I guess you could say I’ve got a monkey on my back. A monkey named Darwin.” He shrugged off the trench coat and there she was, clinging tightly to his shoulders. The hunch on his back wasn’t a hunch at all, but as fine a specimen of a female chimpanzee as I’m ever likely to see.

Her eyes narrowed. “That is not the boy I raised.

Every muscle in his body tensed for action, adrenalin pounding through his tiny veins, he crept down the stairs, keeping to the corners (where he knew they creaked less). He peered around the bottom of the stairwell into the living room, and there he saw a lean, bearded man, clad only in a loincloth and a crown of thorns. When he bent over the Xmas tree, Tony saw that blood flowed freely from his bare hands and feet. Before the cherubic prepubescent could stop himself, the words flew out of his mouth: “You’re not Santa!

The crucified figure had not been idle. A series of elaborate twists activated a cunning mechanism; the base of the cross blew apart, revealing a winding metal spring at the base. At the same time, there was a whir of machinery, a grinding sound of metal against metal, and a series of spindly steel tubes emerged from the head and arms of the cross; and as the jolly old elf grunted and arched his back, the giant laser-mounted pogo stick heaved into the air, leaving in its wake waves of devastation, and a merry, menacing cry of “Ho-ho-ho!

And dozens of tiny hands reached up, and cast back dozens of tiny hoods. The robes fell away, revealing a motley of brightly-colored, dwarfish creatures, perched atop one another’s shoulders, brandishing outlandish tubes of a shiny substance none present had ever seen before. With preternatural speed and precision, they were trained upon the wild-eyed Romans, and after a few frantic pumping motions, streams of fluid arced through the air towards them. Wherever they landed, upon flesh or armor, steam burst forth, and the soldiers screamed in agony. Many of them were seasoned, having put down rebellions throughout the Empire, but all of their training and experience failed them in the face of elves wielding super soakers. Super soakers filled with battery acid.

There he was, skipping lightly across the surface of the water. He caught my eye and gave me that shit-eating grin again. “Be of good cheer. It is I. Be not afraid.