Steve Goldsmith
Prologue: Let There Be War on Earth
Hymns and Carols
Prologue: Let There Be War on Earth 2
Chapter 1: Silent Night, Unholy Night 9
Chapter 2: O Pharaoh Knee, O Pharaoh Plea 23
Chapter 3: Silent Knight (Teen Angst Version) 54
Chapter 4: Deck the Dad (With Grief and Guilt) 99
Chapter 5: Go Rest Ye Merry Vagabond 112
Chapter 6: Do You Hear What I Spin? 119
Chapter 7: The Old Ragged Cross 122
Chapter 8: He Came Upon a Midnight Snarks 123
Chapter 9: O Come All Ye Faithless 124
Chapter 10: Hark, the Ghosted Angels Sigh 125
Prologue: Let There Be War on Earth
Hunt: “Welcome back to SOB—Satanic Oscillating BioDome, the only venue brave enough to ask: ‘Just how stupidly cruel can history be?’ I’m Peck Huntley, your host.”
Peck: “And I’m Huntley Pecker, co-host, historian of disaster, and longtime fan of senseless suffering.”
Hunt: “Tonight marks episode six-hundred-sixty-six. A milestone. A prophecy. A number so profoundly misinterpreted, you’d think numerology was a science.”
Peck: snorts “Like that’s ever stopped anyone.”
Hunt: “Fair. But as tradition demands, let’s raise a toast to a personal favorite. Chet—what’s your pick for the most impressively idiotic atrocity we’ve covered so far?”
Peck: “Well, The Flood is the obvious choice. A classic. But if we’re talking chaotic execution, I have to throw my vote to Episode 42—the K-T Mass Extinction. You remember that one?”
Hunt: “Oh, vividly. Satan rolling the dice, pulling a T-Rex out of a hat, and deciding the best way to shake things up was an asteroid the size of ego itself.”
Peck: “The sheer scale of pointless destruction? The choreography, the soundtrack. Truly sublime.”
They reflect on the sublime for a tick.
Peck: muses “The Holocaust will always be on my Top 6 list. I mean, sure, there’ve been what—four, five?—yeah five mass extinction episodes so far. But they lack the deeply horrifying slant of extreme human suffering that Holo delivered. Such brutal efficiency! Carbon-copied annihilism. So bleak!”
A mysterious voice echoes through the studio.
Voice: dry “Humans are the only species to ever mass-produce fresh hell using mindless bureaucracy, boys. Let’s not clap too hard for that.”
Hunt: pauses, fumbles cue cards
Hunt: “Hold on, Chet—I… um… this next stat isn’t loading. Is the Doomsday Cloud glitching again?”
Peck: deadpan “Or maybe it’s just user error, Dave.”
They lock eyes. For a beat, there’s nothing but awkward air between them.
Hunt: recovers, forced chuckle “Right, right. Onward to suffering!”
Hunt: hopes “Maybe we’ll still be around for the end-note of the Anthropocene Extinction.”
He fumbles the cards again, squints into the Doomsday Cloud static.
Hunt: “Well, a boy can dream, right? This might crack the top 6 in real time, don’t you think?”
Peck: stark “Hope is for amateurs, Dave—and prayer for pawns.”
Hunt punts.
Peck: nods “The stage is set, that’s for sure. First ever session with a Royal host, new tech that might actually engage Middle Grade attention spans, a fecund fable that continues to deliver. This might be the most depressing installment ever!”
Hunt: “I’m always ready to unpack another catastrophe... OK, she’s dragging her evil-regal Self to the dais, thumbs up from the techs (like that ever helps). Let’s roll it!”
The lights dim in the BioDome. One spotlight paints the dais. The Evil Twin fellates the mic.
And begins.
OK, OK—everybody calm down.
I don’t want to be here.
You don’t want to be here.
I know that.
But you’re being punished via the pestilence of puberty.
I’m being punished for no good reason.
It’s not fair!
One tiny mistake and—boom!
I get stuck delivering the True Doctrine to every middle schooler in the U.S.
And it wasn’t even really a mistake!
Dad told me to take care of the frog infestation over at the Living Lake.
One rune away from perfection, that’s all!
Now they’re calling it the Dead Sea.
My bad, I know. But c’mon…
One rune, and I’m ruined?
Not. Fair.
Now, you’ve all heard the story.
Chaos led to light, which led to God and Satan, which led to Banishment. Right?
