The Wishing Time: An Unsettling Look into Santa’s Workshop

The Wishing Time by Devon Monk

I was in between books and as always I like to read a short story or two as a pallet cleanser for the next big story I intend to dive into. And of the three anthology collections I’m reading through, I decided to read from Devon Monk’s A Cup of Normal. The story is called The Wishing Time.

This is an odd story. It is a kind of an exploration of Santa Clause's workshop from the point of view of a cave troll. The cave trolls are the ones who work underground digging for coal to give to naughty children as above the crystalline diamond alien like trolls work in a machine like fashion for a tyrannical Santa Clause that seems to care little for the trolls. And not only are the cave trolls neglected. More and more children are being good, so they are out of work. And the cave trolls who still are employed are mysteriously disappearing, including the lead character’s sister.

The good? Devon Monk does something very interesting here. She portrays Santa’s workshop as a creepy, scary and unsettling place with amazing detail. It’s something very unique I never seen before and the imagination is wonderful.

The bad? The story is not much of a story. It feels like an interesting writing exercise than a full story. Its only three pages long.

Overall this is such a unique piece of work. There’s no reason not to read it. But since it is also basically a three page fluff piece, I can’t recommend it. It's not worth anyone’s time to seek it out. If you stumble across it, give it a read. But don’t go out of your way to find it. It’s not that good.

2 smoothies out of four.

Overall rating: An Unsettling Look into Santa’s Workshop.