So...Ella and Me are writing a story for you all this Christmas. We're both main characters because we love ourselves. More will be on the way in the coming week.
Enjoy, and Happy Christmas.
It was snowing in the future, on Jesnailsmas Eve. It was snowing in that fluffy, gentle way that it always does in such quiet, tranquil scenes, before exciting things start to happen.
There was an immensely black fortress-like building, a huge, obtrusive block of a thing with lots of decorative sharp and pointy bits reaching towards the heavens on its sides. It was almost blasphemous in a day and age where the smooth, the sleek and the silver were all the rage. But, as Emperor Chrisbot, currently seated in the topmost part of the fortress upon a mighty beanbag, happened to rule the world, there wasn’t much anybody could do about it.
Emperor Chrisbot’s much feared and revered emblem was the Baked Bean, something that he had used to ruin people’s lives since the days of his early campaigns, when he had eventually triggered the complete destruction of the global supercompany Heinz. It had been a stroke of genius on his part, opening up a corporate wormhole for the worldwide economy to plummet into. With that in his control, the rest of the world was easy.
Not that people were all that fussed. Most of them got to keep their jobs and continue living their lives as they had been doing, while Chrisbot, having reached the peak of his power and not wanting to go down the same route as previous evil overlords, tried to think of a fresh and creative way to make everybody miserable. It had only been the wealthy corporate masterminds who had lost out, now imprisoned in the Vault of Former Billionaires. Many even
approved of the Baked Bean, for it was smooth and rounded in design.
Chrisbot climbed out of the comfy depths of his beanbag with some effort. He readjusted his eyepatch and made his way to a large table in the centre of his stone-walled room, limping slightly due to his faulty cybernetic leg. He lit a candelabrum, placing at the table’s edge and allowing him to see the map of his latest diabolical plan. This most recent campaign needed only the invention of the time machine, which he optimistically expected to happen any day now, so that he could go back and prevent the existence of the only power that still challenged him, and the only individual who was worshipped as much as he was by the largely indifferent population: Jesnails. Of course, she hadn’t stepped foot on this earth for thousands of years, but she was still present... still a threat.
Chrisbot picked up a stick that had been propped up against a table leg and used it to push small figures across the map, which consisted mainly of fields. Two of the figures, he and a loyal servant disguised as shepherds, cruised across the fields to where the target and her guardians lay: a small stable in the very centre of the map.
He had the sudden urge to laugh maniacally.
‘DOWN WITH BEANS! WE HATE BEANS! SOD YOUR BEANS! YOUR BEANS SUCK BEANS!’ came a voice from outside.
Chrisbot limped towards the window. A robin was happily hopping about on its sill. He peered down and could make out a girl marching around in circles at the base of the fortress, holding up a banner of his beloved Baked Bean with a line through it. Her voice was amplified by some invisible technological witchcraft.
He sighed and retrieved a pen and some paper from about his person. He scribbled something, rolled up the paper and attached it to the robin’s leg with an elastic band. ‘Fly, feathered messenger!’ he commanded, throwing the robin out into the air.
The robin dropped like a stone, bouncing neatly off the girl’s head. Toaf, for that was the girl’s name, detached the paper, threw the robin to one side, unfurled the note and read it.
‘Be gone, considerable annoyance!’ it said. ‘Eschew!’
Toaf scowled and looked up at his window. ‘YOU RUINED MY LIFE!’ she cried. ‘YOU AND ALL YOUR WRETCHED BEANS! YOU HAVE DESTROYED EVERY POTENTIALLY BEAUTIFUL MOMENT OF MY EXISTENCE! I HATE YOU! WITH A
PASSION!’
Chrisbot turned to his servants, who stood hidden in the shadows. ‘Have the guards silence her,’ he said. Then, remembering his quest to be original, he added, ‘Give her a partybag or something.’
One of the servants departed. Chrisbot hobbled back to the table, muttering under his breath.
‘Poor guy,’ one of the two remaining servants whispered to the other. ‘He just hasn’t been the same since the unfortunate incident with the marmalade and the lightbulb.’
And although he didn’t yet know it, his time-travelling idea may have come too late.
Things were about to happen.
* * *
The snow fell softly from the sky, landing with a puff on the grass. Robins darted around purposelessly, sometimes landing on the handles of spades left sticking out of the ground seemingly for the purpose of becoming living clichés. The sky was pure white. Eight year old Tiny Tephlon stared out at the monochromatic landscape with longing in his eyes. How he wished he was out there! Making snowballs, writing his name in the snow, skating around on the ol' frozen lake...
Tiny Tephlon's parents sighed at the sight of their son with his nose pressed against the window. Dad walked over and crouched down next to him. 'I'm sorry son. The ice is too thin for skating. It's barely frozen over at all.'
