The annual Write to Learn conference has come and gone.  This year's conference made for an exciting, eventful, and useful time for attendees.  I was happy to attend a day-long session with author Kate Messner, other sessions, and keynotes by the likes of poet Taylor Mali and teacher-guru Ron Clark.

​One may read more about the conference in recent and future posts on my classroom website.

Again, the two walked, this time along a rock path leading from the barn through a quaint gate and toward the house.  Not that they had to open the gate, mind you; I only describe the setting so the reader may picture it more accurately.  A couple of shaggy horses nipped at the icy grass nearby.

Scrooge recognized all of it – every tree, every fence post, every rock in the wall.  He might have had a spring in his step had he not been more frightened at what he would see inside that old farmhouse.  As he had not thought about it for so long, so he longed to relive it now.

Crystals spread across the windows of the house, somehow making it to be more appealing.  As the abode rose before him, Scrooge trembled.  Chickens clucked and clawed at the dirt near the front door.

Inside, the smell of bread noodles and cranberry pie attacked the olfactory of anyone who entered.  To Ebenezer, the smell was too much to bear.  Sobbing, he walked up to the ladies in the small kitchen.

“M-mama,” he muttered, and then remembered she could not hear him.  Scrooge turned to the ghost.  “She is my mother, spirit.  And there at the table…”  A young girl kneaded dough, flattening it, then rolling it into spheres for biscuits. 

Scrooge could scarcely his emotion.  His shoulders heaved with hiccoughing sobs.

“Who is she?” asked the ghost.

“My my sweet, ornery sister Fan.  Look at her – so delicate, yet stronger than any of my schoolmates.  Those hands move so fluidly.”  Tears streams in rivulets down his dirty cheeks.

The ghost feigned ignorance at this.  Why, he wondered, did fluid hands cause this reaction?

“She died, spirit,” explained the old clerk.  “Surely you can see the dead in your realm!”

“But she lived to be an adult…”

“Aye, but she died in childbirth.”

“With your nephew Fred…”

“Yes, blast you, with Fred.”

“But Fred is a fine young gentleman – an effective legacy for your sister.”

Scrooge shook his head.  “Oh, spirit, I should not wonder that you do not understand, for certainly, you are the spirit of a temporal activity and not the spirit of a man.  Fred cannot be a legacy to my sister, and leastwise not to her name.  He bears the Christian name of her husband.”

The ghost began to respond, but Scrooge cut him off.

“Why do you force me to look upon this house?”

“Nostalgia.”

“Nostalgia be hanged!  I choose not to see it.  Take it away!”  Scrooge was a basket case of emotions.  He yearned to return to the past permanently, and yet as he thought of his own family, and especially of Tiny Tim, Scrooge was only reminded of his own fatherly failure.

“These were happier times, man,” said the ghost.  “I should think you would smile at their appearance.”

“I could not smile, sir.  These things no longer exist.  These people are forever gone.  When my father passed from life, I rested upon me to be the man of the house…”  Voice fading into silence, Scrooge sat with his head in his dry hands.  “I lost it all,” he said finally.  “My family, our farm…everything.  These scenes are merely a reminder of my own…  I know you mean well, spirit, but seeing Fan and Mama only saddens me for my own wife and offspring.  What will scenes of their ‘Christmases Past’ look like?  No bread noodles, no rides into the snowy woods.  No chestnuts.  Not even a biscuit.  Instead, they starve and they freeze.  It is all on my damnable shoulders, spirit.  You are not a ghost; you are a demon!  I would rather you take me back to Hades with you than to stay within the boundaries of this farm for one iota longer!”

"You are a strange cookie, Mr. Scrooge.  Always able to see the worst of a situation.”

“Not true!  Times have changed!  England has changed.  What was then quaint and nostalgia has become poverty and despair.”

“Perhaps we shall also change, Ebenezer.  Let us find another Christmas for you to recall.”

