Ah, US Thanksgiving. The start of the You Will Love Christmas Forced Death March. If you own the proper sunglasses you can see that all the billboards are actually white, with messages in big black letters like BE JOLLY and CELEBRATE. Don’t wear the glasses too long, you’ll get a headache.
Today’s snippet is from “Heart of Coal,” a Christmas tale that will be on my short fiction bookstore next month.
They sent me to Wrapping, where I proved that I had failed art honestly. Bakery? Airborne flour makes me sneeze. The second time you snot a hundred-pound batch of sugar cookie dough, the head pastry chef gives you the boot. A kind boot, with love and support and a sincere hope for your magnificent future, plus an amazing thick-frosted cinnamon roll, but: the boot.
Logistics, Mechanical, Housekeeping. Fail fail fail. Everywhere I went I tried to fit in, to contribute, but—look, I was the only one in the whole damned place who knew how to swear.
As far as the reindeer groom gig went, I did not throw that first turd. Sugarplum is a lying bastard.
My parents didn’t name me Sack thinking I’d get fired from every role in the Workshop. But it was convenient.
I have another new Christmas short tale at tiltedwindmillpress.com right now, and a story in WMG’s Holiday Spectacular that you can still subscribe to–a story every day, Thanksgiving to New Years’.
It’s a great year for MWL Christmas tales. Which is a good thing, if orders to LOVE CANNED CRANBERRY SAUCE are not your thing.