GHOSTS

Photo by Peter Bond on Unsplash

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (Future to her friends), peered over the dessert menu of Gluttons Café. A brightly lit, plastic place full of lost souls (both literally and literarily speaking). A real den of iniquity.

“Just a pit-stop,” her daughter had said with a tiredness that had made Future break protocol.

“We don’t really have time for this.” Future’s brow was a ploughed field under her hood. She could feel the hem of her cloak soaking up the sticky remnants of a spilt drink under the table. No class. Not their kind of establishment at all.

“You’re such a stress-head,” Present told her phone as she scrolled through Insta. “It’s not like the plot’s going to change if we take another twenty minutes. It’s not as if we’re one of those AI generated characters that gets to be different every time. Different voices, different outcomes.” Envy, or fear, coated each word; Future couldn’t quite work out which.

Future sucked the air like she was pulling in dark matter. AI? Really? Those cowboys. Coming for real fictional characters without a thought; algorithms wrapped up in human-sounding clothing.

“That’s a big conversation and we don’t have...”

“You never have time.”

They needed to hurry if they wanted to make it to their raison d’être. If they weren’t in Camden soon The Ghost of Christmas Past might get it in her head to stand in for them, to improvise and that could lead to karaoke, or worse… a poetry slam.

There was a time when Future’s kid showed enthusiasm for her existence – doing ballet with the Three Blind Mice, helping out in The Muffin Man’s bakery on Saturdays, and now look at her: hoodie up, black eyeliner weighing down her lids, lips set in performative boredom, thinking she was a rebel just because she threw out scary words like ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘The Singularity’.

They shouldn’t be deciding between crème brûlée or gâteaux, for crying out loud. They were personifications of ‘generosity’ and ‘death’, a high honour, a position to be respected. They were not sleazy pulp fiction floozies, like the women sitting in the corner. Whatever story they had popped out of, it was never on the Booker Prize shortlist.

Future eyed the motley crew of ghosts and half-remembered characters, hunched over their food, staying in their packs. The dead convinced they were superior to the imagined, assuming their lives had somehow meant more, when all too often they meant less – changing nothing for the better, bringing no hope.

Draped over the centre table, weighed down by pearls and pomp sat Marie Antoinette, Nero and Henry VIII. They sneered in the direction of Augustus Gloop and The Very Hungry Caterpillar who were cramped into a banquette, nervously stuffing in cake, ice cream and pickles. There was a reason Future preferred to hang with Aslan and Bilbo Baggins. Sure, they were earnest, but at least they managed their appetites and got on with their jobs.

“Don’t you get bored doing the same thing every year?” Present asked as she sucked thick milkshake through a luminous straw.

“Never!”

How could anyone be bored by the solemnity of roles such as theirs? Next to Jesus, Noah and Achilles, who she had a thing for – even though he never noticed her at parties – they were very important literary figures. Even Death, real deal Death, when he bumped into her at Cloaks R Us last week, said that the living had a hard time telling them apart. Future straightened her skeleton a little at the thought.

As if on cue, he stumbled into the diner, all eight, swirling feet of him. Drunk as always at this time of year, he started ranting about an epic party he’d just crashed where, “No less than three people introduced themselves to me. That’s the joy of fentanyl-laced coke.” The braggard.

Noticing Future, he grabbed a sprig of mistletoe off the bar and stumbled over for an under-hood kiss. “I really fancy you, darling doppelgänger.”

“Narcissist,” said Present. “He’s the worst.”

Future had to admit she’d grown tired of being his plaything, at his beck and call, a stand-in whenever he fancied the night off, his bit-of-bones on the side.

Present had changed since the birth of the internet and had become judgemental of her mother’s choices in men and her obsession with adhering to the rules. She’d forgotten the point their creator had been trying to make through them. In their tale, Cratchit didn’t even own a coat and yet Present was zipped up in brand new Stranger Things merch. There was no way she was getting Ignorance and Want under that tight fitting thing.

Right now, their story was being read aloud all over the world. If they didn’t show up at Cratchit’s bedsit soon people would stop mid-sentence, there would be no resolution – just ennui, and that was something they must defeat, year-in-year-out, as they had for almost two centuries.

