The workshop was alive with the music of Christmas. A dizzying multitude of machines chugging away, printing and stamping, crimping and boxing, soldering and engraving, personalizing and customizing. And all these complex operations were fussed over by the giftmaker's guild of elves. Tall and slender, blonde and perky, crystalline eyes on quotas and deadlines, these magical girls loaded up pallets with PlayStations, stuffed stockings with drones, lifted heavy boxes with their perfectly hairless legs—not their backs, and chatted merrily among themselves in their elven language. Why, some even sang happy little Christmas songs as they worked, and bobbed their golden hair to the rhythm.
It was absolutely adorable. Not at all like the workshops kept by men, dirty and smokey, with tons of safety hazards, where the very air breathed in coats the lungs with poison tar. In Santa's workshop, the air smelled faintly of pine trees and lip balm. And the elves dodged every work hazard with the grace of a weightless immortal. Why take the stairs when you can hop and effortlessly float to the higher levels? There's no risk of getting horribly mangled or losing a limb in one of the saw toothed hydrolic presses, not when you've got the precision timing of an elf! It may be frightening to see one of these pretty girls dive head first into a fiery oven to pull out freshly injection-molded DJ headphones one at a time, but these girls are experts in their craft! Trained professionals! Zero workplace injuries in over a thousand years!
But then a water whistle cut through all the noise of Christmas industry, and every immaculate porcelain face looked up from their work and quickly went from surprise to disappointment. For the water whistle could only mean one thing: Yechdel had arrived! And there she was, prim and proper in her elvish uniform, midnight blue jacket starched and free of even the tiniest speck of lint. Lemon colored hair pulled back and clipped together so aggressively it gave her already young face a botox like tightness. Her little tweeting-bird shaped whistle spat over the machinery and chatter, and like a gramophone that's lost power, everything slowed and quieted to a halt.
"Good morning, my fellow sisters in Christmas!"
There was a hesitation, a few hard sighs, during the practiced silence before they all answered in a deadpan unison, "Good morning, Yechdel..."
"Please line up for inspection!"
Toys were reluctantly placed down unfinished, forklifts begrudgingly shut off, boxes carelessly dropped in a passive-aggressive 'not again' act of protest. Tight-lipped the elves stood at attention, lined up and down the warehouse facing each other, polished boots together, back straight, chin up, eyes forward. Yechdel went down the line, a smile on her face, and asked each elf how they were feeling, how their week was, if anything special had happened to them recently, and these brief thirty second conversations went on, one after the other. To the untrained eye, these conversations may seem friendly-- but no! You're so wrong! Nothing could be further from the truth! For these conversations were a test! A test that could so easily be failed! And failure resulted in punishment! Horrible, dreadful punishment!
"Hello, Yuchiha. How are you?" She checked off a name on her clipboard.
"I'm positively chipper, Yechdel."
"Did you have a nice week? Do anything special?"
"Oh yes! I started studying calligraphy!"
Yechdel looked up from her clipboard and smiled.
"Calligraphy! That's great! Such a wonderfully independent hobby. What made you decide to take up that hobby after three thousand years?"
"Well my handwriting isn't very pretty, but now I want to be able to make beautiful handwritten letters."
"To whom?" Yechdel asked.
"P..."
The plosive consonant had barely left Yuchiha's lips when all the other elves standing in line began shaking their heads 'no!' Some of the elves began waving their arms furiously as if they could cut her words up in the air and stop them from forming sounds. A few whispers sounded from behind Yechdel, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Yuchiha's face went pale when she realized the grave mistake she had just made. Two more syllables and she would fail Yechdel's dastardly test! But with the cunning linguist skills of an elf, she adjusted her answer mid pronunciation and said:
"No one."
Yechdel looked a little sadly at Yuchiha.
"You want to write beautiful letters to no one?"
"Or... everyone. You know, Santa, you, my... female coworkers."
"Oh, that's very thoughtful!" Yechdel placed her gloved hand on Yuchiha's shoulder, and Yuchiha, somewhat disgusted by this level of familiarity, slowly brushed it off. "And it shows a lot of agency! I look forward to receiving a letter from you one day. Hopefully soon!"
Yechdel continued down the line, asking the same formulaic questions, complimenting elves for their hair accessories or brooches on their uniform as if she were their friend, until eventually she came to Yuko, the elf who wasn't very good at anything. Oh sure, Yuko preformed her duties well and on time and there was a good friend and a so-so conversationalist, but Yuko never excelled at anything, including Yechdel's dreaded inspections. Everyone's lips puckered when Yechdel approached her.
"Hello, Yuko. Anything new with you?"
"Well..." Yuko tapped her thumb against her lips in thought. "There's some amazing news but... I don't think I'm supposed to talk about it."
Every head in the room silently turned towards Yuko. A thousand death stares glared all in one direction. The air grew heavy as every elf in the room subconsciously screamed at Yuko to not say what she was thinking.
"Oh, well you can talk to me about anything," Yechdel lied. Her smile looked sincere, the kind of rare smile you would only see once or twice in your life that believed in you the way you wanted to be believed in, but the smile too was a lie.
"Well, it's uh..." Yuko looked at the other elves around her and her heart jumped when she sensed the psychic wave of hate they were all channeling toward her. "I mean, I'm sure you already know."
"Know what?" Yechdel asked.
"You know... the... the recent event... that happened. And we were all there. It's just so... amazing."
"No. I don't know what you're talking about," Yechdel teased.
"It's the first time ever..." As Yuko talked, the other elves started shaking their heads at her. Begging her to stop talking. Please, Yuko. Please stop talking! An elf pressed her hands together in prayer and twisted her pretty face in a horrible cringe, as if saying 'Please, Yuko! Please! Please! Please!'
