He Envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas

I thought it'd be funny to post a short, very terse story written by Neil Gaiman for the amusement of readers. It's called "Nicholas Was..."

older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.
The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.
Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.
He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.
Ho.
Ho.
Ho.
--pg.48 from Neil Gaiman's collection Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions.

For those who squeeled with excitement over these clever words I recommend Neverwhere, American Gods and the Sandman graphic novels. Gaiman delights in creating a modern mythology, like Peake, with older, almost cliche tropes and characters BUT re-cast in a modern aesthetic. As Viv pointed out in a post a while back, there's a scene in American Gods reminiscent of Ballard's Crash--where the protagonist, Shadow's wife is killed in a car crash while performing fellatio on another man--almost a Futurist wet dream of cars, libido and head-on crashes straight out of Marinetti's "Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism". Trust me, it's worth it when near the end of the novel there is an apocalyptic, epic battle of Titans--amongst Ancient Gods (Norse, Egyptian, etc.)--to win human sacrifices to their cause. Just writing about it makes me want to re-read it, but I have a Medieval and Modern Europe exam to study for. Oh well. Cheers.