Lords of Misrule 2024 presentsChristmas at Halicarnassusas sent in by one Ræl H. Bishop

“But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round... [as] the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”

What does Christmas look like at the end of time?

For the living, not terribly exciting. A star burns out the last of its embers, turning into a cold lump of super-dense metal. Probably the last major event to happen for eternity, watchful lighthouse keepers and spontaneously-forming brains in the void aside.

But step beyond space – into a hyperspace, if you will – and the world of the dead is only now coming to life.

Though their bodies are long-gone, the thoughtforms and memories of the old worlds still live on in this noosphere. They lead afterlives of their own, here in places such as Halicarnassus.

The shades of past eras still linger on here, idly ambling routes not too dissimilar to those in life. But these streets used to be much fuller, packed to the brim with myriads of wayward souls trying to find their rest.

Very few remain – leftovers of the cosmos, if you will, with baggage yet to be unpacked, issues left to be resolved. Eternal rest, yet to be found.

Doric columns surround the marketplace, seemingly infinite in number and yet all around. Below the plaza’s cobbles lie the crypts of the denizens, like macabre apartments. Each one fitted to their inhabitants; Antoine Lavoisier’s is the laboratory of an old rival, Cleopatra’s is a lavish tomb in desperate need of a window.

Despite all their differences in life, here – in death – they are all equals.

And so, once in a “while” (which is hard to judge when you experience time sideways), the lost souls gather together and do something different.

They break from their timeless routines, set aside their attachments, and gather together in the marketplace.

And they talk.

They share tales of long ago, of gift-giving saints, meditating messiahs, world-conquering kings, face-changing starbound pacifists, greed-dispelling ghosts…

Sure, it may not seem like much. There’s no fancy trees or overly saccharine music, but is what’s seen here not the essence of “the holiday spirit”?

Those attending may call it different names; Qutex calls it Occulation Day, Chandragupta sees it as Diwali, Masataka and Tsangyang call it Bodhi day, some scarved fellow calls it Hogswatch…

But ultimately, any holiday has nothing to do with the gifts exchanged, the clothes to be worn, or the food and drink to be imbibed… these are all secondary, for what is a holiday without people?

Without stories?

Without remembrance and imagination?

Holidays exist to punctuate our fleeting lives on whatever falling cemetery we are cast into. To give points where past, present, even future blend together.

Long before the rise of the Cyber-Baháʼu’lláh, before the marriage of Christ and Quanyin, before Dickens and Dionysus, people across the cosmos would gather on the darkest nights of the year and regale tales. They brought past and present together. These nights gave most people the only glimpse of mysticality they will feel in their lives.

And long after capitalism, carbon, and Santa Claus get lost in the quantum foam of the cosmos, those simple echoes still live on in the halls of Halicarnassus. A true, if foreign, Christmas at the end of time.