"The North Pole has never... I mean... I've never met one before. None of us have. It's all so very exciting. My heart feels like it's going to explode with happiness! I just can't wait to...!"
"Oh my! I'm on the edge of my seat!" Yechdel said.
"I really, really, really..."
An elf behind Yechdel was making murderous eyes at Yuko, and lifted her hands, tense and claw like, as if to tell Yuko that she was going to choke her to death if she said one more word.
"He's so amazing! Peter! I want to meet him so badly!"
The workshop erupted with loud groans! Palms slapped against faces in disbelief. The room echoed with several Nooooooooo!s. Elves dropped down to their knees and pounded their fists against the ground in agony. One elf with twin ponytails charged at Yuko and had to be held back by some of her friends— who knows what the double ponytailed elf would have done to poor Yuko if she got her hands on her? Just as it seemed like the heavy sigh of despair had dissipated, a lone voice shouted out, "Yuko, you fucking idiot!"
[Scribble Hub Scribble Hub Scribble Hub Whypstopher Pippinsticks Scribble Hub Scribble Hub Whypstopher Pippinsticks Scribble Hub Scribble Hub Scribble Hub]
Yechdel slowly scratched out Yuko's name from the clipboard, and scratched, and scratched, and scratched at it with her pen until the paper tore away into a black hole of ink.
Yuko looked sheepishly at the other elves, knowing that she messed up, apologizing with her big elfish saucer eyes, "But we've never had a boy before at the North Pole! And such a tall... skinny boy! I heard he was treated for hypothermia at the baths and some of the girls there told me that he has a six pack! Or at least half of one. I wonder what food he likes? What kind of chocolate does he like? What's his favorite Christmas song? Do you think he knows how to ski? Or dance? I've always wanted to dance with a boy. I mean, dancing with girls is fun and all, but with a boy it would seem so much more... romantic! Do you think he likes elves? Or blonde hair? Or blue eyes? Maybe I should go on a little diet? Just a small one. Oh! I should start doing sit ups before bed! I just so desperately want to meet him! Peter! What an amazing name! I just repeat his name in my head over and over ever since he got here! Peter! Peter! Peter!"
Yechdel's pen snapped in half and sharted ink over her clipboard and her clinched fist.
"I will not talk about..." Yechdel heavily swallowed, as if she were consuming Peter's name from leaving her lips, "... this topic."
"But why not? Isn't he fascinating? Don't you just have a million questions about him?"
"This topic... isn't in line with our values. We must discuss more important topics."
"What can be more important than Peter? He's here to save us all! He's going to stop the Christmas Apocalypse! Hurrah for Peter! We should all be cheering his name!"
Yechdel raised her trembling fist up as if she were going to knock Yuko out, but she forced herself to open her fist and planted her palm firmly on Yuko's shoulder as if they were friends.
"That's enough, Yuko. Your feelings are... your own, and that's... that. But you, Yuko, are a strong, independent elf, and I just want to help nurture that independence. You are the protagonist of your own story in life."
"But can't I be independent and also have a boyfriend?"
"That's a very interesting question that I will not discuss with you," Yechdel said. "Here, let me show you how we should be talking. You see, I am very intelligent and independent, so book reading is my hobby, and recently I began reading a very interesting book. Would you like to discuss it with me?"
"Uh... ok? I guess?"
"Thank you. It's called Don Quixote, and it was written in 1605 by Miguel de Cervantes. Many other independent and intelligent people say it is one of the greatest works of literature ever written. Have you read this book?"
"No, but I think we print a few copies of it every year..."
"Well, I highly recommend it! Thematically it is an interesting work because modern readers see Don Quixote as a tragic figure. It is easy to feel sympathy for a man who escapes into a beautiful fantasy to avoid the dreariness of reality. But that is a very modern interpretation. I think long ago Don Quixote was more of a stooge, not relatable at all..."
Yuko slowly raised her hand as if she were a child in class with a question.
"Yes, Yuko?"
"Isn't Don Quixote a... well... I mean... he's a..."
A lone voice called out, "Isn't Don Quixote a man?!"
"Who said that?!" Yechdel spun around so hard her hair exploded from their bobby pins! Her eyes were burning centroids in their dark sockets! She stalked around, seeking out the bold heckler, marching down the line, studying each petrified elven face. "Which one of you sacks of penguin shit just signed your own death warrant?! Was it you, string bean?!"
"No, Yechdel!"
"I bet it was!"
"No, Yechdel! Pinky promise!"
"Well... whoever it was... Don Quixote is a book. I'm not talking about a man. I'm talking about my personal interests in literature."
"She's right," another elf said. "It's a book about a man."
Yechdel pointed a finger at the elf who spoke out, "You already passed my test. Please don't make me change your score."
"And the book was written by a man!" another elf shouted. "So even though you're talking about a book, you're still sort of talking about how a man has influence over your life."
"What? Am I only allowed to read female authors?" Yechdel asked.
"You can read whatever author you want, but you can only talk about the female ones, according to your own rules."
"Today's test is over!" Yechdel shouted. "When you resume your work, please reflect on your own agency! Remember, happiness must come from within! Not through romantic relationships!"
As Yechdel left, an elf blew a big wet fart of a raspberry at her. It echoed off the vaulted ceilings of the factory, and when it rebounded it was met with snickers and stifled giggles. Yechdel's face blushed a bright red and she grit her teeth at the display of defiance. Once she was gone, the machinery was switched back on. Conveyor belts resumed their endless cycling, forklift engines stuttered to life, and reluctantly the happy songs of the elves resumed, along with a bit of hushed gossip about the human boy who was now living with them.