Reindeer Games: Blitzen by Lucy Felthouse
As a
postman by day, and one of Santa’s reindeer on a single very special night,
Cassius Cupid eats, sleeps, and breathes deliveries. He doesn’t mind, but
sometimes wishes that someone would send him something more exciting than bills
and junk mail.
One
cold January morning, Cassius gets his wish. A young woman arrives with a
parcel. Turns out it’s for his housemate – but Cassius doesn’t care. All he’s
interested in is Carina – the beautiful female courier.
Has
Cupid finally met his match?
Teaser Excerpt:
Cassius Cupid woke with a start, and then sat bolt upright in his bed.
Shit, I’m going to be late! was his first thought.
Milliseconds later his brain switched on, and he remembered. He was on
holiday. Flopping back onto the warm mattress and pillows with a contented
sigh, he smiled. No work for fourteen whole days—it was going to be utter bliss.
He stretched, relishing the feeling it created in his sleep-softened muscles.
Ahhh…this is the life.
He knew he wouldn’t go back to sleep—hell, it was eight o’clock, which
was practically the middle of the day for someone in his profession—so Cassius
fell to thinking about how he was going to spend his day, not to mention the
several others in front of him. God knew he deserved to relax and have some
fun. He’d just emerged from the busiest part of his year, and he was more than
ready to do some chilling out.
He enjoyed his job as a postman—he really did—but the Christmas period
was a total killer. He idly wondered how many cards and presents he’d delivered
over the past few weeks. It didn’t bear thinking about. Once you factored in
the festive period itself, the weird few days between Christmas and New Year,
and then the flurry of mail that got sent when everyone went back to work
properly at the beginning of January, he’d racked up some serious deliveries.
And that was before you even thought about his other job—which was for just one
day a year, but was arguably more important than the other 364 put together.
Cassius—or Cupid, as he was known to his boss and colleagues in his
second, but most important job—was not only a regular postman for the Royal Mail,
but also a reindeer. For a single day of the year, Cassius had the supernatural
power to transform into one of Santa’s faithful steeds and help pull that
famous magical sleigh, delivering presents to excited children the world over.
Therefore, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Cassius really did
eat, sleep and breathe deliveries, but not for the next fourteen days. All he
planned to do was watch some TV, read some books, maybe go out hiking, meet
some friends… basically anything that wasn’t delivering something to someone.
Hey, he might even receive something through the post himself—preferably not
the usual crap; bills and junk mail. He didn’t hold out much hope.
He lounged in bed for another ten minutes before realising he was lying
there just for the sake of it. Being on holiday didn’t have to equal staying in
bed all day—and certainly not for someone as active as him. He reached over to
his bedside table, grabbed his glasses and put them on. Throwing off his thick
duvet, he walked to his bedroom window and peeked out through the curtains,
immediately glad of the effective central heating he and his housemate had
forked out to have installed the previous year.
The outside world was covered in a thick layer of snow, and Cassius was
mightily glad that he wasn’t out delivering letters and parcels. The stuff was
treacherous enough without having to carry a heavy bag up and down driveways,
paths, and pavements — most of which either hadn’t been cleared, or had been
cleared badly, leaving incredibly slippery patches of ground for an
unsuspecting postie to come across. God knows he’d gone down enough times, but,
much to his relief, nobody had ever seen him do it. He’d always been relatively
unharmed—excerpt for his pride, of course—and had been able to scramble back to
his feet and carry on.
The eerie silence outside was broken by the rumble of an engine, and
Cassius turned his head to look up the street—he lived in a cul-de-sac, so he
knew that’s where the vehicle would come from—and watched as a delivery van
made its way slowly and carefully down the road. He hoped the driver was
sensible enough to try and steer over the thickest parts of the snow—the more
people went over and over the same patches, packing it down, the more the road
surface resembled an ice rink. And since the cul-de-sac was on a slight hill,
it was easy enough to get stuck. He’d seen it so many times—even going outside
one time last winter to suggest the driver go down to the bottom of the road,
turn around and try reversing up the hill—an almost foolproof plan for vans
with rear-wheel drive. He’d gotten a big thumbs-up for that suggestion as the
driver finally got to the junction where the road became flat, and went on his
merry way.
As the van drew closer to his house, he saw that the driver was a woman.
That would explain her cautious driving—he’d never admit it to one of his
drinking buddies, but women were far superior when it came to driving in
adverse weather conditions. He even thought he’d seen some survey containing
statistics that proved it.
*****
Lucy is a graduate of the University of Derby
No comments:
Post a Comment