ninanevermore

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On my way home last night I dropped by the Ferris Wheel to visit with the Angel of Death and drop off his Christmas card. I haven't mailed my other cards yet (I consider any card that arrives by January 6, Epiphany, to be on time), but I thought I'd drop his off and get it over with, since he doesn't exactly have a mailbox.

"Thanks," he said when I handed him the envelope. He spoke through teeth clinched around his cigarette. "That's real nice of you."

"You're welcome."

"I'll put it here with the others," he said, balancing it on the fence with three other cards. I wondered who they were from, and picked one up so I could pretend to admire the picture, a cutesy snowman with a cutesy cardinal perched on it's head and the words Feliz Navidad written in cheerful red letters across the top. When I peaked inside it was signed Rosaelma y Javier in a loopy, feminine scrawl (Rosaelma 's, I guessed).

"Cute! I didn't know you get cards from other people," I said.

"Not a lot. No mailbox. Just those who think to stop by with one."

"Oh," I looked at the other two cards, but didn't pick them up because I didn't want to look too nosey. One had a manger scene and was printed on cheap, thin cardstock. The other looked expensive and fancy, and featured a sort of artsy looking Christmas tree with foil accents. "So, other people stop by here?"

"A few," he said with a shrug while he took a deep draw off his cigarette.

"Funny," I said, "Here I always thought you were my own personal hallucination, and it turns out you get Christmas cards. Plural."

"Not everyone who stops by brings a Christmas card," he said, skimming the newsletter out of my own, "Some people don't do cards at all. I don't. With all the people I've met since the beginning of time, it would take me forever, so I don't even bother." He turned the newsletter over to inspect the origami art project I'd printed on the back of it. "This is cute, but I liked the paper airplane instructions you sent last year, better."

"I couldn't do a paper airplane two years in a row," I said.

"Why not? This one, you have to cut the paper into a square. The airplane idea was better. You just folded up the newsletter."

I frowned. "But they've seen that joke before. I mean, I guess I could and, you know, make it a running joke. I haven't printed them all out yet."

The Carney Shrugged. "Don't matter. It's your card."

"You could always send out retaliatory Christmas cards, just to the people who give you one. I get those all the time. They show up 5 days after I mail mine out."

"Yeah, but once word gets out that if you send Death a Christmas card he'll send one back, it could snowball. Besides, I got crap handwriting. No one could even read it's from me."

"Most people have crappy handwriting these days. How bad could it be?"

He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a pen, a cheap Bic that looked like the end had been chewed on. I've seen him pull more things out of his pockets than could possibly fit in any pair of jeans, and seen him stuff just as much stuff back in them. He picked up the envelope my card had come out of, wrote something on it, and handed it to me.

"What's this say?" I asked.

"Jim."

"That's a J?"

"That's a J, a I, and a M."

"I don't see any of those letters."

"Well, they're there."

"It looks more like a circle with a lightening bolt inside of it."

"Don't matter. I don't send cards."

I folded the envelope in half and started to slide in into my coat pocket when The Carney put his hand out for it.

"That goes with my card."

"Oh, yeah, sorry." I handed the paper back to him.

"See, if I let you walk out of here with my autograph, everyone would want one. There's that snowball effect again. Ain't got time for it."

"I understand," I said, though I thought it was silly. With no other example of Death's handwriting in existence, I'd hardly be able to prove Death's signature was what it was. "Well, I gotta head home. It's getting late. Merry Christmas, Jim."

The corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. "Merry Christmas, baby girl."

I smiled back at him. "Could you do me one little favor? Please?"

I didn't even have to way what I wanted. He chuckled, inhaled, leaned his head back, and blew a smoke ring. It rose, expanded to the size of a bicycle tire, then started to grow smaller and denser until it took the form of a white dove that flew up toward the giant Ferris Wheel of Life and Death and until it disappeared into the dark clouds.

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