A holiday short for your entertainment. Merry Christmas.

I sat in the big, fluffy recliner feeling sorry for myself which is where I spent a lot of time lately. The cushiony chair felt good on my back, the only part of me that was feeling favorable this evening. A bad divorce and grown children left me to my lonesome and Christmas Eve was the perfect opportunity to wallow in all of my sorrows. The cup of coffee I’d poured myself some time ago was growing cold, but luckily the fire I’d started in the hearth was still good and warm. It’s orange and yellow glow fell lightly on the small living room area I’d worked two jobs to keep. Its reflection could be seen on the television screen highlighting the show that didn’t have anything to do with the holiday season or commercialism. Thank goodness.

I closed my eyes, wishing the sweet relief of sleep would come and drown out the entire Christmas holiday. Wake me up when it’s all over was my motto. It didn’t take long for relaxation to set in and before I realized it, I was drifting. A pat, pat, thump, pat, pat, thump, pat, pat, thump sound roused me awake. I opened my eyes to see a very plump and furry orange tabby cat standing in front of my chair. Large yellow eyes, a pinkish nose with dark freckles, and of all the darn things, three legs. That’d explain the pat, pat, thump sound that woke me up.

“Where’d you come from, little kitty? I shut all the doors.”

The cat sat down and gave a good yawn. Then cleared its throat and said, “Through the door, of course.”

I jumped, startled out of my wits. I would have run out of the house screaming, but it was about twenty degrees and snowing out there and, besides, I had no other place to go. “You can talk?” I gasped.

If it had the ability to grin, it would have, but it didn’t. Instead it formed a sort of feline smirk and gave a low meow. “Better?” it asked me.

“Uh, yeah.”

“It’s Christmas Eve. Why are sitting her by yourself? Why didn’t you accept the invitation your son and daughter-in-law gave you? I’d be better than the pity party you’re throwing for yourself.”

I tried to hide the shock in my voice. Because, either I wasn’t awake after all or this was just one step closer to the loony bin. “They have their own lives. I don’t want to intrude.”

The cat yawned again. “Intrude, huh? Kind of like me coming into your little hovel of a house?” A pause for it to lick one of its front paws, he placed it back on the floor and met my eyes with its own. “Although, this really isn’t classified as an intrusion, more of an intervention.”

“An intervention?”

“Yeah, an intervention. You’re not living. Not really. Pity parties don’t classify as living. You’ve had a few tough breaks, so what? At least you have all of your legs, right?”
I nodded, trying not to laugh. “So, you’re here to help me?”

It shook its head back and forth slowly, a great feat for a feline. “No. I’m just doing the introductions. Kind of a kitty MC if you think about it.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, starting to worry.

“Ever hear of The Christmas Carol?” It didn’t wait for me to reply. “Well ol’ Charles Dickens was on to more than he knew when he wrote that tale. Maybe it really happened to him, maybe it didn’t. Regardless, its happening to you. Tonight. So, hold on to your best price slippers and listen.” It cleared its throat, a meow escaped kind of like an unwanted burp, so he excused himself and sat up straight. “Tonight, you will be visited by three some things or other. They will try to show you that you do actually have a life and you’re crapping it up pretty badly, yadda, yadda, yadda. I’m just the messenger so don’t bother me with details. First one will come when he damn well pleases, the second will follow and well, you catch my drift.”

I started to open my mouth to question about the reality of any of this, but it cut me off with another meow that sounded more like a low growl.

“I’ll be going now. I have living to do and the night is young.” It glanced at the doorway, let out a hiss, and then beat hell getting out of there right through my front room window.

I expected the glass to crash on impact but, instead, the cat went straight through without a sound and disappeared into the darkness. I sat back, impressed that it could move that fast on three legs. I chuckled to myself, recalling the sped up version of the pat, pat, thump sound it made when it ran. That chuckle stopped quickly when the fire in my hearth suddenly went out and my television set began to show a snowy screen. My cup of cold coffee shuddered on the table, then took a dive to the carpeted floor, spilling all of its contents.

“Uh-oh,” I sighed, lifting the cup off the wet spot on my carpet. “Must be one of the some things or other.” I slid on my best price pink slippers just as something began banging on my front door. I got up, remembering every crime novel I’d ever read, my mind begging me to not open the door to the psychotic murderer who was surely on the other side, but I couldn’t stop. Something or other was making me get up and open the door.

Turning the knob and pulling it open, the porch light revealed something I really wanted to slam the door on. But couldn’t. I yelped, backing up just enough to allow the male, zombie-like figure room to limp inside. A tattered suit and tie scantily covered his raggedly thin body. And the smell, oh God, the smell was absolutely rancid.

