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The streetlights hummed to life, casting an orange glow over the empty playground, but Perth didn’t flinch.
He sat on the edge of a weathered wooden bench, his shoulders hunched as if trying to disappear into the fabric of his own jacket.
The evening air had grown sharp, biting at his exposed skin, yet he felt a strange, hollow numbness that no chill could penetrate.
For years, he had been the one holding everyone else together—the listener, the fixer, the rock. But tonight, the reservoir was dry. He looked at the empty space beside him on the bench and felt the crushing weight of his own invisibility.
He waited for a voice, a hand on his shoulder, or even a casual “hello” from a passerby to tether him back to the earth. Nothing came.
The realization was quiet and devastating: he was a ghost before he had even left. He had spent his life convincing others they mattered, yet he couldn’t find a single scrap of that evidence for himself.
The darkness deepened, swallowing the silhouettes of the trees.
To Perth, the encroaching night didn’t feel like an end; it felt like a mirror. He was tired of the performance of being “okay.” He was tired of reaching out into a vacuum.
As he stared at his trembling hands, he felt a profound, heavy surrender. He wasn’t angry anymore. He was just finished.
In his mind, the credits had already started to roll, and as the last bit of purple faded from the sky, he let go of the hope that anyone would come to stop them.
“You look lonely… Want some?”
The suddenness of the intrusion sent a violent jolt through Perth’s chest.
He flinched, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird as he nearly recoiled off the edge of the bench.
One second, the park had been a tomb of silence and shadow; the next, there was a physical presence so close he could feel the radiant heat coming off the man’s coat.
“When… When did you get here?” Perth gasped, his voice cracking.
He scrambled to find his footing, his eyes wide and searching. He had been staring at the path for twenty minutes, lost in a trance of total despair, and he was absolutely certain that no one had walked past the swings or over the crunching grass. It was as if the man had simply folded himself out of the air.
“Just got here,” the man said, letting out a soft, melodic chuckle that didn’t match the eerie timing of his arrival. He didn’t look like a threat; he looked like a person who had simply materialized out of the evening mist to keep him company.
“I’m Santa, by the way... you are?” Perth stared at him, his skepticism warring with a strange, magnetic pull.
“Perth,” he managed to whisper.
The man—Santa—held out a bottle of juice. It was a bright, neon pink, looking absurdly cheerful against the backdrop of Perth’s crumbling world.
“Hey,” Santa said softly, his eyes locking onto Perth’s with an intensity that felt like it was reading his very soul. Perth looked at the bottle, then back at the stranger.
The words hit him harder than the surprise of the man’s arrival. He had spent so long trying to hide his isolation, wrapping it around himself like armor, yet this stranger had seen right through it in a single glance.
“I... I didn’t hear a single footstep,” Perth muttered, his fingers trembling as he finally reached out to take the drink. The plastic was cold, a grounding sensation that pulled him back from the edge of the void.
“I have a way of showing up where I’m needed,” Santa replied, leaning back and resting his elbows on the slats of the bench.
“And you, Perth, looked like you were about to drift off the map entirely. It’s hard to be alone when the sun goes down. Everything feels a bit more permanent in the dark, doesn’t it?” Perth didn’t answer, but he didn’t move away either.
The crushing weight in his chest eased by a fraction of an inch. He unscrewed the cap, the sharp click of the seal breaking sounding like a tiny signal of life.
For the first time in a long time, the silence of the park didn’t feel like a sentence; it felt like a conversation. He took a sip of the sweet, cold liquid and realized that, for at least this moment, the credits weren’t rolling anymore.
Perth looked away, his grip tightening on the pink bottle. The plastic creaked under the pressure.
“You don’t know me,” he whispered, the wall he had built around himself beginning to tremble.
“You don’t know what I’ve been through or why I’m sitting here.”
“I don’t need your life story to see the weight on your shoulders,” Santa replied, his voice steady and grounding.
He didn’t push; he just sat there, an anchor in the rising tide of Perth’s emotions.
“I had been there before... the feeling of being alone... no one beside you to assure or comfort you. When I saw you here, I knew you needed someone.” Perth let out a sharp, bitter breath, shaking his head.
The kindness felt dangerous. If he accepted it, he might have to admit how much he was actually hurting.
“You didn’t need to comfort me... I am better alone,” he snapped, though the lack of conviction in his voice betrayed him.
Santa didn’t flinch at the rejection. Instead, he turned his head to look at Perth, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips.
