The Ghost of Christmas Past shows up and you’re like, “Ohhhhh for fuck’s sake,” but you’re in your childhood bedroom so it’s kind of on you. The ghost seems offended. She crosses her arms. She looks like you used to, with the pigtails.
“No way,” you say. “Don’t start.”
“The Ghost of Christmas Past, I know, I know.” Because she looks like you, and it’s Christmas Eve, so what else. Your parents used to read you the story every year. Even when you were old enough to read on your own, it was better in your dad’s voice.
“You came home for your parents,” the ghost says, solemn. “It’s time to tell them.”
“No, like, ‘when you’re ready’?”
“You are ready,” she says, “or you wouldn’t have come back.”
Which is so stupid, because you weren’t on the moon, you were at college, and it’s only been two months of shots, you don’t even have a mustache. “Fucking leave me alone,” you say, so she does the ghost thing and takes you to a ten-years-ago Christmas. The living room. Your parents. Your fledgling self on the carpet with your stocking, the one you can’t look at anymore because when you were a baby your parents patiently hand-stitched the fucking name.
“Maybe they’ll make you a new one,” says the ghost.
“You don’t know that.” Bullshit ghost powers.
“You were happier back then. When they knew you.”
“Everyone was happier back then. It was, like, 2008.”
“There was a recession,” says the ghost.
“Shut up! Shut up!” You turn over in bed. For a second you expect to roll onto child-self-you curled up next to you. Probably crush the life out of her. You got good at that. It’s her bed, her room, pink covers, cat posters.
“This is so stupid, this Dickens thing,” you say. “I’m not even Christian anymore.”
“Tell your parents that second,” the ghost suggests.
“Oh my fucking God I’m not telling them anything can’t you go bother Jeff Bezos.”
“I’m just doing my job,” says the ghost, and vanishes.
The Ghost of Christmas Present has an acne problem. As soon as you open your eyes you say, “Oh my God,” and they say, “Hi,” and you say, “You better not be the fucking Ghost of Christmas Present,” and the Ghost of Christmas Present says, “I am.”
“Why me?” you say, pink comforter bunched around your waist. “I didn’t do anything. Scrooge was mean to orphans.”
The Ghost of Christmas Present shrugs. “It’s the job.”
“Are you gonna show me my parents now?”
That makes them look kind of embarrassed.
“Well, don’t,” you say. If your parents are talking in the other room, huddled up conferencing with the lights off, you can’t hear it over the heater buzz. But you can guess what they’re saying: you went to school with a shitty pixie cut and worse eyeliner, and you came back with a real haircut and a permanent frown and a bunch of new friends you play sentence Twister to avoid pronouning. “I know they’re nice people, I got it. I’m just not ready.”
“It’s just—you’re kind of waiting for them to ask?” says the Ghost of Christmas Present. They scratch their face, where they have spectral sideburns coming in. “Your dad thinks you have a head cold. ‘Cause of your voice. But your mom’s starting to get it.”
You pull the covers over your head. “Cool, awesome, didn’t ask.”
“She isn’t going to ask,” the ghost says. “She wants you to tell her.”
You stick your middle finger out from underneath the covers. When you check, the room is empty again.
The Ghost of Christmas Future doesn’t say anything. Just looks at you. You look back. You probably have bedhead. You fixed your daytime wardrobe but your pajamas are still lacy and purple.
“How come you’re a man?” you say.
He says, “I think you know.”
“I have something to show you first.”
“Are we going to the goddamn graveyard?”
He doesn’t say anything but then you’re in the goddamn graveyard. Together. Looking at your headstone. The dates are close enough together to make you kind of sick.
“They went with the full name,” you say.
“Not even the nickname. My nice gender neutral nickname.”
The ghost shrugs. You kind of want to throw something at him but you’re just looking at it now. Chiseled in marble. Immovable. What’s that thing bigots on the internet say, about someone digging up your jawbone two hundred years from now? You always wanted to think you wouldn’t care.
The Ghost of Christmas Future’s pretty quiet. This is the part where Scrooge goes full breakdown. Tears, begging, promises.
“I’m not gonna cry on you,” you say.
So neutral. “Man, what do you want me to say?”
“Nothing,” says the ghost. “I think you’re there.”
You can’t stop looking at the headstone. “God fucking damnit shit. You promise they’ll be cool?”
“Nothing’s promised,” the ghost says. He gestures at the graveyard. “Except for this.”
“Awesome.” Cryptic cliche philosophical ghost bullshit. Yada yada. Death and taxes. Not with that name on your headstone, though. Not with that name on your tax forms, either.
You turn to tell him that and then you’re blinking in bed. There’s still one glow-in-the-dark star stuck to your ceiling where the glue never wore out. You put those up like ten years ago. Maybe longer. The light in the room says it’s morning. You swing your lacy-pajama legs over the side of the bed and go to ruin Christmas.
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