Silent Night, Holy Night

Sona Lea Dombourian

I have changed my foreign ways and am reborn.

Imbued with the Spirit, I will go West and expand my dominion over all creatures, puny despite their efforts, sub-intelligent because of their origins.

But a thorn persists in my eye—one I must pluck out: The neighbors who neither show due reverence to the Spirit nor properly adorn their homes with devotional scenes to the Holy Birth, the Alighted Reindeer, or the Great Snowman. Neither do they have a shrine to The Saintly Tree.

True, no one’s tree-top is ablaze as is mine, but these neighbors in particular lack all proof of devotion. Inhabitants of Anytown, U.S.A., need only look upon my own fir to see the light atop—the light that will lead us all to Bethlehem.

It first showed itself to me in New Mexico where I was stationed, tasking me with the responsibility to set this country straight since it had grown soft, licentious since the war. A Black man is now allowed entry into our most cherished of institutions, playing baseball alongside his superiors. Immigrants have broached our borders, swarming the country, displacing honest workers.

Such acceptance of difference, wayward behavior—diversity of any kind—will be our end.

I furtively pull back the curtain to the window to look for Mr. Goldstein, who should have returned from work by now. A shoe salesman by profession, he claims, but I—imbued with powers from above—know he works for the enemy, subversives who would seek the destruction of our country. Everyone knows the design of Florsheim shoes involves technology so advanced that it is used to track the movement of average, honest, tax-paying American citizens. And that their whereabouts are followed and monitored by enemies abroad whose plants daily root out our nation’s secrets.

I surreptitiously pull the curtain aside again, so skillfully that even Super Man would not detect the movement, and step back. Men in suits are standing at my door. I espy between the split again—unseen, due to my superior training—and there is only one man this time, his shoulders slightly hunched.

He rings the door, impertinently.

I further draw the curtains unbeknownst and study the cut of his hem, and of the two other men who must have moved back quickly to join him. They too are not wearing the latest line from Sears Roebucks.

Their attire is foreign-made.

These are subversives.

But hold! The man in the center is holding a book—but not any normal book. On the cover the words “Placed by the Gideons” are embossed. This is a man of faith—a worthy American.

“Hello, friend,” says the one as I open my door. His two companions, who I now realize are in fact dressed in Sears-finest like him, cross the street to the Goldsteins. “May we speak to you of the Kingdom of God?”

He steps in and brushes past my devotional shrine which occupies the entirety of my living room. He sits on the sofa opposite me.   “Thank you, friend. It has been a long and weary travel.”

Between the branches, I offer him cookies on the table, but he raises a palm. I consider brewing him some coffee, but my lady friend is unavailable. (A pious woman, her dereliction is forgivable, as she is doubtless busy in her boudoir at this moment, ensuring she will be beauteous and bountiful to me later.)

“The Kingdom of God is well upon us,” he says, a gleam to his eye.

I smile, knowing the password I must provide to receive top-secret information. “Amen.”

I hasten to show him the level of my devotion to The Cause: My evergreen, its heavy branches bedecked with glass-blown ornaments. His nod confirms to me that its size is ideal for the current American household (wife and children forthcoming once I complete my mission). I squint above the needles to see him smile in appreciation of my faith.

He sits up straight, striking a branch with his head, as do his companions. They must have materialized beside him unseen. But then, they are missionaries (as am I) and thus endowed with super-human powers. I must find out their origins to ascertain their training and acquire this skill.

“We have travelled city to city seeking a place to rest, but each town turned us out.”

“How unlike our countrymen to treat our brethren,” I respond, thinking of code words to relay the impending threat across the street.

“None offered us housing or protection.”

I lean in and in a hushed tone add, “Then you indeed have seen the curs that threaten our borders—our faith.”

I sit back against my sofa (purchased at 15% discount) and consider the benefits of letting them seek shelter within my abode. If they in fact are righteous, I am bound to protect them—but at a price. “Preach, brother.”

“We seek to further brotherly love—”

“—To further our assignment.”

“Yes. Yes. They do not understand what we offer—what is at hand.” He sits up straighter, hitting a glittery figurine of a reindeer with his shoulder. “Virtue, grace, here on earth—and ever-lasting life in the hereafter so we can eternally love one another, nurture each other—”

“—To achieve world—”

“—Agape—”

“—Dominion,” I clarify since he is overly-eager to finish my sentences. I shall have to train him to adapt to circumstances in order to ensure a large-enough following. Speak to your audience, instructors back home said during bootcamp. Make eye-contact to show confidence, but do not glare since you do not want to repel potential contacts with the sheer virility of your character. Pretend to be receptive while you extract resources in order to divide and conquer. I will permit him to proceed to show him I am a good mentor.

“Love. To achieve world love. To bring an end to the senseless conflict, the mindless hatred, the endless persecution of kin.”

“True, true. And the only way to set things aright is to ensure unity of purpose—to promote—”

“—World peace! Right you are, brother!”

