Write about your most joyful memory.

Are you kidding me? That’s the essay topic?

I looked up from my paper and gazed around the classroom. I wasn’t the only one more than a little annoyed. We paid good money for these courses. We had certain expectations of the rigor. We weren’t post-pubescent youngsters spending daddy’s money, boozing four or five nights a week and whooping for joy when the professor fed us pablum and expected the same in return. All of us were mid-career, some mid-life or even post-mid-life, adults, searching for a new – perhaps, better – path. Who simultaneously were working full time to pay the bills, including our tuition, perhaps support families and even our own children in college. How the hell was waxing poetic about the most joyful moment of our lives supposed to help us along this road we were climbing? Some of us were trying to become captains of industry…or something similar. Seriously, who cares? Why care? I mean, the fact that we were in this stuffy, inadequately ventilated classroom, studying Intro to Philosophy with 103 other people on a Friday night in January, kind of said it all. What joy?

I dropped my head onto the desk.

Joyful moment…joyful moment…joyful moment…

It was like a mantra, an incessant drumbeat in my mind without any corresponding images onto which I might seize in order to mold them into a meaningful piece of prose for this insipid essay.

Sigh…

Joyful moment…joyful moment…joyful moment…what does that even mean? I mean, Nietzsche would say don’t waste your time, right? We should not be searching for happiness…indeed we should be in a constant state of dissatisfaction that leads us to work towards a goal…and there is always a new goal…or there should be…happiness shouldn’t be the goal or you are destined to lifelong misery…The joy is in the struggle…or something like that. Okay, whatever. What about the stoics? I don’t know. What? Something like if you develop moral values like compassion rather than focusing on events beyond one’s control, you’ll have a life filled with joy. Okay, and?

Aargh!

Joyful moment…joyful moment…Joyful Noise…good movie. Great music…From here to the moon and back, love that Dolly…oy… Lots of joy in the Bible and religious music…Is this about religion? –This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad… Yay! We woke up. Woopty doo. Well, actually… perhaps…

I lifted my head and began to write.

I woke up this morning. My lungs were clear as I took my first conscious breath of the day. I could see the sun’s rays through my window. Though my eyesight is not perfect, I can yet enjoy the beauty of the world around me. I could appreciate the warmth of my blanketed bed, within four well-heated walls in a home I own. I could smell the fresh coffee the love of my life was making in the kitchen and hear his off-key humming as he did it.

The love of my life! I have someone to love who loves me. Who chooses me every day of our lives. And we have a child who is kind, who can take care of himself, who is healthy, who loves and is loved.

I have work that I enjoy. I have time, no, I make time, to write, to read, to paint, to draw. To do things that make me feel joyfully alive.

I woke up this morning. The news was bleak as ever, a shadow, nay, a black hole to suck the life and joy from anyone. But I refuse to dwell on what I cannot change. I cannot control anything beyond myself. Knowing this, I control my reactions, my attitude. My actions.

And therefore, my joy.

I woke up this morning. I greeted the world and everyone in it with a smile. Who knows what burdens another carries? Who knows when the smile of a stranger – or a friend – is just the medicine to spark a joyful moment?

If you were to weave together all the moments of one life, the result would not be a piece of fabric; nay, it would barely be a visible thread. Life is but a fleeting flicker of existence from which we aspire to extract meaning. Ephemeral, though it sometimes feels long and burden-full.

So, why focus on any particular moment when life itself is but a moment?

I woke up this morning. I still perceive myself as a part of this world, this life, with all its imperfections, and I am grateful.

Viewed through the prism of this gratefulness, the whole of my life is a joyful moment.

I have no idea what the professor’s goal was in assigning this essay, or if I met his objectives; but, my spirit was much lighter when I finished than when I started. I looked around the crowded room and smiled, realizing how happy I was to be there.

I didn’t mean it. Honest.

They say never to make decisions when you’re angry; but considering there’s not a moment in the past year where I haven’t been angry, I figured an exception could be made.

