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 Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:34 pm
2004
The clouds whipped around Holly coldly, until she emerged into a twilit but toasty room. She and Jacobs settled gently to the floor as multicolored lights flashed on and off around them. Their ghostly essences flickered in matching hues. Where was this?
A wreath sailed through the air, slicing harmlessly through Holly and connecting with the wall behind her with a whump. “This was my father’s company Christmas party, the last one…” Jacobs breathed. Holly looked at the decorations, which would not have looked out of place at junior prom, and groaned inwardly. This was the Christmas Party of 2004… the one where everything went wrong.
Jacobs’ father, Carl Jacobs, was sitting in a motorized sleigh, making rounds around the room and handing out presents to his employees, a huge smile on his face. Holly even spotted her parents sitting at a booth in the corner, drinking eggnog. Holly made a face, but then rebuked herself for being so shallow. What had happened this night… she was glad her parents had left her at home with a sitter. Also among the crowd was a less-stressed looking Mrs. Hatch and her husband; her stomach was bulging just slightly and she was drinking what appeared to be ice water even though the people around her all had martinis. Holly drifted over to her and checked to make sure it really was water; when she turned back around Jacobs was gone.
She hunted for him frantically until she found him sitting on, or a few inches above, the steps leading out of the room. “Why this night, Spirit? Why did it have to be this night?!”
“This is the worst night of your life, the one where you truly became a monster.” Holly refused to let her anger seep into her voice. She pointed to the kitchen door up the steps, from which a man in a waiter’s suit emerged, carrying a tray of martinis. He placed the tray on a small side table and reached into his pocket. The man pulled out a plastic bag filled with white powder just as Jacobs, five years younger, turned the corner. The younger Jacobs watched in horror as the man poured a small amount of powder into each of the drinks and carried them off. He raised his hand, as if to call the man back, but then dropped it and followed him down among the dancing guests. Older Jacobs winced as the man, then his younger self, walked through him.
“I thought… I thought it was sugar… I really did!” Jacobs turned to Holly, eyes wide, as Timothy Hatch reached over and picked up the first martini on the tray.
“Sir! These drinks are especially made for Mr. Jacobs. They are not for employee consumption.” The waiter tried to balance the tray on one hand and take the glass back from Mr. Hatch at the same time, but Mr. Hatch pulled it back.
“Oh, come on, Old Jacobs couldn’t drink this much if he wanted to! Besides, I want to propose a toast!” Timothy Hatch stood on his chair and chimed the fork against his glass. Everyone fell relatively quiet. “Everyone! As you may know, I’m going to be a father soon!” There were some hearty cheers. Hatch paused until they died down.
“And, on behalf of my wife, myself, and my fellow workers, I wish to propose a toast to the man whose generous nature keeps me in the job to pay for my future son. To Carl Jacobs!”
“To Carl Jacobs!” Everyone raised their glasses except Carl, who had none. Seeing the waiter, he snatched a drink off of his tray and grinned. Everyone took a swig of their drinks and began to clap. Carl Jacobs stood in his sleigh and bowed dizzily…
…then collapsed onto the floor. The party goers closest to him gasped; at least one woman fainted. There was a second cry as Timothy Hatch fell off his chair. The waiter with the tray dropped it and began to run; in the confusion no one stopped him. He reached the steps where younger Marley was standing and dashed past him, through the ghostly Jacobs, and into the shadows of the upper floors.
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Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:41 pm
I feel I should point out that this, and any teal posts I make, aren't part of the story. I don't know if anyone thought that, but now you know smile .
I also wanted to brag and say, my avi is worth half a million!!! I'm so proud of me! I remember when I was so poor I had to bum cash of you guys... now look at me, all grown up and buying things for 2,000 G shoes without batting an eyelash (ok, well, I still bat. 2,000 is a big number still!).
