Page 1 of Don't Shoot Me Santa
Prologue
Don’t Shoot Me, Santa
Ten should have been the last.
Ten was sacred. Whole. The end of a cycle. All fingers accounted for. All sins tallied. Complete. But obsession doesn’t obey numerals. And need… need isn’t interested in completion. It carves its own commandments. Adds pages to closed books.
And twelve is sacred too.
Twelve disciples. Twelve strikes of the bell. Twelve chances to be reborn.
Twelve days ofChristmas.
So what’s the harm in adding more?
Finishing what was started?
And thereissomething holy about the Isle of Wight in December.
Hush and hallowed in its emptiness, the tourists have fled the island, ferried back to brighter lights and mainland hum. Now only the salt-bitten shingle remains. The wind-shoved seafoam. The lights blinking across the Solent like distant prayers lost in fog.
Quiet.
Cut off.
The mainland hums with noise and notice. CCTV on every corner, blue lights slicing through city smog, officers with shared databases connecting dots left scattered years ago. Big forces for big cities, built to catch big names. All of them tangled together, eyes wide open, searching. With access to those who dissect minds as if they’re simply puzzles to be solved.
The island is better.
Quiet. Separated. Forgotten.
Here, no one looks too closely.
Most years, this would’ve happened elsewhere. A different city, a different square, a different face turning up blue under tinsel and frost. But this year is special. It calls for something more intimate. A return.
Where it all began.
And even here, in the hush of this forgotten place, there are those who need to be told if they are good or bad.
Who better to do that than the ultimate judge?
Santa Claus. The one who keeps a list.
And there’s a perfect specimen right now…
A boy. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. A silhouette at the edge of St Thomas’ Square, half-hidden beneath the twisted skeleton of a plain tree where gold and red lights sag between rooftops, strung like tired garlands across Newport’s high street, more weary than festive. And beside it, an out-of-season carousel stands wrapped in crinkled plastic, creaking in the wind. Its horses frozen mid-prance, as if startled by the cold.
He’s young, but not innocent. More forgotten. Curled on the pavement beyond the covered market, hunched outside the charity shop with the broken security light, knees pulled tight to his chest beneath a fraying parka, hood stitched withpatches and sleeves too short. A tangle of copper hair spills out from under that hood, dulled by grime and weather. His face is red with cold. Chapped mouth. Eyelids heavy. There’s something smudged beneath one eye. Maybe old eyeliner, maybe yesterday’s bruise. His boots are water stained, laces mismatched. And those holes in his jeans aren’t for style.
But it’s what’s at the boy’s feet that singles him out. A piece of torn cardboard, ink running in the damp.No family. Hungry.He doesn’t need the sign.
The coat explains enough.
Someone once cared enough to buy it for him. Not new. Not designer. But solid. Practical. Not stolen, either. He wears it as if it used to mean something. A gift once. A gesture. A memory sewn into the lining.
It’s worn thin now.
So is he.
