Mesmerized by Mistletoe by Kris P. Kreme
After Darla learns that mistletoe is a deadly parasite which leeches the life out of trees and can leave them empty husks, she starts to worry. But after her husband David’s son Jonathan makes up false additional facts, she starts to truly freak out.
Could mistletoe be just as much a life draining paralyzing parasite for humans too? She’s touched mistletoe and now she worries she may become a lifeless human doll forever.
Holiday high jinks lead to more fun than anyone could imagine, during the 12 Days of Krismas.
Darla has always been a quirky woman, since long before David married her. His college son quite often called Darla a ditz while his dad was dating her, but the truth is she just tends to get so wrapped up and focused on a topic of interest that little else can sway her. So it is on the day David is about to leave town for several days, his last business trip before the holidays.
Darla has been staring out into the trees in the yard for probably hours, a look of nothing short of fear and concern in her eyes. As David finds out and Darla informs him, mistletoe is actually so much more deadly and sinister than just a mere Christmas decoration.
It’s actually a parasite, one that weakens and saps away what makes a tree a tree. It can even kill them if left unchecked. And there happens to be plenty of mistletoe spotting the tops of the trees near their home.
Assuring Darla that the trees will be perfectly safe until he gets back, David asks where she even heard all this about mistletoe and not to his surprise the quite factual information came from his son Jonathan, who she says along with his best friend Ed are working over the holidays on a report for college about mistletoe.
David has known for quite a while that his son likes to mess with Darla’s head, her intensely focused worrying nature simple to start and once it starts there’s no swaying her from a near petrified fear.
What David doesn’t know as he kisses Darla goodbye for his trip, back in a few days, is that Jonathan and Ed have been plotting the prank to end all pranks on his far too young stepmother. Darla is just too easy of a target, and at least in Ed’s opinion, too easy on the eyes. But the real fun is in freaking her out over mistletoe.
As Jonathan explains, the facts were just the beginning, give Darla a little completely true but scary information about mistletoe, information knowing her she would no doubt confirm by looking it up. Once she trusted they were being truthful that is when the fun can begin, making up all new information that normally Darla might not believe but having seen so far they were telling the truth, she’d be just gullible enough to fall for.
So while Darla continues to stare out the windows at the trees, Jonathan and Ed quickly decorate nearly the entire first floor with mistletoe hanging everywhere. Then they wait for her to come downstairs and that is when Jonathan makes up the scariest fact yet, that mistletoe should never ever be touched, that it has some of the same paralyzing toxins found in certain rare jungle toads. Once touched it can slowly release the spores inside a person, essentially infecting them, draining the life out of them until they are pretty much frozen in place husks, pretty much human dolls.
But just how powerful is a panicked woman’s mind when Darla realizes she’s accidentally touched some of the hanging mistletoe? Can her own fears somehow create truth out of the joking lies Jonathan and Ed told her? As she stares in horror at the mistletoe, freaked out as she ever has been, Jonathan and Ed could never imagine that they may be getting a whole lot more for Christmas than they ever expected… at least in the form of the empty doll Darla may just become.
Don’t be petrified by the 12 Days of Krismas… or at least try to have fun if you find yourself that way.
Coming next… Have a cone…
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