Why wouldn’t I be miffed? Three-hundred years in the service just to get canned—pension revoked, pointy shoes confiscated, jingle bells ceremonially muted. Truly it was the walk of shame.

The Big Man caught me skimming toys off the other elves’ lines and just like that I’d been handed my notice. ‘Freeloader’ they called me. Where to go. What to do. For a time I considered heading south and trying my luck at blending in, but vestiges of that Will Ferrell movie began to stir in my head and suddenly moderate (s)elf respect turned me against the idea. I could not, I would not end up like that. I’m not an object of amusement—I’m an elven being!

Why do I gotta’ pay the price? It was Bauble who asked if I’d retrieve a few nutcrackers for her. I got ’em off Tinsel’s line, then Mistletoe’s line, then Bob’s. Little did I know none of the aforementioned had given the green light for this. Bauble had been falling behind off and on all year, and she’d been threatened with the dreaded pink slip (yes they still have those in the North Pole; I know—dreams crushed, childhood ruined). She told me all these elves had consented to help her by donating a few wares to the cause. And I could give a very detailed explanation of her sins, but why do that when I could just consolidate it—she lied.

She lied and I got caught. Then she gave me the puppy eyes, so I wound up taking the full rap like the sucker I was. Yep, I’m the freeloader. Me. Employee of the Month 1859 through 1940. Not a deadline missed, and I tell you I was a legend. But that’s over, so...I’m not bitter. I’m still sugar sweet. Sweet as a candy cane. Whoops, it broke. Ignore that.

But onto my regrets. I almost forgot. Two weeks ago Christmas whirred around, as it is wont to do, so I decided to play a little trick on Santa. See, I’d heard of this...special mirror known to invert the personality of the subject and thence materialize said personality. The elves all knew of this mirror, informally nicknamed Rorrim. Nobody really knows where it came from. Legend has it that a thousand years ago a group of elves accidentally messed up building...something and their mistakes culminated in Rorrim. To which I reply, how in the South Pole do you even manage that? That takes some talent in itself. But no matter, it exists, and it’s kind of a taboo among the elves due to its inherently dark nature. Fortunately we have a system. We throw a sheet with happy snowmen faces over it to hide the evil aura seeping from its pores. Problem solved.

But I, being a genius, removed the sheet, and swapped Santa’s normal mirror with Rorrim. Banal revenge, blah, blah. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal. I mean, Santa’s antithesis is already rumored to exist. Krampus anyone? But Rorrim put something of a darker spin on it. The thing that stepped out of the mirror looked like a scrawny, leathered Santa, who wore chains like a Christmas tree wears garland and whose eyes were much, much redder than my comfort zone could tolerate. He scrambled off, jacking Santa’s sleigh and leaving all the presents behind in the snow. It didn’t take long for us to realize: what’s the opposite of someone who gives?

Someone who takes.

And this wasn’t just a ‘bad kids get punished’ sort of deal. Anti-Claus was bent on punishing everyone, naughty or nice. Like Santa, he made a list and he did indeed check it twice, but this was more in the vein of...the death list from Kill Bill. You DID NOT want your name getting checked off of that list.

Beside himself, Santa rushed to check the coordinates of his sleigh. You see, there’s a tracker installed near the backup motor, in the case of something like this happening—well, not this specifically, just a sleighjacking in general. I’d...be highly concerned if it was the former. Anyways, Santa got the coordinates and it turns out Atnas (yes I just called him that) had yet to reach any houses. He was flying over a field, so Santa hit the emergency eject button and changed his course if you catch my drift. Yes there’s an emergency eject button in Santa’s office that’s synced with the sleigh. I think it’s in case terrorists hijack it—I don’t know; the man’s thought of everything.

So Atnas fell—but he didn’t die. That would’ve been too easy. No, it wasn’t two hours before a breaking news report came to our attention. A strange figure had been spotted wandering along the outskirts of a forest in Iceland.

I’d like to pretend I acted all cool......but honestly I had a practical aneurysm over the prospect of this thing actually killing someone because, yeah, it would kind of totally be my fault. We needed a way to subdue him. But how?

