Grim Prospects

Finding gold was the easy part. Keeping the wife was harder.

Bert struck it rich out West, left wife number one with a few ounces and a grudge, and ran off with wife number two. He thought he'd outrun the first one. Then a stranger in a Santa Fe hotel offered him a job he didn't understand, and Bert woke up a thousand miles and a century and a half from home.

Now he's Santa Claus, immortal, cranky, and surrounded by ungrateful brats. Then someone steals his list, the one person who wants it most is Father Time, and Bert learns what happens to a Santa who fails at the job.

It's a short, sassy tall tale with a gold-rush swagger, a very bad Santa, and a wife with better aim than he ever gave her credit for.

Grim Prospects: one short read, no refunds on the karma.