Red-nosed Rudolph does the toyi-toyi

The old man brushed a few snowflakes out of his bushy beard and squinted into the pale Arctic sunlight. His eyes were going, but he also could feel he only had a few more years left in the job.

Old was not sexy and he couldn’t even spell millennial, never mind act like one.

The demand for this work had been declining for years, what with online shopping and courier services. (Except in South Africa, where the Post Office was a fond memory and many still relied on his Christmas Eve delivery service).

This might be his last trip before he’d have to hang up his boots and cap. Besides, the fun had gone out of it.

Earlier this year, the European Court of Equality had banned him saying “ho! ho! ho!”. His lawyer, the smart and smooth Dali Mpofu, felt they should argue freedom of speech (something the old man’s friends in SA found very funny, given his political party’s threats against journalists).

As always, Delightful Dali had been prepared to don his advocate’s gown for anyone with the wonga, even an old, anachronistic white male legacy of colonialism. But, true to his legal form, he lost the case.

The French judge (they have no sense of humour, unless you tell the joke in French) ruled that “ho! ho! ho!” was linguistically discriminatory (and proved his point by asking Santa Claus to say it in Shangaan, which he could not).

In addition, Monsieur Le Judge remarked that the phrase, heard in the wrong context, might be considered a sexist reference to female sexuality.

Next to Santa, his wife, Free Spirit of the North (she was a looker in her day but that damn feminist bent meant she always refused Monday 10 24 December 2018 to take his name: “Mrs Claus sounds like a cat’s name!” she once shouted at him), looked into the gloom and said: “There!”

A faint red glow in the mist grew brighter and brighter. “What is it?” asked Santa, still not quite able to make out the detail.

“You really are getting bad,” she replied. “It’s Rudolph, the red-nosed drone, dear.”

Santa shouted as a muscular gemsbok descended from the clouds. “Where the hell have you been? Take-off is only a few hours away.”

“Ag man,” came the Kalahari accent, “I was just buzzing around Gatwick. Those Brits were bedonnered … how did they manage to colonise most of the planet?”

This one had always been a troublemaker, Santa thought. Ever since North Pole Inc had decided diversity was a way to reach more markets, the team pulling the sleigh no longer consisted of deer from northern climes.

Rudolph now headed a team which included kudu, eland, sable and even a Canadian moose. Santa went over the flight plan with him.

First stop would be an EFF party at a five-star hotel in Sandton. “Ja! Blue Label!” sang Rudolph. Then he froze, mid-sentence.

“But those fighters carry guns to protect their commander-in-chief and they say they beat dogs until the owners come out. So, what would they do to us?” He sat down in the snow.

“Don’t ask why! We won’t fly!” he chanted, as the other buck joined in and toyi-toyied around him. “Get it out now on Twitter! #PresentsMustFall.”

Brendan Seery.

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