"Sir?" asked the head elf, Pippy Punkrocking.

"Yes, Pippy?" answered Santa.

"Sir, it’s about our NICE list. Last month someone from the NAUGHTY list was transferred over to it. I don’t remember authorizing that." Pippy held a tightly rolled-up scroll. Santa waved his fingers, indicating Pippy should let it roll open, spilling out onto the floor, which it did.

"Who?" Santa asked.

"Here, sir," the elf pointed out.

"Donald...J...Trump," Santa read slowly and deliberately. "Oh, that was me. I made the transfer.”

Pippy frowned, which if it were to continue for too long, could be life-threatening to him, as an elf.

“So what?” Santa argued. “What's the problem? I made the switch. I put him on. Don’t I get to vote?"

"Sir, you rigged it. He's naughty, not nice."

"That’s a matter of opinion, don’t you think? The people thought otherwise. And consider, Pippy, what it takes to be a leader. Some see naughtiness as leadership. You can't lead nations without being stern—even mean sometimes. You've gotta make tough choices. It’s hard. The free world is too important to leave it to someone nice."

"Well, sir, then, leave him on the NAUGHTY list, where belongs.”

“Oh, Pippy, you tricked me with our sharp-tongued little elven doubletalk. No, he’s naughty but, by our standards, he’s nice and stays on the NICE list.”

“But it's his choices that put him on the NAUGHTY list. Where do I even start?"

"You don't, you little Democrat runt!" Pippy's mouth dropped open in disbelief. The frown had only been the beginning; he felt pressure in his chest and began to feel faint. He had never seen Santa like that. He began to cry.

"There, there," Santa cooed, attempting to assuage him. "You have to be a little naughty to send out Seal Team 6, right? Or change regimes, right? Everyone thought Obama was nice, but he did some very naughty things, it turned out. Y'know, Pippy, I've never been elected anything. I'm Santa, because...well...just because."

"Because you're St. Nick! And Jolly. Jolly St. Nick. You're a saint, for goodness’ sake! You don't need to be elected.” Pippy clutched his chest and rubbed his left arm. “But Santa, what you just did wasn’t jolly or saintly. Not at all. It was naughty!"

Santa's assuaging countenance stiffened, becoming severe, even angry. He had a very dark moment.

"What did you just say?" he seethed.

"Oh! Oh! I didn't say you were naughty. Just what you did."

"You want I should put myself on that NAUGHTY list, do you?" Pippy was beside himself. He coughed on his sleeve and saw specks of blood. The animus in the room began to melt the snow outside the door, and some water began slipping over the threshold.

"Of course not, Santa. You? On the NAUGHTY list? Hahahahahahahaha! Never! But him? It's a mistake putting him on the NICE list. A big mistake."

"Not really. I’ve gotten a lot of letters from children asking for their very own Chia®Donald Trumps. And they’re asking me to bring their Dads Trump coins and watches and their Moms a Crystal Trump 2024 Memorabilia Lapel Brooch. I can’t break the hearts of over half the parents’ children out there."

"But," the elf said, "I think it is a mistake. I mean, there's a whole list of things that he's—"

"Pippy, Pippy," Santa cajoled him. "Do you think anyone's above forgiveness? Republicans? Democrats? Pyromaniacs? Remember little Jimmy Nubbins? Set his sister on fire but was really sorry after. Remember?"

“Yes…I remember.”

"Remember the uproar at the list-assignment conclave when half you little guys thought he should stay on the NAUGHTY list? And what did you say? Remember?"

"Yes, Santa..." Pippy answered, swinging a loose foot back and forth.

"You said, 'Don't judge someone by their past…but by the promise of their future.' Your eyes even teared up when you said that."

"I guess so..."

“And you said, ‘Give the little misunderstood tyke another chance. Was it really his fault? Is anything really anyone’s fault anymore?’”

“I suppose…”

“So moving, Pippy. And remember you said, ‘Aren’t we better than this? The NAUGHTY list is written in pencil for a reason. Have we forgotten what erasers are for? Things change. People change. And even if they don’t, who are we to judge? We’re not walking in their official Donald Trump footwear! We don’t know what can make someone choose anything on the spur of the moment. Inclusion means everybody.’ And, ‘Who are we to judge? Give ‘im another chance’—well said! You were such a persuasive and woke little elf—so persuasive that little Jimmy ended up on the NICE list again. He got that PlayStation 5 Pro last Christmas morning, along with his sister getting those finger extension splints. So, waddaya say now about Mr. Trump?"

