Christmas Eve Alone

Scrooge trod to his building. It was nine o’clock on Christmas Eve and the man was not happy, “Wasted so much time today. These holidays just keep pulling us off schedule,” he thought to himself. His doorman was well trained and offered no greeting to Scrooge as the founder approached. He simply noted, “Good night, sir.” and opened the door without meeting Scrooge’s eyes. Scrooge simply replied, “Good night.”

Scrooge rode up the steamvator as it chugged up the building where he lived. The door opened to a huge loft space lit sparely with gas burners carefully spaced. Each cone of light barely touched the next.

He noticed a large package in his entry. It was long and wrapped in brown paper. He didn’t expect anything and opened the strange box carefully. A smart cane with a heavy silver handle with “BoyBaton LTD.” in light scrolling was inside. There was a card attached, “Happy Christmas and Happy New Year Dear Mr. Scrooge. I look forward to another year in your service. Take care and have a nice holiday. Bob Cratchit. Employee number 1207. Currently your only employee.”

Scrooge sighed and said to himself, “I didn’t want him to buy it with his pay. I hope he knew that. Damn. OK. We need to reimburse him. This was very kind, but he’s already missing so much pay with the half day, the tardiness, and then a whole day off. I assume New Year’s Eve and Day might be next? How about every Saturday and Sunday while we’re at it? Bah. Bob is good but so foolish.”

The middle-aged man took off his heavy overcoat. He looked at the cane and placed it aside for now. He put on a heavy felt robe from a nearby peg. The steam manifold hissed as he upped the heating slowly just until his own breath became invisible.

He walked to his vanity where his hat stand was waiting. This had three mirrors in a tri-fold and a small seat in front. A small gaslight over the mirrors gave a meager yellow glow. There was a head-shaped hat stand that was empty when Mr. Scrooge sat down. The hat stand was made of malleable sand that could accept any shaped hat.

Scrooge unhinged his top hat to reveal his long, pointed and tightly twisted cranium. The screw spun upwards above his ears and his entire head tapered to a sharp tip. He scratched at his meager gray hair found in the grooves of his formed skull. He looked at the spiraling shape inside the red and green sides of his hat. The severity setting had been maximized, but Scrooge had always hoped he’d find just another turn of the screw. Of course, it had been years since he’d maximized his mental model, but it would be irresponsible to not check each day just in case.

Scrooge clamped his fine hat over the sand head. He looked at his face and could not meet his eyes in the mirror. He placed a nightcap over his manufactured head. The tassel was quite fetching with blood red and vibrant green threads.

After a brief wash, he walked across the empty space from light cone to darkness to light cone as he found his way to the only seating in the space. It was, beyond the built-in closets and unused kitchen, the only “furniture” in his space. It was a long chaise lounge with a blanket. It served as bed and seat. There were never any guests or family; therefore, there was no need for additional seating.

He never used the kitchen. The government insisted that all living spaces include a kitchen. Once a small kitchenette was placed in his work space, he’d have the chaise and his two rolling suitcases that he used as an armoire moved. Then, no more rent here.

Scrooge sat and opened his steamdeck. His hands flashed over the keys as the OKROgre software he built started up. The KPI graphs pointed sharp red needles that buzzed with anger. He tapped his finger at the graph and it accepted the blood sacrifice. The deck belched. A smal daemon was summoned and made a fowarD modeL of AVOVEVIL.

The pindeck’s sharp and layered message read “smal daemon->baaalpEEp modelL sez. daemon concur baaalpEEp sez: bob must bleed. bob flesh. modelL hungry. feed bob. feed bob to modelL. feed modelL to baaalpEEp. in that order.:”

Scrooge sighed and thought to himself for a moment, “Bob is a good man and I hear he might have a young family.”

He finally typed in response to his softwar’s demands. “baaalpEEp is good. baaalpEEp is hungry. baaalpEEp will wait. Let the man have his holidays in peace. This is my return gift. Make a note for his termination of the second of January. Prepare his final package as per the handbook. Whatever the data says is appropriate.”

