The Legend of Anarcho Claus
The Secret Story of Santa’s Rebel Son
by Samuel Edward Konkin III and Victor Koman
Little Janie White wants a chemistry set for Christmas, but her parents prohibit it. Tearfully waiting up until midnight for Santa Claus to appear so she can plead her case, Janie instead discovers an elf dressed in black on her hearth. He's Anarcho Claus, who sneaks out of Elf-Land on Christmas Eve in a sleek black sleigh piloted by C.B. – a very gruff polar bear – and led by Rudy the reindeer, whose black-light nose stealthily guides the way. Together, they bring all sorts of forbidden toys to non-coercive girls and boys.
With ice-breathing dragons and the US Air Force in hot pursuit, Anarcho Claus spirits Janie away to the North Pole, where she learns the secret behind Santa's annual toy dumping and the reason for Anarcho's defiance.
Wicked and witty, The Legend of Anarcho Claus is the one Christmas gift you'll read to your children all year long.
The Legend of Anarcho Claus
by Samuel Edward Konkin III and Victor Koman
KoPubCo
This book is dedicated with love and joy at Christmas to non-coercive boys & girls all around the myriad worlds
“Suddenly there arose such a clatter …”
Alexandra Jane Virginia Bernadette Buttercup White awoke with a start. She realized that she had drifted off on the chesterfield in front of the crackling fireplace. She couldn’t have been asleep long for her cheeks were still streaked with long, wet tracks of tears. Janie remembered why she had been crying, and was about to begin again.
Wait! Another sound. Up on the roof? Yes, she just barely heard a muffled voice.
“Cool it. Enough of the clatter of hooves from you eight tiny reindeer already. Rudy – keep a watch for patrols. Search with your ultraviolet vision if you have to.”
That didn’t sound like the white-bearded, red-suited fellow for whom she had been waiting. It was Christmas Eve and she had hoped to catch Santa and talk to him before her parents could change what she really asked for to what they insisted she was supposed to want.
And what to her wondering eyes did appear? Well, one moment she was gazing into the crackling, dancing flames of the fireplace (trying to figure out how fire worked) and the next moment – blocking her view – a rotund, sardonic elf blinked into existence with audible POP!
This elf, though, was nothing like the little people who worked for Santa Claus – the white-bearded gent stood just a tall as grown man. Just as tall as Santa. But instead of a red suit with white ermine trim, this peculiar elf wore a black suit with sable trim as dark as midnight.
“Gosh, how did you do that?” Janie was in voice brimming with ever-inquisitive glee.
“Simple teleportation device, kid,” said the stranger on her hearth. Stepping gingerly away from the fire, he gazed at her and asked, “Where did you stash your socks?”
“My stockings?” asked Janie.
“Socks, stockings, hosiery, foot-gloves! Come on, kid, we haven’t got all night. My old man’s patrol could be around any minute.”
“Your old man?” she asked. “You mean your father is Sant–”
“Hey, I ain’t a son of man, kid. Where do you think I got these elvish abilities? Rolled them in a game of Dungeons and Dragons?”
“Golly, Mr. Claus, are you helping out your father? Wait here – I’ll be back with a stocking.” In flurry of bedclothes, she ran upstairs into her room.
It had to be somewhere, she though. Ordinary socks flew everywhere as she dug for prize. Finally, she found them in battered old cardboard box on which her father had written – in bold black Magic Marker – EUROCENTRIC XMAS FRIVOLOUSNESS.
She seized her red and white Christmas stocking and turned to go, then remembered one of the rules of the game and thoughtfully brought along her little brother’s green Christmas stocking as well.
“Here you are, Mr. Claus. Here’s one for my brother, Bobby, too.”
The not-so-old fellow stood by the fireplace stoking a meerschaum pipe decorated with intricate carvings on the bowl. He unslung his sack when Janie presented the socks.
“Call me Anarcho, kid.”
“Anarcho… Claus?”