"Pardon him?"

"Oh, no-no-no-Ho-Ho-Ho! He doesn't need me for that.”

“A nice fruit cake, then? Or better yet—the annual subscription—a new fruit cake arriving every month!"

“That’s the elf I know! Now, off wit’ ya, Pippy. Those Chia pets aren’t gonna grow green hair by themselves!”

A peculiar monstrosity: it floated so gracefully to the ground, implying an otherworldly sophistication that went beyond mere arrival. Yet, it was obvious that Earth was its destination and Earth's people assumed to be the reason.

Its shape was one that could only be conceptualized by anatomy so alien that no one could pretend to guess function from form.

That was 43 years ago.

It sat, inert and impenetrable, occupying most of Piazza San Pietro in Vatican City. It had alighted perfectly equidistant from all of the Doric columns of the colonnade. In fact, the Egyptian obelisk was no more, as if the craft had absorbed it on descent.

It's landing spot was subject to heated debates. Politicians, think tanks, and the clergy of all religions weighed in. Yet, imagining an alien sentience that appreciated the significance of religion seemed a stretch.

There were noises emanating from within the craft. Metallic noises, arrhythmic, and seemingly random. Sometimes they beat out imagined patterns, but the best AI could not come up with a plausible analysis regarding the possibility of communication.

The Vatican Observatory Jesuits, by decreed edict of the sovereign city-state, were the first to officially evaluate the strange spacecraft. After four years they gave up, the ship's hull being completely impervious to any type of man-made breach.

Invitations in all the world's languages, on all bandwidths, went unanswered. Stroboscopic lights invited replies to mathematical sequences, but the visitors remained deaf, blind, and mute.

Four years after the Jesuits had given up, the inquiry team from CERN returned to Meyrin, Switzerland, with no information.

Then the noises stopped.

Perhaps whatever machinery was at work had finished priming itself and the craft would finally open.

But the silence continued long past the visiting team from Pasadena returning to their Jet Propulsion Laboratory—no wiser to the craft's details other than what could be seen with the naked eye or measured with calipers.

The Pope himself, in his weekly addresses from his apartment balcony, always closed with the following:

"We've been patient and faithful for two millennia now for the Second Coming. Certainly we can muster patience to out-wait our visitors."

The people were haunted: What if neither ever happens?

At first, the societal upheavals were tumultuous. evoking the many theories. Why had the aliens landed so ostentatiously in a place synonymous with Christianity? Was it a scout ship for a planned invasion? Was it a calling card, an introduction for more to come? Was it sent by God? Were the unseen visitors dimensionally aphasic and we simply missed each other due to some myopic existential blindness?

Why no doors or windows—not even a seam in the unknown metal? We knew the craft was not solid; we all heard the noises for a few years before they abruptly stopped.

Why the hell hadn't they come out? Why the hell wouldn't they? They came all this way (a long way, indeed), only to hide themselves from us. Was it some test that only made sense according to some alien cognitive sensibility?

We waited.

Could they have been waiting on us? For some societal milestone? For some evolutionary rite of passage that finally would deem us worthy?

We wanted to meet them. Learn from them. We wanted a cure for death, solutions to climate change, perpetual motion machines, and free, limitless energy. Certainly they knew! We needed them.

Yet, they chose to remain unavailable.

Some mysteries were not worth the effort.

So the people of Earth moved on.

While at first there were promises of a new age of understanding and brotherhood among Earth's peoples and nations, after a decade and realizing once again we were on our own, the old grudges, feuds, and holy wars re-surfaced.

But also, total human knowledge continued to double faster than an in-winding Fibonacci curve.

It, one day, came to be: we were finally able to open the craft.

With much holographic media coverage and fanfare, seams were rendered where there were none before. That's when we discovered that the door header wasn't level: the jamb's slope could be freed from the outside, but from the inside would have been impossible.

The smell was awful.

What was left of them were smudged, gelatinized stains on the craft's floors. Many alien contraptions lay about evidencing the occupants' efforts to clear the doorjamb, open their portal, and exit their craft to meet their new friends.

The hole. I found it when I moved the wardrobe. I couldn't see into its dark recess but I heard things. Otherworldy things. Here long before me, it should have been none of my business. Yet, it weighed on me. I had to know.

Another realm's portal?

I listened carefully. The sounds were bizarre. Finally, my curiosity got the best of me; I reached in.