It so happens that he did sleep, though he did not know it.  When Scrooge awoke, it was dark.  The church bell clanged him awake for no reason, and he was quickly reminded of the horrific cold.  His joint crackled more than a street fire as he rolled over and rose to stand.  Darkness was such that he could not distinguish between the wall and the window.  Scrooge padded to the curtain that separated his chamber from the main room.  Wife and children remained asleep, snoring and heavily dreaming in front of the burnt out embers of the little fireplace.  Not a care, thought he.  Not a care in the godforsaken world.

He wondered why he was awake.  He need not open the warehouse; it was Christmas morning.  Humbug!  A big waste of time.  A great excuse for bigwigs to celebrate their wealth with a ridiculous waste of their affluence.  What time was it?  He had gone straight to bed when he had gotten home from work.  With no timepiece he knew not of the hour.  He only knew it was the top of the hour…if the bell ringer of the church was correct.  His eyelids were still heavy, his steps even heavier across the splintery floor, his head pounded with every beat of his heart.

Suddenly the walls flashed brightly and disappeared altogether.  Scrooge was caught off balanced by the flash and fell to his knees, his yelp extinguished by the whooshing sound of a warm wind around him.  Instantly, he was warmed.  Still in his working clothes from the previous day, Scrooge rose to his feet once again and looked around himself:  an empty and brightly lit room, daylight through high windows, and a solitary figure standing quite close to him.  He had not detected the entrance of the figure, nor had he sensed its presence at all.

It is difficult to describe the ghost of a season or a holiday; Dickens tried, with all of this talk of glitter and fluctuating shapes, multiple arms, a youngster who seemed have great age.  Whatever the specter appeared to be, suffice to say that Scrooge immediately knew what it was.

“Are you the spirit of which my former boss foretold?” he asked, rhetorically.

“I am.”  The voice was little more than a breath, sounding like a mixture of sled runners on ice, fires crackling, and small bells tinkling.

“What sort of spirit are you?” asked Scrooge.  “A nice one or an evil one?”

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“All Christmases?”

“Impossible.  I am the Ghost of Your Christmases Past.”

“Mine alone?”

“Yes.”

“I see no need for you.  I have already lived my past,” said Scrooge.  The ghost lit up with energy from within, and Scrooge had to overt his eyes.  “I cannot look upon you, spirit,” he said.

“My appearance is made of the lights of every Christmas candle, Ebenezer.  If I am more than you can withstand, then look at this instead.”

Without the wave of a hand, the empty room shimmered and blurred.  The wood melted away before the old clerk until he found himself standing in an open field.  There was a stiff frost on the grass, yet he was still as warm as he had been.  Sans coat or sweater, Scrooge felt uncharacteristically comfortable, but remained troubled in his soul.

“What is this place?” he asked the ghost.

“Follow me,” the ghost answered.  They walked through the frosty pasture, leaving nary a footprint in the snow.  Coming upon a dirt wagon road, Ebenezer thought he recognized something.

“I know this place,” he said.  “That tree is my hiding tree.  It is the tree where I hid my treasures – when my playmates and I would pretend to be pirates.”  They traced the steps of the past, down the packed dirt and swales of the wagon road, Scrooge feeling more energy to walk with every stride.  “This road,” he added, “leads to my boyhood home.”  The ghost nodded approval at the recognition.  Seeing the farmhouse and outbuildings in the distance, Scrooge’s countenance improved.

“It was a home – not merely a house – spirit.  My parents made it so.”


The two figures remained on their route.  Approaching the English barn, the ghost beckoned the old man to look inside.  The two walked straightaway through the peeling whitewashed walls where the dust danced in the light beams that shone through the cracks.  In one of the stalls a middle-aged man stood tall, leaning on a hayfork.  His son, a younger Ebenezer, laughed as he tried to pitch hay with his own fork.

"You must practice, my boy.  These are the daily chores of a farm.”

“Yes, I know, Papa,” replied young Ebenezer.

Our Scrooge, the elder man who accompanied the spirit, hid in the doorway of the tack room.  “Do not worry, man,” said the ghost.  “They can neither see nor hear us.  This scene has already happened, in the past.  You cannot change the conversation or the actions.”  Scrooge, not quite trusting the ghost, slowly emerged to watch more fully.

