FULFILMENT

He had been sleeping on a large mowed area of grass. It appeared to be part of a public park of some kind. He could see an ornate fountain with water flowing from vessels held by enormous bronze figures of women and men. There was a pebble covered trail of some kind that linked up with a street lined with buildings. The trail flowed from an ironwork gate on the park side of the street, wound around the fountain, and kept going until it disappeared into groves of tall trees. People were walking along the trail. Others were sitting on the stone lip of the fountain. Someone by the fountain waved in his direction. He did not recognise the person. There were plenty of other people on the lawn. He guessed the woman had been waving at someone else. Still, he watched her until she walked off towards the trees and vanished from view.

He stood up. His legs wobbled. He felt slightly dizzy. He held out his arms at his sides to help balance himself. He did not fall. The lightheaded sensation passed. He looked down at his feet and saw he was wearing no shoes. He did not mind. The sun was warm, and the cut grass felt good against the bottoms of his feet.

He looked at the fountain and the path that went through the trees. He looked in the opposite direction at the buildings that stood along the street. He walked towards the street.

He had to wait for a break in the traffic before he could cross from the park. The asphalt was not as kind to his feet as the grass had been. The other side of the street was lined with stores and an office building. He tried to ignore the feel of the concrete against his soles.

He approached the plateglass window of a boutique of some kind. He studied the objects for sale that were displayed in the window. Women’s blouses, dresses, coats and accessories. Not what he needed, he thought. Then another thought occurred to him.

‘I don’t need anything.’

As he started to turn away from the window, he saw his reflection. He could only half remember his face. His hair was long and dishevelled. His chin and cheeks sported a sparse beard, black speckled with white. He was wearing a ragged cloth overcoat, with red, black, and white threads. It was missing all of its buttons, and could not completely cover his torso, which was bare. He had on blue jeans with an old leather belt with extra holes poked in it so it could hold tight to his hips. The jeans looked as if they had not been washed in years.

He did not know why his clothes were in this condition. He wondered how they had come to be like that. While he thought about this, he realised that he did not know who he was. He could not remember a name or a past. This puzzled him. Everyone should know who they are. He stared at the image in the window until an answer came to him.

‘Santa Claus,’ he told his reflection. ‘I am Santa Claus.’

From then on he knew, with almost complete certainty, that was who he was. He was Santa Claus. He felt it deep inside, within the core of his being. Small doubts lingered in his mind, thoughts, partial memories, that suggested that he had once had another name. He refused to listen to the voices of doubt. He shook his head and shouted.

‘No!’

He yelled at the window. ‘I am not who or what you think I am! I am Santa Claus!’

He crossed the street back to the park. He walked around the fountain. As he walked, he pondered what it meant to be Santa Claus.

‘What should I do now?’ he said to himself. ‘What would Santa Claus do?’

‘Santa Claus’ walked to the edge of the treeline and stopped. He sat down on the grass and watched the people going by. He saw a middle-aged woman with a large figure walking aimlessly along the grass. There was something familiar about her. Suddenly, Santa saw a tall, thick, muscular man in jeans and a t-shirt run towards the woman and tackle her from behind. This startled Santa. It startled and disturbed him more to see the way the two of them moved together on the ground, especially as portions of their clothes started to come off.

Santa got up. He rushed over to the couple. He yelled at the man on the woman’s back.

‘Get off of my mother!’

The man turned his head and looked at ‘Santa Claus.’

‘Your mother?’ growled the man getting a free ride.

The woman turned her head towards ‘Santa Claus’. She did not look like his mother. In fact, he was not sure what his mother looked like anymore.

The man that Santa had interrupted stood up.

‘Look, buddy,’ the man said. ‘I am not hurting her. I may use a strap on her sometimes, but I don’t hurt her. I don’t want to hurt anyone. This is what she wants. I’m just doing my job. Keep moving and let me finish. I have a tight schedule and other clients.’

Santa looked at the woman, trying to determine if the man’s words were true. The stuck woman stuck her tongue out at him.

‘Bugger off,’ she said.

Santa wandered off. He was confused. He walked back across the lawn. He recrossed the street. He looked at the biggest building on the street, a high tower of glass and steel. All the windows were tinted to strain out the glare of the sun. Santa was drawn to it. He believed he could find answers there.

He entered through the revolving door. His feet met the cold feel of tiles in an airconditioned building. He walked across the lobby, stopping in the middle.

There was a long, polished desk on the other side of the lobby, opposite the revolving doors. On either side of the desk there were entranceways leading to banks of elevators. Men and women in suits passed by Santa as he stood in the lobby. He saw them walk towards the big desk, swipe cards at a kiosk in front of it, and then head towards one or the other banks of elevators. Other people in suits were getting off of elevators, passing by him, and heading for the revolving doors.

