A Christmas Carol

London on the Christmas Eve wasn't so different from the London of the rest of the year. At Marco's eye, at least. Some illuminations here and there, some lights more, decorations at the window shops to recall the Christmas spirit set up with not great effort. In the end, the same money eater trap of always. Just the very next day, Christmas, London would have gotten a different hint, a variation thanks to the crowd of angry tourists finding out that the city had completely stopped: no Underground, no trains and no buses, all shops, and restaurants shut down. Just minicab charging twice the normal price to move around and kebab to feed yourself if your legs were good enough to bring you to Londonistan, the Muslim neighbourhood of the East End.

Well, it wasn't his business. Someone else's troubles: if you were such a fool to let London attract you like a moth from a light bulb, you deserve to burn yourself. London was an insect electric trap... Well, a tourist electric trap.

Walking the alleys between Covent Garden and the Hunteriam Museum, Marco suppressed the usual disgust which caught him every time he got in touch with the real face of London: piss stench and rubbish dumped everywhere. London was a filthy city with a clean face. It showed itself clean and tidy to the tourists, but if you spent a bit of time in it, you got in contact with people pissing against walls, drunk people's vomit, and the rubbish dropped everywhere. There were not a lot of rubbish bins around, but being Londoners (and British everywhere on the island) used to drop their rubbish here and there and letting someone else to pick their shit up, would they have used the bins if they had them? Marco doubted it.

A thought went to the Hunteriam Museum, with its collection of human body parts, deformed skeletons and other freaks result of the miserable life of people during the Victorian Age. The doctor John Hunter would have gotten crazy of happiness nowadays: not studying and collecting deformations of the body caused by malnutrition and diseases derived from dirtiness, but instead mental deformations with all the soul dirtiness which came with them. The doctor would have enjoyed to slice brains looking for spots and malformations if he would have lived nowadays. With his spirit of a surgeon and either of phlebotomist and butcher (Jack the Ripper was a beginner in confront of him), the Scottish doctorling built an incredible collection, dark and fascinating. The Hunteriam Museum definitely deserved a visit. Did the tourist visit it? Maybe some wretches who had gotten the wrong way. The plonkers went all to throw their money away to get on the London Eye and experimenting the most boring forty minutes of their all lives. Not that a lot of them would have admitted it, not after throwing into the toilet almost thirty pounds. Or thirty-six Euros. Or forty-eight Dollars.

Suddenly putting aside every thought about tourists and horror museums, Marco stopped in the shadow of a building, maybe the back of a pub which had shut down permanently a long time ago. He had found who was looking for. A figure stood silent and still on the very bottom of the alley, in the light circle of the only street lamp. A dark leather coat hung from his broad shoulders, almost brushing the ground. He kept his head tilted to one side, listening. Someone sang: tipsy voices came out from a lit window on the first floor, a chore not able to sing in unison a jingle off-key for almost every note. But the listening man seemed to appreciate it. Maybe he appreciated the attempt. Or the spirit of the attempt.

Taking a deep breath, Marco moved on, the chest swollen of air. He took two steps and released the breath; other two steps and said: -We need to speak!

The man at the bottom of the alley turned suddenly, a surprised expression on his face that lasted just a moment. Three more steps and Marco stopped, three meters away from the man with the leather coat. The urine stench here was stronger. On the face of the man appeared a smile, sly like he was a cat, and he rose a hand to the perfectly shaved chin.

-Since you've been able to find me-, he said, -I think it's proper I concede you this conversation, little man. What do you want from me?

-You are the Ghost of Christmas Past.

The man nodded and his smile became more marked. -This wasn't a question. Get on.

-Then you represent the Past Time.

-Right deduction. Go on with it.

A sparkle, between ironic and wicked, lit into his eyes. Marco inhaled deeply, trying to collect the courage to make his request, the whole his confidence suddenly disappeared. There was something, in the Ghost in front of him, which aroused awe. Not just the imposing of the figure; not his inscrutable eyes, black and deep like coal mines. The dusty smell of gone ages, lost lives and forgotten things gave off from his person. And it put a thrill into your bones, it sank deeply inside you like a sharp pain in your teeth.

