Cookies for Santa.

He turned on the oven and put in the tray full of cookies that he had kneaded and cut himself, Christmas Eve was approaching and he had not yet written his letter to Santa. Francisco was no longer a child and it had been a long time since he had written this kind of letter, but his psychologist had proposed it to him as a Christmas challenge. He had been in consultation for more than a year and had not made much progress, so they decided to try something different, the letter would help Francisco connect with his inner child and perhaps bring to the surface some things he still kept hidden from himself and others.

He took paper and pencil and sat down at the counter to write his letter while he baked the cookies. He wrote a few lines but threw the sheet away as he was not convinced by that introduction, the same thing happened a couple of times more. Francisco felt stupid, at that age writing a letter to an imaginary being generated more anxiety than usual, he wondered what his psychologist was thinking when she asked him to do such a task. But he had been putting it off for days and realized he had to do it, no matter how he felt about it he was capable of taking on the challenge, so he took up his pencil and started to write.

Dear Santa:

It's been a long time since I wrote to you, I had forgotten how it felt, but I'm sure you haven't forgotten about me. That little fat boy who every year at Christmas wrote to you full of faith, to ask you for a single gift: that the nightmare at school would end, that you would keep the bullies away, that you would make me happy and normal like the other children. But that never happened and my faith was running out.

I always reminded you in my letters that I had been a good child, more than I could bear. I thought that I would deserve to have you fulfill my written wishes, but it seems that I was not good enough for you. I carefully reviewed my faults, how serious could they be? Eating a piece of candy behind my mother's back, telling a lie to the teacher, nothing out of what any 8 year old would do and yet I only received coal and indifference.

Always at Christmas I hear the stories about santa that parents tell their children and I think of the poor kids forgotten by you. Because I know from my own experience that you don't remember them all, there is a list not known to your followers, besides the list of good guys and bad guys, you also have a list of forgotten ones and the children whose names are on that list are condemned for no reason to put their faith and trust in a little piece of paper to be sent nowhere in the end.

In adolescence I understood that being good is useless, I thought things would get better but they didn't. I did bad things, some of them terrible. I did bad things, some terrible things; I was in jail and in rehab, I thought I would go crazy. My life has been highs and lows, in and out of drugs, in and out of jail for misdemeanors. Now I'm on parole, forced to receive psychological support, it's part of the reintegration program.

I wonder what my life would be like if you had read my letters, if you had honored my wishes, if I had not been one of your forgotten children. But there is no turning back now, I don't know what life has in store for me, but I can no longer wait for your Christmas miracle. This time I am not asking you for a gift, this is my farewell letter.

Francisco did not go the next day to the appointment with his psychologist, that night the roar of a gunshot dulled the oven bell. There were no cookies for Santa that Christmas either, just sad trays full of coal.