Men and women in suits were behind the desk. Some were standing. Some were sitting. One of them called out to Santa.

‘Can I help you?’

He replied, ‘Yes, I am Santa Claus.’ He thought telling them that would mean something.

Several people walking past him smiled. A few of them chuckled.

‘Sorry, sir,’ said the woman behind the desk. ‘You will have to leave the building.’

‘I am Santa,’ he said. ‘Don’t you understand? I am supposed to be here.’

Another person behind the desk said, ‘If you do not leave on your own, security will escort you out.’

A large man in a grey uniform came out from the area around one of the elevator banks. Santa had not seen him there before. The man had some kind of badge pinned to the breast pocket of his button-down shirt. He had a gun holstered on his belt.

‘It is okay, everyone,’ said a voice. ‘I will handle this.’

The guard went back to where he was stationed near the elevator bank.

Santa turned toward the voice. He saw a smiling man with black hair and a tailored black pinstripe suit.
The man stuck out his hand. Santa shook it.

‘So you are Santa Claus,’ said the man. ‘Come with me. I think I can help you.’
 
The man put one of his arms around Santa’s shoulders. The man guided Santa across the lobby and through a set of sliding glass doors. The doors led into an atrium festooned with small restaurants and shops.

‘So glad to have you with us, Santa,’ said the man. ‘We have been looking forward to your arrival.’

They came to an escalator that led to the second level of the atrium. There, the man halted.

‘We need to wait here a little while,’ said the man. ‘That is if you do not mind.’

‘I don’t mind waiting,’ said Santa.

The man heard a loud voice and looked up towards the second level of the atrium. A trim older man in a crisp grey suit was walking on the other side of the guardrail towards the escalator at a brisk pace. The old man had white hair, cut short, but well styled. His thin white beard spoke of fashion and good grooming. He was flanked by several men and women in black suits and one tall and wide fellow dressed like a clown. The man in the grey suit was talking to someone who was not there. Santa noticed the earpiece that showed this was a sign of technology and not madness. The whitehaired man ended his call. He and his party took the escalator down to where the man in the pinstripe suit stood with Santa.

‘Alright, Jerry,’ said the man with the white beard. ‘What have we got today?’

Jerry, the man in the black pinstripe suit, said, ‘Sir, I want to introduce you to Santa. He arrived today.’

The old man puffed out his cheeks. ‘Santa, you say? I presume your last name is Claus?’

‘That’s correct, sir,’ said Santa.

The old man looked at Jerry. ‘Another one, I see.’

Jerry nodded. ‘Yes, another one.’

‘Okay, Mr Claus,’ said the old man. ‘I have a very busy schedule, but if you are willing to walk with me, I will talk with you.’

‘Fine with me,’ said Santa.

The old man was a fast walker. He noticed that Santa was having a hard time keeping up,

‘Hold on,’ he said the old man. He stopped walking. ‘Hold everything. This man needs to at least have some footwear. Now that I think of it, he needs some new duds, too. No self-respecting Santa Claus would walk around dressed like he does. What would the public think? That is assuming he really is Santa Claus.’ He stared Santa in the eye. ‘Is it true? Are you really Santa Claus?’

‘It is true,’ said Santa. ‘I am Santa Claus.’

‘Okay then. That settles it. Jerry, you take him shopping. I’ll reimburse you. That’s the least I can do for Santa. I have a great deal of respect for him. I have an appointment to keep. Meet you back here in an hour.’

Jerry replied, ‘Yes sir, Mr... .’

The old man with the white beard cut him off with a loud cough.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘That’s the tobacco talking. I need to give up that pipe.’

Santa interrupted, ‘Sorry, I have a question?’

‘Go ahead,’ said the man with the white hair. ‘So long as it is only one question.’

Santa gestured towards the big guy in clown getup, ‘What’s with the clown?’

The old man laughed. He had a deep, warm way of laughing.

‘Don’t worry about him. He is part of my security team. See you in an hour.’

Jerry accompanied Santa to several clothing stores in the atrium. He found that Santa had very strong opinions about how he should dress. Jerry tried to change those opinions, but Santa would not budge. Finally, Jerry shrugged, ‘Okay, Santa. We will do it your way.’ Jerry’s credit card did the rest.

An hour later Jerry and Santa were seated on white metal chairs, at a table of the same colour and material, in a food court located in the atrium. Both were sipping lattes. Santa’s old clothes were in a designer shopping bag on the floor under the table. Santa had been unwilling to part with his old possessions, although he did consent to having them sprayed with insecticide and air freshener.

