In a land called Hanah Lee

Once upon a time in a land far away, where it snows in the winter and people say eh, there was a girl who lived with a boy whom she loved very, very much. One night, as the girl and the boy lay in bed, in the dark, not quite sleeping, the girl asked the boy a question.

"Would you slay a dragon for me?"

The boy scoffed, and said, "There's no such thing as dragons."

The girl was quiet. She didn't love the boy any less, but it saddened her that the boy could not understand her question, and therefore could not give the right answer.

Six years later, the girl met another boy, whom she'd actually met for the first time six years earlier. They worked together, and became friends, and one day, at a coffee shop on their lunch break, the girl looked across the table, over her giant mug of café latte, at the boy she called Jack, and asked him, "Would you slay a dragon for me?"

"Of course I would," he replied, without hesitation, and she tried very hard not to love him.

Many years without dragons passed.

The boy named Jack moved to California, and the girl remained with the boy who didn't believe in dragons. She was happy, though, because there were no dragons to slay. Until he grew scales, and leathery wings, and began to breathe fire, and abandoned her.

More years passed with many dragons, and then the girl moved to California, too. And though she was not happy, she was happier because the boy named Jack was there, and because most of the time he was there for her, and because sometimes, sometimes he was quite wonderful.

The Christmas season approached. Christmases in the time of the dragons made the girl feel blue, and the boy named Jack, though he would never admit it, felt the same way. He said he liked to be alone on Christmas, but the girl didn't believe him.

One night they talked about Christmas, and dragons, in the dark, on the phone; he, in his apartment high atop a hill in the magical City by the Bay, and she, in her apartment in the grey, rainy city in the South Bay.

"I hate Christmas," he said.

"I hate Christmas," she said.

"I'll be fine in January, when the holidays are all over," he said.

"What if...?" she began.

"Yes?" he said. He listened. He waited.

"What if we went away, to someplace where there is no Christmas? Someplace that is the anti-Christmas." He continued to wait, so she continued, "Like Antarctica. I've always wanted to go to Antarctica."

"Antarctica?"

"I like the penguins."

The boy was quiet.

"Or, how about Las Vegas?"

The boy said nothing for a long while, and then he said, "We'll go to Santa Barbara."

And so it was decided that on Christmas Eve day, the girl and the boy she called Jack would climb into his magical carriage, and ride off together, south on 101, in search of new Christmas memories.

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Next on Postmodern Sass: Sass counts her blessings that hotel security is on light duty Christmas Eve.