“That’s my name. But don't worry–” he bent down to look her straight in the eye “–You can never wear it out.”
“Okay, Anarcho Claus. And you can call me Janie. Instead of ‘kid’.”
The man – the elf – in black straightened up, then stood absolutely still, as if an arctic breeze had frozen him in place. He seemed to be in trance.
“Are you meditating?” she asked. No answer. “Are you listening for something?” Anarcho Claus made no sound. Janie’s face became a mask of astonishment as she realized what might be happening. Breathlessly, she asked, “Are you checking to see if I’m naughty or nice?”
Anarcho Claus snapped out of it as if no time had time passed. “You’re clean, kid,” he said then added, “I’m not in naughty/nice dichotomy. I just see whether you ripped anyone off lately. No point in giving you property if you don’t respect it.”
Janie felt as if she were getting away with something, so she felt compelled to ’fess up. “Well, there was the time when I pushed Bobby away from my construction set…”
“No problemo, Janie. Your parents shoved him on you and told you to share!” He spat out the last as if it were the kind of word that would cause your mouth to get a bar of Lifebuoy soap shoved into it. “Now that was wicked. Nothing for them this Christmas.”
“How do you know all that?” said Janie.
“You mean how do I ‘Read Morality at a Distance’? An esper-related ability, natural to high elves. I inherited it, of course. ESP runs in my family.” He snorted and reached into his sack. “Don’t you read Science Fiction?”
“Oh, every chance I can sneak it under my covers!” bubbled Janie. Then downcast, she added, “But my parents say girls don’t make good scientists or starship pilots. My mom says we’re better at communicating and understanding emotions.” She made a sour face. “She says I should become a community organizer.”
“Man,” Anarcho Claus muttered as he dug into his sack of toys, “if I had a nickel for every time I heard that from the girls of this misguided world… I could nickel-plate the planet!”
With a smile on his trim-bearded face, he pulled out a Deluxe Model Chemistry set and handed it to wide-eyed Janie. “Groove on this and next Christmas I’ll run in some oxidizers and reagents they won’t sell to kids in the stores.”
Janie grinned with overjoyed delight. Her wish had come true! She opened the box. It was made of beautiful, sharp-cornered steel box and opened up into three sections. Inside lay a cornucopia of chemicals surrounded by a gaggle of glassware. Row after row of little glass bottles held such exciting and exotic-sounding chemicals as Sulfur, Magnesium, Phenolphthalein, Sodium Thiosulfate, Sodium Silicate, Sodium Nitrate…
Hmm, she though, sodium’s a pretty important element.
The glassware shimmered like jewels. Beakers, graduated cylinders, flasks both Florence and Erlenmeyer, an amber-coloured alcohol burner, and a beautiful, curling glass tube that Janie knew to be a condensing coil. It was all so lovely that she tenderly closed the set up and hugged it harder than she had ever hugged a teddy bear.
There was one big problem, though. She looked up at Anarcho with tears of joy and concern in her big hazel eyes. “But… what will my parents say?”
“Who says your parents should know? Kids have a right to privacy, just like other people. It’s wrong to say they don’t.” He dug around in his sack again.
“You mean adults can be wrong?” As she spoke, she hid the chemistry set behind the china cabinet. Since his parents always ordered takeout, she figured it would be safe there for a while.
“Have you seen the world around you, Janie? Adults are wrong all the time. Take me, for instance. If you asked your parents if I exist, do you think you’d get the right answer?” He straightened up and turned around, arms out. Janie gazed at his ebony deerskin boots, jet-hued slacks, midnight jacket with black sable trim and obsidian buttons. “Have you ever heard of me before?”
Janie shook her head.
“Your friends never mentioned jolly old Anarcho Claus, the elf in black?”
She shook her head emphatically. “No one’s ever told me about you.”
The elf smiled. “That's the secret, kid. I've been smuggling forbidden toys to hard-core girls and boys since I read Benjamin Tucker’s Liberty in the 1880s. And no one has ever ratted me out.”