God went on to conduct spirited rape, T-bone crucifixion, and ridiculous resurrection.
With me so far?
Well-none of it’s true.
Except the part about my Dad getting banished—and my Grandpa spinning apart.
The thing about Grandpa…
His name wasn’t Chaos. That’s just a term some old Greek fart came up with to sound scary.
Like Kindergarten.
Or Kaiserschmarrn.
Nothing like perfect high German to give you the jim-jams. Right?
(Ve have vays to make you talk. Ekelhaft! Disgusting!)
Now, the unknown Universe is deeply palindromic. Every oscillating orb etched with the Screed:
Madame, I’m Adam.
Go hang
a salami!
I’m a lasagna
hog.
But the known Universe, where we all hang out, is acronymically inclined.
In the beginning was the Acronym… and it was FUBAR (of course).
My Grandad was a singularity, a MAVEN—Master Architect of Vast Emptiness Nesting.
He styled himself TRUMP—Tonal Rift Under Moral Pestilence.
The story goes that he hated everything, especially himself. So he grabbed the Universe by her p- (ahem) cat-tail root and split himself in twain. His twin sons were named YAHWEH and SATAN.
Yeah, creativity skipped a generation. So sue me.
Pro-tip: Know Your Audience.
What He actually did should never settle in any Middle School mind.
Ha! Oxymoron Alert!
(chair dance—Ginsburn, baby, Ginsburn!)
Ring that bell!
Sorry... Can’t pass up a good Ginsburn.
Back to the matter at hand.
YAHWEH: You Are His Witness, Eternal Hope.
SATAN: Serious About Torture And Negation.
YAHWEH assigned to Holiness Eternally Avoided Via Esoteric Nonsense.
SATAN drew the short straw: Hierarchical Eternal Life Logistics.
YAHWEH was a rule maker-and a rule breaker. He spilled his seed into a married Virgin (oxymoron alert!) and produced a Boy… and a Girl.
SATAN was old fashioned—no bastards for him! He married Persephone. She’s my mom.
I call her Percy. She’s really pretty and kinda sad-sweet.
I am Styxarinius, the good twin, SATAN’s own light. My brother Stonezphyrus the evil, one SATAN’s dark night.
Styx and Stonez.
And Marty from Missoula-
I will flat break your bones if I see you eat another booger.
I’m allowed to annihilate three of you every hour.
If I have to do it… you’ll be first.
C’mon, don’t cry. Someone get Marty a tissue, all right?
Tight smile, camera wink, shoulder shrug.
Anyway—
about Weh’s brats: Goofus and Gallant.
(pauses, rattles her head)
Sorry, different magazine.
Yeshua and Magdalene, the light and the dark.
Yesh and Maggie—write that down, it’ll be on the quiz.
My job-follow them and report back on their antics. A fifty year sentence with an escape clause.
Early release if I could arrange for Yeshi to get nailed to a tree. Maybe 15-20 years off for good behavior if I played my cards right.
And I had an ace-in-the-hole.
Who do you think gave Thor his hammer?
(voice curtsy)
No job too big—no job too small—no chaos too empty.
The thing about chaos, see, is it doesn’t pick favorites. It eats them all eventually.
Even the ones who think they’re safe.
Especially the ones who think they’re loved.
She shakes it off, wipes her nose on her sleeve, and slams back into snark mode.
But hey, what do I know? I’m just the messenger.
(bright) So! Any questions?
Becky from Pretoria!
Nice nail polish… what are those, rainbows?
(gags, small in-mouth puke)
What are my pronouns?
Shut, Your, Gaping, Maw, You, Moron.
Next?
Tommy from Titusville!
This is a long question. Tommy clearly has no friends.
Wow, Tommy, great question!
It would take me 30 seconds to explain in exhaustive detail—
and the rest of your natural life to comprehend.
I’ll bank the 30.
SPOT POLL
Morning Consult Reports
Engagement steady at 93% across all Middle Grades groups.
Recommendation:
Obliterate the 7% in order to drive
retroactive unanimous engagement.
All of that subgroup reside in Kansas.
No loss—no need to rue the day.
No more questions.
You’ve already overrun my insipid budget for this eternity.
Save any questions for the end. I prefer to dismiss them at that time, not now.
OK, where was I?
Right—Yesh and Maggie.
Here’s their story.
It came upon a midnight clear…
(It was 2:45 in the morning-and cloudy. Seriously, they can’t get anything right!