“Sometimes you need someone beside you, and you, Perth, need someone to tell you that it will all be okay.” The words hung in the cool night air, heavy and undeniable. Perth wanted to argue, to claim he was strong enough to handle the darkness by himself, but the lump in his throat made it impossible to speak.
For years, he had been the one providing the comfort, the one standing tall while others leaned on him. Now, faced with a stranger who asked for nothing but offered everything, the exhaustion finally caught up to him.
“How do you know?” Perth finally asked, his voice barely audible over the distant hum of traffic.
“How can you be so sure it’ll be okay?”
“Because you’re still sitting here,” Santa said simply.
“And as long as you’re still here, the story isn’t over yet.” He reached out, not to touch Perth, but just to gesture at the quiet world around them.
The shadows were still there, but with Santa sitting just a few inches away, they didn’t feel like they were closing in anymore.
They just felt like the night. Perth took another sip of the juice, the sweetness cutting through the bitterness in his mouth, and for the first time that evening, he didn’t feel like a ghost.
The conversation had been a river, smoothing the sharp edges of Perth’s thoughts. He’d found himself saying things he’d never said out loud, admitting to being tired, to the weight of expectation, to the frightening stillness of his own head.
Santa hadn’t judged; he had simply listened, nodding at the right moments and offering words that felt like a warm blanket over a shivering soul.
When Perth finally glanced at his watch, his eyes widened. The glowing digits read 9:58 PM.
The park was entirely draped in velvet black now, the only light coming from a single flickering lamp near the entrance.
“It’s getting late, we should go,” Perth suggested, feeling a strange reluctance to break the spell of the evening.
“You’re right…’ Santa agreed, rising from the bench with a fluid grace.
He looked entirely untired, his eyes still holding that same unexplainable spark. Perth adjusted his jacket, feeling lighter than he had in months.
He took a step toward the paved path, but a sudden thought made him pause. He turned back to thank the man properly, but Santa spoke first.
“Perth, if you ever need me... just say my name!” Santa called out. Perth blinked, a frown tugging at his brow.
“Say your name? Like... out loud?” It sounded like something out of a storybook, and he opened his mouth to ask for a phone number or a social media handle instead.
Just then, a sharp clatter—the sound of a trash can lid hitting the pavement—echoed from the darkness of the playground behind him.
The sudden noise made Perth jump, his head snapping toward the sound to see if a stray animal or a person was lurking in the shadows.
It only took a second for him to realize it was just the wind, but when he turned back to the bench, the air felt different.
“Santa?”
The space beside the bench was empty. The path leading to the street was clear. There were no retreating footsteps, no rustle of fabric, and no shadow stretching under the streetlamp.
The man was simply gone, vanished as if he had been made of the very mist that was now rolling across the grass.
Perth stood frozen, the cold plastic of the empty juice bottle still in his hand. He looked at the spot where the stranger had sat, then up at the stars.
The park was silent again, but the crushing loneliness didn’t rush back to fill the void. Instead, the name Santa hummed in the back of his mind, a quiet promise that the darkness was no longer a place he had to face alone.
The routine became the heartbeat of Perth’s existence. Every evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon and painted the sky in purples and greys, he would find himself back at that weathered wooden bench.
He would sit in the deepening hush of the park, take a breath, and whisper the name into the cool air.
“Santa.”
And just like that, the air would shift. The seat beside him, empty a heartbeat ago, would suddenly hold the weight of a friend.
Santa never arrived with a flourish or a sound; he was simply there, as if he had been waiting for Perth to notice him all along.
Weeks bled into one another. They talked about everything and nothing. Santa listened to the pressures of Perth’s life—the crushing expectations, the fear of the future, and the quiet moments of joy Perth was finally starting to rediscover.
Santa’s advice was never preachy; it was like a steady lantern in a dark tunnel, guiding Perth back to his own strength.
But during their most recent meeting, the atmosphere changed. The air felt thicker, charged with a tension that hadn’t been there before.
As Santa spoke, his voice low and soothing, Perth found himself trailing off. He wasn’t really listening to the words anymore; he was watching the way Santa’s eyes crinkled when he smiled, and how the dim light caught the sharp line of his jaw.
He noticed the way Santa leaned in when Perth spoke, as if every word out of Perth’s mouth was the most important thing in the world.
When Santa reached out to point at a constellation in the sky, his sleeve brushed against Perth’s arm. The contact was brief, but it sent a spark through Perth that felt like a physical jolt. His heart, which had once felt like a lead weight, was now fluttering with a terrifying, dizzying speed.
