The Anti-Santa

He stumbles maniacally across the rooftops on the eve of the joyous day, being careful not to topple to his death. The sack slung across his shoulder is heavy
– much heavier than it was at the start of the night – and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to breathe, for fat men do struggle with such simple things, even when not dancing clumsily through the night. A slip almost sends him over the edge, and he drops to his knees, clawing optimistically at a nearby chimneybreast. 
    Cursing, he realises it’s of no use, and before he knows what’s happening he’s sliding down the rooftop, pushing snow aside. The crammed sack follows the fat man down as if loath to desert him, not after all they had
been through that night. “Ho, ho, holy shit!” the man
grunts as the rooftop disappears beneath him, replaced by air. He has time – mere seconds, but long enough – to picture what they would say when they opened his sack, how people would recoil, turn aside and vomit in the fresh snow. They would gasp, and sob, and cover their children’s eyes with tremulous gloved hands, and he would be dead before them, the anti-Santa, his unwrapped gifts strewn across the snow, soaking into the fleeting
whiteness.
    As he folds up with a nauseating crunch on the silent street below, the lips beneath his silvery beard curl into a perpetual smile.

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