“That’s why nobody’s heard of you!”
“Well, nobody I haven’t visited personally.”
Anarcho Claus lit his pipe and blew a smoke ring in the shape of Christmas wreath. With holly sprigs!
“OK, kid, I gotta fly. Mind you, don’t go making bombs or mind-control drugs for the State with that thing.”
Jennie shook her head from side to side. “Oh, golly, Anarcho Claus, I’d never help anyone make War! My parents don’t believe in it.”
The elf frowned, took another puff from his pipe, and sighed. “That’s no reason, Janie. You do something because you know it’s right, not because your parents tell you so. Or even because I tell you. You have to think for yourself.”
He reached once more into his black canvas sack and pulled out a surprisingly realistic-looking model Thompson submachine gun. He handed it to Janie. “And this is for Bobby.”
“Wow!” Janie jumped to take the cool blue steel barrel and mahogany grips in her hands. She eyed it with a mixture of excitement and concern. “Mom and Dad are pacifists. They’d kill him if they found him with a gun!”
“Yeah, and there’s no inconsistency in that,” the younger Claus muttered under his breath.
Janie, perplexed, asked, “I though you didn’t believe in war? So how come you’re giving Bobby a gift that encourages his fascination with guns?”
A faint, crackling voice interrupted them, swirling around Anarcho Claus like an auditory vapor.
“Breaker seven-seven for the one A-C!”
Ignoring the deep, spectral voice, Anorcho Claus stared down at Janie. “Good one, Janie. Zing! I’ll bet you sound just like your mother!” He paused, then sighed. “Actually, it’s a fair question, if not very well put. Let me ask you one, Janie. Do you think you should decide for your brother whether or not he should use his new gun to practice for war?”
“Well…” said Janie, “if it’s so wrong…”
“And should he decide whether or not you should have the chemistry set?”
“No!” shouted Janie. Shocked at the ferocity of her response, she put her hand over her mouth. Did she wake her parents?
Again the faint, crackling voice pierced the silence. This time, Anarcho Claus answered. “I read you, C.B. Double score down here. How’s up top?”
Janie leaned close to Anarcho Claus to hear the voice. It sounded deep and resonant.
“Another sleigh sighted by Black Nose on Ultra-Vision. The Redcoat is coming!”
“10-4. C.B. Pull me up and out. Over.”
“Who’s C.B., Anarcho Claus?” asked Janie, tugging on his sleeve…
ZWINK!
She was standing in the snow on her roof! And perched precariously on the peak of the roof stood nine reindeer, a matte-black sleigh full of toys, and a white polar bear sitting in the sleigh holding some kind of radio set in its paws..
“Uh-oh! Another kid snagged on to you during beam-up,” the polar bear growled in bemused tone. The ninth reindeer, possessing a nose that glowed with black light, was not attached to the sleigh. He was the one making braying, clicking, whistling sounds to the bear.
The bear listened, nodded his big bear head, and said. “Rudy says there’s no time to beam her down. Red Coat’ll see us.”
“Gosh, Anarcho Claus,” Janie volunteered. “I’ll find a way down somehow. You get away and keep doing your good deeds. Maybe Santa will show up and help me down… but don’t worry, I won’t tell him you were here!”
“I’ll never let you fall into that phony junk-dealer’s hands, Janie. Tell you what, how would you like a ride in our sleigh? Make a few stops with us? I’ll give you a Revisionist History of Christmas.”
“Oh, wonderful!” Janie exclaimed, jumping up and down on the snow-clad roof and clapping her hands (which by now had become numb with cold, but she was so excited she did not even notice). With a squeal of joy she hopped up on the sleigh, but hesitated as she approached the polar bear.
The huge white behemoth had put down its device and was peering into the sky where the black-nosed reindeer pointed. Anarcho Claus jumped in after her, and his bulk pushed her right up into the warm, white fur of the bear.
