Santa's office fell silent except for the hum of the computer as it powered down. The screen went dark, but Reginald's words remained, etched into the space like frost on a window. Effective immediately. Fired. Over a video call.
For several long moments, Santa didn't move. His hand remained on the mouse, fingers curled as if still grasping for something to hold onto. The leather chair creaked beneath him—that same chair that had supported him through centuries of Christmas planning, crisis management, and the occasional well-deserved nap. Now it felt like a throne for a king with no kingdom.
He looked around his office, seeing it with new eyes. The walls were lined with photographs: Santa with elves from different eras, with reindeer he'd trained from fawns, with children whose grandchildren now had children of their own. A snow globe from 1823 sat on his desk beside a coffee mug that read "World's Best Christmas Coordinator." How quaint. How irrelevant.
The initial shock began to crack, revealing something beneath it. Not rage—though that would come later—but an exhaustion so profound that Santa wondered how he'd been standing at all. Three hundred years. Three hundred years of Christmas Eve flights, of managing logistics that would make military generals weep, of carrying the weight of billions of expectations on his shoulders. When had it become so heavy?
He stood slowly, his knees protesting in a way they hadn't when he was merely two centuries old. The office suddenly felt too small, too cold. Santa moved to the window and looked out at the North Pole—at the workshop where lights still burned in the distance, where elves were undoubtedly working on this year's production schedule, unaware that their world had just fundamentally changed.
Santa's reflection stared back at him from the glass. An old man in a red suit. When had he become old? The thought struck him with unexpected force. He'd been so busy being Santa Claus that he'd forgotten to notice he was aging, wearing down, running on fumes and tradition.
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