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The Crib

As promised today you get the English translation of my story for the Bücherstadtkurier. They posted a call for entries for their Literary Advent Calendar and I thought for a moment about what I would submit. As one of my stories (called Nebeljagd – Mist Hunt) was published in the March issue of their magazine by the same name, I thought I at least give it another try, maybe they’d like it as well. At first I thought about re-working one of the stories of my first Advent Calendar, but after receiving an e-mail where one of their staff mentioned, that that it’d be okay, even if they’d prefer new stuff, I thought about what I could do instead.
Well, the result is what got me included.

So have fun with:

The Crib

Harry stood before the low cupboard in his friends‘ living room and gazed curiously at it. Spread across its entire surface stood the most different figurines within and around an open square made of Lego bricks.
„Ben, what is this?“ He asked after a moment.
„My crib. It’s Christmas,“ he answered naturally and came to stand beside him.
„Your crib. Made of Lego?“
„Yeah. Buying one would have been boring, so I arranged one myself,“ Ben revealed with a grin.
„I can see that.“ Harry sceptically took out the figurine of a wrinkly, long-eared goblin creature. „You do know that it’s called Baby-Jesus and not Baby-Yoda, right?“
„Yeah, so? That’s my shortest figurine.“ Ben merely shrugged his shoulders and put his hands in his pockets.
„Okay…“ Harry carefully put the Yoda-figurine back into the converted feeding through made out of toilet paper rolls and pointed at a red and black clad, heavily armed, as well as a brawny, green figurine directly beside it: „Does this mean, Deadpool and Hulk are Mary and Joseph?“
„Obviously. One is wrinkly, the other is green. Fits,“ Ben confirmed beaming.
„If you say so…“ Disbelievingly Harry shook his head and let his gaze wander across the crib.
Instead of Donkey and Ox the inside of the wide Lego structure housed a jet black car with wing-like spoilers and a white station wagon with a crossed out ghost on its door. The remaining space to the left of the actual nativity scene was filled with the flock of sheep. It consisted of differently sized, mostly bronze coloured pepper pot-like robots, which were guarded by several metal man with straws for crooks.
Ben had followed his gaze and defended himself: „I know it should be the other way round, but my Daleks just are smaller and make better sheep.“
„Of course, that is completely logically.“ Harry sighed wearily. With a look to the right he asked: „And The Doctor, Superman and DARTH VADER are the Three Wise Men?“
„Yup. They always say one of them is black.“
For a moment Harry quarrelled with himself, then he corrected: „Black: yes; Mass murderer: No. You could have used Batman, at least they would all be heroes.“
„But I already have the Batmobile as Donkey!“ Ben protested.
„Of course. That wouldn’t fit.“
„Exactly.“
For a moment they were silent, then Harry discovered a small, winged, pupil-less figurine on top of the pointed roof of the building.
„And who’s that?“ He asked turning the figurine back and forth.
„The Archangel Gabriel, duh“, Ben only said. As Harry was still looking at him in confusion, he added: „From Supernatural.“
„You’re watching that?“
„No, the figurine was in merch box once. But it fits doesn’t it? Wasn’t Gabriel the one who proclaimed the whole thing?“
„That is probably the only part of the crib, that actually makes sense“, Harry determined with another sigh.
„Oh come on, admit it: That’s the best crib you’ve ever seen!“ Ben challenged him.

Behind the Scenes

Admit it, you’d like to have a crib like that as well! 😀 I know I would, even if I’d change a few things (aside from the fact that I don’t own the majority of figurines, would I – most likely – not include anything DC or Star Wars related).
Apart from that was it quite difficult for me to translate from German to English after translating English to German for about two months (the Advent Calendar + JourneyQuest Season 3), so I hope I didn’t make too many mistakes – or phrased things weirdly. Let me know if I did!
Also let me know, if the word „crib“ or „nativity scene“ is more commonly used for the thing I’m describing. I wasn’t sure, but as we’re just calling it a „Krippe“ (fully „Weihnachtskrippe„) I decided crib was the one I wanted to go with.

I hope you’re having nice holidays!

Stay save,
PoiSonPaiNter