on being an animal

Have you not heard of that child who found where his presents were hidden, ran to the shops, and cried incessantly: “I am looking for Santa! I am looking for Santa!” As many of those who did not believe in Santa were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he get stuck up a chimney? said another. Or was his beard shaved off by mischievous elves? Have they staged a coup? Did Rudolf’s nose go critical ? Or has the north-pole melted? Thus they shouted and laughed. The child sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

“Where has Santa gone?” he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him – you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to eat all the mince pies? Who gave us the pudding to soak up all the brandy? What did we do when we roofied Rudolf’s carrot? Who will deliver the presents? Who reads our letters? Our mum and dad? Isn’t Christmas a bit crap now? Socks, aftershave, heartburn and ennui, in all directions? Is there any magic left? Are we not tearing as through an infinite wrapping? Do we not feel the breeze from grandma’s snores? It doesn’t even snow anymore, and they start bloody advertising in October. Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying Santa? Do we not smell anything yet of Santa’s decomposition? Cola sponsored god analogues too decompose. Santa is dead. Santa remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the fattest and jolliest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? How much eggnog do we need to purify ourselves? What Seasonal Comedy Specials, what party games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become fat and jolly, and beardy, simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us – for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a fatter, beardier and jollier history than all history hitherto.”

Here the child fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his new bike to the ground, and it broke. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still traveling – it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars – and yet they have done it themselves.”

It has been further related that on that same day the child entered divers grottos and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: “what are these grottos now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of Santa?”

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche – The Anti-Christ(mas)