February 2020

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Movie: The Nightmare Before Christmas

Summary:

Just a simple drabble written for my love of the 1993 film.

Word Count: 1072 Words

Written: February 3rd 2020

Posted: February 6th 2020

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A long time ago- longer now than it seems-

In a place that perhaps you've seen in your dreams,

For the story that you are about to be told

Took place in the holiday worlds of old...

The land of Halloween came into being with the first nightfall, and the sudden terrors that the fall of the bright sun caused. Suddenly, the world was there- trees creaking in the wind, shadows both unlikely and normal falling in the light of the slender crescent moon. A graveyard, stone monuments to the dead. A patch of odd round fruit that weren't really fruit at all.

And life, of course. For the land breathed and thought, and brooded. It looked upon the sky, upon the moon, and it dreamed.

When dawn came, the land stretched, curved upward in places, as if to wave at the grinning face in the sun. One hill, impossible tall and thin, curved in upon itself, coiling loosely to overhang the pumpkin patch. Others sheared themselves in odd ways, creating cliffs and valleys, a lake and a long, rambling prairie. Settling itself in its new contours, the land felt the wood at its heart, the place where it connected to all the others. The Wood of the Worlds, one could call it, and the land of Halloween chose the peculiar fruit as its door.

And for a short time, it was content. But Halloween could feel the creatures of the living world, and those of its neighbors, and it dearly wanted some of its own. So one night, with the full moon trying its best to burn through the fog hugging the ground, a rumbling occurred where the pumpkin patch and the empty graveyard met. Life, of a sort, came forth.

Jack Skellington was the Pumpkin King because he was born, or not exactly born, but animated, after a fashion, in the pumpkin patch. He opened his eyes and felt the fog caress him, gazed upon the bright light of the moon. Jack was bones without skin, and the land loved him at once.

Every piece of Halloween wanted to make Jack happy, yearned in some way to be useful for him. Spiders and moths who wove silk were created from the shadows, working together to form Jack a suit fit for a King.

But Jack needed more than that. A King is a lonely thing indeed if he has no subjects, and Halloween felt itself still empty, despite its love. Slowly, more and more creatures appeared, some sliding through the cracks of the land of the living, some slipping through the chinks of the world of dreams. For each, a new stone appeared in the graveyard, and another tradition was added to Halloween's greater self.

As much as possible, anything Jack wanted, the land provided. When Jack first thought of his loneliness, the ghosts came, seeping upward like so many shafts of mist in the moonlight. A few years later, the witches flew in with the bats, fleeing the morning sun. The vampires followed shortly thereafter, spending one terrifying night draining the undying residents of Halloweentown of their blood and amusing Jack to no end with their antics. Every year, the celebrations were more elaborate, more blood-chilling, and the land itself rejoiced at Jack's laughter.

The town grew as the populace did, a rickety old mansion springing up on one side of the graveyard wall for the small, odd-shaped family, a oddly shaped laboratory complete with mad scientist and maimed assistant popping up on one of the many hills. The hanging tree grew overnight, and the skeletons on it never numbered fewer than two, though some could remember a time when there had been seven or more. There were rules, of course, but not everyone knew what they all were.

And few, if any, applied to Jack. He'd never questioned all the things he could do, or that would be done for him, just accepted them.

And then something changed. No matter what Halloween did, or how grand the day itself was, Jack was... discontent. Even the latest citizen, Sally, who had been created by the scientist after a nudge from the land, couldn't hold his attention, though she felt deeply for him. Bit by bit, Halloween felt Jack drifting from it, longing for something it couldn't give him. He felt trapped by routine, by the very things that had once delighted him, and it was with some surprise that Halloween remembered how old it was, how long it had existed.

So it did what little it could. On the night of Halloween, night of its power and greatest strength, it led Jack down a path he had never seen before, guiding his tired steps. Closer and closer he came, until he stood in the Wood, where none of Halloween's creatures had ever been before. It was there, through one of those doors in Halloween's heart, that he found, or thought he found what he was looking for.

Christmas. As different from Halloween as one holiday could be from another.

Jack was obsessed at once, lured in and utterly besotted by all things Christmas. Though Halloween would do anything for him, anything it could, Jack had finally found something it could not give him. It had no control over a neighboring holiday, no real contact but that door, and the others it could make at need. All Halloween could do was watch and wait, hoping that Jack would see the folly of his ways.

When he did, Halloween did what it could, connecting with the graveyard of the living world he was in, and brought him home. It watched as Jack reunited with the adoring Sally and felt the first chill touch of snow on its surface, a gift from Santa Claus, beloved of Christmas in the way Jack was beloved of Halloween. And it watched as Jack finally realized what he had in Sally, a mate he could touch, for Halloween knew it was no fit mate for Jack. He belonged to it, and it to him, but it could be shared. It thought so, anyway. For a little while.

After all, Halloween had all the time in the world, and nothing in it had to last forever.