The Inner Monologue

It was a common failing of mankind, in those earlier centuries, to mistake spectacle for virtue and ceremony for grace. Thus it was that Nicholas—whose name would one day be spoken with warmth by firesides and stitched into the fabric of childhood itself—passed through the world cloaked not merely in wool and fur, but in a counterfeit benevolence so convincing that even the wary lowered their eyes.

He had learned, as the truly wicked often do, the economy of kindness. A carved horse, smoothed by careful hands. A sweet wrapped in paper thin as trust itself. These were trifles, yet they purchased something dearer than gold: belief. He sought not the children of abundance, who were watched and counted, but the forgotten ones—those who slept three to a bed or none at all, whose names were spoken softly if they were spoken at all. To them he came as providence incarnate, bearing gifts and gentle words, and from them he took what no accounting ever recorded.

Some vanished outright. Others returned altered, their laughter thinned, their eyes dulled by a knowledge no child ought to possess. A few—those most thoroughly broken—he kept near, teaching them the routes, the signs, the art of finding others like themselves. Thus evil, having fed, learned also to propagate.

When death at last laid its hand upon him, it did so without ceremony. Nicholas expected flames, screams, the dramatic finality promised by every frightened sermon. Instead, he awoke to silence and snow.

The night was Christmas Eve.

He lay not in a grave but in a sleigh, the air sharp as judgment, bells chiming with a cheer that mocked him. Creatures stood before him, antlered and obedient, their eyes reflecting no soul. A sack lay at his feet, impossibly heavy. And then—without thunder, without anger—came the sentence.

He was not damned.

He was corrected.

“You shall give,” said the voice he could not escape, “what you once used to take. You shall go to every child upon the earth. When your task is complete, time shall move again—only enough to return you to this night.”

And so began the labor.

Nicholas traveled while kingdoms aged into dust. He crossed continents that redrew themselves beneath him. Languages shifted, inventions rose and rusted, wars ignited and cooled, yet none of it touched him. To Nicholas, the world was a diorama sealed behind glass. Every child stood frozen in the posture of sleep or wakefulness, breath paused, dreams suspended. He could see each face in excruciating detail, but no eye ever met his own.

He entered rooms where poverty had learned new names. He stood beside hospital beds glowing with unfamiliar machines. He knelt in shelters, palaces, shacks, and ruins alike. Always the same ritual. Always the same stillness.

At first, he lingered.

He leaned close to a child’s face, seeking—he scarcely knew what. Fear, perhaps. Recognition. Some echo of the power he once wielded. He whispered a name. He reached out a trembling hand.

The child did not stir.

The world did not acknowledge him.

That was the torment refined to perfection: proximity without presence. Eternity without consequence. He could not frighten, nor comfort, nor corrupt, nor redeem. He was reduced to motion alone—an automaton of generosity, performing mercy for statues.

Above him, centuries later, men would laugh and sing and tell stories. They would polish his image until it shone. They would dress him in red and white, make him jolly, make him safe. They would teach their children to wait for him eagerly, never knowing how precise a punishment that eagerness had become.

For every Christmas Eve, Nicholas completes his task.

And every Christmas Day, before dawn can warm the frost, the clock recoils upon itself.

The sleigh waits.
The sack is full.
The children remain forever beyond his reach.

And in the endless night between the bells and the snow, a soul learns—again and again—that there are reckonings far crueler than hell.