Perth looked down at his hands, his breath hitching. The realization hit him with the force of a tidal wave, pulling the air from his lungs. He wasn’t just grateful for the company anymore. He wasn’t just seeking comfort from a mysterious stranger.
He was falling for him.
He was falling for a man who appeared out of thin air, a man who had no last name and no history, but who had somehow become the only person in the world who truly saw him.
Perth felt a sudden, desperate urge to reach out and grab Santa’s hand—not to be anchored to the earth, but to ensure that this feeling, and this man, wouldn’t vanish into the night.
The silence that followed was heavy, though only one of them could feel the weight of it. Perth’s heart was drumming a frantic rhythm against his ribs, the kind of pulse that made his ears ring.
To him, the admission felt like standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the wind to either push him off or lift him up.
“Hey, Santa... if someone ever falls in love with you, what would you do?” Perth asked, his voice barely a thread in the night air. Santa’s brow furrowed, a rare look of genuine confusion crossing his handsome features. He let out a light laugh that sounded like wind chimes.
“Who would love me, silly? You’re the only one who knows and sees me,” he giggled, nudging Perth’s shoulder playfully.
Perth felt a sharp pang in his chest—a mix of relief and a dull, aching frustration. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, forcing a small smile.
He told himself Santa was just being modest, or perhaps he was just teasing. He took a deep breath, the cool air stinging his lungs, and decided to push just a little further into the unknown.
“Well, what would you do if I like you?” Perth asked, his eyes fixed firmly on his own shoes.
He didn’t dare look up; he was terrified of what he might see—or what he might not see—in Santa’s expression.
“Then I’ll like you back,” Santa replied instantly, his tone warm and filled with an easy, uncomplicated affection.
The words should have been everything Perth wanted to hear, but the way they were delivered felt like a bucket of cold water. Santa spoke with the innocent sincerity of a child promising to be best friends forever.
There was no heat in his gaze, no hesitation in his voice, and no hidden meaning in his smile. Perth stayed silent, staring at the patch of grass between his feet.
They sat on the same bench, breathed the same air, but they were worlds apart. Perth was drowning in the deep, churning waters of romantic longing, envisioning a future where “liking” meant holding hands and staying forever.
Meanwhile, Santa sat there with a heart that seemed light, viewing their bond as something pure and unchanging.
To Santa, liking Perth was as natural and simple as the stars appearing in the sky—a companionship that didn’t need labels, or bodies, or the messy complications of human love.
Perth took a slow sip of his drink, the sweetness now tasting like ash.
He had found someone to tell him it would be okay, but he hadn’t realized that the person saving him might never be able to hold him the way he truly needed.
The confession had been building behind Perth’s teeth for weeks, a frantic, living thing that finally clawed its way into the light.
He couldn’t hold it back anymore; the way Santa looked at him, the way he listened, the way he made the world feel survivable—it had all converged into a single, undeniable truth.
“Santa, I mean it,” Perth said, his voice trembling as he took a step closer, closing the small gap between them on the bench.
“I’m not talking about being friends. I love you. I’ve fallen for you.” He waited for the world to tilt, for Santa to pull him into the light he seemed to carry.
But the reaction was a cold blade to the chest.
Santa’s smile fell, and he looked at Perth with a look of deep, haunting worry.
It wasn’t the awkwardness of a man who didn’t feel the same; it was the look of someone watching a disaster they were powerless to stop.
“You like me?” Santa asked, his voice losing its usual melodic chime. Perth nodded, his heart hammered against his ribs, his eyes pleading for a sign.
“But I can’t like you, Perth…” Santa whispered. The words were quiet, but they felt like a physical blow.
“What do you mean?” Perth asked, the confusion starting to drown out his heartbeat.
“You’ve stayed with me every night. You’ve been the only one who cares. How can you say that?”
“Perth, we can’t be together... we can’t love each other like that,” Santa interrupted. He stood up abruptly, his form flickering slightly at the edges, like a flame caught in a sudden draft.
He looked down at Perth with a grief so profound it made Perth’s earlier loneliness seem like a mere shadow.
“Our worlds... they don’t work that way. I was only supposed to help you stay.”
“Santa... what are you saying?” Perth scrambled to his feet, reaching out to grab Santa’s arm, desperate to anchor him there.
But as his hand swung forward, it passed through nothing but cold, empty air. His fingers curled into a fist, the reality of the situation shattering around him.
“I don’t care what you are! I don’t care about anything else!”