The softwar whined and Scrooge threatened to kill its threads until it was back under control. He then asked it to terminate and it grumbled as it disappeared in a greasy black pop.

Scrooge scratched his grooves and started up his aethermail client. He watched the green and red fire flipping between his deck and his access point some sixty feet away. He noticed that a moth had entered the line of sight between the two devices and was instantly incinerated with a loud pop.

The first new mail appeared and Scrooge considered it carefully. He used a thin metal prod to get to the next pages and saw no attachments wrapped inside the envelope’s MIME needle encodings.

He read the body with a grimace in the dim light and was mildly disgusted. Scrooge hit reply and deftly typed to avoid burns:

“To: Daniel Quilp via aethermail

No, good sir, there are no good methods for FauxThought in a martial dispute. Please stop asking.”

He hit execute on his deck and the snapping fire between his wireless data devices failed to find a new moth to destroy. The next inbound mail was formed in fine layers of pindeck needles. Scrooge quickly considered this as well and drafted an immediate reply:

“To: Edward Murdstone via aethermail

Firmness is a fine method to raise a child, I could imagine. I am childless myself but have strong opinions on how to raise children correctly. Get a hat on that head as fast as possible. A child’s skull is as plastic as you need without any added softeners. Otherwise, the bone sets and, well, chemicals can help reshape a set head and, of course, just very long soaks, like months of water exposure with acids applied by doctors are quite regular treatments when changing careers or late bloomers so to speak.”

He sent the next mail and closed the deck after he watched the data fly across the room. He put in two earplugs that blasted the sound of falling metal balls onto a steel plate. He lay down in his nightshirt and pulled up his blanket. His eyes shut and he hoped he would just sleep thirty hours and awake on the twenty-sixth.

The room was quiet except for the noise coming from his earplugs. A small draft blew through the room and Scrooge opened his eyes. He sat up and saw nothing in the various cones of light in his space. He stood up. “Why is my room drafty? I need to call the maintenance team for repairs,” he mumbled to himself as he walked over to the thermostat to see what might be wrong.

“Screwed. Screwed. Screwed,” a thin quiet voice insisted in the dark. The founder’s eyes widened in fright at the unexpected voice in his room. He grabbed his heavy steamdeck and tried to hold it in a threatening manner.

“Who is there? I am armed!” bluffed the frightened man in a cone of light with a portable komputar held high.

A faint thin man wearing a black shirt with a severe neck cuff walked out of the darkness to the edge of Scrooge’s light to be seen clearly but no further. The thin man’s eyes were coal black and his hair and soul matched in shade. He matched his eyes with a black turtleneck. His neck was tightly cuffed and then bound and wrapped by paper. The paper either read ISO, NSO or RSU over and over again. He was very unwell-looking and generally sallow. An IV bag hung from a steel pole behind the spirit, rolling on wheels.

“Is that you, Jobs?” croaked Scrooge finally.

The spectre looked at Scrooge smugly. He paced and sniffed. He produced a red and green apple and took one large bite from the side. He chewed and chewed and chewed until finally, he spat out the bite and threw the rest away in frustration. The collar would not allow for swallowing.

“I wear what all bring to bear in the search of full human replacement. It chokes like a turtleneck badly washed and shrunk,” moaned the ghost to Scrooge.

Scrooge tried to approach the spirit only to see it retreat back into the murk of his poorly lit space. “Jobs. You’re gone. Why am I to witness your suffering?” said the man to the receding spirit.

It turned back and Jobs said plainly, “It is not too late, Screwed.” Jobs took a moment and then said, “Scrooge is there and the ghosts will find him.” The wise man then said as he turned, “It might take forever but you don’t want a turtleneck as well.” Scrooge could hear another loud apple bite as Jobs walked and faded away.