Grinch’s Reprieve…

The clock crawled up to midnight, on the stroke of midnight the noise faded from painful to merely loud.  Not that you could hear the noise in the cockpit, the cockpit was soundproof.  Soundproof, and currently lit by more red and yellow telltales than green.  The board actually looked like the Christmas tree it was named after.  The pilot surveyed his world, spoke to his second in a tired voice.

“We got enough left to get this thing back in the barn under it’s own power?”

His second, as weary as he, didn’t need to read his panels to answer.  “Yea, barely, if we cut Hawaii off early.  Three and eight are still at rated nominal, I can coax sixty percent out of two and eleven for a little while.”

The pilot shook his head.  A three month run and they had two and two halves left out of twelve.  What more could they want from this contraption?  “Then I say pull the freaking plug and let’s go home.  Call the barn, tell ‘em we’re on the way.”

“I’m totally down with that idea.” 

He reached up, yanked a large red handle.  Outside the night went almost silent, almost dark, almost peaceful.  Almost.  The only thing disturbing the peace was the hiss of laboring hydraulics as the far end of Madison Avenue lifted three stories into the air, the road beneath settling down six more leaving a gaping hole in the heart of the city.  Two deep clunks resonated and for a long moment the night was startlingly silent. 

After a bit the normal noises of the city returned, a bit after that they were augmented by a long wail of clacking clanging grinding groaning sounds that echoed like the gates of hell being used for some macabre jungle gym.  The sounds traversed the night becoming softer as they went, softer and yet somehow more poignant for those who knew what they heard.  Most of the city dwellers only paid attention to them for a little bit, they’d been heard before.  Shortly afterwards again the hiss was heard and the deep clunks echoed, but everyone ignored those.  It was over.

In the cockpit the pilot took his hands off the control yoke, patted his console in salute.  “Damn, I didn’t think you could do it but you made it home all on your own ya’ old whore,” he said.  He said something similar pretty much once a year.

From behind him his second chuckled.  “Yea, by the skin of our teeth.  Number three locked up twenty seconds ago.”  The pilot shook his head, yanked a lever by the side of his seat.  A pressure hatch swished open, the pilot and engineer rode the drop plate to the concrete four stories below. 

Stepping off the drop plate a shiny flash of light where it didn’t belong attracted the pilots attention.  Four strides later he bent and lifted the tiny talisman, held it up for inspection backlit by the lurid neon fogs settling to the floor from the Mighty Merchandising Machine's greed and jealousy generators as they cooled.

“Sweetheart, how in the world did you end up here of all places?” he said, speaking to the mother and child pressed into the little foil nativity scene.

“Say what?” his second asked, pulling up beside him.

The pilot handed over the trinket, his second inspected it as he had.  “No shit.  This is entirely the wrong place for you guys.  Think I’ll take you home with me, see if I can’t find you a better place to raise your child.”  He slipped the trinket into the breast pocket of his jump suit.

For a moment the two men shared a smile as they shook hands.

“Merry Christmas Bob.”

“Merry Christmas Dan.”

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Dedicated to WillieBob and DanDaMan... two of the most genuine Christians I've ever had the honor to know.