‘t is the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la. So, on the fourth day of Christmas, this writer gives to you: the final part of a modern Christmas Carol.
Part one of this story can be found here.
The story below is — of course — based on ‘A Christmas Carol‘ by Charles Dickens. Heck, I borrowed from it most liberally. You might be surprised how much I did not change.
Anyway, this story is of course completely fictional and meant as an attempt at humor. Any resemblance to actual persons is a coincidence. Really.
The End of It
Yes! the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to outsmart those who wished him harm!
“I will end this dark path before it begins! Strike before they can!…” Scrooge said, as he scrambled out of bed. “….Oh, Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I am surely blessed to have received such supernatural aid!”
He grabbed his phone and remembered that Crazy Nancy had started another fake witch hunt against him. He took to his virtual pen and tweeted out a first salvo in the next round of his personal war.
‘Because Nancy’s teeth were falling out of her mouth, and she didn’t have time to think!’
He quickly put on his clothes and marched into his living room, winded.
“There’s the television I was looking at!….” cried Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the coffee table. “…There’s the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There’s the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Past stood! There’s the place where I saw the torch of the spirit of Christmas present! It’s all right, it’s all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!”
Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh.
“Wait, whose tie is this tie?…” he exclaimed. “….Oh, it’s mine.”
In a flurry, he rage tweeted twice more, then headed for his chopper. In no time the chopper took him to his estate in Mar-a-Lago. There he spent his day golfing and eating burgers, planning, and firing off a couple of angry tweets for good measure.
But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his heart upon.
And he did it; yes he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half, behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.
His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o’clock.
“Hallo!….” growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice. “…What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?”
“I’m very sorry, sir,” said Bob. “I am behind my time.”
“You are?..” repeated Scrooge. “…Yes. I think you are. Step this way, if you please.”
“It’s only once a year, sir,” pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. “It shall not be repeated. It is the time difference with Ukraine. And I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.”
“Now, I’ll tell you what, my friend,….” said Scrooge, “…..I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,” he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again: “and therefore I am about to raise your salary! And mine!”
Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to his phone. He had a momentary idea of releasing his collateral against Scrooge; throwing him under the bus; and calling to the people in the house for help.
“A merry Christmas, Bob!…” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “….We must plan. We have a battle to win. Come now, what new theories can you unearth about our good friend Joe.”
Bob smiled. This was the Scrooge he knew. Together they would bring them all down and rule together forever.
“Come now….” Scrooge added. “…Let us call our lackey Mitch and set about our plans.”
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did still die, he was an antagonist, as he was to all who valued principle over corruption, who loved everybody equally, and to whom freedom was not an excuse to hurt others.
God Save Us, Every One!
The End
