In a closet sat the Chairman of the World.

On a one-legged stool, not a chair.

And it could only be identified as a stool because someone was sitting
on it.  Otherwise it would just be a hunk of wood.

He was overly tall, ugly and dull, droopy and jagged, and there was no
reason for anyone to love him ever.

He'd been there for a while.  Several whiles.

The closet was dark.

And then it wasn't.

A few photons of light bounced around the dank walls as a boy happened
into the closet through the door that the Chairman had all but
forgotten existed.

The Chairman, with his elbow on his knee, chin sitting in the palm of
his left hand, rolled his eyes toward the boy to study him.

It was a small boy.

"Are you Santa Claus?" it asked.

The Chairman of the World was suprised by this question.  He looked
nothing like the round and jolly doofus how was plastered all over
town every year at Thanksgiving.  The boy clearly had not retained the
image so forcefully fired into his pupils that the marketers very
vehemently wished to instill in him.

What an extraordinary child.

Finally the Chairman made the executive decision to grace the boy with
an answer.

"No."

The boy stood there.

The Chairman sat there.

He continued to sit.

Glancing from side to side (he had a habit of doing that, despite the
fact that there was nothing to glance at), he decided to extrapolate
on his answer and educate the boy.

"Santa is a polluter and a theif who litters the world with worthless
objects in very nice packaging.  After emptying his garbage bag, he
makes off with some cookies.  They're valuable you know, those
cookies.  Just because there's a lot of them doesn't mean they're not
valuable."

The boy stood.

The Chairman sat, then blinked, even though there was nothing to see
behind his eyelids.

"People believe that Santa is good because someone else told them so.
The same way a lot of people think that the best part of waking up is
Folger's in their cup.  No one ever told them that if Folger's didn't
exist, the best part of waking up would be an empty cup."

More standing.  More sitting.

It got to that time in the coversation when the party first asked a
question asks a question of the original asker.

That didn't happen.

Instead, The Chairman continued answering the already fully-answered
question.

"The reason people are the way they are is because they know of no
other way to be.  People use stupid expressions such as 'Well, I'll
be.' and dole out useless advice such as, 'Just be yourself.' when in
actuallity, they already are.  And it's all wrong because of it."

The time was right.

"Would you mind sitting here for a while?  I have to step out for a bit."

For an instant, the stool enjoyed the freedom of being a hunk of wood.  

Then the boy sat down.