How did we resolve this giant pickle, you might ask. Well, I could tell you that we dispatched a whole elven militia complete with Glock 17s and full drone warfare to perform reconnaissance and terminate Atnas. But honestly Clumsy Klaus just snagged his toe on the mirror and it tipped over and broke. Apparently that’s all you needed to do to kill a Rorrim creation.

That’s it?

WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?!?!?!

Maybe I deserve to be fired.

So yeah. Moral of the story. Stay away from anything that seeps evil aura: even if it’s covered with a pleasantly inviting snowman sheet.

-------------------------------------------

Notes: And yes Rorrim has been done before, I think multiple places but I could be wrong. When I was younger I saw the “My Babysitter’s a Vampire” take (having looked it up--a tad different; I think it was just a vengeful spirit in the mirror that possessed people and made everyone it possessed bad regardless; I don’t think it turned you opposite or materialized anything) and I and my friend(s?) consequently paired a similar take with Santa Claus...for some reason. I once did a picture of Santa looking into a mirror and seeing his evil reflection. I...don’t know what became of this drawing, but it was pretty cool.

#fiction, #strictlyfiction, #donttrythisathome

Santa fired me last Christmas! Can you believe the nerve of that jolly old

goat??

Sooo I liked to drink a little eggnog on the job... so what? I only forgot a couple parts on that bicycle I assembled that one time!

And is Comet not the more fitting reindeer to light up the night sky and guide that old coot’s sleigh?

I may have made Rudolph cry for old times’ sake and strapped some lights to Comet’s butt, but they were BRIGHT LIGHTS. Far brighter than that honker of Rudolph’s that Santa has been trying to spin in a positive light (no pun intended) for so many years.

Listen, the fat man is no spring chicken and if his goal truly is to have help guiding his sleigh, that spotlight on Comet’a butt saved the DAY. I should have been applauded, not canned!

But I am not bitter. Ok, maybe I am a little bitter. Maybe I have devised a plan to make Christmas 2020 the worst nightmare ever for my old boss.

I have been watching all the gainfully employed elves through the workshop window for several hours now. Soon, they will start dropping like flies from exhaustion and I will be able to rifle through that fat sack of neatly assembled toys and play a little game of hide and seek with Mr. St. Nicky-nick.

Ready or not, boys, here I come!

‘Creativity’ is now a word for what the education system expects when they tell us to be expressive, pretty pictures of trees and people drawn with rainbow hues of crayola crayons. ‘Creativity’ now means, “This was something that was given a modicum of care and effort.” This is not breaking the box or even just thinking outside it. This is standing inside the box, and coloring flowers on the wall.

I first heard of Prose while I was seeking out writing contests through a Write Life article ( https://thewritelife.com/writing-contests/ ), and my love and appreciation for this site has grown for these reasons:

- As I continue to work on growing and improving as a writer, I would like an audience for this journey. Words are meant to be shared, so one the places I will post them are here on Prose. My words and journey are here for anyone that wants to join in, and I appreciate having Prose for that.

- I love the variety on this site. After on and off writing for years, I actively began writing Bible journals through my church community in April (and I am still doing this). Since joining Prose to initially enter short story contests, I have also written about video games, I have written a couple of poems, and I have done some reflective pieces on why I am writing, including this one. Variety encourages growth, and I love that this site has plenty of it.

- I love the Challenges. The writing challenges have been a great way to try different forms of writing, and also meet other writers in this community too. New challenges are constantly coming up, which provides plenty of motivation to write on a regular basis.

- There are a lot of great writers here that write in a variety of genres, and it is great to be able to not only enjoy their work, but be able to tell the authors how meaningful their writing is in the comments.

Writing is a side hobby for me, but I wouldn't rule out doing more with it in the future. I work as a teacher and as an aspiring actor, and in these fields I need plenty of quick thinking and creativity. Writing daily is helping me to sharpen my mind and build creativity, and I appreciate this platform as an avenue to keep working on my writing and get inspired by all of your writing too. So thanks for reading and writing everyone!