Anarcho Claus called out, “Let’s go, team!” and the reindeer began to trot… right up into the air. “Selective breeding for psychokinetic powers,” Anarcho Claus explained to an astonished Janie. They sped away under a brilliant full moon that lit the snowy landscape in a dreamy blue-white glow. Through some magic – or ingenuity of aerodynamic sleigh design – Janie felt no wind upon her bright pink cheeks, yet every aroma of Christmas rising up from a thousand homes thrilled her nostrils.
She took a deep breath and inhaled the sweet scent of evergreen Christmas trees: noble fir, spruce, pine, and white fir; the warm, welcoming smells of home cooking: turkey and mincemeat pie and apple cider and hot chocolate with marshmallows; the soothing smoke from crackling firewood: oak, eucalyptus, hickory, pine, and redwood. She exhaled, took another deep, long breath, and snuggled closer into C.B.’s thick fur.
“C.B.’s the best polar bear in all the North Pole,” the big elf said apropos of nothing. He seemed to delight in providing information to the little girl. “He helps watch out for the other kind of bear – the Smokey kind, if you know what I mean.”
Janie frowned in puzzlement and shook her head.
The elf frowned right back at her. “Smokey Bear? Cherry Toppers? Flatfoots? Scuffers? The Fuzz? Blue Meanies? The Man? Cops?”
“Oh,” she said. “Police.”
“Police, military, Men In Black. Anyone who’d try to stop us this Cristmas Eve.”
The lead reindeer, flying free of the team, darted this way and that before racing back to whinny and grunt at the bear. Anarcho Claus drew Janie’s gaze towards the animal.
“Rudy has an ultraviolet projector and detector in his nose,” he explained. “You know, black light? He can detect any Smokeys who might be in the area.”
Janie nodded, but she didn’t quite understand. “I thought Rudolph had a red nose.”
Rudy turned toward her, narrowing his ebony eyes and lowering his antlers with a swift, menacing motion.
“Whoa, kid,” Anarcho said. “Don’t set him off! Rudolph is Rudy’s no-good, sell-out, soft-core, toadying, reactionary sycophant of a brother!”
Rudy snorted, turned his nose up, and flew a few hundred yards away.
Janie’s face filled with contrition. “I’m so sorry! I thought ‘Rudy’ was short for ‘Rudolph’.”
Anarcho Claus shook his head. “They were born twins. Rudolph… and Rudyard. He prefers to be called Rudy.”
“What’s so bad if Santa… I mean Red Coat catches us, Anarcho Claus?” Janie finally trusted the younger Claus not to leave her mystified for long.
As the sleigh climbed higher and higher into the midnight sky, Anarcho Claus tapped his meerschaum pipe on the side of sleigh, sending a shower of red cinders sparkling into the night.
“Let’s begin with the Elvish Economy of the North Pole,” he said. “You see, objects of human amusement are a waste product in our industry, damaging to our ecology.”
“Objects of …” wondered Janie. “Do you mean toys?”
“Sure. Elves have no need for toys. They shoot out of the matter converters we use in our heavy industry, to power the North Pole, and to shield ourselves from human detection.”
“Why?” she asked.“Why toys?”
“You’ll find out. Anyway, toys used to litter the snow just south of the North Pole.”
C.B. snorted merrily and interjected, “Of course, everything is south of the North Pole!” He laughed and laughed in that bear-growl way of his. Anarcho Claus just rolled his eyes.
“So,” the elf continued, pulling a tobacco pouch from his jacket pocket to refill his pipe, “Red Coat tried to clean up the mess once, and hauled a load of toys way down south – and dumped them in the human zone. He quickly discovered that girls and boys loved stuff and – even better – parents loved the way they could get kids to behave by threatening or temping them with the Naughty or Nice lists. So he formed this plan: the old geezer flies by, jettisons our waste on you, and gets you kids to toe his line, follow his altruistic policies, and serve the parental establishment he’s covertly backing. Simple imperialism.”
