Humbug (The Unwinding of Ebenezer Scrooge): A Science Fiction Adventure, page 23
Sobs filled Eb’s throat. He choked them down and pushed them back. Forced them to stay where young Ebenezer had put them all those years ago, in a locked box deep in the dark.
Eb remembered that Christmas. It was spent in a big lonely house with boxes of unpacked ornaments.
“I never escaped this place.” Eb’s voice cracked.
“You can leave, sir,” the droid said. “The door is open. It always has been.”
But it was safer in the house, he wanted to say. No one could hurt me if I stayed.
“But no one can see you, either, sir.”
The droid turned the unseen crank. The merry-go-round went around. When Eb looked up, the room had changed.
He was still in a bedroom, but this was different. Fat red and green and blue lights slowly alternated on a tree branch outside a window, each casting a different mood across a white comforter.
Red intensity.
Green relaxed.
Blue was… blue.
A lump shifted beneath the covers, a shag of brown hair sunk in the pillow, eyes peeking out. Little Ebenezer stared at the ceiling, clutching the edge of the comforter.
Bing Crosby crooned throughout the thin-walled house.
He was five years old, waiting for the sound of Santa’s reindeer on the roof. There were posters of science fiction movies, a shelf with his spelling bee trophy and a bowling medal for perfect attendance. It was the last time his mother let him put posters up because the tape smudged the wall.
A plate of cookies was on his desk. A glass of milk.
He kept them in his room. If Santa was hungry, he’d find them. The year before, he’d heard the fireplace doors squeal, so little Ebenezer had snuck out to see if Santa was delivering the BB gun. The television was blaring, someone complaining about the idiot president.
His father was lying on the couch, eating the cookies.
After that, little Ebenezer snuck them into his room. And Santa never ate them. Not once. Maybe he was mad at his father for eating them. Or maybe he was on the naughty list.
We all were.
“Santa wasn’t mad at you, sir,” the droid said.
Eb knew that. It was silly to think he was. Eb was a grown man. He didn’t believe in fairy tales, didn’t believe in a fat man keeping lists or leaving lumps of coal or ignoring plates of cookies.
Nonetheless, guilt had a firm grip on his throat. Because Santa never came back.
The walls rattled as Gene Autry began naming off Santa’s reindeer—reindeer that little Ebenezer listened for, reindeer that never landed. Keys jingled on a hook by the front door. The clopping of heavy shoes stopped in the hallway, two long shadows breaking the lighted gap at the bottom of the bedroom door. Little Ebenezer looked up.
Eb’s chest fluttered nervously.
His father went back to the kitchen, his steps long and even. Little Ebenezer watched the lighted gap for the shadows to return until the kitchen cabinets opened and closed.
Something is missing.
Little Ebenezer was trembling. He was scared of the shadows, frightened of the voices. Eb could feel it in his own chest as he remembered that night. He was watching it happen again. Something was missing, something that helped little Ebenezer manage the fear, to make it through the night.
“You think this is a joke?”
Eb spun toward the door, his heart thumping. His father’s voice was in the kitchen.
“This is funny to you?” his father said.
“It’s nothing,” his mother replied, dragging slippers over the linoleum.
His father spoke intensely, words with hardened edges so sharp that they cut the ears, imbedded in the brain like slivers that couldn’t be surgically removed, where they would root and grow and infect.
Eb clenched his empty fists. He’d dropped the dolls somewhere. They weren’t on the floor. Maybe they were back with young Ebenezer.
Something is missing.
“My sister got them for him,” his mother said. “He likes them, so what.” Ice cubes rattled in a short glass. A long pause, then she said, “You afraid he’s going to grow up soft?”
“You see, that’s the problem,” his father said. “There are no boundaries in this house. No rules, no structure. You let him do whatever he wants like some hippy-dippy ding-dong. You’re going to ruin him, Dee.”
“Hey, you’re welcome to help out. The floor is wide open, honey.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her upper lip was tight when she said that. When his mother was backed into a corner, her lips drew into a thin line and cut as sharp as his father’s.
Little Ebenezer pulled the blanket over his head. Brown curls were still visible.
“You know exactly what it means,” his father said.
“I never should’ve married you.”
“Then what would you do? Huh, Dee? Would you work? Would you do something?”
“I wouldn’t be putting up with this crap.”
The ice clinked in a now empty glass. A long gap of silence drew out between Christmas songs. And Eb knew what his father was doing, knew he had moved in on his mother, towered over her, looked down on her. She never gave up a step, always stood her ground. But the presence pushed hard on her, bearing down.
“Without me,” he said, “you’d be nothing.”
She didn’t reply.
Blankness entered her. She was staring across the room, wishing for another place, emptying her heart like a vessel that could be tipped over, a cauldron emptied of the boiling contents. All the foulness gone.
She went zombie.
The garbage can lid fell hard. Just before the back door opened, his father delivered parting words. “Ho, ho, ho.”
The walls shook again.
Eb watched his father through the bedroom window, stomping holes in the snow. The car fishtailed out of the driveway.
The Christmas music in the house shut off.