Tiny Tephlon's lower lip trembled. Dad stared into his huge watery eyes and sighed unhappily. 'Maybe... maybe tomorrow, son. Maybe tomorrow.'
The truth was, the inhabitants of Little Pigglington hadn't been able to take advantage of their lake for a very long time. Chrisbot's tyrannical regime was taking its toll on everything from the law to the environment. His preferred foodstuff was now a mandatory dietary requirement in every home across the empire. Unfortunately, there are certain nasally detectable consequences to a whole country of people eating baked beans every single day. The staggering increase in methane ripped its way through the ozone layer with ease; global warming meant iced lakes were a thing of the past.
Tiny Tephlon turned back to his vigil from the window. Dad got up and went to light another candle; they had electric lighting, but in moments like this he felt it just wasn't ambient enough. No. What he really needed right now was a gas lamp, an adjustable one which could provide several different types of lighting for any situation... His musings were interrupted by a shout from his son.
'DAD! DAD! There's someone by the lake Dad! It's a ghost, Dad!'
Dad frowned and walked over to the window. Indeed there was a solitary figure standing by the lake, and indeed, it did look a bit like a ghost. The figure seemed to emit an ethereal glow from its very person. Doors were opening all along the roadside as others noticed the figure. Dad picked up his son and walked outside.
The figure stood perfectly still on the other side of the lake. Tephlon thought it looked female, and less like a ghost than an angel. She had some kind of soft halo outlined by the spooky light. The villagers peered across the lake curiously.
'I!' she said suddenly, making everybody jump in fright, 'am Jesnails.' She threw her arms out dramatically. The effect was spoiled slightly by the fact her eldritch aura was flickering slightly. She noticed this and reached around behind her, turning slightly in the process, in order to switch off what was revealed to be a torch strapped to her back. Her halo was exposed as an impressively prominent afro.
Still, nearly everybody screamed or gasped ungracefully, apart from the geeks who had actually previously considered how to react at the Second Coming, and who hurriedly arranged their faces into realistic-skeptic-yet-open-minded-intellectual mode.
Jesnails ignored them and raised a hand in a greeting. 'Word up homies,' she drawled. 'Whatcha doing over there, man? It's been thousands of years, yo! Come give a brutha some love!'
Tephlon jumped down out of his fathers arms and walked to the edge of the lake. 'We can't get over there, Miss Holy Lady... The lake isn't frozen!'
Jesnails looked slightly put out by this news. The villagers watched her anxiously. Some of the more traditional people knelt down in the snow and assumed a traditional pose of worship. Despite this there was an air of uneasy confusion over the crowd. Not even the geeks who had actually practiced for this day expected anything quite so informal as 'Yo.'
Jesnails chewed a fingernail. 'Righto dudes. I'll have to go to you then.' The villagers watched her walk backwards a few feet. Suddenly, she raised a hand into the air. There were some hurried mutterings about blessings from the know-it-all's in the crowd. However, Tiny Tephlon, who was closest to her, knew what she had in her hand, and he had never heard of any deity performing blessings with a remote control.
'HIT IT!'
Holy music blared from a bush at the side of the lake. Tiny Tephlon recognised it as the Most Holy Anthem of Disco, from the much-revered classic film of all time - 'Saturday Night Fever'.
Jesnails leapt through the air soared towards the lake. 'She's mad!' a blasphemous old man shouted over the music. 'She'll never make it to the other side of the lake!'
Tiny Tephlon ignored him and watched Jesnails land on the lake and spin around in a graceful pirouette. She slid along the lake on her knees, and performed the funky robot before launching herself into an impromptu breakdance.
Non-believers believed. Believers believed even more. Those who had already prostrated themselves across the ground were at a loss of how to show yet more awe and reverence, and cursed themselves for using their best moves too early in the game. The children cheered loudly.
As the hymn ended, Jesnails rotated slightly and finished her dance routine with an expert moonwalk before calling 'Check ya on the flip side y'all...'
And she was gone.
Everybody stared at the spot on the lake she had so abruptly vanished from. Nobody spoke.
Then Tiny Tephlon stepped forwards.
'We can stand on the lake! It's a miracle!'
All the children rushed forwards and yelled in delight. The adults stood by, smiling contentedly, and watched their kiddies playing on the dangerously thin ice of the lake. Tiny Tephlon's dad put his arm around his wife. 'It's a Christmas Miracle, darling,' he simpered. His wife looked slightly uneasy. 'Darling, did I really just see the manifestation of Jesnails dance on the lake with tennis racquets tied to her feet, and a torch stuck to her back?'
Sadly, her question remained unanswered, as the ice chose that precise moment to cave in after the groovy assault of jiving it had received moments earlier.
Most of the kids survived.
* * *