There is an eagerness here that I could use to foment distrust among these humans—a righteousness that would further my crusade. He could prove useful in steering the country, nay the globe, aright. “Know ye not of the threats that loom abroad? The Reds giving lands to the tillers in northern Korea? And abomination: Inferior peoples ceding from our cousins across the sea? We cannot grow soft as they have.”

He sits still, and holds his gaze, clearly aghast with the intelligence furnished.

“I shall be your eyes and ears,” I assure him.

I think on other issues germane to us both—a common enemy—so he will be compelled to perform my bidding. Thus he will be allowed a role in my plan to ensure that all countrymen see the light, that it is beheld by me, and that I will be the one who leads them all to Bethlehem.

“But, ho. Worse even still. There are heathens upon us—foreigners in our midst—who refuse to accept.” I gesture him to follow me to the window. “Do you not observe the neighbors, their lack of Christmas cheer?”

His brow creases. “How do you mean? They welcomed us into their abode.”

“Hark: Their obvious attack on our goodness and faith.”

He is suddenly right beside me, his approach silent as it is furtive.

I point to the neighbors’ bare lawn. “Behold their lack of devotion.”

He still stares, unmoving. “Some choose not to exhibit their faith. Their goodness is expressed in their acts.”

“But they do not bow down to He-Who-Is-of-Bounty in his gold-encrusted robe.”

“Why, yes. They do not celebrate Christmas.”

Indeed, these missionaries must have come from afar to be so ignorant of the threat these neighbors pose to our country—nay, to the world. Doubtless they hail from an entirely different galaxy—further even than my own. Many views I came across when I first arrived on my mission were indeed strange—something I had to accept early when working with this species. Sent here to reconnoiter this race of minions who would bow and scrape before a higher power, I had to struggle, adjust—adapt. Now, embraced by the Spirit, and buttressed by these life-forms, I will overcome all and rise to the top.

“Know ye not of the subversives, the foreigners who wish to sully our country with ideas of equality? Who seek education for all? And anathema of anathema: For women to enter the workforce—and receive monetary compensation for their dereliction?”

“As they should seek. They are all God’s children.”

I realize with disdain the softness of his features, the length of his hair. He bears no fury, no righteous cause. He is disgraceful with his hopes, limp with his love.

This is not an American.

But hold. I must find a means to extract profit from this contact. If I prove unsuccessful with this tour, I risk being found again, starting anew in yet another town, returning home disgraced—being thrown into the barracks for insubordination.

I turn to him boldly. “We must lead them on the straight and narrow path—save them from perdition. With the necessary force, we can achieve cohesion and stamp out all differences.”

I can see, nay feel, him cogitate the excellence of my proposal so I continue to bedazzle him. “The first item on our agenda is to address the immediate threat just across the street.” I cross my arms akimbo, then press my chin against a fist to bring attention to my jawline. “We shall cut Mr. and Mrs. Rubenstein off from the tribe, turn them into the authorities for un-American activities.”

“On what basis?”

“Why—they are not showing due diligence.” I intentionally smirk, then chuckle to emphasize their obvious dereliction—their sin: “They have no children.” To add to my case, I saunter to He-Who-Is-of-Bounty and place my hands on his shoulders. “To add, his wife is a teacher, spreading pernicious thoughts encouraging tolerance of wayward and unclean behavior.”

My back turned to him, I can sense him appreciate the depth of my intellect. I return slowly to the tree to magnify my might. “After their execution, I will join the Senate, represent my state, the bounteous and holy state of Cheese, and we will systematically round up the pernicious, the unproductive, the weak: the H-O-M-O-S-E-X—”

“The who?”

“The H-O-M—”

“—Say it straight, man.”

“The queers! The limp wrists! The dykes!” I point to the street. “Those who would waste their seed. Only corporate heads will remain, buttressed by righteous men of God, statesmen who prove their allegiance to the Flag, and are beheld lovingly by their wives and daughters.”

“You would presume authority over all of God’s people? Seek their destruction for personal gain?”

“For the nation! Nothing can be more important.”

“But we have not come to spite.”

This man is clearly hopeless. “Do you mean you will not join the cause to rid God’s country of pinkos who seek to take down our churches and faith—to impose their backward ways upon our children?”

“We have not come to spite.”

I cannot return empty-handed. I must show my superiors that I succeeded in finding fissures within this nation, separated kith from kin. “You do not understand. In order to ensure a silent night—a holy night—we must eliminate them.”

“We have not come to spite.”

“Then what are you good for?”

Suddenly the men merge into one body that grows in size, filling the room. A vaporous, amorphous shape, it melts, then suddenly contracts into a pair of eyes so dark and deep they swallow all within the room. Then they turn white, so white they sear my skin, my flesh, and—

Sona Lea Dombourian teaches Ancient and Modern World Literature, as well as the Hebrew and Christian Bibles as Literature at Moorpark College, in Southern California.