“I’m sorry, Perth... I need to go,” Santa said. His voice sounded like it was coming from a great distance now, echoing as if through a long, hollow corridor.
Before Perth could scream his name or beg him to stay, a flash of blinding, incandescent light erupted from where Santa stood. It was a white-hot brilliance that seared Perth’s vision, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut and shield his face.
The light felt like a sudden, scorching summer day, but it vanished as quickly as it had come.
When Perth finally forced his eyes open, blinking away the dancing afterimages, the park was plunged back into a suffocating, ordinary darkness.
The bench was empty. The air was deathly still. There were no retreating footsteps and no more warmth. Perth stood alone under the flickering streetlamp, realizing that the person who had taught him how to live again had just become the one thing he couldn’t have.
The moment he sensed the air shift and saw Santa sitting there, he exploded. The weeks of built-up longing, the confusion of the previous night, and the stinging pain of rejection boiled over into a raw, jagged anger.
“Why did you leave like that?” Perth demanded, his voice echoing off the empty slides.
“You can’t just show up, make me feel like I matter, and then vanish when things get real! You owe me an explanation!” Santa sat perfectly still, his hands folded in his lap. He looked weary, his usual glow dimmed as if by a heavy shroud.
“Perth, please. Just sit down. Let’s just talk like we usually do.”
“No! I’m tired of talking!” Perth yelled, pacing in front of the bench.
“I’m tired of the riddles and the disappearing acts! You’re just like everyone else—you’re just going to leave when it gets too hard, aren’t you? You’re a coward, Santa! You’re just playing with me!” Santa’s flinched as if Perth had struck him. He tried to keep his voice calm, his eyes swimming with a desperate kind of patience.
He knew Perth was lashing out because he was hurting, but the insults were carving deep lines into his resolve.
“I am not playing with you,” Santa whispered, his voice trembling.
“Then tell me the truth!” Perth stepped closer, his face contorted.
“Tell me you don’t love me! Tell me I’m nothing to you! That would be kinder than this lie!” The dam finally broke.
“Perth... I cannot love you because I am not real!” Santa cried out, the first tears finally spilling over and trailing down his cheeks like liquid light. Perth froze, a bitter, disbelieving laugh escaping his throat.
“What are you saying?! Just tell me you don’t like me back and it’ll be done! Don’t make up some insane story just to get away from me!”
“Perth, I’m not real... I am an angel who came here because I was assigned to save you!” Santa’s voice was a mixture of grief and revelation.
“I was assigned to be your guardian and stop you from hurting yourself! That night on the bench... you had given up. I was sent to pull you back!” The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Perth felt a cold sweat break out across his skin. It was too much—too impossible.
“I do not understand you! Stop messing with my head!” he cried out, clutching his hair in frustration.
The man he had fallen for, the man who had held his heart, was telling him he was a celestial assignment. It felt like a final, cruel joke.
“Get out of my face, Santa!” Perth screamed, the words fueled by a terrifying mix of fear and betrayal.
The command was absolute. As soon as the words left Perth’s lips, the air didn’t just shift—it collapsed. Santa didn’t fade or flash this time; he simply ceased to be. The silence that rushed back into the park was deafening.
Perth stood in the center of the path, his chest heaving. The anger evaporated instantly, replaced by a cold, hollow dread. He looked at the empty bench, then at the space where Santa had just been crying.
“Santa?” he whispered, his voice small and trembling. He turned in a circle, his eyes wide and frantic.
“Santa! I didn’t mean it! Come back!” He shouted the name again and again into the darkness, but for the first time in weeks, the name brought no warmth.
There was no shift in the air, no radiant heat, and no soft chuckle. Perth realized with a sinking horror that he had finally gotten what he asked for—he was alone again.
Santa never came back. He never appeared again even if Perth tried. It’s like Santa had vanished and it made Perht desperate to find him again. Perth had done some research on Santa and found a woman who was related to him. Now, he was meeting her.
The woman’s voice was a soft, mourning melody that seemed to echo in the quiet living room.
Perth couldn’t move; his feet felt as though they had been rooted into the floorboards.
On the altar, surrounded by white candles and fresh flowers, was a framed photograph.
It was him. The same bright eyes, the same gentle curve of a smile that had made Perth feel safe in the dark. But in the photo, he looked younger, more solid—very much a part of the world he claimed he didn’t belong to.
“That’s my son, Santa…” she whispered, her hands clasped tightly in front of her.