“He came back the next morning,” Eb said. “Unshaven, bleary-eyed. Sat on the couch and watched me open presents. I gave him a present and…”
He cleared his throat, couldn’t say it, not out loud. Even if he could, there was no way he could capture the way his father had laughed when he looked at the smooth rock that little Ebenezer had wrapped.
Blue lights twinkled in his eyes.
It went deep.
“They argued some more. Mom left this time.”
“What did you do, sir?” the droid asked.
“He fell asleep, so I went to Jacob’s house. My mother came to get me later that night.”
It was the only thing that felt special, Jacob’s house. The warm candles, the laughter, the hugs, the food. They even gave him a present, a candy necklace. And he had a present for them and no one laughed when they opened it.
It’s exactly what I need, Jacob’s mother said. A paperweight.
And she meant it.
The droid opened the bedroom door. Light from the kitchen flooded the room. Eb backed against the bed. The comforter had fallen away from the mop of brown curls. Little Ebenezer was already sleeping on his side, his arm on the outside like his father had taught him. This is how you sleep, son, he would say, creeping in at night to check on him, waking him if he had rolled onto his back.
The droid opened the kitchen trash.
His shadow stretched across the hallway floor. His silhouette stood in the doorway. He was holding something in each hand. What his father had thrown away. What his mother thought would make him soft.
What his father hated.
The dolls.
It was what little Ebenezer was missing. He had come to bed that Christmas Eve and they weren’t on the pillow where he placed them every morning, where they would be waiting for him at night, the mops of red yarn, the wide-open eyes. The stitched smiles.
He didn’t carry them around the house, but hid them under the cover so his father wouldn’t see them. At night, he would squeeze them in the crook of his elbow like a nutcracker, nuzzling his nose into the soft fabric.
They were always there for him. Silly little rag dolls.
The droid put them in his hands. Eb wept softly. How could I forget?
“It’s easy, sir,” the droid said, “to forget who you are.”
A blubbering mess on two legs, he pushed the dolls against his cheeks and ran his thumb where the fabric was worn away. He was ashamed of them, of himself.
Of being soft.
He sat on the bed, unfolded little Ebenezer’s arm and tucked the dolls in place.
“I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be like him.” Eb pulled the blankets over little Ebenezer’s arm. “I became my father.”
“And your father like his, sir.”
Eb wanted to stay with his younger self, to tell him that it was all right, it would be all right, that he wasn’t what they said he was. He could be exactly who he was.
The droid turned the invisible crank.
The room made a hard spin. The lights streaked momentarily.
A different bed, another boy. His thumb in his mouth, eyes wide with fear. Voices arguing in another room about the thumb-sucker.
Another turn.
Another bed, another boy.
And another. And another. His grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great—
“Where does it end, sir?” the droid asked.
The wheel of time continued to spin backwards. The floor occasionally buckled on speed bumps or air pockets. Red and green and blue lights streaked around him, blurring into each other, the universe whirling, a hurricane turning.
He was in the eye of the storm.
The colors merged until they were bright white and clear. The droid let go of the invisible crank. The wheel was turning on its own now. The force drew on the droid’s loose clothing, the sleeves flapping.
He cocked his head curiously.
A cycle of behavior passed down through the generations, culminating in Eb’s madness. Whether he had dreamed the dreams or lived them, it did not matter. The result was the same.
He could see it now.
Eb could see who he was. His future couldn’t frighten him into changing his path, his guilt couldn’t force him to transform. Now he understood.
“I want to fly.”
The wall of light sucked the droid out of sight. He was gone, swallowed by a storm that rattled the floor, gone in the howling bright light. The humbug was gone. He wouldn’t come back on Christmas, not anymore. Eb didn’t need him.
He wasn’t afraid anymore.
The wall of light began to slow. The wind grew louder, bits of debris stung his arms, his cheeks. They bit his forearms. He covered his face. The wall of light began to separate into streaks again.
A tree crashed next to him.
The limbs snapped off; dry twigs and soil sprayed his legs. A dark hole had opened above. It looked like the sky had cracked open. Debris was blowing through it; specks of snow and sleet and dead foliage swirled.
There was a hole in the ceiling. It wasn’t the sky that had cracked. The Skeye™ dome.
The transparent dome had fractured and the ceiling had fallen. Reinforcement rods pointed from chunks of concrete like crooked fingers. Metal beams had pierced the floor.
And the storm outside raged.
Eb was thrown to his knees. The wind whipped in several directions. Another section of the wall collapsed. This time a large chunk caught him square in the butt.
The house moaned.
The mountain coughed.
Furniture moved past him. Eb began sliding toward the back of the room, away from the door.
He dropped on all fours. He didn’t want to die. The back wall blew open and the winter sky began inhaling the contents, curtains fluttering into the dark, vases crashing to the ground. Eb lay flat and waited for the end.
Something latched onto him.
Dull gray fingers wrapped around his wrist.
The droid had a firm grip. And the other droids were behind him, each clasping the other’s hand, forming a chain that reached back to the doorway. They began to pull.
The floor dropped again and, for a moment, Eb felt the ground fall out, sensed the earth rushing toward him. The droids hung on.
