The poor brown ANIMAL writhed desperately and mewled helplessly as Jeremy held her by the PLURAL BODY PART over the yellow NOUN—”Time for your Christmas bath, Cocoa” he said, his dark eyes gleaming. Fortunately, he had to abort his PLURAL NOUN when his mother unexpectedly knocked on the bathroom door and told him to come to A DESTINATION , “toot sweet!”
Jeremy was a ADJECTIVE child. He had no particular excuse to be so: his parents were ADJECTIVE ; they loved him; they provided for his PLURAL NOUN , and he had never had a particularly ADJECTIVE experience to warp his nasty little NOUN. He was just ADJECTIVE . He enjoyed making other people STATE OF BEING, he liked inflicting NOUN, and so, later that evening, he had relished in telling his little sister, Rebekah, that there was no CELEBRITY.
PERSON'S NAME, who was NUMBER, yelled at her brother, called him a liar, and VERB. Her mother had told her that Santa was indeed real, and that she should not listen to her brother, who was only NUMBER , but she should trust her mom, who knew the ABSTRACT NOUN . This had placated Rebekah, who stuck out her BODY PART at Jeremy as she was shuffled off to bed, her bright-red NOUN bouncing with every happy step.
Jeremy was VERB , but he was determined, so he developed a plan in his crooked little BODY PART , as he too, was shooed away to bed accompanied by his mother’s warning: “ CELEBRITY won’t come if you don’t go to sleep!” Jeremy VERB PAST TENSE his crooked smile as the warped gears of his dark mind creaked and turned.
At NUMBER o'clock AM, Jeremy VERB PAST TENSE out from under his covers and put his feet on the cold floor, which cooled even further at his ADVERB touch.
He had lain awake until now, listening for the telltale PLURAL NOUN of his parents “playing” CELEBRITY. He had heard a slight commotion in the living room, and now shook his sister awake…. ”Do you want to see CELEBRITY ? Come on, he’s in the ROOM OF THE HOUSE …"
—Santa CELEBRITY had been making good time this trip, his fifteen-hundred and ninety-third. Every year, the population had gotten ADJECTIVE , but his list had gotten ADJECTIVE …it seemed belief in him was waning, and he wondered how many more years he’d be able to continue his ABSTRACT NOUN . He had almost bypassed Rebekah’s house, her belief in him had wavered for a few moments, but, thankfully, had been restored by her mother—who, ironically, had never VERB PAST TENSE .
He took a couple of swallows of tepid LIQUID to wash down the cute-but-not-so-tasty NOUN-shaped cookie Rebekah had left him, positioned her gift deep beneath prickly boughs of the Bivens’ glistening tree—a NOUN she’d wanted but was impossible for her parents to find—and he took a satisfying draw from his ivory pipe and blew a delicate, bowed & ribboned smoke NOUN toward the tree that would have made Gandalf envious—he paused a moment, awash in a wave of bittersweet nostalgia—he missed Gandalf…. Shaking the memories from his NOUN, he turned around, thinking: only 58,361 more stops to make before—his thought train screeched to a VERB before the sight of two small children—
—There he stood: Jeremy Lee Bivens, the boy who had singlehandedly destroyed belief in thirteen NOUN in the last week. He was a puzzle to the old NOUN, who couldn’t understand how a child could be so ADJECTIVE . But behind him, stood sweet little Rebekah, VERB ENDING IN with delight.
Jeremy stood there, ADJECTIVE — NOUN welling up inside him—this didn’t look like his FAMILY MEMBER dressed in a cheap CELEBRITY suit—this looked like the real NOUN! His beard was so ADJECTIVE and his eyes twinkling so ADVERB , that Jeremy had to VERB . He screwed his eyes up so tight that all he could see was a COLOR blur…Rage boiled in his BODY PART , causing his black BODY PART to beat faster and faster as he yelled:
“YOU’RE NOT REAL! YOU CAN’T BE REAL! I HATE YOU! I’LL NEVER BELIEVE IN YOU! YOU’RE A JOKE! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT A LIE TOLD TO STUPID CHILDREN!”
The twinkle VERB PAST TENSE from Santa’s ice blue BODY PART as crystalline tears welled up and with a near-silent sigh of resignation, he faded utterly from existence, VERB ENDING IN his smoke wreath and the scent of A SPICE hanging in the NOUN, and a dull lump of coal on the floor where he’d stood. Jeremy stood unmoving, his BODY PART hanging open, and listened as his sister VERB PAST TENSE ADVERB in the background…
