Death By Christmas Marriage
Death By Christmas Marriage
Christmas Ain’t No Circus, Jack
December 2, 2018
Brown The Christmas Clown
Parson Brown trudges through the driving snow looking for someone - or something - to perform a marriage ceremony for.
The snow pounds poor old Parson Brown as he slips and stumbles while ice and slush invades his galoshes, his nose reddens, his eyes water and his limbs stiffen.
He has traversed the countryside day and night, old Parson Brown has, performing weddings for ducks, Blue Jays, squirrels, panthers, rabbits and freemasons.
He loves it, Parson Brown does, uniting loving couples in holy matrimony and watching them kiss and argue about cigarettes. But he hasn't presided over a ceremony for nearly a week now and he's cold, alone, hungry, tired and afraid.
Then, through the violent, slashing snow, Parson Brown sees a blessed figure coming toward him, bathed in angelic light.
"Holy Bull!" Parson Brown says, "It's a circus clown!"
The figure grows larger as it gets closer and then Parson Brown realizes it's not, in fact, a Bozo or a Calvero or Murray Matheson. No, this intrepid soul coming upon him in this blizzard is Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave.
"You asshole!" Parson Brown screams. "You big, fat, stupid, weenie! This is Christmas! This is not the Beatles! This is my time you fart!"
Father McKenzie endures this verbal barrage and wipes some snow from his forehead and says calmly through the blizzard.
"It's on."
And with that he removes a conch (a conch!) from his satchel and blows it thrice and, with the power of nature itself, a thousand snowmen rise from the landscape, grit their teeth and begin chanting "Father McKenzie! Father McKenzie!" and march toward Parson Brown.
Is PB frightened? Hell, no. He's still mad!
He lets the snowman army get a bit closer and then drops down on one knee and removes his flamethrower from his satchel (they both carry satchels) and unleashes hot, quick death. "Back to Hell!" Parson Brown cackles as the flames disintegrate the snowmen who roar in agony as they melt back into the ground.
There is silence for a long time. The charred snowmen, in their silence, say so much, just as the scorched trees, blackened snow and shell-shocked birds and squirrels try to assess just what has happened to civility, to decency, to kindness.
What, just what the frickin' hell, the silence asks, has happened to Christmas?
Parson Brown kicks at the snow and says to Father McKenzie.
"Want to get married?"
Father McKenzie nods and smiles and the two old adversaries, the animals of the forest, the snow, the wind, the cold and the Universe itself braces for what will certainly be the sexiest Christmas in at least the last seven years. --TK
Sunday, December 2, 2018