The two of them had got more done in an hour than Santa thought was possible. Despite all his protests about suggested items, and the number of stores they had visited, they were still fifteen minutes early, per Jerry’s watch, for their meeting with Jerry’s boss.

Santa had panicked while out shopping with Jerry about possibly missing the meeting. It seemed to him that they had been visiting stores and trying on items for hours. Jerry had showed him the time on his watch, and said, ‘Time works a little different here. You will get used to it.’

Jerry had told him that his watch showed the boss’s time, not theirs. The boss’s time was the only time that mattered.

When the hour on Jerry’s watch ended, the man with the white hair and the grey suit arrived. His entourage was with him, but it now had an additional member. It was a young girl about six or seven years old, with long brown hair, a pug nose, a white blouse with a blue bow, and a red corduroy dress.

‘Sorry about that, boys,’ said the old man, ‘I had an appointment I could not miss. My daughter, Arlene, was in a play at her school. I promised I would not miss it. I never break a promise. That is why I am here, on time, as usual. I make it a habit of never being late for anything or anyone. Arlene, why don’t you go play for a while on children’s rides while the big kids have a little talk. Mr Clown will go with you.’

Arlene did not seem entirely happy about this, but she went off with Mr Clown and a pocketful of quarters.
After his daughter was out of earshot, the man in grey asked Santa to stand up.

‘Let’s see what you look like. I see part of it, but I want the full view so I know how my money has been spent.’

Santa stood up.

The old man made him turn around twice while he took in the view.

Santa was wearing a red leather overcoat that did not fully cover his chest. A thick black belt was looped tight around the coat at his waist. He had no shirt on. His pants were also red leather. He was no longer barefoot, but instead of shoes or boots, he work black leather sandals. There was no white trim to be seen.

‘Well,’ said the old man. ‘I guess you might qualify as some kind of Santa, but not the traditional one. Tell me, why do you want to be Santa Claus?’

‘Because that is what I am.’

‘How do you know that?’

Santa told the old man about waking up in the park and seeing himself in the store window. He explained how at first he did not remember who he was, then realised he was Santa Claus.

‘Yeah,’ the old man said. ‘It sometimes happens that way. A person has a deep infatuation with Christmas and Santa. He gets fixated on it. Next thing you know, he is Santa.’

‘I don’t know how big I am on Christmas or being Santa, but I know that I am Santa.’

‘Mind if I sit down?’ said the old man. He pulled over a chair from another table and sat down opposite the newcomer. ‘Let me ask you a few questions. Do you have a deep desire to help people in general?’

‘I don’t know. I think I have some desire to help.’

‘Do you have a strong desire to help people be happy?’

‘I am not sure.’

‘How about children?’ the old man asked. ‘Do you want all children to feel loved and happy?’

Santa responded, ‘I guess I do. I know I like it when children smile and when they laugh.’

‘Okay,’ said the old man. ‘That is a starting point. Making children happy. Jerry, make a note of that.’

‘Yes sir,’ said Jerry.

‘What about older people?’ the old man asked. ‘Aren’t they really children inside? Don’t you want to make them happy? Don’t you want to make them smile?’

‘I guess I do,’ Santa said. ‘When you put it that way.’

‘Good. Glad to hear it. Jerry, make another note.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The old man leaned in.

‘Here is the hard thing. Christmas is different today than it was a thousand years ago. It is less about putting a smoked sausage, some fruit, and a homemade toy in an old sock. It is about providing what is needed to fill an ever-expanding list of desires. Desire is never ending nowadays. You could blame advertising, the internet, peer pressure, even the devil. God bless him, old bastard that he is. Christmas is about greed more than love these days. There still is a place for love in there, but the economy depends on the greed. Buy more. Give more. It is never ending. I would imagine it would make a traditional Santa Claus sick to his heart. There are also so many more people today. All the preparation for one night in a sleigh, you could wind up working yourself to death, even if you were sort of immortal. Tell me. Do you have any experience with reindeer?’

‘No sir.’

The old man laughed.

‘Are you sure you want to learn? Do you know how much cows fart? How ornery a bull can be? How to control a horse? Do you think reindeer would be any easier or less toxic to the nose?’

‘I don’t know anything about any of that.’