Carefully. Tenuously. Resolute.

What I pulled out was the most terrifying thing I could ever imagine. Worse than a ghoul or severed head. Truly horrifying:

Another man's penis through the glory wormhole from another universe!

My abundance of caution

Is out of proportion

My embarrassment of riches

Soils my britches

At the end of the day

There's a price to pay

To keep my bottom line

In the black until time

I'm losing my mind

To find the same kind

Of people to include

In supply lines of food

Too cautious to mend

Too tired by day's end

The people I keep

Along with me, creep

The boat won't rock

When the water is the dock

Of unrockable currents'

Unshockable occurrence

We vermin — better than yours

Safety in numbers slams the best doors

But all of us under our rugs

Are still in a world of bugs

_______________

About this poem:

People living under dictatorships and despots just sigh and and muse, "Whatcha gonna do?""What can be done?" "What can I do?"

The cement of acquiescence hardens even more over time when people just give up to the status quo because, after all, that's the way it's always been. And that cement is the unshakeable substrate against which one cannot rock the boat. Not without a lot of trouble.

The world's colors explode

In a final gasp of variegated warning

Of the great cleansing of hues

And blanching of what was

There's a chill that comes

With cold eruption

Of what promises yet deceives

Explained when life's colors pale

A turnstile on a planet's axis

Ushers passengers

Along the circle

Of hope strewn with pitfalls

Colors hurt when they bleed

Smell rancid and rotting

Best not to rationalize

But blanket it all in frosty mercy

He wanted, in exchange for a soul, another chance. The sixth time he had made the deal, it not only had forfeited his own soul, but he owed another four souls, and a fifth most certainly to come. It wasn't the wisest deal he'd ever made. Nor should he have offered his family's souls, but that was allowed according to the Perdition Treaty.

He manipulated the wheel with great dexterity but the prize fell out of the loose jaws again.

"No more chances," the devil said. "No more souls to wager."

"I could get my wife pregnant again," he offered.

Maxie was a New England working girl, living paycheck to paycheck. Things were tight and sometimes a little too close for comfort, but she made it work. She was average but well-kept. She was personable but gullible.

Up to a point.

She was gullible to the maximum degree, she had always felt, for anyone getting along with others in good faith. Good faith. That was her filter for credibility.

Maxie didn't like being judged. Being a bit of a recluse, however, most of her encounters with others involved the other person sizing her up with only the help of what she offered, which wasn't much.

She boarded the Everybus Line at the corner of Rank and File. She chose the only remaining seat, next to a quirkily dressed middle-aged man.

"Hello," he said brightly. Maxie sized the man up immediately, but only with what he had to offer.

She wasn't used to conversing casually with strangers. It wasn't because of any perceived danger. She just didn't see the use of extending her engagement range through windows that would seal behind her — forever — when she left such a transient encounter. Yet, the man spoke with a hopefulness — all in the one word, Hello — that demanded a response.

"Hello," she answered softly.

"I'm Roy Polloi," he offered, sticking out his hand.

She noted his clean nails and that they were short via chewing, but not neurotically chewed. More like a childlike self-manicure. Actually, he had done a fine job. So she shook his hand briefly and let go somewhat before he was ready. This, too, helped her size him up.

"Maxie," she announced. "Maxie DeGruy." Pleased to meet you, Mr. Polloi," she lied.

"Roy, please," he insisted. "May I call you Maxie?"

This was forward, Maxie thought. A first-name basis just from adjacent seats on a public bus. What would be the harm? she thought. She had sized him up further. Not dangerous, just nerdy.

"Sure," she responded, not quite sure where this was going but confident she could navigate any mid-course corrections necessary.

"Where are you headed, Maxie?" he asked. Now Maxie wondered if she had sized him up wrong.

"I don't mean to be rude, um, Roy, but that's a bit private, you see."

"Certainly," he agreed. "None of my damn business."

He said "damn." She wasn't sure how to take the inflection. Was he insulted?

Embarrassed at crossing some line? Or was he vulnerable, resentful at her reluctance to be sociable?

"Actually, Roy," she said, reconsidering her response. "I 'm going to see the doctor. Nothing wrong. Just a regular checkup."

"I see," he said. Then, "What kind of doctor?"

"Just a regular checkup type of doctor," she said, somewhat tersely. She regretted reconsidering her previous response.