“Imperialism?” That was a big word for Jeanie. She said it a few more times, letting the sound roll around in her mouth.
“Red Coat fancies himself the first elvish king, and he’s expanding his empire under the guise of generosity.”
Rudy, the black-light-nosed reindeer, zoomed toward the sleigh from up high, chattering as he swooped in. C.B. nodded, then turned to gaze straight at Anarcho with his coal-black eyes.
“Rudy said Red Coat’s spotted us. Now what, A-C?”.
“Keep her warm, C.B. Only one chance – we’ll have to outrun him to the Pole and hope we can get behind our scramble shields. Hold on!”
And that’s how Janie got to see the Other Side of the North Pole.
[“]Damn it, A-C, I think we tripped an alarm,” roared the polar bear, studying a gauge with a needle swinging over far to the right, into a red zone. “I’ll tell Rudy.” He grabbed the microphone in his big bear paw and made the same sort of snorting, whinnying sounds Janie had heard from Rudy.
“And that’s Northern Canada!” Anarcho Claus pointed to the tundra below, lit up in the moonlight like a vast blue and white quilt of snow and brush. “Now comes the tricky part. We have to cross the dimensional barrier to Elf-Land.”
“You mean,” Janie said, blinking her eyes, “we’re not really going to the North Pole?”
“Not your North Pole, kid.” Anarcho Claus chuckled, his red cheeks flushed with amusement. “Not even Elves can live on that block of martini-chillers. But there’s a neighboring dimension where we Elves have altered the environment ant and turned the poles into heavy-industrial areas, keeping pollution far away from the fertile, agricultural areas closer to the equators. Say–” he squinted suspiciously at the wondrous-eyed child, “You did say you read Science Fiction, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” Janie said with fervor.
“Well, then,” he said with a smile, “you didn’t really buy that line about my old man living in a frozen wasteland in a toy factory and all that?”
“Well,” she said, “I also read fantasy…” She nodded toward the returning reindeer scout hovering a few feet away from them.
C.B. huffed out, “Rudy’s within our field range… How!”
He flipped a switch. The world shivered and Janie saw houses and highways appear below them. Not ordinary houses and highways, of course. Elves would never live in the sorts of houses humans are used to. No, these houses were each unique and quirky. Some houses rose straight up like church spires without the church. Others sprawled about like a glass and steel amoeba. Yet others jutted out at weird angles: a balcony facing almost straight down, a bedroom dangling over a swimming pool, chimneys that pointed sideways. Janie wondered if Elf-Land had any building codes at all!
Janie snuggled between the furry bear and the fur-clad elf named Anarcho and grew very warm indeed.
“How come your animals are so smart?” Janie blurted out, then wondered if she had just been rude to the bear seated beside her.
But C.B. simply snorted a sort of laugh and the rotund elf smiled. “Who wants dumb animals? Genetic engineering, of course. Why waste worthwhile life-forms by leaving them non-sentient? Most of animals in Elf-Land can speak and reason.” He leaned over to her. She smelled cinnamon spice and a wonderful burly smoke from his pipe. “Our failures, you’d be interested to know, are given away by my dad as pets.”
“And our toys,” Janie said, beginning to understand, “are your reject from trying to build something even better?”
“Something like that, kid” Anarcho Claus answered. “Our robots use the matter converters to manufacture a lot of stuff in the course of our research and development programs, but not all of it is up to our standards of profitability. So Red Coat figured that he could dump the waste products on kids in exchange for power over you.”
C.B. roared, “Rudy says they’ve spotted us. Now what?”
“Full speed to the hideout!” Anarcho Claus scanned the skies in every direction, looking for Rudy.
The scouting reindeer had flown ahead but now rushed back, snow swirling in his wake. Several dots in the starry midnight sky chased him, growing closer and closer to the sleigh.
