By Juno Elio Avillez do Nascimento
Dear Ms. Lang,
I’ve heard your many, many grievances about never receiving your Easy Bake Oven at the age of seven. I have received your letter denouncing me and all of Christmas written in red pen that vows, from that day on to only spend Christmas with your Jewish friends, and stating that if you were to ever have children, even though you detest them, to never raise them believing in me so they would never have to endure the disappointment that comes with believing in an old, overweight man.
I promise you, Ms. Lang, there was a reason I denied your request for a bedazzled Easy Bake Oven, and if you were fully aware of that reason, your fall from Christmas spirit would have never occurred.
You see Ms. Lang, I know much, and I see everything. I knew about the fight you had started because Danny Caesar took one of the many Play Dough tubs you had stolen from Gabriel Martinez on his birthday. I know you sent him to the hospital with a broken nose, three fractured fingers, and a crushed pinky toe because red was your favorite color, and he was, in your words, a puny idiot.
Ms. Lang, as hard as this may be to hear, you were starting down a dark, criminal path by the end of your second-grade year, and you would have not liked the outcome if I had allowed that path to continue.
In all frankness, Ms. Lang, you should be thanking me. That bedazzled rainbow Easy Bake Oven would have caught fire your third week of having it, and although it would have burned half your toys and left a black mark in your carpet that would make your room perpetually smell like burnt plastic, you would have gained an obsessive affinity for fire that would not have been so easily diminished.
If you were to receive that so desired bedazzled rainbow unicorn Easy Bake Oven, you would be in jail for your second time this year on three arson charges, one involving a church and one involving the local rec center, paired with two charges of manslaughter, one being vehicular, and you would have ended up killing your dog Bowie due to smoke inhalation.
I am aware Ms. Lang, that you don’t specifically appreciate being a clerk at your father’s bank, working alongside your cousin, Sausan, who as you said, is the noisiest little bitch you’ve ever met and that you just wanted to be a baker as a child, but you should give me at least a small amount of thanks given you’re not convincing a massive woman in every way you can, that you are not cut out to helping her smuggle in drugs through bars of soap that smell a little too much like lavender for the guards, not the notice.
Ms. Lang, you must realize that my actions were simply intended to help you, as they did.
Sincerely,
Saint Nicholas.
About Juno Elio Avillez do Nascimento
Juno Elio Avillez do Nascimento is a writer based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has been published multiple times in the award-winning literary magazine Pulp and has worked with authors such as Yona Harvey and Lee Gutkind. He is a staff member of BatCat Press.