“Papa, I will grow, will I not?” asked the boy.

“Of course, you will, Eb.  You shall be a big, strong man someday.  I can imagine you owning a farm larger than this one.  Perhaps you will even own this one.”

“I do not want to own this one,” said the boy.  His brow wrinkled as he said it.

“Why not?” asked his father.

"I do not want to take your farm away from you, Papa.”  At this, the father chuckled.

“I love you, my boy.  Let us hitch Ol’ Sal and take our yearly ride.”

“It’s time, Papa?”

“It is.”

“Finally!”  The boy giddily walked through our Scrooge to gather the appropriate tack.

“What has you so excited, Ebenezer?” asked the ghost.

"Every year for Christmas, my father took me for a ride into the woods.  I do not mind telling you that it was my favorite activity of the year,” explained Scrooge.  “Ah, I had forgotten the joy.”

“What was special about these rides?”

“It was just my father and I.  He taught me to build a campfire.  We roasted chestnuts.  He allowed me to poke at the fire with a stick, sending sparks ascending into the sky.  It was heavenly, spirit.  Heavenly.”  The old man looked to his feet and sniffed.

“What is that on your face, man?” asked the ghost.  Scrooge wiped his eyes.

“Leave me alone.  I do not want to see this any more,” said Scrooge.

“A scene of laughter and joy.  Heavenly, you say.  Yet you wish to leave.”

"A scene of the past, cruel phantom.  Such memories are futile in the present.”

“Perhaps, sir, we should see more,” returned the ghost.  “Let us go inside.”

Scrooge balked.  “I would rather return to my cold bed.”

“Humor me.  You have no choice.”

Now, dear Reader, you suppose you know what happened next, and you are mostly correct, for Marley did in fact make his appearance to the old clerk for a lengthy conversation about life, death, and beyond.  Mr. Dickens set the mood of that scene in his tome, but the scene, in reality, was more animated, more threatening, and more frightening.  Dickens watered down the scene, as will I, to protect the reader, and because words will never replace its naked reality.

The very appearance of Marley’s rotting skull was indescribable, the meaty flesh, its blood-soaked nature, the long, tangled whiskers, the sound of bone on bone, the smell of the rot and the mold.  Marley brought more with his appearance than a typical ghost.  Any other would slide through the folds of a curtain, sit in the corner, and yearn for life.  A typical apparition only floated around, incessantly howling an unsounded howl.  Scrooge’s old boss, however, was profoundly atypical.

The reader must understand that in contrast with the ghosts to come, Marley’s ghost brought the greatest impact upon his victim.  Scrooge was immediately alarmed at the mere surprise of the situation.  He had just been thinking of the man when he noticed the reflection in the doorknob.  And now – now, the man stood, albeit a half-meter above the floorboards, more than an observer of Mr. Scrooge’s patterns of slumber.

Behind him and about his girth were links of chain, more often than not constructed of bank boxes and rusted purses.  The links were solid and strong, without weld marks or stresses in the metal, as if forged not as individual links, but as a whole chain.  The chains looked heavy even for a spirit.  And the noise – the noise, as ironic as it sounds, would disturb the dead.

With his family in the next room, nary a wall betwixt them, Scrooge sat up at the noise and calamity.  “Quiet!”  He whispered and shouted at the same time.

“Dare you silence me?” Marley returned.

“I silence you and all of Hell fire, dreadful apparition!  Allow a man his own retirement,” Scrooge ordered.

The spirit peered around the little room.  “I see no man, Clerk.  A man…”

“The man before you is no longer offended by your insults, Mr. Marley.  Do you rather alert my family in the next room with the clattering and clanging of your blasted chain?”

“Scrooge,” replied Marley, drawing out the name, “No one can hear us.”

“Bah!  You appear to be Jacob Marley, but are more likely a hunger pang.  Now allow a working man to sleep.”

“You do not believe I am real, Clerk?”

“Are you not the smartest ghost in the room?” said Scrooge.