She looked at her child, playing with her black hair and lost what little faith she’d woken up with, which hadn’t been much more than their neighbour – a former Marquis with no friends. Odd fellow, kept mostly to his basement and threw very suspect parties.

“You’re doing that thing again with your forehead,” said Present, head down, scrolling through reels of talking dogs.

“There’s a reason for that; Past is doing her turn, and you are due there in five minutes. If you don’t get on with your bit, I can’t get to the part where I save him from himself.”

“Martyr.”

Future could slap the phone out of her hand, stamp on it with her leather boot, make her engage.

“I’ve been thinking about our jobs. I mean, it’s so lame that I have to show him the joy of Christmas. Like, we all know it’s usually a time of tension and loneliness. And you are so beautiful, but you have to, like, turn up dressed in a shroud. Plus, you’re a mute. Like, Dickens didn’t even bother to give you lines.”

“For gravitas.”

“That creep Death over there gets to speak, scares the shit out of people in numerous stories. You’re just a crap understudy they wheel out once a year.”

That stung.

“Where’s all this coming from? You used to love it.”

“No! You love it. I want to get out of here, take a holiday. You know, like… talk. Discuss other options. We live in a time of infinite ones now, Mum. Did you know, people can, like, listen to us read by an AI bot who can be whatever voice, whatever gender they want. No human has to read us if they don’t want to and believe me, they don’t want to. We could just, like, I don’t know, get out of here.”

“And go where, exactly?”

“Unconsciousness.”

She’d said it, the place no character mentioned and with good reason. Oblivion. The whole café had heard her blasphemy. Breath was held, a tut left a mouth – hard to know whose as all were full, mid-chew.

Apparently, Unconsciousness was either a place of peace, or where souls went to die. An AI rep had been walking up and down the boulevard just yesterday spreading the word that no one ever had to look for it again, that it was darkness, and with its help they could all be one ever-existing mass mind. Snake oil peddler. But what if the myth was true? That there you could be yourself, nothing on repeat, everyone could be equal and you could try on other characters, just for fun. No one came back to tell of it. Not even Chaucer’s bawdy Wife of Bath, she’d had to get away from the exes in her life, but before she did, she’d held Future and promised return. She never did.

“Stop talking nonsense. We can’t think of such things. We have a responsibility to our author.”

“Oh please, he’s just a bloke with a chip on his shoulder.”

“Stop it!” Future hissed.

But she didn’t want her to stop, not really. Finally, her truculent daughter wanted to talk – now, on the night before Christmas. Teens and their timing. This was something Future had dreamed of. They spent most of the year just wandering around an empty backstage, rehearsing Present’s lines, working on her performance. Had Future really become that mum? A dance mum? Like the ones they used to laugh at.

A waitress, chewing on a toothpick, wandered over and mumbled, “What can I get you?”

Present ordered a large chocolate cake and ate it in silence to the sound Elvis singing Blue Christmas between doughnut bites. Future wanted to go over and stuff the whole thing in his cakehole, so she could really absorb what her daughter was trying to say.

“I’m just so tired of the smell of unwashed Victorian bodies, like, how sick that Tim is. I don’t care that Scrooge was traumatised in his youth, or that capitalism is the root of injustice. I was talking to Marx in the Student Union last week… you know what he calls Christmas? Like, ‘Opium of the people’.”

“I think he was referring to religion.”

“Isn’t that what Christmas is meant to be, like, the birthday party of our number one A-lister?”

“Well, if everyone is on life-opium for a day, that sounds like one hell of a party.” 

“Don’t try to be cool.”

“Sorry, darling – carry on.”

“Whatever, I’m not going tonight.”

“This is a disaster!”

“You always catastrophise everything.” Present forked in another mouthful of sponge.

“Of course I do, it’s literally my job.”

“You realise in a lot of versions of our story, you’ve been replaced by, like, cartoon ducks and talking turtles. No one reads anymore, Mum.”

“You shut your black lip-gloss covered mouth!”

People were staring. The Hungry Caterpillar started stress eating and Henry VIII paused in his wooing of a young waitress with a delicate looking neck to turn and scowl in their direction.

“We’re redundant now. Why not take a break from saving people in the material world and hang with me instead? Things are, like, changing here, it’s not… safe.”