“Who are you?” I asked in horror.

He grumbled incoherently and shoved me aside as he gimped over to my comfy chair, dragging one of his legs as he went. The chair groaned a little as he flopped into it. I gasped as one of his eyes popped out from the impact and rolled on my carpet in front of his tattered black dress shoes. He bent over, picked it up with a hand that looked as if leprosy had infected it, and slid it back into the empty socket. The eyeball rolled around for a second or two until it became fully balanced with the opposite eye. Then he looked at me.

“I am the something you have forgotten.”

I swallowed, shivering now that the fire had been doused by the coming of this thing. “If I remember The Christmas Carol correctly, you are the ghost of the past?”

He huffed. The blowing action caused his nose to drop off his face onto his lap. He picked it up and put it back on without a hitch. “I’m no ghost, princess.” His voice was dry and deep like he’d been thirsty for centuries. “Very much alive, in fact, and will continue to be so till the end of time. Just like me, the past is alive, you know. It may wilt or rot some, but it never truly dies. You, on the other hand, well, I don’t know what to say about you. Except, grab a robe. It’s cold out there.”

I scurried off to my bedroom, returning with my old pink terrycloth robe tied tightly around my waist. He was fiddling with his hand when I returned and I suspected that it had fallen off as well while I was away. He said nothing, but stood, gimped over to me and offered the hand. Literally. I took it with both horror and disgust, the cold, hard fingers still managed to grip my hand tightly as he led the way through my closed front door.

Like the Dickens Carol, I was shown scenes from my past. Happy childhood holidays filled with Christmas spirit. A little girl, me, unwrapping much wished for dolls and toys, eating candy from my stocking before breakfast, and playing with my friends and family. Then, he ushered me to a portion of my past I greatly wished to forget, a Christmas during my parent’s divorce. It was the time when life’s realities had first set home. I cried as I watched myself open gifts I really didn’t want, for no gift could replace the family life I thought I had. The air grew cold around me so I pulled the robe a little tighter against my chest. It didn’t help.

“It’s not the temperature, princess,” Mister Past replied. “It’s the ambiance.”

I nodded sadly, realizing that Christmas was my first taste of human coldness. The presents were many. The warming love was scarce. I cried pitifully, hitting my knees as I shivered against the frigid air. He gave me what seemed like hours to mourn and then took his hand from mine. I heard him reattach it to his arm, the bones cracking until they were in fixed position.

“The present will be here shortly, princess. It never tarries.”

And then, that was it. I opened my eyes to find myself kneeling down in front of my comfy chair, tears still streaming down my cheeks. I rose, washed my face, and returned to see a figure draped lazily across my chair. A woman with a pink and white candy striped robe hanging loosely against her white flannel pajamas. Fuzzy pink pig slippers hid her feet. I glanced upward to her head. Curlers rolled tightly against her scalp were covered with a light pink see-through cap. But her face, that was the most terrifying. I gawked for a moment or two at the greenish-brown mud mask that was smeared on, hiding everything but her mouth and two inch circles around her eyes. A burning cigarette hung from her lips and she sported a cup of hot coffee in one hand. My cup.

She gazed away from my television to me and I noticed that the set was playing a soap opera I usually watched in the morning before work. The episode was one I had seen earlier in the day.

“Hello sister,” the she-thing said in a hoarse voice. “Bet you want to know about the present, since you don’t seem to be participating in any of it.”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

She removed the cigarette, gave it a good flick on my carpet and took a swig of coffee from my cup. “Too bad,” she croaked. “We’ll be leaving on the next commercial.”

I stood quietly while she watched the drama play out and then, as she promised when the commercials began to run, she threw the half-filled cup down on my floor, butted out the cigarette with her pig slipper, and grabbed my hand with her icy one.

Before I knew it, or could protest for that matter, she was dragging me towards the broom closet. And, in the blink of an eye, we were flying high in the night sky on my very own kitchen broom. Over my home town and into the next, we finally touched down in my son’s backyard. She set the broom aside, lit up another cigarette, and blew out a lung full of smoke. This time, I shivered against the natural cold of the frigid evening.

“Why are we here?” I asked through chattering teeth.

“It’s Christmas Eve, sister. You should always be with the ones you love on Christmas Eve.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, but they have their own lives to live. I would just be in their way.”

She-thing inhaled on the cigarette, and for a moment, I could swear that some of the smoke was billowing out both her ears. I glanced away.

