Episode 5: What Mr. Vex Forgot
Mr. Vex's thumb hovered over the glowing button on his silver remote. "Say goodbye to your little party," he sneered.
But Emil did not lunge for the remote. He did not shout, or fight, or try to wrestle it away. Instead, he did something Mr. Vex never expected.
He held out a toy.
It was a simple thing — a small, brightly painted wooden boat, one of Santa's magic toys, glowing ever so faintly. Emil held it out toward the pale, furious man, and said, quietly and kindly:
"Mr. Vex. Before you press that button — will you tell me something? When you were a child... did you ever play? Did you ever have a friend to play with?"
Mr. Vex froze. His thumb hung over the button, but did not press it. Something flickered across his pale face — a crack in the cold, hard mask.
"That's... that's not relevant," he said, but his voice had lost its silky confidence. "Play is foolish. Messy. Inefficient. The screen is better. The screen is safe. The screen never... never lets you down."
"Someone let you down, didn't they?" Emil said gently, still holding out the little boat. "When you were small. You were lonely. Maybe other children wouldn't play with you. Maybe there was no one. And so you found a screen — and the screen was always there, and never laughed at you, and never left you alone. And you thought... if every child had a screen, then no child would ever have to feel as lonely as you did." Emil's voice was soft and sad. "You weren't trying to hurt them, were you? You were trying to save them. From feeling the way you felt."
Mr. Vex stared at the small wooden boat in Emil's outstretched hand. And slowly, terribly, his face began to crumple. His remote drooped. And when he spoke, his voice was small, and broken, and very young.
"...No one ever asked me to play," he whispered. "Not once. I was always... on the outside. Looking in. So I built a world where no one ever has to be on the outside again. Where every child has everything they need — and never has to risk being left out, or laughed at, or alone." A tear rolled down his pale cheek. "I thought I was being kind."
"I know," Emil said softly. "But it didn't work, Mr. Vex. Because a screen can never love you back. It can keep you company, but it can never be your friend. You gave the children a way to never feel lonely — but you took away the only thing that ever truly cures loneliness." He nodded toward the laughing children in the park. "Each other."
Mr. Vex looked at the children — really looked at them — at their bright faces and their shared laughter and the warm glow of joy that surrounded them. And the deepest, oldest ache in his heart rose up: the longing of a lonely little boy who had only ever wanted to be invited in.
Then Nima, the little girl, stepped forward. She had been listening. And with the simple, open-hearted kindness of a child, she walked right up to the pale, weeping man, and held out her hand.
"You can play with us, if you want," she said. "We don't mind. There's always room for one more." She smiled. "Nobody has to be on the outside. Not even you."
Mr. Vex stared down at the small hand offered to him — the invitation he had waited for his entire life, and had long ago stopped believing would ever come. The silver remote slipped from his fingers and fell, forgotten, into the grass. And with a trembling hand, the man who had sold loneliness to a thousand worlds reached out... and took hold of a little girl's hand... and let himself be led, at last, into the game.
It was clumsy, at first. He had never played anything in his life. But the children were patient, and kind, and before long Mr. Vex — the great, cold, lonely Mr. Vex — was laughing. Really laughing, a rusty, astonished, joyful sound, as he chased a ball across the grass and tumbled into the snow and was, for the first time in all his years, part of the fun. The warm glow of wonder gathered around him too, melting the cold silver of his suit into something softer and warmer.
"I forgot," he gasped, wiping his eyes, laughing and crying at once. "I forgot it could feel like this. I forgot there was anything in the universe so wonderful as... as just playing with someone. Oh — what have I done? All those children, all those worlds, all those years..."
"It's not too late to make it right," Emil said warmly. "You have screens on a thousand worlds, Mr. Vex. Imagine if, instead of pulling children apart, you used them to bring children together. To help them find each other, and play, and share. You could undo all the harm you've done — and do more good than anyone in the galaxy."
Mr. Vex's eyes lit up with a brand-new kind of fire. "Yes," he breathed. "Yes! I'll do it! I'll change every screen, on every world — turn them all toward togetherness instead of loneliness! Starting now!"
And he meant it. He snatched up his fallen remote — but this time, instead of flooding the worlds with isolation, he reprogrammed every screen he owned. Across a thousand planets, the cold blue glow flickered — and changed. Now the screens lit up with a single, joyful message, beamed into every lonely child's room across the galaxy:
"Put me down. Go outside. Find a friend. PLAY — together!"
And — wonder of wonders — the children did.
It happened all at once, all across the universe. On a thousand worlds, lonely children blinked, set down their screens, looked out their windows — and went outside. They knocked on doors. They found forgotten friends. They picked up Santa's toys, which Emil and Tom and a newly-joyful Mr. Vex now sent racing to every corner of the galaxy. And they played — together, laughing, sharing, in parks and streets and snowy fields on world after world after world. The great fire of joy, lit by a single spinning top, leapt from planet to planet, until the whole galaxy seemed to glow with the warm golden light of children's wonder.
And far away, on the snowy planet of Yuletide, the Star of Wonder blazed.
It flared brighter and brighter, drinking in the joy of a billion children at play across a thousand worlds, until it shone more brilliantly than it ever had in all its long history — flooding the whole winter world with warm, golden, magical light.
In the great workshop, Santa Claus threw back his head and laughed his mighty laugh, and all around him his elves cheered and wept and danced, for the workshop was alive again — hammers ringing, toys taking shape, the magic of Yuletide restored and blazing stronger than ever.
"HO, HO, HO!" Santa roared, tears of pure joy streaming into his beard. "The children are playing again! The Star is saved! Yuletide is SAVED!" He clapped Pip the elf on the shoulder. "And to think — it took a boy, and a worm, and a sack of spinning tops, to remind the whole universe of the one thing it had forgotten." He gazed up at the blazing Star, his old heart full to bursting. "That the greatest magic of all... is simply children, together, at play."
Back in the park, beneath a sky now blue and bright and sunlit, Emil and Tom stood arm in arm, watching the children play — Nima and Jonas and Senna and Otto, and even Mr. Vex, all of them laughing together in the golden light.
"We did it, Tom," Emil whispered, his own eyes shining. "We brought the wonder back."
"They did it," said Tom softly, watching the children. "We just reminded them how." He grinned up at his friend. "Spinning tops and friendship, Emil. Who'd have thought — that's all it took to save the childhood of the whole universe."
To be continued in Episode 6...