Contest Photo #17

Santa v. Baby

Maybe this wouldn’t look like a nightmare if it were in color?

The looming Santa looks to be a cardboard stand-up figure. The baby looks real.

What’s she looking at? She’s not looking at the camera, and she does not seem happy. Can you suss out what she’s holding? The Santa looks strangely asleep or dead, what with those closed eyes and open mouth.

Is this one of those postmortem snaps where the living are posed with their dead relatives? Did Grandpa die and the family decided to give him one more Christmas as St. Nick? Or is Grandpa just snockered?

Does that tiny girl smell the reek of death emanating from his costumed body? Or Four Roses Bourbon?

Give me a few words that will strike terror in the heart of the person who finds this photo in an old copy of… The Willows by Algernon Blackwood.