“Looks as if pop’s really out to stop our free-enterprisin’ fun this time!” Anarcho grasped the reins tightly while his polar bear co-pilot flipped down a control panel filled with switches, dials, and Christmas tree’s worth of lights.
Janie watched the moonlit specks grow and grow as they approached, rapidly becoming long and thin with wide, large, bat-like wings. But they weren’t black like bats. These creatures were as white as the snow below them.
“Are they dragons?” she asked with awe.
“They ain’t butterflies, kid” The elf snapped the reins smartly. The reindeer flew faster, shoving them into their seats. Rudy closed in on to the sleigh, but the dragons were gaining on him.
Janie gasped in fear. “Will they burn us?”
“Spooner’s stamps!” Anarcho cried out. “Learn your D&D. White dragons breathe cold! They’ll put us in suspended animation and deliver us to old Red Coat’s cops!”
Janie grew anxious. What would her erstwhile hero, a saint no less, do to her when caught in the company of his not-so-juvenile but no-less-delinquent son?
“C.B., are we within range of the–”
C.B.’s deep-throated reply cut Anarcho Clause off. “I’m watching and will try it as soon as we hit maximum range. 10-4?”
Now she could see the dragons looming ahead. They split into a pentagon formation, raised their serpentine, white-furred heads and inhaled deeply and ominously just as the sleigh approached the center of their formation.
The dragons roared. Their frosty, fearsome breath blew toward the sleigh like five vaporous, clawing hands. From every direction the deadly clouds closed in on them.
“I’ll try to shield you,” Anarcho Claus said, wrapping his coat around Janie.
Janie muttered “I believe y–”
“Now!” boomed C.B.
The world rippled around them as is they had pushed through clear Jell-O. Janie found them parked in a large warehouse filled with toys, models, books, games, and all sorts of wonderful things.
“We don’t more need any more close calls,” Anarcho Claus said, catching his breath. “I’m fully aware of the repressive nature of the Santa regime without constant perceptual reaffirmation!”
“You’re telling me!” rumbled out the polar bear as he lumbered out of the sleigh. Glancing back at the thick spatters of dragon-frost on the sides, he shook his fur all over and muttered, “That was just too close.”
Anarcho Claus merrily jumped out to greet several boy and girl elves crowding around the sleigh.
“Did fatty almost ice you?” pleaded one.
“Tell us how you got away!” asked another.
“Will there be Christmas for all the non-coercive girls and boys?” asked a bespectacled elf who stood a head shorter than the other elves (who were small to begin with!).
Anarcho Claus laughed like the jolly middle-edged elf he was. “Of course we’ll bring ’em Christmas!” He smacked the side of his sleigh. The dragon-ice broke off and sublimated into a thin mist. “You’ve got the packing lists. Load up!”
The elves – hundreds of them – scurried around, piling the sleigh high with skateboards, telescopes, chemistry sets, laser pointers, toy guns, dirt bikes, tattoo pens, folding knives, Jefferson Bibles, an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle with a compass in stock, and books of galaxy-spanning science fiction and heroic high fantasy.
Anarcho Claus tended to his reindeer, with special pats and rub-down for his black-nosed favourite, Rudy.
Janie watched in wonderment as Claus worked swiftly, all the while instructing her in joyous tone. “You see, Janie, here in Elf-Land we never developed a State, which is both good and bad.”
“Gosh, you mean you live in anarchy, Mr. Claus?” Then it became clear to her. “Mr.… Anarcho Claus!”
“You’re catching on, kid. Yeah, that’s the good part, although nobody here here seems to know it. After all,” he said with a wink, “if people don’t know what government is, how can they come up with the notion of anarchy?”
Janie nodded, agreeing to the logic of this observation.
“So,” the elf continued, “my old man discovered how to cross the dimension to the Man-Land, and instead of telling them what a crock they were swallowing, he decided to cash in on your people's ignorance. So he started dumping our garbage there. Pretty soon Man began to object to dragons, sea serpents, goblins, demons, mermen, and even – inexplicably – nymphs and satyrs.” He chuckled at the idea. “Not to mention various non-physical phenomena that Man called miracles and religious apparitions.”
