Generosity
The characters herein are the property of 1013, Fox and Chris Carter. No infringement on their copyright is intended. Their usage here is for entertainment purposes only.
The person who invented the mall, she thought to herself, should be roused from their sleep at 2:30 in the morning, tortured by the best sadists the late twentieth century had to offer, and then shot. In the stomach. Twice.
Scully fought her way through the crowd, wishing she were anywhere else than where she was. Her cellphone was turned on...where was the call from Mulder she could pretend to be annoyed by? 'Oh, Mulder. You've interrupted my Christmas shopping, but I will grudgingly abandon it if you've got something important for us.' Maybe even for something that wasn't so important. Anything. Where was a werewolf or an alien or a government conspiracy when you needed one?
The gift-wrapping booth was around here somewhere. She'd seen it when she came out of one of the stores she'd visited. Perhaps someone who worked at the mall could tell her where to find it. She finally found a map of the mall, and used it to find her way to the information booth. And to the long line that twisted around it. Twice.
Somehow, despite the weight of the packages she held in her left hand, she managed to bring her palm to her forehead, trying to salvage her sanity as she waited in the line. That bell. Who was ringing that bell? Her headache had started to pound in the same rhythm the ringer had settled into.
Oh, it's for charity. At least it's for a good cause. Scully watched as person after person bustled past the man and his red bucket. No one seemed to pay any attention to him at all, standing there, next to a small Christmas tree.
She wasn't sure why, but she was drawn to it. She relinquished her place in line, weaving amongst the other shoppers to get to the man with the bell.
"Can you watch my packages while I get out my wallet?" she asked him, and he nodded in response. She found a few bills, and folded them so they'd fit into the slit at the top of his collection box.
"Thanks, ma'am. Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas to you, too." She looked at the tree behind him, and on closer inspection she saw that it was covered with bells, cut out of paper. She knew immediately what they were, but she looked at one of them more closely.
'Ashley, age 8. A Barbie.' Then another. 'Jonathan, age 10. Toy cars.'
"But it's already December twenty-first. No one's donated any of these presents yet?"
"Ma'am, I've been standing here all day, and I haven't seen anyone pull off one of those Wishing Bells yet."
She looked down at her packages, filled with gifts for her family. The gifts had been difficult to pick out, because they all already had so much.
"I'm coming back. I've just got to get rid of these." Now determined, it was much easier for her to make her way through the crowds, out to her car in the parking lot, and she stuffed her packages in the trunk. Back to the center of the mall, where the man was still ringing his bell, still largely unnoticed by the people who passed by him.
Scully reached up to the tree, taking off bell after bell. She must have held twenty of them in her hand when he turned to watch her, and his mouth fell open. She was reaching to the upper branches of the tree, having a difficult time removing the final paper ornaments.
"Ma'am, are you taking all of these?"
"Yes. And it will be easier if you help me with the higher branches," she said, smiling at him. Wordlessly, he turned, removing the rest of the bells, and handing them to her.
As if she were under some sort of spell, she made her way to the toy store. One by one, she started to locate the gifts the children had asked for, her arms overflowing just moments after she'd entered the store.
"Can I help you?"
Miraculously, an employee seemed to have materialized in front of her, a kindly older man. Just an hour earlier, while she was trying to find gifts for her brothers, she'd grumpily reflected on the lack of store employees to help all the shoppers.
"Could I leave these at the register while I'm still looking?"
"Absolutely." He took some of the packages from her arms, leading her towards the front of the store. As they walked, Scully tried to sort through the papers, separating the gifts she'd found from the items she still had to locate. She squinted at one of them. Some of these toys were things she'd never heard of.
"Can you tell me what this is?" She showed him the paper, and he started to explain, stopping when he saw all the paper bells she carried.
"Are you going to get all those things?" She nodded in response. "Let me help you, then. Here, give me half of them, and I'll try to help you out. I'll meet you at that register over there in about fifteen minutes."
And fifteen minutes later, there he was, sorting his half of the items, double-checking the pile against the requests. Scully joined him, and when they were sure they'd found everything, he rang up her purchases.
"This is going to be expensive."
"Yep. Just put it on this." She thrust her credit card at him, and he smiled.
"You're going to need some help carrying all these bags. I'll be right back." He disappeared down an aisle, and returned a moment later. "I've got permission to leave for my dinner break. I'll help you carry your bags on my way to the food court."
She signed the receipt without even peeking at the total. He led them through the mall, and Scully began to wonder if he was Moses from the way the sea of shoppers seemed to part around him. It took a great deal of creativity to figure out how to fit the contents of all the bags into the boxes where the gifts were to be dropped off. When they'd finished, she turned to thank the toy store employee, only to find him gone.
The bell ringer winked at her. "That was a really nice thing you did."
"Did you see where the man who helped me with my bags went? I wanted to thank him," she said, turning around and around, looking for him.
"Who?"
"The man who was here just a second ago. The one who helped me put all these packages into these collection boxes."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see him. But Merry Christmas to you!"
"Yes, Merry Christmas," she said, distracted. Well, she could leave him a note. She headed back to the toy store, and found one of the few employees who wasn't working any of the registers.
"Excuse me, I was wondering if I could leave a note for one of the store employees. I wanted to thank him for helping me."
"Sure. What was his name?"
"I'm afraid I didn't get his name. I can describe him to you, though. He was an older man, white hair, beard."
The man opposite her scrunched his face, confused.
"I don't have anyone here who matches that description."
"Are you sure? He was just here, fifteen minutes ago. He helped me find some things, and then he even rang up my purchases. I've got the receipt right here." She fished in her pocket, finding the receipt and handing it to the man. He studied it, finally looking back at her.
"It's our receipt all right, but the register code is smudged. I can't tell who it was. I'm sorry, would you like to leave the note anyway?"
"No, no. That's okay. You're busy here tonight, I'll just be on my way."
And on the way out of the store, she passed a cardboard cutout. Stereotypical Christmas scene. Reindeer, sleigh, the whole bit. She glanced quickly at the face of the Santa Claus in the picture, but then stopped, staring open-mouthed at it. When she turned to leave, she could have sworn, although it was out of the corner of her eye, and it must have been a trick of the lights, or her imagination, or some other rational explanation, that it winked at her.
end
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