Second Chances

One Mistake can change a lifetime. It can also change a whole world.

James Galloway shifted the heavy weight of his shotgun as he descended his stairs. He’d been fast asleep but was totally awake now. The nighttime sounds of someone in the living room made him pad softer, easing his finger on the trigger. He took a slow deep breath before confronting the invader.

“Hold it. Stand where you are. I’ve got a gun.” The sight before his eyes couldn’t have surprised him more. “A burglar dressed as Santa? That hardly speaks well of the Christmas spirit. Hands up.”

The Santa figure made the wrong move. Instead of raising his hands, one dipped inside a large red bag. “No. It’s not that.” What came out could have been a children’s flashy cowboy gun or the real thing.

James didn’t wait to find out. The blast of the shotgun knocked him backward into the wall. It turned Santa’s red outfit even more red easing out onto the white fur cuffs.

“You shot me!” Santa gasped. “Quick take my watch, turn it backward in time. It’s the only way I’ll survive.”

The chain snapped as Santa jerked a pocket watch from a hidden pocket. He stumbled and fell. The watch lay in his open palm, the hour hand spinning backwards so fast it had turned into a blur.

Santa patted his belly. “Dang. That stung.” His wound had miraculously disappeared. “Now, what? I can’t get my watch to stop. Must have jammed it somehow.”

James' eyes were no longer on Santa, they were on his Christmas tree. It undressed and dressed itself into the way it looked passing through previous years. His clothing no longer fit. “I’m shrinking!” James dropped his disappearing gun.

“Drat. I’ll have to smash it.” Santa threw his watch at the fireplace rocks. It shattered and time stood still. Santa sniffed the air. “Seems like in Christmas past the allure of the holiday was stronger, its magic brighter, maybe enough to fix what just went wrong.”

He shook himself back into shape and walked over to retrieve his timepiece. “Drat. Must have missed a piece when it put itself back together, now we’re stuck here.” Santa leaned over to examine where the piece might be.

“That’s a time machine?” Little ten year old Jimmy Galloway’s voice squeaked. His clothes had shrunk with him and now looked like pajamas with bunny feet. Jimmy jumped when he heard his mom call, “Jimmy get to bed or Santa won’t come. Come up these stairs right now..”

Without thinking, Jimmy called out, “Okay Mom. Be right there. Sorry, Santa. Gotta’ go.” With no memory of ever getting older, Jimmy had reverted back to the boy he was in his childhood.

To Santa it was like he was seeing a ghost. “Oh no. Now there are two of you.” He didn’t know what to do. Helplessly, he followed Jimmy up and into his childhood bedroom. Santa watched as the Jimmy who didn’t really fit in this time and place, eased into the Jimmy sleeping in the small bed.

There was a small popping sound as Jimmy wrestled with himself into a more comfortable position. “Drat and drat again. Now, how will I ever get him out.” Things had gone from bad to worse.

“If I’m lucky, maybe there is some presence in my presents. Let me take a quick look.” Santa turned around and crept silent as the night, all is calm, all is bright, downstairs to his magic red bag.

One toy after another soon lay strewn across the living room floor. At the bottom of the bag Santa felt something unseen. “Joy to the world. A wiggly promise of something to come. I thought it was here.”

He hummed ‘I wish you a Merry Christmas’, as he eased the cloudy, ever changing look of a hand sized crystal ball out into his hands.

“Ah. So that’s the problem. Little Jimmy didn’t get what he really wanted for Christmas from Santa when he was ten years old. It changed his whole life and the whole world along with it. I got swept along for the ride.”

Santa stuck the crystal ball into his pocket and trudged his way back upstairs. He leaned over the sleeping Jimmy’s. “Let’s go home.”

From behind him, Jimmy’s mother froze in the doorway with a shotgun in her raised hands. “No-one is going anywhere. You leave my son alone.”

“Not again.” Santa sighed, shaking his head. “I guess the ball’s up.” He threw the ball as fast as he could at the boy’s far bedroom wall. Jimmy’s Mom jerked at the near miss and dropped her gun. It went off, making a hole in where Santa had just been standing.

Santa was carrying little Jimmy towards the escaping cloud of future promises. “Breathe deep,” he said, giving Jimmy a hug.

The two Jimmy’s in one wiggled, yawned, and gasped as they broke apart and became twins. “My turn!” Santa bathed himself in the fog, singing “It came upon a midnight clear.”

To Jimmy’s mom rushing to clutch at her son, the ghostly fading images of Jimmy and Santa faded and disappeared.

There was another loud popping noise when the two lost their balance and landed in James Galloway’s front room. “We’re back,” James cried out, shivering into his adult frame, patting himself together.

There was something else where his shotgun had been. He stared in open mouthed wonder. “My mother’s musical jewelry box with its dancing bear. I always wanted one just like it. How did that get here?”

‘It’s a little late but Christmas wishes, once earned, must be granted.” Santa rubbed his belly, appreciating it felt all together. “You’re mom won’t miss it here in the future.”

He reached in his pocket with a happy surprised look on his face. “Good. My watch is back to its same old self, as well. Time is wasting. Merry Christmas James, and to all a good night.”

James had to rub his eyes as Santa disappeared back up the fireplace chimney. Had he been dreaming? No. The musical jewelry box started singing its tune. The bear did its ballerina dance, and the world felt just right.

Wc 1026