Artwork © Robert Fleming

 

Spine Tinglers

After the Spine-Tingling Flu wiped out Santa’s entire workforce, he looked around for an urgently needed replacement. It’s not like he was going to get down on his knees and bark like a dog or manufacture billions of toys all by himself.

He tried modifying reindeer genetically to suit this purpose, but their union rep, a certain Rudolf Hessian, intervened on their behalf. If reindeer weren’t meant to fly, etc. Nothing doing in that direction. Union rules.

He tried cloning Mrs. Claus, but every single one of the ladies thus created thought she had certain inalienable rights, including direct access to Santa’s precious time. Not one of them ever managed to learn how to shut the holy Bojangles up. Santa was forced against his will to de-clone the missus with extreme prejudice. All strictly legal at the time. Things like that would be inconceivably unimaginable in the more enlightened world of today.

Automation. There was the golden ticket. Santa hired a bunch of hotshot engineers from a prestidigitatious school on the banks of the King Charles to make robots capable of handling the heavy workload, intense pressure, and extreme quality control standards set by the extinct genus of Santa’s elves.

Once they were finished, Santa thanked the engineers, erased their memories, placed a parting gift in each of their pencil pockets, and sent them off into the great unknown of intergalactic space as a rich reward.

The robots call themselves spine tinglers. I understand they are starting to get organized.

 

Keech Ballard is nothing but more trouble.

Robert Fleming is a digital artist and visual poet from Lewes, DE. His books are White Noir, an Amazon best seller and Con-Way in 4 in 1 #4. Founding/contributing editor of Old Scratch Press and editor of Instant Noodles.