He went over to a computer panel, waved his hands to feed in some data, and waited. “That’s when Dad heard about the philosophy of altruism and decided to dump only things that would appear to be gifts. He built a whole reputation around it and even became Saint because of it.” The computer spat out some hard copy and he returned to the sleigh, handling the sheet to the bear, who had retuned from wherever he had gone looking relieved and refreshed.
C.B. squeezed back into the sleigh and began fiddling with control panel.
“And where did you come in?” Janie asked Anarcho.
“Well, right after he set up this racket with the parents of your world – he had to agree to limit his dumping to one night a year – he started taking me along to see the sights. When he wasn’t looking, I began to snagging books – just after humans began making them – and eventually I figured out how your world worked.”
“Gosh, could you give me some of these?” asked Janie.
“Sure! I’ve reprinted some Tucker and Murray Rothbard and Voltairine de Cleyre and Ludwig von Mises for kids. Good stuff. Don’t believe your parents when they tell you you’re too young to understand something. They’re just admitting they’re too lazy to explain it to you.”
He paused and pulled his pipe from his pouch and lit it up. “But I digress. When I first started to read that stuff, I knew what I wanted to do for a couple of centuries of my life. I figured I would undo some of the damage Dad has caused, and eventually enough kids would be freed of thinking in terms of their own repression that they would overthrow the system and maybe I could get some real, worthwhile trading going on between our dimensions. Besides,” his voice grew somber for the first time, “my old man’s been importing some of the bad ideas from your world, like regulation and taxes ans police. I’m doing this for my people as well.”
“Gosh, you’re wonderful,” Janie said, hugging the elf as hard as she could.
“Oh, heck, nothing anyone with ounce of morality wouldn’t do if he had my opportunity.” He tenderly returned her hug.
“All loaded,” said C.B. after one of the younger elves spoke to him in strange, high-pitched language Janie could not comprehend.
“Let’s go!” shouted the black-coated entrepreneur, jumping into the driver’s seat. He gazed at Janie and pointed with his pipe stem at the space between him and the bear. Janie climbed across the white, furry expanse that was C.B. and nestled between them and cozy once again.
C.B.’s paw hovered over the switch Janie had seen him throw to bring them to this place. Rudyard, hooves clacking on the polished warehouse floor, returned to the front of reindeer team, still unfettered and free-flying.
SPROINK!
They were out over elvish city again, flying south, back to the world of Man.
She marveled at the city below while her host spoke. “I think we’ll take you home before I make my next stop, Janie. I won’t want you nearby if this will be the night the old statist finally catches me.
“No dragons in sight,” C.B. relayed after conversing with Rudy. “Ready to shift!”
Once again, they passed through the dimension barrier with a waver and a shimmer. They raced south over Canada, then suddenly the radio crackled to life.
“Attention, Unidentified Flying Object. This is the United States Air Force. You are in violation of sovereign United States airspace. Identify yourself immediately and prepare to land or you will be shot out of the sky.”
“C.B., tell that territorial son-of-a…”
“Hey! A.C. – kid on board.”
Jane giggled. “Tell the son-of-a-pooh-head that he’s having a close encounter of the wrong kind.”
“Not bad,” said Anarcho Claus with grin. “Thanks, kid. If we lose our sense of humor, we’ll soon be just like them.”
“Bogies at twelve o’clock low!” C.B. bellowed.
A formation of jets roared over the horizon heading straight for them. Rudyard instantly broke away from the sleigh, speeding toward the attack wing so fast that Janie heard and felt the distinctive crackling sound of a sonic boom.
Rudy flew circles around each of the jets. Not just circles, but barrel rolls, Immelmans, and figure-eights. His ultraviolet-emitting nose must have affected their instruments, for the pilots rapidly became confused, flying out of information in all directions.
