Prompts:
Use a word that most readers will have to look up in their dictionary.
Reference a religious holiday.
Write as 3rd person omniscient.
A telephone needs to ring.
Tag with wwe.
Santa Claus was in a funk. How could everything go so wrong? he wondered.
He was listening to the council secretary, Shrek, reading off the council’s events for the past month. “Halloween was a smashing success this year, thanks to the masterful orchestration of Broom Hilda.” He paused and nodded at the witch who just waved her cigar in dismissal.
Undaunted, Shrek continued, “Columbus Day and the Canadian Thanksgiving Day were appropriately handled and were also rated as highly satisfying.” He paused and looked around the council chamber before saying, “We missed Durga Purja, but the animated menorah handled Sukkoth.”
“We missed what?” the Easter Bunny asked.”
Shrek smiled as he patiently explained, “Durga Purja, it’s a Hindu festival...”
Santa interrupted by looking at the menorah and asking, “How did you handle Sukkoth?”
The menorah had been picking some wax out of one of its holders, but answered promptly, “I shipped building materials all over the world to build the necessary shelters for the festival.”
Something about that statement bothered Mother Nature so she asked, “Where did you get the money for all that?”
“I took it out of the council’s budget.”
“Shrek, did donkey authorize that?” Santa asked and then looked around the chamber and added, “Where is he anyway?”
Shrek nodded and said, “Yes, donkey approved the expenditure. And he’s with his wife right now. It seems that she is... well... she seems to be... uh, in a family way. It appears that dragons tend to get a bit testy around this time and donkey is trying to keep her from setting fire to everything around her.”
Santa shook his head and said, “I’m really sorry for donkey, but this financial matter is getting out of hand. We owe so much money to the Evil Council already and we’re spending money too fast -- money that we don’t have. We have to do something about the religious holidays.”
“Hmm,” Shrek mused, “that seems to present a quodlibet.” I did it, he thought, I found a way to work that in.
There was silence in the chamber as everyone turned to stare at the ogre.
Santa was confused as he asked, “Shrek, what are you talking about?”
Shrek smiled, feeling proud, “A quodlibet, it’s a disputation on a philosophical or theological point.” He looked around the chamber and noted that nobody else was smiling.
Santa couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Where did you get that?”
Shrek smirked and said, “I receive an e-mail each morning with a word of the day. That was yesterday’s and I try to use each word so I can improve my vocabulary.”
Santa was saved from saying anything else when his telephone rang. Picking it up he heard Pecos Bill say, “Santa, E.T. is here.”
“Ah, good, send him in please.”
When the small alien had made his way to the council table and sat down, Santa said, “E.T., some time back you mentioned that your home council had this same problem with religious holidays.” E.T. merely nodded and Santa went on, “Good, because we’re going to settle this right now.” He turned to the secretary and said, “Shrek, get this recorded -- we’re going to make it a council resolution.”
He thought just a moment and then said, “Be it resolved that, as religious holidays are not fantasy-based, a separate religious holiday council is hereby formed. From this time forward all religious-based holidays will be handled by that council and the Fairy Council will have nothing further to do with such holidays.”
The Easter Bunny had a moment of panic as he thought about being transferred to another council. “But, Santa, I can’t be on a religious council.”
“And what about me?” Saint Patrick asked. “I’m a saint, that’s religious; do I transfer to that council?”
“What about you, Santa?” Cupid asked. “Your holiday is religious, are you deserting us?”
“No, no, no,” Santa said. “This resolution deals only with those holidays that are strictly religious with no fantasy component. Shrek, I want you, Father Time, and the menorah to go through the calendar and list all the holidays and assign them to either of the two councils.”
To forestall any further arguments, Santa continued quickly, “Those holidays that have both components will be split between the councils.” He looked around the table and asked, “Any further arguments?”
When there were none, he continued, “Back to the resolution. The Religious Holiday Council will, initially, comprise the animated menorah as the chairman... or chairthing, E.T. will be attached as an advisor, and Father Time will serve as the liaison between the two councils.”
Santa looked at the menorah and said, “I’ll leave it to you to contact all the icons for the religious holidays and get them organized.”
Father Time had been listening without saying anything, but he finally felt that it was necessary to introduce a point of reality. “Uh, Santa, any resolution establishing a new entity has to include funding information.”
Santa suddenly found himself thinking fondly of the bottle of Old Grand-Dad in his desk drawer, but said, “All right, we’ll make a one-time allocation of 10,000 Fairy Dollars to establish the council.” He turned to the menorah and added, “After that, you’re on your own.”
“Shrek, look over some of the old resolutions to get the proper wording and get it published as soon as possible.” He thought for a moment and then added, “Oh, you better run it through the legal department to make sure all the bases are covered.”
“Santa?” the Pilgrim said. “We might have a problem if we do that.”
“Why?”
“Because Advent is the last Sunday of this month and if you run the document through the legal department it’ll never get published in time.”
Santa looked down at the table, dreaming of his Old Grand-Dad bottle being emptied. “Very well,” he finally said, “we’ll put it out as an initial finding to get things started and then run the full resolution through the legal department.”
He stood and said, “This meeting is adjourned. I have to talk to my grandfather.”
“Well,” Shrek said, “I guess that’s the sockdolager in this matter.”
“SHREK!” Santa roared, “Enough of that word-of-the-day stuff.”
For those who are not familiar with my (2nd) favorite witch, I finally managed to get permission from Susan Lusano, LLC, to use this picture.
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Comments: 16
This reminds me of something... oh yeah, life!
Good write!
Marilyn
Thank you, very much.
Actually I fell into a trap about which I warn all of my writers. When we’re writing, we have a picture in our mind of exactly what’s happening. The readers, however, don’t have that picture until we write the words to explain it. When I did the freewrite for this story I wrote all the words explaining why this was going to happen. Then, when I wrote the story, I still had those words in my head and I knew I’d already written them, so I didn’t have to repeat them -- completely forgetting that I hadn’t put them in the story itself.
Good lesson for me. I’ll just have to stop that silly freewriting stuff.
Len, you've been so missed!
I’m toying with having a few skirmishes between the Fairy Council and the Evil Council (once I set that up and introduce it). Before I can do that, though, I have to finish up Peter Pan’s trial and do a couple things with Mother Goose.
If I were writing these for a book I’d have an outline and know what was going to happen when. As it is, these are independent short stories with a very loose tie to each other. I honestly haven’t the slightest idea what’s going to happen with any of them right now.
Very sweet of you to say so.