“He was always so full of life.” Perth’s breath hitched. The reality was crashing down on him in waves, colder and more unforgiving than the night air in the park.
The man who had sat beside him, the one who had listened to his deepest shames and told him it would all be okay, was gone long before they had ever met.
“What... what happened to him?” Perth asked, his voice barely a ghost of a sound.
“He died saving a friend... my son loved helping people…” she said, letting out a long, heavy sigh that carried the weight of years of grief.
“A car was coming... he didn’t even hesitate. He pushed his friend out of the way. He always put everyone else first. Even now, I like to think he’s still out there somewhere, looking after people who have lost their way.” Perth stared at the image of the man who had called himself an angel.
He remembered the way his hand had passed through Santa’s arm, and the way Santa had known exactly how much pain Perth was in without being told.
It wasn’t a hallucination or a trick of the mind. It was a debt.
“How long ago?” Perth managed to ask.
“Three years today,” she replied.
The date struck Perth like a physical blow. It was the anniversary of the night he had almost given up—the night Santa first appeared on that bench.
He realized then that Santa hadn’t been lying. He wasn’t real in the way humans are; he was a memory made of light, a soul who had traded his own rest to ensure Perth didn’t follow him into the silence.
Perth felt a tear slip down his cheek, landing on his jacket. He had screamed at a ghost to get out of his face, and the ghost, ever obedient to Perth’s wishes, had finally moved on.
“He talked about the stars a lot,” Perth murmured, looking at the photo. The mother looked at him, her eyes widening in a mixture of shock and dawning realization.
“How did you know that? He always said the stars were just lanterns for people who were scared of the dark.” Perth couldn’t find the words to tell her that her son had been his lantern.
He just stood there in the presence of the altar, finally understanding that he was alive because someone who couldn’t stay had decided that Perth’s life was worth the wait.
The silence of the apartment was deafening as Perth leaned against the door, the image of the altar still burned into his mind.
He sank to the floor, his head resting against the wood, as the memories of the past few weeks began to play back—not as the casual conversations he thought they were, but as a series of overlooked truths.
Every “joke” Santa had made now hit him with the weight of a sledgehammer. He remembered the way Santa had giggled when Perth asked who would love him, saying,
“Who would love me, silly? You’re the only one who knows and sees me.” He remembered the persistent, quiet claim,
“I’m an angel!” and the way Santa had insisted,
“I was assigned to be your guardian.” Perth closed his eyes tight, a sob catching in his throat.
He had treated the truth like a game. He had demanded a human love from a soul that had already given its humanity away to save him.
“Santa,” he whispered into the empty room, his voice thick with regret.
“Santa, please.”
Suddenly, the air in the room didn’t just warm—it softened. Perth felt the unmistakable sensation of arms wrapping around him from behind.
He gasped, opening his eyes to see a translucent pair of arms draped over his chest. He turned his head and found Santa there, his head resting gently on Perth’s shoulder, holding him with a fierce, quiet desperation.
“Santa…” Perth breathed. Santa didn’t answer with words. He simply squeezed tighter, his presence vibrating with a peaceful energy.
“I’m so sorry,” Perth choked out, his tears falling onto Santa’s shimmering sleeves.
“I’m sorry for the things I said. I was hurt, but I shouldn’t have pushed you away. Thank you... for everything. For sitting with me when I had no one. For the juice, for the talks, for giving me a reason to wake up tomorrow.” He felt Santa’s breath—or the memory of it—against his neck.
“You must’ve felt lonely because no one was able to comfort you when you felt that pain on that day,” Perth murmured, realizing now the sacrifice Santa had made to stay in the middle-ground of the living.
“Thank you, Santa... you healed me. You healed my broken heart. I’m ready to let go now. You can rest. You’ve finished your mission.” Santa pulled back slowly, looking at Perth one last time.
The worry was gone from his face, replaced by a radiant, blinding glow of success. He reached out, his thumb brushing a tear from Perth’s cheek, and for a second, he felt more solid than he ever had.
He didn’t need to speak; the peace in his eyes said it all. With a final, lingering smile, Santa’s form began to break apart into thousands of golden motes of light.
They swirled around Perth in a warm embrace before drifting upward and vanishing through the ceiling.
Perth stood up, wiping his face. The apartment was quiet, but for the first time, it didn’t feel empty. He walked to the window, looking out at the city lights and the stars above.
He was alone, but he wasn’t lonely. He was a survivor, and he knew that somewhere, beyond the light, Santa was finally at peace.
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