Strangely, now that I have money... I just want to spend it, but i don't want anything really. I got my Fausto's Bottle and Scarlet Sprite so now... Does anyone want anything for Christmas? I should enter Breeze's Secret Santa thingy...
Anyway, I'll post more story tomorrow before my Technical Theatre exam. Breaketnh a leg, me!
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Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:19 am
“Poison!” cried someone. The younger Jacobs turned white, and sat down hard on the stairs.
“You knew, didn’t you? Deep down, you knew that waiter was a crook. He was hired by a gang that Jacobs, your father, had denied. They wanted the blueprints of the security fences at the Denver Mint, the fences that Jacobs Industries had provided and installed. He said no. So they got rid of him. And you stood by and watched.” Holly’s whole nonexistent body began to shake with contained emotion.
“You even let him get away, when you could have stopped him! You let your father’s murderer escape, and the murderer of an unborn baby’s dad! A baby who grew up with his mother never around, because she had to work for you to support him! A boy who you gave an asthma attack just today, because you were in a hurry! And you didn’t just hurt that little boy… you hurt… you hurt… me!”
“Who are you?” Jacobs was cowering from her. He clutched at her hands desperately, but she pulled them back and examined them as if checking for a stain.
“Who am I? I am the girl who nearly…” The words died on her tongue when she realized her hands were empty. The snuffer! Where was it?! The Ghost had said she needed it to get back to her…
“What’s the matter? Looking for this?” Jacobs’ pleading had stopped suddenly, and he smiled wickedly, dangling the snuffer in front of her face. “I read the book too, you know. I believe this was a cap originally, wasn’t it? And Scrooge, I’m assuming that’s me, used it to cover up the light of the Ghost of Christmas Past, thereby returning safely to his home.”
Holly was stunned. “Doesn’t any of the stuff you’ve just seen bother you?! And now you’re talking all coolly about putting me out like I’m some sort of second-rate candle?” She drifted back slightly, nervous. The other Ghost had said something about the snuffer, if someone else should put her out with it... “Do you even know why you got dragged off down memory lane? I mean, if I was getting visited by ghosts telling me to change I would be freaked out and…” Marley Jacobs shrugged and lowered the snuffer.
Present
Across town from the ominous shape of Jacobs Industries, in room 1225 of the ICU in Jacobs Memorial Hospital, Mrs. Sarah Hatch and Mrs. Sophia Taliday watched in numb disbelief as the faint heartbeat on the monitor flatlined. In the room next door, the sleeping Timmy Hatch cried out in the midst of a nightmare. He sat up, panting, eyes huge.
“Momma!!!” Mrs. Hatch hurried from the next room over, wiping tears from her eyes as she came.
“Are you alright, Timmy?” She hugged him tightly, trying to keep her voice steady. “You were just having a dream…”
“Momma… Ms. Holly…” Timmy sobbed. “In my dream, she… she told me she couldn’t come to play with me anymore…” Mrs. Hatch didn’t say anything, but held her son tightly. “Momma, did she die?”
There was a rush of activity outside the room as a crowd of emergency room nurses hurried into the room, bringing a defibrillator, but it seemed a world away from the mother and child in room 1224. Timmy opened his teary eyes and looked over his mother’s shoulder and gasped. Mrs. Hatch pulled back and examined him critically, wary of another asthma attack. But Timmy was breathing fine. His eyes were wide as he pointed toward the corner of the room. His mother looked quickly and saw nothing.
“What is it, Timmy?” The boy didn’t answer. He continued to stare in wonderment at the glowing figure in the corner, a red-shirted girl with flaming blondish hair that spread around her in a halo. The girl smiled sadly at Timmy and shook her head slightly. Timmy turned to his mother.
“You should go sit with Ms. Taliday, Momma. She needs you right now.” Mrs. Hatch tried to protest, but Timmy continued. “I’m ok. Please, Momma?”
His mother hugged him once more. “I’ll be in the next room if you need me.” She stood and left, looking at her small son with concern as she exited.
