s preformed, I see her crowned and dancing. My Queen. Ruler of my heart. And every time, at the final waltz, the apotheosis, I think to myself… goodbye.

“Oh Sasha! I miss you so much! Why did you go and leave me?!”

A flash flood of tears pouredfrom Tchaikovsky’s face. In a daze of inconsolable sadness she reached out for something and found Peter. He hugged the weepy composer and pat her back as she bellowed into his shoulder. The fabric of his shirt dampened with all her rueful face fluids.

How much time is one obligated to spend consoling the inconsolable? A minute? Five minutes? Five hours? Was Peter even specifically needed at this moment, or could he tag in another elf to take his place? Not that he wasn’t saddened by her loss, only that it was strange forcibly being used as someone’s pillow, and having no means of escape without being an insensitive asshat. Tchaikovsky gripped Peters shirt and pushed him down onto the stage floor and buried her face in his chest, lying down on top of him. She stopped, took a deep breath, and exploded in a deluge of fresh mourning, screaming into his body with tears.

Well this crying is going to go on for quite some time. Lets check back after a few hours and see if she’s calmed down by then.