The Yuletide Prayer
A little Christmas drama.
[darkness; stage scattered with soot and pine needles; the scent suffuses the theatre space]
[a spotlight comes on; PERSON enters and stands beneath it]
[kneels, bends head]
PERSON [with studied reverence]: O Santa Claus, build the sleigh. Build the reins and whip. Build the track running through the snow. Build the track long and winding, and build up the driven banks on either side. Build the forest all around it. Build the trees towering and green and dark. Build them with heavy-laden boughs drooping overhead. Build it so it feels like twilight in the middle of the day. Build the river flowing through it. Build the river wide and slow and deep. Build the waterfall. Build the icicles dripping off. Build the never-ending roar. Build the mist forever rising from the crashing foam below. Build the track so it runs along the river. Build it so it cuts across the hillside. Build the clearing at the ending of the track. Build the footbridge. Build the island it will lead to. Build the island as a perfect circle, and build the perfect tree there in its center. Build the tree so tall it will brush against the ceiling of my father’s house. Build the tree so thick it my father has to struggle to saw through it. Build it so he sweats and groans, and the sweat freezes on his brow. At home, too, o Santa Claus, build the wreath. Build the lights in all the windows. Build the lights strung around the house. Build the lights strung around the tree. Build the ornaments. Build the baubles and the bells. Build the mistletoe and myrrh. Build the stockings. Build the roaring fire they will hang above. Build the candy canes and build the gingerbread house. Build it with the shutters closed in all the frosting windows. Build it with a cloud of sugar rising from the chimney. Build it so there’s just one door, and build it so the knob is missing. Build it so it’s just for us. Build it so there are no questions. Build it so my brother holds his tongue. Build it so there will be a perfect Christmas. This is my prayer to you, o Santa Claus. Build it so the winter doesn’t bury me.
[silence]
[suddenly, voice of SANTA CLAUS; seems to come from everywhere at once; deep, cold, clear like an arctic lake]
SANTA CLAUS [not unkindly]: No, young one. I will not grant your wish. I can see you when you sleep, you know. I have seen what’s in your dreams. I have seen what you wish to see coming over the waterfall, and I have seen what you wish to see spreading across the ceiling of your father’s house. No. You will follow the track. You will reach the footbridge. You will walk across it to the island. But there will be nothing there for you but coal.
PERSON [cowering]: No!
SANTA CLAUS [continuing]: Oh, yes. Yes, great, towering piles of coal, piles that will loom over you and hide you from the sun. And you will shrink from them, and they will press closer. They will only press closer. And the winter will be carried with them.
[PERSON curled now in a fetal position beneath the spotlight; shivering; breath fogs in the air]
[spotlight goes dark]
SANTA CLAUS [louder now]: Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas!
[curtain]