There, on his death-bed, surrounded by his closest followers and assistants, the bishop looked out his window into the starry night-sky and wondered how much longer he’d have there, wondered if he’d done well enough to get into heaven when his earthly form finally gave out. Two in the AM, the doctors and well-wishers were all asleep in chairs or their makeshift guest-quarters, down the hall. Despite his failing health, he was the only one awake, soaking in the beauty of the moon on what he knew could be his final night. He was startled when a portion of that moon was blocked by a moving shadow-form that quickly flew in through those windows to the bedside coalescing into the shape of an angel. “Bishop,” he or she told him, the whole thing was ambiguous to him, “one who will be called Saint, it is your time.” He did not fight, he merely asked a few moments to experience the night one last time. “You deserve more,” the angel smiled, “you, so right with the Lord, we are to grant you a vision before your passing. We are to show you how you will be remembered down through the ages for your just and holy deeds.” The angel brought their or its hand to the bishop’s forehead. “Oh, Bishop Nicholas-of-Myra, you will be remembered indeed.”
And suddenly the venerable church leader from what we’d now call Turkey, three hundred or so years after the time of The Christian Redeemer, was standing immaterially in a shopping mall in Secaucus, New Jersey in 1987. He didn’t understand a goddamned thing that was going on until the angel reappeared. The angel pointed to a man on a throne in a cheap red costume, where the children lined in wait for his consultation. “That Nicholas,” the angel said sweetly, “is how you are remembered!” The angel filled his mind, then, with all the formulations of Father Christmas and Santa Claus and Kris Kringle across the world. Strange automatons in the far-east of Japan, as one example. “How,” Nicholas could only mutter, “how could they get that from me? I am, I was, nothing like that! Other than the gifts thing I guess but what even is a reindeer?” “I mean,” the angel continued to blankly sweetly smile, “you know over time you sort of got merged with Odin, the god of the Viking pagans, took on sort of a Scandahoovian sorta dealie in the mix…”
Suddenly, there was another flash of light, this one so violet it was barely in the spectrum of the human eyeball, and a loud booming voice demanding “SATAN, YOU IDIOT, STOP MESSING WITH SANTA CLAUS!” Saint Peter appeared in that flash, scowling at that Devil-in-Disguise. “Fair play, Pete,” the angel-devil said cordially, “see you next Apocalypse!” then popped away.
Nicholas’ immortal soul could only stare at Saint Peter, wide-eyed and trembling. “Look,” Peter said, “yeah, the future’s pretty messed up. A.I. generated Coke ads. I’ll eventually explain it all.”
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