Preying for God, A Little Christmas Tale

The landscape had been tenderly stowed away for winter, snow packing itself around brittle limbs and fragile fingers, carrying sound snug to its chest to prevent it falling and shattering the filigreed silence. Everything waited, caught in the space between the last foggy exhalation of autumn and the first libidinous gasp of spring.

Light splashed from a cottage window onto the snowy sill outside and it was here a small snail sat, peering past his reflection into the room beyond.

The snail was entranced. He found himself charmed by the lights imitating the far-flung glitter of stars, by paper and ribbon mulching the floor in a deep, multi-coloured leaf litter, by the tree cloaked in sparkling gold. Occasionally the snail would smile in delight as he absently peeled sticky fingers of ice from his mantle.

Not for one moment did it occur to him that he too was the subject of equally busy observation.

Owl was growing impatient. While by their very nature snails were slow, this one had barely moved for hours and daylight had now already cleared the neatly pinked edges of the firs opposite. She ruffled her feathers and sunk her neck a little further down for warmth. What on earth was it doing down there? Had it got stuck, or had it simply died, one more quiet capitulation amongst thousands of other tiny, wintry deaths. Owl's curiosity overcame her and she glided through the lilac chill to land soundlessly on the window ledge.

"Ah, Owl," said Snail, swivelling his eyes in the bird's direction.

"I'm glad it's you."

Well, thought Owl, this is a turn-up.

"Tell me, what are the humans doing in there?  It's doing my head in."

Owl hopped forward to peer in through the ice-etched glass. She snorted derisively.  "Oh, they're celebrating Christmas, my ignorant little snail — a Christian festival marking the birth of the Son of God."

"Ah, gotcha. The winter solstice."

Owl shook her head irritably. "Close, but no cigar, Einstein.  The Solstice celebrates the rebirth of the Sun God, not the Son of God. No, Christmas is supposed to celebrate the birth of a child two thousand years ago who would go on to wash away the sins of the World of Man."

Snail contemplated this.  "Blimey. Bit of a tall order. Did he manage?"

Owl sniffed. "I'll say nothing other than a...

... was involved. Three times to do the right thing and keep its chuffing mouth shut but, no, they're always such bloody show-offs. So instead Christmas became the traditional time for humans to horde material wealth."

"I see, " said the snail.  "Like the...

s."

"Precisely," agreed Owl. "And humans also use this time of year to eat until they're sick and twice their original body weight."

"Ah. Like the...

s."

"Indeed," Owl nodded sagely.

"So," began Snail after thinking things through. "What you're saying is that Christmas is a festival that began with the best of intentions, such as...

... and goodwill to all men, but is now an empty sham of its origins and is instead a tacky homage to unbridled consumerism?"

Owl blinked twice in quick succession.

"Possibly," she offered cautiously. "Ye—es, I might be saying that."

A rumble from her stomach suggested that she too might be open to a spot of unbridled consumerism. She eyed the snail speculatively. Owl generally preferred her food to have a sporting chance, but it was wintertime and Owl was never slow to cut her cloth accordingly.

Snail gingerly shook his foot free of snow and snuggled into the scarf-like coils of his shell. He had the look of a mollusc ready for a good philosophical discussion.

"I take it from your tone," he began with relish, "that you...

...take a dim view of Christianity?"

Owl fluffed up indignantly. "Why, the whole religion is based on nothing but assumption and a patriarchal system of the worst kind!"

(Owl had feminist leanings.)

"Assumption?" queried the snail agreeably, eyestalks waving in encouragement.

Owl sighed in exasperation.  "Yes, assumption. Christians assume that if you believe in their god and are truly sorry for all the bad things you've done in your life, then when you die your soul is admitted to a place called Heaven where it's all a bed of...

... for ever and ever."

"Not...

...?"

"What?"

"Not a bed of ...

...?"

"Oh, lettuce, roses — whatever. My point is, there's no proof that Heaven is real. It's an assumption. You'd be spending your life hoping to be rewarded by something that might not exist."

"What about reincarnation?"

"Nope. Doesn't happen."

"Ah, well," Snail shrugged. "Christianity's not for me then."

Owl gazed at Snail incredulously.  "Don't tell me you believe in reincarnation!"

Snail gave Owl a steady look. "If you were a snail, you wouldn't ask that," he replied evenly. "I'm a...

... Buddhist by necessity."

Now, in the animal kingdom owls have a cunning second only to the fox, and Owl immediately saw a way in which she could not only philosophically point score, but gain a free meal in the bargain. She clacked her beak together in eager anticipation.

"So, as a Buddhist," she began carefully, feeling her way, "death holds no fear for you?"

"That's right," nodded Snail. "Because we're assured of being reborn." Hopefully as something with bones, he thought. "But what about you, eh? Surely even birds of prey need a system of belief to comfort them through the long cruel winters?"

"Not a bit of it," flashed Owl proudly, edging just a teeny bit nearer. "We're existentialists, hovering on the currents of the here and now, soaring on the updraughts of encapsulated reality." She tossed her head haughtily. "Your lot may be happy clinging to the underside of leaves on the lower branches of the evolutionary tree, but we birds of prey are great students of science, of what is provable not assumed. We reach for the stars!"

Snail frowned, his small brain clearly struggling with such a large concept.

"Hang on," he said at length, "and I might've got this wrong, yeah — but doesn't existentialism by its very nature exclude science and rationalism? Because wouldn't they be considered mere escapes of thought from the serious problems of existence? Surely because of the natural brevity of our allotted span, it's foolish to analyze in such a leisurely fashion matters of life and death as if there were all eternity to argue them in? I would even go so far to say that it's, like, impossible to grasp life by thought alone, that a knowing self is not enough — you need to fear, hope and believe."

Owl feigned a coughing fit that lasted some time.

"Anyway, back to you," she managed at length. "So tell me then — and this is hypothetically speaking, of course — if I were to, oh, say... eat you, you'd be quite happy with that on account of being reborn as a higher creature?"  Owl hopped closer.

Snail looked somewhat taken aback.

"Um, well. Happy is probably, y'know, a bit strong."  He began sliding towards a crack in the wall in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. "Er, you see there are The Four Noble Truths in Buddhism."

"Fascinating!"

"Y-yes, yes, it is. One. All living is suffering."

"How very true. But more for some than others, I feel."

"Two. Suffering is c-caused by desire."

"I couldn't agree more."

"Um, three.  S-s-suffering ceases when d-desire is eradicated—"

"Such as when an appetite is satisfied!"  Owl's eyes blazed orange and her beak opened wide to receive Snail's current incarnation.

"Wait! Wait!" cried Snail cowering inside his shell. "I said there were Four Noble Truths! You've only heard three!"

Owl paused and considered. Sure, she could afford to be magnanimous; it wasn't as if Snail could run away. Sighing, she waved an impatient wing.

"Go on then. Let's hear it."

Snail moistened his lips nervously.  "R-right, four then. Desire can be destroyed b-by—"

Owl let out a bloodcurdling screech.

Minutes ticked by before Snail could summon up the courage to peek from under the lip of his shell to the ground below. He took in the...

... and the lonely feathers leading each other in a loose waltz over the snow.

"Blimey," he said to himself. "I was going to say desire can be destroyed by following The Noble Eightfold Path. But a fox… a fox seems to work just as well."

Fox grinned around a mouthful of extinct existentialist.  Personally he had always favoured a more Cartesian approach.

I slink, he thought, therefore I am.

(c) Chastity Flyte — feel free to share, but please post link!