“Ms. Holly?” whispered Timmy. “I thought… I thought you said you had to leave…”
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Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:00 pm
Holly frowned. She felt so different. Before, she had floated up whenever she felt insignificant, now she had to struggle to remain close to the ground. “I get one last shot, Timmy. I… I messed up. I was supposed to help Mr. Jacobs learn the true meaning of Christmas, but instead he just got mad. I can’t get through to him. I need your help, Timmy.”
“What do you need me to do, Ms. Holly?” Timmy sat up as straight as he could in his hospital bed.
“I need you to draw me a picture…”
Marley Jacobs sat on his leather sofa staring, unimpressed, at the black robed figure of the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come. “I thought you were a Christmas Spirit, not a Halloween decoration. Get out.” The silent Spirit did not move, but instead reached out a skeletal hand towards Jacobs. The latter made no move to take it.
“I’m not impressed by your theatrics. As I told your predecessor, I don’t care if you drag me all over showing me how I’m miserable my life is, I’m not going to change because of something a weirdo in a black shower curtain does. So, leave me now and no one will get hurt.” The Ghost drifted closer, his hand gripping Jacobs’ tie. “I said leave! I don’t care about Christmas!”
The Ghost made a small sighing sound and floated back a few feet. “Don’t you… recognize me…?”
Jacobs was struck by the hollow voice’s familiarity. “Timothy Hatch?!”
The figure reached up and pulled back its hood to reveal a pale, emaciated version of his childhood rival. “I supposed a… visit… to the future… would do you no good…” The Ghost moved closer to Jacobs, eyes strangely sightless. “... You… took… my future… my little boy… will never see… his father… because… of you…” The rasp of Hatch’s angry voice made Jacobs pull back in fear. “Now my wife… has to slave for you… and my boy… is losing his future…because she cannot… afford the insurance… and he’s going… to die… of his illness… How can I… forgive you… Jacobs…? You want… a future…? You have… nothing… I had… and will have nothing… I could not…” Hatch’s hand crept forward, wrapping around Jacobs’ neck. “… I would take it… all… from you… right now… if I could…”
Jacobs struggled to remove the Spirit’s clamp-like grip from around his neck, but could not. His vision began to turn foggy, and a numbness grew in his hands and feet. This was how it was going to end?! This wasn’t how it was supposed to end! He… he…
“Stop.” A warm, soft voice filled the room, replacing the chilled fog surrounding Jacobs and Hatch.
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Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 11:26 am
The latter released Jacobs and backed away, blank eyes still full of murder. Jacobs sat up weakly and looked around in a panic; the mists around him had cleared and been replaced with an amber light. For a moment Jacobs and Hatch were alone in the light, then a figure appeared. It was dressed in a simple white robe with a golden belt around its wait. The figure was emitting a pure, white light that beamed from its hair and hands to form radiant wings. Its face was like that of a teenage girl, but it held a certain peace and wisdom that most teenagers lacked. Both men were immediately reminded of the same person: Sarah Cratchitt.
“This fighting must stop.” The figure looked at Hatch. “You are still here, after all this time? Could you not find peace?”
“I… I had… to leave a wife… and child behind…” The black robed Spirit’s voice was full of conflicting emotion. “How can I… find peace…?”
“You were a good man, a good father. The tragedy that befell you was terrible, but you left love in the hearts of your wife, love that your son feels from her every day. Do not be so full of hate over what you lost. Be glad for what you could give.”
Timothy Hatch looked at his feet. “But… I still am… the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come…”
“You do not need bitterness to set those who need you on the right path.” The brilliant Spirit turned to the trembling Jacobs. “Do not fear, Marley Jacobs. I mean you no harm.”
“Y-you’re the first one! The Ghost of Christmases Past! I thought you…”
“I did not vanish when you put me out. I was told I would have one more chance to turn you around, and then I would have to face the punishment for my carelessness.” The figure put out its hand to Jacobs, who took it hesitantly.
