Santa Lost in Time
Prologue – The Clock at the North Pole
Far, far away, in that snowy corner of the world where no postman dares deliver, there stands Santa’s workshop—a cheerful jumble of chimneys, chiming bells, and windows glowing like lanterns in the long night. Inside, elves scurried here and there like industrious beetles with pointy shoes, hammering, sawing, wrapping, and occasionally stopping for cocoa with three marshmallows (never two, never four).
In the very heart of the workshop stood an object older than Santa himself: the North Pole Clock. It was a contraption of such size and complexity that nobody, not even Santa, could tell which cog belonged to which century. Its hands were long enough to sweep a reindeer’s tail, its pendulum heavy enough to flatten a fruitcake, and its face—golden, solemn, and ever-turning—kept track not just of hours but of seasons.
On one frosty morning, just after a particularly exhausting Christmas (the year of the exploding pogo sticks, if you recall), Santa leaned upon the clock and gave it a friendly wind, as one might do to a reluctant grandfather clock.
“Just a little nudge to keep things running smoothly,” he muttered, with the weary satisfaction of one who thinks he has done a clever thing.
But the clock shuddered. It hiccupped. It gave a very impolite cough. And then, with a whirl, a wheeze, and the mournful sound of a cuckoo bird sneezing, the great hands spun round and round until the numbers blurred.
Before Santa could say “plum pudding,” the workshop, the elves, and even the snow outside dissolved into a blur of colours, and Santa was tumbled head over boots into another time entirely.
To be continued
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