-I... I want back the Christmas Days you got from me! I want my past time back!

For a moment the Ghost stared astonished at him, then began to laugh: a chuckle first, then stronger and stronger till bursting into a cackle which threw back his head. A roar which filled the all alley. Marco noticed that the jingle at the first floor had stopped. The window opened and two blurred figures appeared at it. The Ghost stopped laughing, shining black eyes and clenched lips, his stony gaze directed upwards at the people at the window. They withdrew inside with a jump, shut the window and then switched the light off. No one resumed the singing inside the house.

The Ghost brought his attention back at Marco. Every hint of hilarity was disappeared from his face. Two quick steps, took without notice, got him at few centimetres from Marco. A thrill run all along his spinal column, while he had to rose his head to stare into those eyes. Eyes as black as coal.

-Repeat what you want from me, little man-, the Ghost said in a breath.

-I want... I want my Christmas Days back-, Marco stammered. -You arrived... too early. I wasn't ready... I wasn't ready and I made too many mistakes. I want to remedy my mistakes!

The Spirit tsked, annoyed. Shaking his head, he rose his left hand, rotating the fingers, and a crystal sphere full of snow appeared into his hand.

-Look into it-, the Ghost ordered.

Marco stared in the swirls of thick snow, small balls of polystyrene which spun like they had their own life. Their crazy dance slowed down and became thinner: Marco glimpsed some shadows beyond the spinning. Suddenly the shadows thickened. Surrounded by a round frame of golden and warm light, the lines of a room got shaped. A well know sofa, curtains whose choice he was unwillingly involved in, a big solid wood table whit a basket of fruit on it... And his wife sitting on the sofa, the stare low, thoughtful, the hands tight between the crossed legs. Another figure appeared: his son, a tall youth with thick, curled hair of a raven-black colour which nobody knew where came from, since both his family and his wife's family hadn't that colour in them. His son sat aside the mother and took one of her hands. She gave him a resigned smile and a shrug.

Marco's eyes went from the crystal sphere to the Spirit's face and to the sphere again. What...? His son wore a polo neck sweater he has never seen. Behind the boy and his mother, behind the sofa, in a corner close to the kitchen's glass door, the Christmas Tree stood decorated but its light were off. Shivering Marco watched the Spirit.

-Do you understand?- the Spirit asked.

-Which... which Christmas did you show me? It's the Christmas Present, isn't it?

-Indeed, it's the Christmas Present. And yet it just belongs to me. Do you understand why?

Marco froze. What am I doing here? The situation's futility hit him like a fist to the stomach.

-You're searching a way to make up for the past mistakes, and you didn't realize you were making a new one-, the Ghost of the Christmas Past murmured, almost gently.

Marco wasn't able to stop shuddering, the shivers shaking him stronger and stronger.

-The Past always arrives too early, little man, since the Present is a bitch. Both don't leave you any chance, being they what they are. Just the Time Yet to Come can show you a different face.

The eyes of Marco met the Spirit's. How had he exchanged for hardness the sad light coming from those eyes? The shivers, slowly, run out.

-I don't need to call the other two Ghosts of Christmas. Not for you, little man, do I?

Marco shook faintly his head. How could I have been so blind?

-Go, now. The Past is past, and the Present is so easy to get lost. Put faith just in the Time Yet to Come, little man, but don't waver. Go for it.

Marco turned without speaking a word and set out along the alley. Heading off towards home.

Later on that night, the Ghost of the Christmas Past resumed his crystal sphere. When the snow in it stopped its dance, he saw Marco walking unnoticed into the room and plugging the Christmas Tree's lights in. His wife and his son turned surprised towards him, then they smiled. Marco mirrored their smiles. The Spirit smiled with them. Not always the Present was a bitch.

Loosely based on Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, which I've never read.