"I'm sorry," he continued. "I only ask because I'm a doctor, myself, you see. No longer actually practicing, though." Then under his breath, "If they don't want me practicing, that's fine." Maxie didn't catch his last comment.

"What kind of doctor?" she asked.

"Aha! It's OK for you to ask me 'what kind of doctor,' I see."

"Well, yes, I think so. Mine's personal, but yours is..."

"What? Not personal?" He smiled, so she didn't read any confrontation in his voice. "If you want to know, I was the royal family's psychiatrist."

"But this is Boston," she countered. "You mean the royal family...in England, do you?"

"When you're renowned like me, important people seek you out. And God knows those people need professional help from a psychiatrist of renown!"

"I see."

"Has anyone important ever sought you out, Maxie?"

"Just the Lord." Her rejoinder slipped out more quickly than she thought possible.

Somewhere in her unconscious brain was a smidgen of caution.

"Oh!" he said suddenly as they passed a certain corner, "here's where I met Stormy." He said it as if expecting her to know who this Stormy was. "Stormy Daniels," he added. "The Stormy Daniels."

"Really, Roy? You know Stormy Daniels?"

"Yep. Well, not anymore. She's heavily steeped into politics nowadays."

"So I heard," Maxie said, almost laughing out loud.

"No, it was the younger Stormy Daniels. Why, I knew Stormy when she was just a squall."

"I see."

"She was part of our threesomes." Maxie heard. She gasped, stunned.

"I beg your pardon?" she blurted.

Maxie noticed several people shifting in their seats to listen in. While crazy talk usually provoked the opposite, if you add a porn connection, all ears readily tune in.

"Yes, Stormy and me and Monica Lewinski. The young Monica Lewinski."

"Of course," Maxie smiled.

"There were more, you understand. I've had foursomes and even a few sixsomes. I suppose a sixsome would be a sexsome!" he laughed at his own joke. "Lorena Bobbit was part of it but we had to un-invite her because, well, there were problems. We replaced her with Tonya Harding."

"The Olympian?"

"Not anymore. Although, there are some moves that—"

"Spare me, Roy, please!"

"I'm so sorry. You're right. You hardly know me, so I shouldn't prattle on as if you were that kind of girl. Yet, I believe we're becoming good friends, don't you think?"

"Oh, I don't know, Roy."

"Just to be clear, you're not that kind of girl are you? Correct me if I'm wrong."

"Mr. Polloi, I believe this is my stop," she said curtly, clearly offended. What exactly had she done or said, she wondered, to have him size her up like that?

She rose to walk toward the bus door after it had reached the stop.

She was the only one getting off there, so she knew there was, again, only one vacant seat — right next to Mr. Roy Polloi. She laughed, because only one person boarded as Maxie stepped off the lower step onto the ground. She cheered her replacement. Mr. Polloi will be pleased, she thought.

She looked the incoming passenger over. She laughed again. She knew, intuitively, that the young woman who would replace her next to Roy Polloi was that kind of girl, and that soon those two would be getting off.

For operation:

Place Tab A into Slot B

Shake well; and repeat

.

.

.

She had everything going for her, skin deep. She presented gloriously on the stage as the designated beauty from her state. Her buttocks were firm and tented the bikini bottom just so. Her breasts were just so...healthy! Hanging perfectly at attention. Her waist was flat, the perfect connection between her upper and lower body.

Her legs were shapely, sinewy, and begging for the highest skirts possible. Her feet were lovely, like a child's. Her hands were porcelain. Her arms were cantilevers of poetry.

Her face would one day launch a thousand ships. While most noses are noticed immediately on a face, it's the attractive ones that are visited last, and she had impish upturned nose, on the perfect side of retroussé.

Her gait was a strut. Smooth and beckoning to follow, even into the gates of Hell, if she so ventured. As she walked, all of her parts syncopated in an interesting embellishment of her beauty.

This was the quintessential woman, skin deep. Who would care what was underneath?

While it's true the beautiful who walk among us compete in a fake competition for the eyes, age is the great equalizer. And while it's also true that beautiful people may be just as beautiful beyond skin deep and beyond, we train the beautiful to stay beautiful as long as they can, with fake adulation earned in fake contests.

She won the contest.

Deemed the most beautiful. In external appearance that belies the truth. And in twenty years, she'll catch up to everyone else on life's stage.

_______________________________

The pretty, young thing was an appetizer

Favored over a plain woman--no surprise there

But as they both got older

Similar wrinkles consoled her

For age was the ultimate equalizer