“They invited you. You’re their family. Stop making excuses.” And with that, she grabbed my hand and yanked me forward into my son’s house.

Christmas decorations illuminated the entire living room, some animated, some not, but the place looked like a scene straight from the North Pole. It was beautiful and I basked in the sounds of Christmas carols playing lightly in the background. My two grandchildren, both girls, sat happily on the family couch watching my son and daughter-in-law decorate the tree.

“Mom would have loved to see this,” I heard my son say.

My daughter-in-law smiled. “She would have if she was more in the spirit. I think the divorce has taken a toll on her.”

“Is Grandma coming?” one of my granddaughters asked, hopefully.

My son shook his head. “Not this year, sweetheart. Maybe next. Okay?”

The child lowered her lip in a pout and her eyes filled with tears. “But I want her to come. How will Santa find her if she’s not here?”

My son picked her up in his arms and hugged her tightly. “Santa is an amazing man, kiddo. He could find her even if she was hidden in a haystack.”

The candy striped she-thing yanked my hand again and we left, hearing echoes of my grandchild giggling. The next stop happened to be the house of my mother. She lay silently in her recliner watching It’s a Wonderful Life through sleepy eyes. The room lay barren of seasonal decorations, a choice she herself had made, and I grew even sadder than I had been when the Past was with me.

“She finds the whole thing a waste of time and energy,” I heard the She-thing say. “Yet she still manages to watch that blasted movie every year. Perhaps she’d think differently if she was led to.”

Somehow I understood. My mother was worn out by life and was apparently too tired for Christmas spirit on her own. She needed help. I started to say something to the thing of the Present, but when I turned, she was gone. And when I turned back to my mother, so was she. I was right back in front of my comfy chair, standing there like an idiot.

The Present had vanished without any word of the Future, as the present usually does, so I plopped down onto my chair and closed my eyes, hoping secretly that the future would not come. That hope was short lived. For, no sooner than I had shut my eyes, I felt and heard the silence that only the lack of electricity can bring. I opened my sight to the darkness of my living room and waited nervously.

I didn’t have to wait too long. My chair suddenly felt lumpy like I was sitting on someone. The electricity snapped back on. I jumped up and turned to find that I was. Me. I had been sitting on me. But, much older and wrinkled. Alone, just like I’d seen my mother moments before. A cigarette dangled from my lips and I spotted my cup filled with what smelled like bourbon.

“You could have prevented this,” my future self squawked. “You could have saved yourself from pity, but here you are. Here I am. The other you. Did you know that this is the last night I’ll spend in this house? The bank is taking it. And it’s Christmas Eve, for crying out loud. Thanks for nothing.”

“What about the kids? Can’t you--can’t I--move in with them?”

“They’ve moved on. Don’t you know that? You told them to, said there was no need for them to stay around. Remember?”

I grimaced. I had no recollection, because, of course, none of this had happened yet. I solemnly watched my future self drink until I passed out in the chair. Then, with shaky hands, I removed the still-smoldering cigarette butt from my wrinkled mouth and put it out in an ashtray next to the ratty old comfy chair.

“This doesn’t have to happen,” I told myself. “It doesn’t. All I need to do is change my ways and it won’t happen.” I repeated this over and over to myself, pinching my eyes closed as I stood in my lonely living room with a drunk old woman for what seemed like eternity.

When I finally hushed and opened my eyes, I was sitting in the chair just as I had been when this all began. The television blared a rather annoying infomercial and the fire in the hearth still flamed tirelessly as if no time had truly passed. I glanced at the clock above the mantel, acknowledging that if I had been asleep, it wasn’t for very long. But had I been asleep?

I looked over at my coffee table and found what looked like a cat hair, a rotting finger, a hair curler, and an ashtray all laying side by side in the center next to a cup of hot coffee. It had been real! All of it. Silent Night sung by three individuals and a growling cat scraped against my ears. But I could find no one else in the room with me. I’d have been frightened, but I knew they meant no harm, even if their singing did injure my hearing slightly.

Quickly, I took a swig of coffee and brushed the trinkets of my awakening into an empty shoebox, which I then placed in the closet to remind me of what I had experienced this very night. Then I plucked up my cordless phone, dialed Mother and then my son to tell them to expect me for Christmas. No longer would I rot in pity. And no longer would I allow anyone else, Mother included.

That Christmas was the most memorable. But, many were to follow. All of them with my loved ones. And self-pity, well, that was a thing that truly rotted in the past. Sometimes, when I’m quiet, I can still hear the voices of some thing or other singing Christmas carols into the night with that blasted three-legged cat.