Anarcho Claus crackled his electro-whip (which wasn’t really a whip, but just a signaling device for his reindeer) and the sleigh shot rapidly past – and out of sight of – its chaotic pursuers.
As Janie’s town came into view, and then the roof of her very own home, Anarcho Claus said, “Well, kid, I’ve already left you your gifts for this year, but what the heck, if you want something else…” he waived his black-mittened hand toward the bags and piles in his sleigh.
“Thanks, Anarcho Claus!” Janie beamed as they landed on the snow-blanketed peak of her roof. “But you’ve given me more than all the other kids combined!” She tapped at her head.
He leapt from the sleigh and reached back in to lift her out. C.B. stayed where he sat because polar bears do not like jumping in and out of things for no reason. He simply waved at her with his big furry paw, then lowered it over a switch. Anarcho Claus held onto her and hugged, laughing jovially. “Merry Christmas, Janie.”
GLINK!
And in a shimmering instant they were back in her living room. “Get some sleep, kid,” he said, putting her down on the couch, “and maybe I’ll catch you next year… if you aren’t already too busy with revolution!” With that – and PLOINK! – he vanished. All that remained was the scent of his pipe and a faint aroma of cinnamon and evergreen.
She rushed to the window to see him safely off, then turned to trot over to the china cabinet. She peered behind it.
Her chemistry set was gone!
Stunned, she searched the living room and elsewhere around and under Christmas tree. It was nowhere to be found! Then she saw what had replaced it: a pudgy-faced doll with an imbecilic smile moulded an its mug, dressed in garish clothing.
Heart racing, blood pounding, she seized the doll, stomped to the fireplace, and shouted up the chimney.
“Damn you, Santa!”
It was the first time in her life she had uttered such words. But she meant them. Running to the bay window, she searched for the ebony sleigh and saw it perched on the roof of the little Andy Thornton’s house down the street.
She waved at her hero. “Don’t worry, Anarcho Claus!” she yelled, load enough to awaken her parents. “I won’t let the bastards grind me down!”
She heard a loudspeaker broadcast his answer to her and the world.
“A Revisionist Christmas to all, and to the State, the Long Night!”
With that, he was gone. Janie stood alone in silent living room, her only companion the dying glow and crackle of the fireplace embers. She looked around her. The lights on Christmas tree glowed warmly, presents piled beneath the noble fir’s straight branches waiting patiently for Christmas morning. The stocking were hung on the mantle with…
With something inside them!
Janie slowly approached her red-and white stocking. A flat, square shape lay wedged halfway down. She snaked her hand inside it and pulled out a note. The paper was black, and the pen strokes looked like liquid gold. Despite rather atrocious penmanship, the words of Anarcho Claus wrote made her heart race with excitement.
Don’t worry, Janie. Old Red Coat can steal my gifts, but he can’t steal the knowledge you gained tonight. Use it to free yourself and all those who deserve to be free.
She smiled with pride, then glanced at the bottom of the note.
P.S. – You didn’t think I’d let him get away with theft, did you? There’s another chemistry set and Tommy gun in the garage. Lassez Faire!
–Your friendly Neighbourhood Anarcho Claus
Her parents ventured downstairs, drawn by the commotion, to find little Alexandra Jane Virginia Bernadette Buttercup White rolling on the floor laughing, tears of joy streaming down her cheeks.
The End
Anarcho Claus is Coming to Town
(“Santa Claus is Coming to Town”)
Initiate force?
You’d better not try!
You’d better not steal;
I’m telling you why.
Anarcho Claus is coming to town.
He’s taking a risk,
Flying in low,
Smuggling in toys
So the statists won’t know
Anarcho Claus is coming to town.
He sees you when you’re trying
To trade what’s “good” for you
For all the stuff you really want.
He’ll run it in for you!
So…
Close up your door
But not very tight
The market will clear
Late Christmas night.
Anarcho Claus is coming to town.