Krampus: The Yule Lord

by Brom

Santa remembered why he hated teenagers—they worked so hard not to believe in anything. Did their very best to spoil the magic for everyone else.

“Those dreams . . . they are your soul. You must live them to their fullest.”

Your dreams are your spirit, your soul, and without them you are dead.” He made a fist. “You must guard your dreams. Always. Lest someone steal them from you. I know what it is to have your dreams stolen. I know what it is to be dead.” His voice was almost a growl. “Guard your dreams. Always guard your dreams.”

Yule is the true spirit of Mother Earth. Yule is the rebirth of the seasons. Without Yuletide, Mother Earth cannot heal herself . . . will wither and die. That is why it is so important that I reawaken the spirit within mankind. Help them to believe again. Because it is their power of belief, their love and devotion, that heals the land.”

Jesse heard his fingers snap, and on top of all his other pain, his brain found room to bear this fresh assault in full glory.

“Yule is dead. It is the past. Men need a path to enlightenment, to be set free from trivial earthbound concerns, to see beyond the limitations of flesh and blood. Life is fleeting, but the hereafter is eternal. I see no greater calling than to help illuminate that path.

“You worship death. You and all the One Gods. They seduce mankind with their promises of glory attained in the hereafter, thus blinding men to the splendor before them here on earth. One can never expect to achieve enlightenment if one does not first live life to its fullest.”

“Earth belongs to no god! Mother Earth is god.

Do you pretend not to see that she is dying beneath your feet? Or do you not care? She needs rebirth, needs the spirit of Yule to heal her. You talk of enlightening men, but there will be no men without her!”

“A house built on lies has a weak foundation,

He wished he had something profound and uplifting to say, something to make her feel better, to make himself feel better. But sometimes there seemed to be so much bad in the world it was hard to see much of anything else.

“I am fearful most men of this age are like you. They have forgotten what it is to huddle in a hut with the beasts and demons howling outside their door. They no longer have want of a great and terrible spirit to protect them. They have lost their fear of the wild and with it their need to believe.

So I must ask myself, what role can I play in a world where men worship the moving-picture box, where they make and consume potions that eat away their own brains, where they ravage and pillage entire mountains, kill the very earth itself?

Man has only himself to fear now . . . he has become his own worst devil.”

He gave them what they wanted, a pretty lie, and they believed, because a pretty lie is easier to believe than an ugly truth.”

The truth is there is no Devil making you torture, rape, murder, and sodomize one another, or making you destroy the very land that feeds you. There is only you. So look at yourself, for you are the only devil in this room.”

But they didn’t react the way Jesse would’ve expected, especially after what had happened at the church. No hysterical shouting and screaming; instead, plenty of confused double takes, pointing, and drunken laughter, but mostly curiosity, folks trying to make sense of what they were seeing.

To shake their fist in the face of death, knowing whatever ills tomorrow may harbor nothing can steal this moment if you live it with all your vigor.

And understood now just why those shoes, with their small tribute of candies, meant so much to the Yule Lord. That what Krampus needed more than anything was a flock to shepherd, to protect and inspire.

he understood it was not drums he was hearing but the pulse of life itself, of Mother Earth. It pumped through him, a sensation of purest joy, and he saw how he was part of this pulse. How he truly belonged.