The countdown clock for Christmas is ticking. Santa's elves begin working their magic on the assembly lines, but the line comes to a screeching halt when rumours leak that one elf is going to get let go that day.
Dreams Can Come True!
by Gordon MacAulay
The roll call started: “Elmo, Janny, Bunle, Spark, Ellie, Bounder, Kallie, Jikney, Blitzie, Baffle, Rando, Purdy, Danno, Abran, Wulkie, Zanzwi and Ripplo.” “All present” yelled Ripplo the senior elf.” This was always his response as the last name on the rambling list was read. Immediately, they all began to work at their production line producing hundreds of items a day.
Team spirit was the essence of an elf’s life. Elmo knew exactly how to cut the two pieces of cloth and pass them to Janny who stitched with an elegant movement of arms and threw the result to Bunle and so it went day after day. Of course, Zanzwi was at the end of the line and many times Abran and Wulkie would finish with the labels and wrapping leaving Zanzwi without work. Zanzwi would yell over the noise to his fellow elves “Hey what about sharing, I will be out of a job tomorrow.” For a little while Zanzwi would be busy as he knew Santa’s senior manager, Dancer, would come in regularly to see how work was progressing.
“Smoko” said Ripplo. Zanzwi rushed outside although he never smoked. Wulkie followed. They sat on a bench overlooking the ice-covered lake. Zanzwi thought for a few moments. “What would it be like to be not working”, he said, turning to look very directly at Wulkie. “Imagine what you could do? I could travel over the tundra, I could spend time exploring the wilderness, I could play with my children and I could even climb a mountain. I could be so free and relaxed. No one would be watching what I am doing all the time and no need to sit waiting while everybody else catches up with me.” “Wow”, says Wulkie, taking in a big sigh. Wulkie paused and in a slow and deliberate manner said: “Would you miss us?” There was a long silence between the two. Eventually Zanzwi said: “I think I would.”
Ripplo, watching the time carefully, pressed the button that rang a bell through the igloo-shaped building reporting the end of “smoko.” Slowly Zanzwi and Wulkie walked back inside the building without saying anything. Ever alert to the slightest innuendo or rumours, Ellie slid up beside Wulkie and said: “Better be careful, I have just seen Ripplo talking to Dancer. They were looking very secretive—almost whispering to each other. “ “What do you think?” said Wulkie. “My guess is we are in for downsizing. You know we have just had an economic crisis!” he whispered. “Be careful that what you wish will come true”, retorted Zanzwi.
The bell suddenly rang again and they all stopped work. They had all been working hard to finish a batch of 1000 pieces. Ripplo stood and said: “I bring you all some good news and some bad news. We have just completed a new record number of items for a year and finished two days before Christmas eve. Well done. The bad news is Zanzwi, you are to be made redundant.” Slowly, in complete silence, sixteen elves walked out of the building.
27 March 2010
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4 comments:
Heather says:
16 elves work on the production line, one elf is fired and 16 elves walk out of the building. Team spirit is the essence of their lives and this results in a complete solidarity. We know that Zanzwi, who got fired, wanted to be out of work; we're not sure about the rest.
The story has a very Christmas-elfy feel to it. I love the names; I like the camaraderie among the elves. When Zanzwi says, "I think I would" (...miss the rest of the mob), something gets created.
A couple of things made this a heavy read: one was the dialogue punctuation - there should be only one character's dialogue per paragraph. The other related to the undercurrent of solidarity - it wasn't quite developed strongly enough that the ending was immediately believable.
But that's minor: I loved the imagination of the piece and enjoyed the day in an elf's life. I like being left wondering, what's next?
Eve Says:
An elf who is sort of out of step with the others is let go from the assembly line.
Great names for the elves, Gordon.
Good short story that fulfils the prompt in a straightforward simple way.
Zanzi gets my sympathy because he doesn't quite fit in at work and is naive enough to speak his daydreams to his co-worker. Also, he gets hit by a bad economy, like the rest of us, and is still likeable enough that his pals stand by him.
For me the ending came too quickly, though.
First, I loved the names. Did you make them up or can they be found in some obscure story about Santa and his elves?
Loved the "smoko" too. Can't see elves taking a smoko but why not?
I thought the ending though was too abrupt. It didn't fit in with the rest of the story and the line didn't come to a screeching halt. They just finished for the day. The Christmas spirit would let you go a bit over the word limit to come up with a punchier ending.
Kerry says:
An elf is let go when it becomes clear that there isn't quite enough work to justify his job but all the others work out in solidarity.
I like the description of the interdependence of the elf workshop. Makes it even more poignant that Zanzwi has to scramble to find something to do.
I wasn't quite sure about the conversation Zanzwi had with Wulkie. Did he suspect that he was going to be let go?
I would have liked more detail to round out the story a bit.
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