Chapter II — The Color That Would Not Wash Away
Long before the Christmas loops began, before mornings repeated like a broken music box, Grinwald was known as the brightest spirit in all of Whoville. If a ribbon needed tying, he tied it twice. If a tree needed trimming, he climbed to the very tip. He did not just love Christmas...he improved it.
And one year, determined to make the grandest celebration the Whos had ever seen, Grinwald took it upon himself to create something new: a shimmering, radiant Christmas dye. Not just any dye...this one would make every banner glow, every stocking gleam, every snowfall sparkle green like enchanted pine.
He worked for weeks in a small workshop perched above the square. Bottles clinked. Cauldrons bubbled. Strange ingredients. Peppermint resin, crushed holly berries, whispers of magic borrowed from old, dusty books were stirred into a single massive vat.
A vat of glowing, swirling, emerald brilliance.
The townsfolk were delighted. “Oh, Grinwald!” they cheered. “It will be the brightest Christmas ever!”
On Christmas Eve, as the bells began their soft, anticipatory toll, Grinwald stood atop a ladder beside the great vat, preparing to unveil his masterpiece. Snow fell lightly. The Who's gathered below, their voices rising in song.
A single misstep. A rung slick with frost. A hand grasping at air instead of wood.
Not gracefully. Not slowly. But all at once, crashing into the vat with a splash that drowned out the carols.
For a moment, nothing moved but the rippling surface of that glowing green liquid.
The dye clung to him...not like paint, but like something alive. It seeped into his skin, his hair, his very being. His face, once warm and bright, now shimmered an unnatural green. His eyes burned with something sharper, something fractured.
Not out of concern, not at first.
“Oh dear!” one said, trying not to smile.
“He’s… festive!” another giggled.
“How very… green,” whispered a third.
Grinwald stood there, dripping, trembling. Waiting.
Waiting for someone to help him. To reach out. To say his name with kindness instead of amusement.
Not cruel, perhaps. Not intentionally so. But to a man who had given everything to their joy, it cut deeper than any blade.
The dye would not wash off. Not that night. Not the next day. Not ever.
Doctors were called. Scrubbing was attempted. Magic was reversed, then reversed again. Nothing worked. The green remained...bright, permanent, impossible to ignore.
And something else remained too.
A quiet fracture inside Grinwald.
At first, he tried to laugh along. He even leaned into it—wore brighter scarves, stood further back in photos. But the whispers followed him. The glances lingered just a moment too long. Children pointed. Songs faltered when he passed.
He was no longer the maker of Christmas.
Grinwald became...the mean one...Mr. GRINCH!!
High above Whoville, where the songs softened into distant echoes, he built himself a crooked little refuge. There, surrounded by silence instead of cheer, he watched the town below continue without him.
Christmas after Christmas.
And slowly, steadily, something in him turned.
Not all at once. Not dramatically. But like a candle burning down to smoke.
The love he once felt did not disappear...it twisted. Curled inward. Hardened.
Because every bell that rang below reminded him of that night.
Every laugh echoed the ones that followed his fall.
Every bright, shining celebration glowed the same terrible shade of green.
And though he did not yet know it
That color would follow him into the loop.
Into the years that repeated.
Into the man he would become.
Because when Christmaseseses began to repeat…
Grinwald...eh hem...THE GRINCH did not see a miracle.
And its walls were painted the color he could never escape.