The girls suddenly appeared in the doorway, green dress and red dress. Addy is for apple, red as can be. And Natty is neither, but green as a tree.
They seemed unaffected by the wind or the buckling floor. Their ribbons did not waver; dresses did not flutter. They stood holding hands, dolls at their sides. When the house groaned again and the floor dropped suddenly, Eb’s round spectacles slid off the end of his nose and clattered out of reach.
When he looked up, the girls were gone.
As the chain of droids pulled him out of the collapsing Great Room, as the house continued to slide out of the mountain, the droids shouted above the storm.
“I’m here to help, sir!”
PART V
~
THE HAUNTING OF EBENEZER SCROOGE
THIRTY-TWO
~
Steam momentarily blotted out the bluegrass music.
Jerri leaned deep into the corner seat and closed her eyes. On the other side of the plant, just below the Avocado logo, a fiddle player sawed into “Jingle Bells.”
Eric Thompson, software engineer turned barista, handed a latte to Jamie Lynn, marketing assistant turned gift giver. A roar went up somewhere to Jerri’s left where the gingerbread house competition announced a winner. The smell of baked goods rose above the scent of warm plastic.
Jerri hovered over a decaf pumpkin spice.
She was about to melt out of the seat, drain onto the floor and into a sleeping puddle that wouldn’t wake until the New Year.
It had been a long year.
The lights were on in her cantilevered office. Someone moved between the blinds, perhaps a secret Santa leaving a gift. The opened slats hid nothing from the plant. They saw her every day, knew what she was doing. Her door always open.
The blinds were drawn on the office opposite hers. Tomorrow would be the one-year anniversary of when it went dark.
The squeal of children and the stampede of tiny feet made her smile. She had never appreciated the weight of running a company until it was fully yoked across her shoulders. Every little fire came across her desk. Sometimes she understood why Eb had withdrawn to his house. There were nights she didn’t sleep.
Especially in the beginning.
It was difficult to steer a technology company that was already sinking, one that was licking its wounds from misdirection and confusion. One that lacked an identity. More so, it was difficult to do so with a heavy heart. She had aged ten years over the last year, her hair more white than gray and wrinkles in places she didn’t know could wrinkle.
Now she just wanted to enjoy a bluegrass version of “Silent Night.”
“Jerri?” Rick must have taken the mic. “We need to get Jerri up here. Somebody find her and get her up here.”
She didn’t move, even when the crowd started chanting her name and clapping along, calling for a search party to scour the plant.
“Where are you, Jerri?” Rick called. “Front and center, lady.”
High-pitched voices of the children cut through the celebration, long drawn-out name calling like they did when hide-and-seek was over.
Ollie ollie oxen free!
“Mom?” Jerri’s daughter said. “They want you up front.”
Jerri’s smile grew wider.
Her son-in-law followed her daughter with a big puffy bag over his shoulder and a six-year-old charging ahead. Jerri threw her arms open and caught her, the little arms clasping and squeezing until she couldn’t breathe.
“You all right, Mom?” Jerri’s daughter asked.
“I am now.”
Her granddaughter bounced up and down, the white fuzzy ball of her Santa hat flipping from one side to the other.
“I like your hat,” Jerri said.
“We have one for you,” her granddaughter said.
“You do?”
Jerri’s son-in-law pulled a fuzzy red hat from the bag. The granddaughter pulled it over Jerri’s cropped hair.
“How do I look?”
After another breath-stealing hug, they made their way through the plant, past the deserted Ping-Pong table and odd-shaped furniture.
“Found her!” someone called.
The applause began before she saw the makeshift stage, passing random employees from accounting to IT to engineering and fabrication, all of them wearing Santa hats or foam antlers or horrendously wonderful Christmas sweaters. The celebration reached near chaos when she turned the corner.
A ten-foot Christmas tree glittered beneath the Avocado.
A heaping pile of gifts was off to the side. Jennifer Canton from HR had gone full elven with green stripes and curly-toe shoes and pointed ears. Carl Pendleton from accounting didn’t need a fake beard or pillow stuffed beneath his shirt to play Santa.
Carol helped her onto the platform while Rick playfully bowed. Jerri smacked him on the back to stop. Everyone was filling in the empty space where tables and furniture had been pushed aside for the dance floor.
“All right, all right,” Rick called into the mic. “Anyone else back there?”
Some stragglers made their way up front. Her granddaughter hid her face on Jerri’s shoulder.
“You want me to take her?” Jerri’s daughter asked.
Jerri shook her head. Not in a million years.
“I’m not going to take long,” Rick said. The crowd settled. “I just want to say a few things about this incredible person with the child surgically implanted on her chest.”
Laughter.
“I think I speak for everyone when I say there is not another human being on this planet that could’ve done what you have done in the past year. You took a floundering company and made it into a family again. When I wake up in the morning, I can honestly say I can’t wait to get to work.”
Applause. Cheers.
“Calling it work just isn’t fair, Jerri. Everyone should be so lucky to have an extended family that is changing the world. I want to thank you, personally, for bringing me back to be part of it.”
