The mines are dark and cold, barely lit by dim dark orange lanterns. We have to work hard and fast to dig up enough of the minerals and jewels the aliens demand us to. We can’t go home until we give them the amount they want. The alien leaders walk the tunnels, and often times you’ll find one just standing there staring at you with their bright, intense half moon eyes. You better work smart and fast or they’ll point at you with their long arms. Dark spirits might lead you to meet with the alien supervisor where their messenger will tell you what you’re doing wrong and threaten punishments if you don’t immediately perform better. But when we reach the end of our monthly work period before Christmas week, during the still, quiet moments in the heavy dark, if you listen close, you just might hear them, the ghostly echoes coming from the Christmas Ghost Express…
In Carolmire, where it’s always Christmas, on the actual Christmas Eve, we all gather at the city center. This is a wide circle made of glowing gold bricks surrounded by small shops full of bright, colourful candle lights in the windows and along ledges in the walls. We gather close to midnight. Kids play tag among the crowd, flying around the standing people, trying to push through. Some of the older people complain about being included in the game as some of the kids run into them trying to avoid getting tagged. But it gets really cold late at night this far up north, so that’s why we all start singing and dancing as we wait for the ghosts to arrive…
Have you ever seen the Christmas Ghost Express? The ghosts fly so fast across the vast, empty northern landscape of just snow and ice under low drifting fiery red, stormy clouds. At first, you can only hear them singing Christmas songs. They lead a secret way to Carolmire, but they don’t really want to be seen. They do want to be found. They have a secret about who they were, where they came from, and the heartbreak they experienced. No one knows who they were. No one knows what happened to them. No one has ever seen them. But there are a few who have been able to find the Christmas Ghost Express, following the fast, blazing trail of colourful lights, but that only happens when you can follow the music…
As midnight approaches, we wait as we sing Silent Night. We sing it their way, with the angelic echoes of Silent Night between the lines of the chorus. Fiery red clouds blaze fast across the sky, then blend into a smooth blood red all across. We stand close together and raise up black curtains above the shops. We light up dark orange lanterns and hold them close together in a cluster. Our singing echoes in rhythmic circles. A chilling wind rushes in, blowing hard at the curtains, and they have to hold up. It blows the fiery dark orange lights around, but we huddle close to keep them lit. At the top of the tower is the glossy black marble clock with glowing dark orange numbers. The hour hand drags slowly around the clock face, groaning as it passes by each ghostly shaped number reaching out, but never reaching the hand. It circles back around slowly but passes by every time. We must keep them lit until the large clock strikes midnight. If we do, the clock screams out, and the Christmas Ghost Express enters our circle, the lit-up ghosts sing and dance among us and we celebrate.