‘It would take you a lot of time to learn about reindeer. Once you did, you would still be stuck smelling reindeer farts every Christmas Eve, on a delivery run that never seems to end. I think it is a lot easier these days, easier on everyone, if we leave Christmas to the professionals. Hell, elves can’t make the games and toys most kids want today. It’s mostly Silicon Valley stuff. An organisation like mine can kick in some money now and then and maybe provide inspiration as needed. Otherwise, there is no real role for a Santa Claus, let alone elves. The whole concept of Santa Claus has been reduced to a free, magic, package delivery service. Where’s the fun in that? If post office workers can go—well—postal, what could happen to an over stressed Santa Claus? Do you get what I am saying? You don’t have to be a Santa Claus. You can be a driver for Amazon Prime. Nowadays it is pretty much the same.’

‘It’s not the same,’ Santa said. ‘I don’t want to be a deliverer of packages. I want to make people happy.’

The old man smiled at him.

‘Aren’t people happy when their order is received at their home and does not get stolen?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Santa. ‘I have never ordered or received a package. At least I don’t remember it happening.’

‘Don’t think of Christmas as being Christmas. Don’t think of happiness as being happiness. It is about “fulfilment” now. This complex we are in is all about fulfilment. This whole town is about fulfilment. There is no little town at the North Pole. Not anymore anyway. There is no way to build a giant manufacturing and distribution complex on floating ice. Even if you could, how could you make it last? With global warming the place could be under water at any moment. You can’t be the Santa that was. Because, if he still is, he has changed with the times. If you want, I can help you find a job that helps fulfil others and may fulfil you. Will you let me help you with that?’

‘It would not be enough,’ said the man in red leather. ‘I am Santa Claus. I have to give gifts to everyone.’

The old man raised his eyebrows. ‘Why?’

‘Because it is the right thing for me to do.’

The old man stood up. He walked back and forth, occasionally tugging at the whiskers of his short beard. Suddenly, his face lit up. His cheeks became rosy. He stopped pacing. Turning to the new Santa, he said.

‘Then you have to find a different kind of present you can give to the world, and a different way of providing it. For example, if you want to make children smile, adopt. That is what I did. Of course my little girl dreamed of a certain kind of father. She prayed for it long and hard. You could say I was leaned on to take her into the family. But, I am glad that I did. Best thing that ever happened to me, being a father. Get a job, adopt, make a kid smile.’

‘I want to make children smile,’ said the new red leather Santa. ‘But I don’t think I would be a good father.’

‘Then give away free balloons. Kids love balloons.’

‘That is not enough. I am Santa Claus. I have to give to the world.’

The old man smiled at Santa Claus. It was a friendly smile, almost paternal.

‘You must have lived all your life with the desire to give, the desire to love and the desire to help others. For some reason you were not able to do so. Something prevented you. I don’t know what it was. You might find better answers if you take the path that leads through the woods. There is a better place on the other side, if you can get through the woods. You will find all your answers there, if you make it there. Not everyone does. Those woods might appear small from here, but they are not. It is a huge forest full of dangers. Luckily, most who don’t make it through wind up back here with knowledge that might help them make it through the next time that they try. I know it all sounds like a video game now. Don’t blame me. I didn’t design all of this. A lot of the work was contracted out. Blame the software programmers.’

 ‘What’s a video game?’ Santa said. ‘I don’t remember ever seeing one.’

 The old man chuckled.

 ‘In that case you can count your amnesia as a blessing. There’s too many games out there if you ask me. What’s wrong with a straw doll, a carved wooden horse, or a tin soldier? No one wants them anymore. Why? Because they’re not digital.’

 Santa interrupted, ‘Excuse me. What is this place again? I am not sure I understood you the first time.’

‘Fulfilment,’ the old man told him. ‘Think of it as a suburb of the other place. Many people pass through here on the way to the big place, but some choose to stay.’

‘Why do they stay?’

‘To be fulfilled. They need something they lacked before. Something that will fulfil them. They can find it here, if it is within reason. And when they are not busy being fulfilled, they can work here in town, at the fulfilment centre, or one of our associated enterprises, helping others to have their proper desires fulfilled. We won’t fulfil all desires, mind you.’

‘Why not?’

‘There are rules and boundaries. We can’t step on the toes of all the competition. Besides, it would run counter to our purpose.’

Santa asked, ‘Then what is the purpose of this place? It is fulfilment, you say, but you also say it’s not complete fulfilment.’

The old man displayed another smile. He sat back down, gliding his chair closer to Santa.

The old man positioned his face close to the newbie’s.

‘You could call it love,’ he said. ‘But that might sound mushy. It would not be really accurate either. Completeness? Acceptance? Becoming sufficiently satiated? No longer empty? I am not a word hustler. I leave that to my public relations department. If you want, I’ll have Jerry find you a copy of our annual report. You are free to read it. Boring stuff if you ask me. Look, you are a smart guy. You must be. Santa Claus has to be smart. How else can he do all the things he does? Set your brain on it. Think it out. I bet you will be able to come up with an answer as good as anything I could tell you.’