“Where are we going?” he asked meekly. The figure smiled at his benevolently.
“We are going back to the past. To this morning, when this whole story began…”
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Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 9:30 am
OK, I'ma just post the rest, since I'm leaving for home. Feliz navidad!
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Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 9:34 am
That Morning
“Rise and shine, baby girl! It’s the first day of Christmas break, and you know what that means!”
Marley Jacobs blinked and looked around the room in surprise. This wasn’t any place he knew; it looked like a teenager’s room. There were articles of clothing and magazines strewn about, and an array of brightly colored nail polish bottles. The speaker was a cheery-looking woman wearing a sweater with a Christmas tree on it. She appeared to be addressing a figure curled up in the bed.
“Come on, Holly, get in the spirit! If you aren’t out of bed in three minutes, I’m force-feeding you egg nog!” She swept out in a cloud of pine scent.
“Spirit, where are we? This isn’t my house.” Jacobs was surprised to
see the Spirit’s eyes were full of tears.
“This is not your home. This is mine.”
Jacobs’ eyes bulged. “Your… home? And that was your mother…?”
The Spirit nodded quietly and reached out to touch the sleeper. The teen stirred and sat up. Though her hair was a mess and she was wearing flannel pajamas, Jacobs recognized her immediately as the girl beside him. The living girl swung her feet over the edge of her bed and stood. The Spirit glided into the hall, pulling Jacobs with her. They drifted down the steps to the kitchen, where Mr. Taliday was finishing up his coffee. Mrs. Taliday smiled at him and he gave her a kiss on the cheek as she leaned over the oven. Jacobs felt a bit embarrassed. Holly came trooping down the steps and frowned at her father. “Dad, be careful. It’s, like, snowing buckets outside. The roads are all icy.”
“I will,” Mr. Taliday said, smiling and wrapping a tacky scarf around his neck. “You ladies have fun putting up our decorations. I’ll be home at five with dinner.”
He left and the two girls began decorating cookies. The Spirit slipped through the door to the outside, leaving the warm kitchen for the chilly snow-covered lawn. Jacobs reluctantly followed. Across the street were some children, playing in the snow, laughing like there was nothing wrong in the world. Jacobs recognized one from the picture on Mrs. Hatch’s desk: her son, Timmy. The whole scene, the mother and daughter making cookies, the children playing, it was like an old-fashioned Christmas card. Jacobs felt a twinge of envy for all of them.
“I never got this… I never got to have fun with my friends, or even meet my mother. And now, I’m only destroying those precious moments for others, aren’t I? That little boy’s mother is already at work, leaving him alone. Even on Christmas, she’s there because she has to be… What an idiot I am! I sped right past this only this morning, and I didn’t see…” Jacobs turned to the Spirit imploringly.
“Please, please let me make it up, at least to that little boy! Let me at least let him have his mother on Christmas.”
“You want to give? Then you will get one more chance at today. Make the most of it.” The Spirit released Jacobs’ hand. For a moment the world grew foggy, then cleared. Jacobs found himself behind the wheel of his car, pulling out of his driveway. He looked around, but the Spirit was gone. The clock read 8:54 a.m.; Jacobs was running late for work.
He looked in his hand, at the folded-up piece of paper the Spirit had given him. Opening it, he stared for a minute, and smiled. Then he reached for his cell phone.
Holly Taliday looked up from her gingerbread man and glanced out the window. Mrs. Hatch’s car was pulling into her driveway. “Hey, Mom, Mrs. Hatch is back…”
Holly’s mother looked concerned. “Why would she be back so early?
There’s no way Mr. Jacobs would let her off early unless she’d been… oh, no!”
The two women turned off the stove and hurried across the street, Holly clutching a basket of cookies. Her mother stepped on the curb and wobbled as her foot hit some ice, but Holly reached out and steadied her. Mrs. Taliday knocked on the door.