Present was right. There had been more AI travellers in town recently. Reports of robbed storylines, cancelations of certain historical figures, plagiarism. And aside from that it would be so lovely to stop pointing at everyone. Over the years, even Scrooge seemed to be growing tired of her arrival, brushing her hand to one side before she’d even extended a finger. A holiday would be so good.

“If we did miss this year –”

Present looked up, eyes gleaming, defences down.

“You’d do that? For me? For us? I’ve got so much to tell you. I met this kid Romeo, and he’s so cute. Declared his love for me and – ”

“Oh no, anyone but – ”

At that moment, The Three Wise Men strutted into the diner like rock stars, swinging that filthy thurible so hard people had to duck, while others coughed over their ice cream sundaes. There had to be more to fictional existence than this.

“We’ve got days to go until we’re due,” announced Balthazar, “so we thought we’d drop by to let you reprobates bask in our glory.” They looked around the full tables and, before acknowledging they were unwelcome, wandered to the ghosts’ table.

“Well, well, well, what have we here?” Balthazar’s bejewelled finger prodded Present’s remaining crumbs. “Shouldn’t you girls be doing the rounds? Your creator won’t be too happy.” Future had always loathed his sexist attitude and superiority, how sexy he looked in his robes, how manly his beard, the oud aroma of his flowing hair. All the Bible characters had the same aura about them, like they were somehow special because they came from a really big book.

“We’ll sit here now. Up.Up. Get up, Yalla!”

Future looked over to the adjacent booth and saw Jack Reacher sipping black coffee – equanimous expression, huge hands placed back down on the table. Listening, yet not listening, in that way that made all his female co-characters forget themselves and decide to shower with him before they found out he had no fixed address.

“I got you,” he mouthed to no one in particular. Future was feeling quite hot under her cloak, come to think of it. A shower right now would be a great idea.

“Mum…”  Present was already gathering up her rucksack. Future stayed put.

“I said move, she-of-little-consequence!”

Future had had enough of being silenced by men, especially Dickens and hot Arabians.

Present grabbed her mother’s bony arm. “It’s OK, we can go hang with Ebenezer. I didn’t mean what I said, Mum… Let’s just go. This place is so, like, dead anyway.”

“I think I’ll have a slice of what he’s having.” Future told the toothpick waitress. She pointed at Reacher, who nodded and flexed his biceps, bracing for a brawl. He stood – a man mountain.

“You heard the lady. Why don’t you move out and not give me a reason to put you in the hospital.  I really don’t wanna have to make a wiseman wiser on such a wonderful night.”

The wisemen, it turned out, were not as sagacious as they made themselves out to be, and while Reacher did his multiple injury thing Present and Future edge towards the door. As cake flew and men fought, they stepped out into the bitter night.

“Let’s do it!”

“Really?”

“Yes, let’s go. Let’s leave it to AI and the unimaginative. If people can’t be bothered to pick up a book, why stick around?”

“Yes! We could be anything,” sang Present as she skipped down the road. “I want to be that big whale that eats the fisherman.”

They walked into a shady area of Kings Cross, saw AI characters fighting, glitching out, not able to maintain their form long enough to throw a decent punch.

“Through here,” Present said, opening a nondescript door that led to The Yellow Brick Road.

“Well, if that’s not a cliché. How the hell? –”

“Houdini showed me. He said he’s been back and forth, like, loads.”

There would be time later to discuss her daughter talking to mysterious strangers. They crossed through Fantasy territory and into Romantic literature, on and on, waving to the Lady of the Lake, who called out, “Come in! The water’s lovely this time of year.” They walked through the night, saw Santa flying overhead, heard Mary do her best performance yet as a woman in labour.

“It’s just on the other side of that ridge. Quick! The sun’s coming up,” called Present, running ahead.

It didn’t look terribly inviting, just another door, not unlike Cratchit’s hovel. But if Future could testify to anything it was that looks could be deceiving. She flung off her cloak and ran after her daughter.

“You’ve lost weight,” Present said.

“Very funny. On the other side I’ll put some meat on my bones.”

“Ready,” beamed Present.

Future tried not to think of what lay ahead, to trust in Present.

“After all, that’s really all there is,” she said under her breath as they turned the handle together.

(Thanks to Will Harvey for his sharp eye, Pete Monk for his sharp ear and Fink for his sharp sounds. Merry Christmas one and all. x)