A Suburban Holiday Miracle Part 4

Mrs. Manatee was in her manee van headed to Mrs. Hoggingham's house.

Sanatee Claus was on his magic flying jet ski, headed south to avert disaster.

Todd Manatee was on the bottom of the canal. He was not floating aimlessly. He was not floating at all. He was on the bottom of the canal, and it was dark. Inside him the light that had fueled his optimism, the light that shone when someone else needed light, the light that was his and defined him was dark. He was alone and the silence hurt his ears.

Todd had his family. Only that. He had moved them. He had floated aimlessly. He could not float more aimlessly and for what? His seagrass was gone, his Manatee Christmas was just a promise of more nothing. "Here, have a box of emptiness. It's wrapped in my dignity and so it is not wrapped at all." Todd sunk further.

Finally he surfaced and shouted to no one, and that was good for no one was listening "I have challenged the currents and they have taken me to their dark mansions to be mocked, shamed and degraded! If I had always had nothing, then I would have nothing to lose. I am not alone, and that is the arrow I carry in my heart, and also the reason why my heart beats!" His words were echoed on the wind, carried to the sawgrass of the swamp and they disappeared like fog in sunlight. Brilliant and rainbow incandescent for one moment. Invisible and forgotten in the next.

Across the city, Mrs. Manatee had gone through the gate's of Mrs. Hoggingham's community, "Polar Bear Falls" (which just proved, as she suspected that the marketing department's of the development companies that had parceled out this part of Florida had simply tossed words into a tumbler and named each community accordingly.} There had never been any ridges, there had definitely never been any saints or "San" anyone and their had certainly never been any falls, windmills or in this case polar bears, but the name made as much sense as any other in this town. She and and her children Hannity Manatee and Vanity Manatee were just minutes away from lunch with Mrs. Hoggingham and Mrs. Hoggingham was absolutely famished.

Sanatee Claus was desperately speeding her direction, but had stopped to do some sick donuts on his jet ski to impress absolutely no one, but in his head he was amazing. It wasn't his fault. No matter how magic your jet ski is, it doesn't make you cool. You just feel like you are. Time was rapidly flowing like a current after a storm and he was running late.

End of Part 4