“Now, don’t bring it up right away, Holly. Just act like…” The door opened and a beaming Mrs. Hatch waved them in.
“Sophia, I got a raise!” she cried out happily. “And Mr. Jacobs has given me an extra week of vacation a year, plus holidays!”
“That’s wonderful!” said Mrs. Taliday, hugging her friend. “It’s almost Christmas miracle!”
“I know! I haven’t been this happy since…” she paused for a moment, and then smiled again. “Oh, you brought cookies! Let’s celebrate! How about some egg nog?” Timmy had come in, cheeks rosy from the cold, and nodded eagerly. Holly groaned.
The four of them sat at the table, talking and laughing. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. “I’ll get it!” said Holly, eager to escape the smell of egg nog. She scrambled out of the kitchen and opened the front door.
It was Marley Jacobs.
“Can I… help you, sir?” Holly wasn’t sure if she hated him or was grateful, since he had given Mrs. Hatch time off for her son.
“Yes. I wanted to thank you.” He smiled at her awkwardly, unused to smiling at all.
Holly moved so that the door was between her and him. “For what?” she asked suspiciously.
“For showing me what I was missing. I wanted to give you a sometihng to show my appreciation.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “I don’t think you have anything I want.”
Jacobs looked somber. “No, I don’t think I do either. But I’d like for you to have this anyway.” He handed her a folded up sheet of paper. “Go on, look at it.”
She unfolded it slowly. It was a picture of some sort, drawn on a piece of hospital stationary with a pencil. It looked like child’s depiction of an angel surrounded by snowflakes. At the bottom, there were some blockish, uneven letters.
“DON’T FORGET HER. -TIMOTHY”
Holly blinked and looked at Jacobs. “I’m afraid I don’t follow. Why are you showing me this?”
Jacobs smiled at her pitifully. “You don’t remember… well, I guess that means it never happened. Which is good, I suppose.” He turned and began walking back towards his car. “I guess you’re just a child now.”
Holly frowned, and was about to close the door when realized she still had his picture. “Hey, sir, you forgot your picture!” She ran after him. She had almost caught up to him when her feet hit a patch of ice and went flying. Jacobs reached out and caught her elbow, pulling her back up.
Everything suddenly clicked into place in Holly’s mind. Her fall, the flame, the ghost, the memories… She stepped back from Jacobs, a little overwhelmed. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be dragging you around by your arm, not the other way around…” she stepped back shakily and looked at the picture again. “This… this isn’t me.”
Jacobs looked confused. “It’s not? It looks like you. Who is it?”
Holly looked at him with the same expression she’d had when giving him his second chance, a mixture of calm and wisdom that extended beyond fifteen years. “Isn’t it obvious? It’s Sarah.” Holly refolded the paper and handed it back to him. “Keep it. It was meant for you.” Her expression became more approachable, and she nodded at the house. “Would you like to come in? I mean, if Mrs. Hatch says it’s alright.”
“It’s fine.” Holly turned and was surprised to see her mother, Mrs. Hatch, and Timmy standing in the doorway, watching them. “Come in, Marley. I wanted to thank you for the time off anyway.”
Marley Jacobs smiled, and this time it didn’t look quite so strained.
“It was nothing you didn’t deserve.” He and Holly walked back up the path and into the house.
“What’s going on here, Holly? Why is Mr. Jacobs here?” Holly’s mother was eyeing the man in suspicion.
“Let’s just say, Mr. Jacobs found his holiday spirit, and leave it at that, Mom.” Holly picked up Timmy, and the two smiled at Mrs. Taliday confusingly.
“God bless us, every one!” Timmy piped. Seeing their surprise, he added, “It was from the book my teacher read to us yesterday.”
“That’s right, Timmy. God bless us, every one.” Mrs. Hatch said, smiling. “Now, how about some egg nog?”
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