GREEN CHEESE
According to legend, it is said that on Christmas Eve not a creature is stirring not even a mouse. It's been seventy years since I heard that ridiculous claim. My mom and pop lived then (and to today) in a land so white, so still, that icicles drop from our roof, race to the earth and crack loudly. Our roof shakes, some times makes Pop look up and cuss a blue streak, shiver, shout, ' 'Shut up, Everyone and every dang thing. I can't work in this infernal noise.'
After a little pause, he just might blurt out, 'Sarah, boil some cocoa and get it here to me before it has icicles floating on top. The marshmallows will break one of my false teeth. Hop to it! Michaelmas, have you seen any little elves around here?' The answer he gets is, 'What nonsense, Pop. They'd be buried in the first six inch snow.'
''Come on, then, there's still much to do. That big fat man in the red suit might be early for once. Do we have any of that flying reindeer food left from last year?'Michaelmas shrugs his shoulders and denies knowing anything about it. Mom overhears the conversation and lets the guys know they ate it weeks ago.
'Sarah, light a fire. My hands are like icicles and I still have some carving to do. Michaelmas, go get me some cedar, not a lot, just little pieces and maybe a handful of pine needles. I have in mind a very special gift I want to make for my little friends. Put a muffler around your neck and stay close to the house.' Michaelmas opens the side door and is sucked out into the snow and ice, imagines he is being pulled into a frozen vacuum cleaner. His voice is lost in the wind. Crawling along on his hands and knees, he is dumfounded when he almost bumps into a single tall, straight pine tree. He forces himself to stand and slowly work his way up to the lowest branches. Ripping off the pine needles, blood starts to come out of his fingers, drops on the snow and spreads like a tiny, fiery lake. The pine needles and his hand go inside the lining of his seal jacket, fit into a furry pocket. His youth and super strength lead him home. Pop mumbles a 'thanks' for the pine and needles, and heads to his sanctorum where he gets busy sawing the pine into small triangles, covering them with glue, sprinkling the green needles all over them. When he knows Michaelmas and Mom are in bed, covered right up to their ears, he sets his green carvings on the kitchen floor, banks the fire, and goes to bed. Before he falls to sleep he is sure he hears the fat man in the red suit, reindeer, flying overhead.
Just as daylight comes, he hurries downstairs, straight to the kitchen, hoping to see his presents to his little friends scattered, enjoyed. Instead, all twelve little mice lie dead. Their whiskers curl so their tiny faces seem to be smiling. Like a small child, he sits on the cold floor beside the dead mice and cries and cries. His present to them that looked like green cheese were to be played with, not eaten.
He folds the small bodies into pages from ads for Christmas toys and mumbles, 'And not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.' With a ladle from Sarah's kitchen cabinet, he digs a hole in the cold, frozen ice near the front door, lays each mouse tenderly in a circle, and says a prayer for them.
He goes inside and starts carving little gravestones for his friends.
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