Arlene came back accompanied by her guardian clown. She was all out of quarters.

The ‘boss’ looked at his little girl. He picked her up and put her on his lap.

He asked her, ‘What can I get for you, little girl? I know you have been good. Is there anything you want?’

Arlene told her father, ‘I want to go home.’

The boss looked at Santa.

‘You heard the lady. I have to leave. We have important father-daughter stuff to do.’

Arlene said, ‘I want to have a tea party.’

‘With all your dolls?’

‘And Mister Bunny.’

‘Of course. Let’s make it happen.’

The old man stood up, holding his daughter. He nodded towards the new Santa.

‘You can walk with us to the car. Jerry can find you a place to stay for the night. No stables or anything like that. No igloos or candy cane castles. They are all full. It will have to be a hotel room with all the usual amenities. In the morning you can let me know if you want to stay and work here, or if you want to move on, through the woods.’

Santa walked with the old man, the head of this odd town, and his entourage. He listened to the old man and Arlene, talking as a father and daughter. He wished he was the kind of man who could be happy with that kind of giving, that kind of sharing, but he knew he could not be. He was Santa Claus. He had to serve a higher purpose. He had to give to the whole world. He had to exist for the entire world. He had to exist to make the world a better and happier place for everyone.

When they arrived on the second storey of the parking lot, Arlene let out a shout.

‘Look at all the trash. They are not supposed to do that.’

There were Styrofoam cups, plastic cup lids, food containers, and other types of junk strewn about the lot.

The boss’s face turned red. Not in a nice way.

‘Jerry, what happened here. Some kind of prank? We never have litter in my town.’

‘I will check the surveillance tapes. I will make sure we find who did this.’

The old man said, ‘Who finds it fulfilling to strew trash around?’ It was a rhetorical question. Unfortunately, he knew it was one of the things some people liked to do. He thought, we get all kinds.

Santa looked at the trash. A vague memory surfaced in his mind. He remembered going through dumpsters and trash cans trying to find something to eat. There were times when he was so hungry that he licked out what was stuck inside thrown away wrappers from fast-food joints. Suddenly an urge came over him. He could not control it. He ran over to a food container, raised it to his lips, opened his mouth, and sucked it down, as if he were a vacuum cleaner. He hunted down every piece of trash and garbage in the lot. Paper, plastic, cardboard, biodegradable, and the long-lasting stuff, indigestible even for microbes. It all went into his mouth. Foom. Gone.

When the last of it had disappeared into his mouth and down his throat, Santa fell on his knees. His stomach was swollen. His belly hurt. His oesophagus burned. He felt he was going to throw up. He burped instead.
That was the end of it. After one good belch, he felt fine again. He stood up.

He saw Arlene staring at him, wide eyed, mouth open.

‘That was amazing,’ she said. ‘Must have tasted awful.’

‘It did,’ Santa nodded.

‘Yucky,’ she said, but she gave him a big smile. ‘Thank you for getting rid of it. I hate trash lying around.’

The old man, the big boss of the town, saw his daughter’s smile. He asked the new Santa, ‘Do you feel okay?’

Santa rotated his neck. He twisted his back and his hips, rotated his arms, and touched his toes. ‘I feel fine,’ he said. ‘Just a little stiff.’

Already his belly was shrinking back to its normal size.

The old man let out a long whistle from between his lips.

‘I may have been wrong about you,’ he told Santa. ‘There may be a place for you in the world. Do you think you can digest toxic waste? Radioactive materials? Explosives? Or only trash?’

‘I don’t know,’ Santa said. He had no idea what he could or could not do. It was all new to him.

The old man turned to his staff.

‘We will have to conduct some experiments.’ Then he asked the new Santa, ‘Would you mind?’

The new Santa shrugged, ‘I am okay with it.’ He had a feeling that he had eaten things that tasted worse than that litter in the past.

The old man looked satisfied with the response, but added, ‘No matter how it turns out. You are not getting a sleigh. It’s a personal thing. How about a flying car, or better, a flying truck? A pickup or a trash hauler. I could swing that. Would that be okay with you... Santa?’

He adjusted his red leather coat. He wondered if it needed white trim after all.

‘It would be fine with me,’ he said.

Arlene whispered to her father, ‘You called him Santa. That’s the same as... ’

The old man coughed very loud. ‘A temporary name. Until we find a better one. How about Saint.. Because?’

Arlene shook her head no. So did everyone else.

The old man laughed. It was a loud, jolly laugh.

‘We will have to work on the name.’