It was the night before Christmas…

Here is my entry for the AC Nielsen iScan Scan Panel short story competition, for which I won a runner-up prize of a $50 Dymocks book voucher!

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It was the night before Christmas. I was six years old and I knew this was going to be the best Christmas ever. Who would have guessed that Grandpa would drop by? It would be the first and last time that I ever see him. I still remember it like it was yesterday, because he came dressed as Santa Claus!

Gramps was a pilot, and he delighted me and my brother with tales of his travels around the world, and gifts from amazing sounding places like Switzerland, and Thailand. How could you not believe such amazing stories: the city that never sleeps! Mountains so tall that they touched the clouds! Strange and wonderful people and their even stranger languages! In my mind, I was the luckiest boy in the world… my Grandpa was Santa Claus!

The next morning, just like Santa, he was gone.

At the end of the following year, my parents received news of his passing. Dad was a pragmatic person, and that night, he explained about death. However, I wouldn’t believe it. I couldn’t! Nothing would ever dispel the magic – my Grandpa, like Santa Claus, would live forever…