Are you real?

Are you real?

“Are you real?” The little girl whispered. Curious blue eyes just inches away, staring intently at the figure sitting motionless on the shelf in front of her. No answer. There was never any answer. The plastic face always just stared back at her with the same happy expression. She always asked anyway. Every morning, she rushed out of bed to search for the smiling little man in the soft red hat. Every morning, she asked the same question, “are you real?”

He moved every day so he must be real, mustn’t he? Though she never actually saw him move. It wasn’t for lack of trying. Every day since he arrived, she had tried to catch him moving. Tried to get him to answer her. There were times when she thought she saw him move out of the corner of her eye, only to turn and find him in the same position, same jolly smile painted on his face.

When they were alone, she would talk to him. She would tell him stories and ask him questions about where he came from. He never gave any answer, but he was a great listener. Always sitting attentively while she recited the day’s events, never interrupting. Sometimes she told him her funniest jokes hoping he would give the smallest giggle, just the smallest indication that he was in fact, real. Nothing. He just sat there smiling. How could he not laugh at her jokes? They were the best! She could hardly keep herself from laughing and she had heard them all before!

At times when no one was watching she would get so frustrated she would want to grab him and shake him. To force him to talk. To prove he was real. However, Mom said that if she touched him then the magic would be gone. She couldn’t have that. She needed him. It was so important this year, more than any other year that she talked to him. That she explain to him what she needed. She wasn’t a bad girl. She didn’t want to do bad things. She just needed him to understand how important this was. Please, please just show me you’re real.

She had no idea what to do if he wasn’t real. How would she ever get her biggest wish this Christmas if she couldn’t get the message where it needed to go? She had tried the department store Santa of course. However, she knew he wasn’t the real one. She only hoped he could pass her wish along to the real one. She wasn’t taking any chances this year. She had also mailed her wish, but she knew sometimes the mail could be unreliable. She thought that was probably especially true when you were trying to get someone to deliver it all the way to the North Pole.

“John” she had named him. It seemed a sensible name to her. She had no idea what his real name was or if he even spoke the same language. She had an idea. Maybe she wasn’t speaking to him in the right language. She borrowed a book from her school library and went through trying to say hello to him in many different languages. She even tried Norwegian as she thought it might be the closest to the North Pole. Nothing. He just sat with that same smile.

One morning she came down to see a written message next to him and a Sharpie in his hand. It said “Merry Christmas.” That gave her another idea. Maybe he was deaf? She had a friend in school who was deaf and they used sign language to talk to people. Back to the school library she went. She spent the whole weekend before Christmas learning sign language from the book she borrowed. She stood in front of John and tried multiple of the words she had learned in sign language. Nothing. Same smile, nothing more.

Christmas week was here and though it was supposed to be a happy time, the little girl did not feel so happy. She felt she had no way of knowing if her wish would come true. The last few days before Christmas she barely acknowledged John. She hardly bothered to look for him in the morning. She would come across him eventually. Always with that same smile. She was actually starting to resent that smile.

Christmas Eve came and she was more miserable than ever. She struggled through the events of the day. The Christmas Eve party, the relatives pinching and patting her and commenting on how big she had gotten. John sat through it all with that stupid smile on his face. Eventually it was time to go to bed. Normally she would have rushed to brush her teeth and get into bed knowing Santa would be there that night. Not this time. She had little hope that her one wish would come true this Christmas. So why bother? Nothing else mattered. She looked up at John who was hanging from their Christmas tree and gave him a dirty look.

After her mother tucked her in, she stared up at the dark room around her, unable to sleep. Suddenly, she threw off her blankets and as quietly as possible ran downstairs to stand in front of John. She pleaded with him, staring up at the little man with the unmoving smile and little red hat, tears forming in her little blue eyes. She was desperate, he had to get her wish to Santa, he just had to. Still John made no movement, no sound. He just stared back at her with that same smile.

She woke up the next morning back in her own bed. She didn’t remember coming back upstairs. She just lay awake in her bed for a long time. She was in no hurry to go downstairs. She felt no excitement to see what Santa brought. Eventually she got up because there simply was nothing else to do. She walked slowly down the stairs and saw her father sitting on the couch with a mug of coffee to his lips. He looked up at her and put the coffee down and smiled. She noticed he was in his uniform, he must have gotten there recently, no time to change.

“Daddy?!” she shouted incredulously, not really believing he was there.

He nodded. “That’s right, sweetie. Merry Christmas.”

She ran down the stairs and into his arms, giving him the biggest of hugs. It felt so good. Her wish had come true. She looked up at the tree to where John had been hanging the night before. She had no idea when he had left or if he had gone back to the North Pole or somewhere else. She did know one thing… he was definitely real.