Ignoring the sarcasm, the ghost continued:  “Listen to me, mortal.  Surely you do not believe I would choose to watch you sleep, do you?”

“I…”

“We will never move forward if you do not admit that you see me, Mr. Scrooge.”

Scrooge raised and lowered one shoulder.  “Very well…I suppose you will be leaving now.”

The spirit laughed breathily.  “A little respect, dear sir!  I was your boss in life, and I continue to dominate you in my death.”

“How canst you dominate anything with half of a face?  Is not life superior to death?”

“Your life is not superior to my death, Ebenezer!  I know that to be truth, and you believe as much.”

Scrooge shrugged.  “Bah!  You have me.  Wouldst that I could die in peace!”

“Dying in peace, in your current state, peasant, is an impossibility,” said the ghost.  “Gaze upon these chains.  They are the chains of every man – forged in life and borne in death.  Each link represents a soul I beat down, a man’s family that I belittled, a man that I stepped on.”

“Why are you bothering me with this?” asked Scrooge.

“You say that I bother.  I say that I warn.  Unless you correct your errors, you will bear a similar chain,” said the ghost.  “Like your old boss, you will walk among the living, cashboxes and ledgers around your neck.  Like me, you shall weigh heavily with thoughts of what you might have done differently.”

“My life is already unbearable, ghost!  And you tell me my death will be worse.  I find your exposition difficult to swallow.”  Scrooge pulled the blanket over his cold brow.  “It is all humbug!  Humbug, I say.”

“It is my business, Ebenezer!”  The ghost raised his voice.  “I wander the earth, dragging this load about my shoulders.  And I know the destiny that you forge.  You believe yourself to be poor, do you not?  You consider your destiny to be doomed to poverty.  You ponder and cogitate about solutions and have not found any.  You think you are stuck in a rut…and why?  Pray tell you are stuck in a rut and do not see a way out of it.”

Scrooge peered out from his blanket, steam rising from breath.  “I do not see a way out of it, Marley!” he recognized.  “But I see no reason for your taunting!”

“Shut your mouth, Clerk.”  The ghost had enough.  “Those growths on the sides of your pathetic head are used for listening, man,” he said.  “The hole in the front is open far too often, and you spew vomit rather than words.  Open the growths and shut the hole.”  Scrooge said nothing.

“You purpose to belittle me – you and every man I encounter.”

“I need not do so,” said the ghost.  “I warn you now that you may change paths.  I shall not be the last spirit to visit you, sir.  You should know there are more to come.  Three spirits will visit your bedchamber.”

“One at a time?” asked the clerk.

“Aye.”

“Can’t they arrive all at once and let me sleep.  Already the air is filled with phantoms, and I can’t bear the stench.”

“They will arrive in succession, sir, one at a time and with order and truth,” the ghost returned.  As he spoke, the ghost’s body and voice, chains and all, faded into invisibility.  Scrooge was left alone in the moisture-laden room.

“Ridiculous!” said he.  “Bah humbug!  I must rid myself of thought.  There is enough to worry a man without these so-called ghosts.”  Laying his head on the blanket, he tried to lose consciousness, but try as he might – hungry, cold, and worthless – sleep only half came.

Starlight lacking and moonlight nonexistent, little light shone through the windows of the old shack.  The dying embers of the fireplace illuminated very little.  Scrooge’s entire family huddled up to each other around the narrow hearth.  Peter, the eldest boy, stood when his father entered.

“A good day, Papa?”

“There is but one good thing about a day, Pete,” returned Scrooge.  “The end of it.”  Then, “Stoke the fire.”

“I would, Papa, but there is no coal.”

Scrooge cursed, and the six children crouched closer together beneath their tattered blankets and clothing.  The fire would not warm them, this eve, but perhaps their father’s ire would provide its usual heat.  “How is it that we’ve run out of coal again?” Scrooge shouted.

Mrs. Scrooge would have kissed her husband upon his entry, but she knew better.  Now, she only wished he would settle his nerves.  “Dear…”  The rest was lost on the crotchety old man.

“I’m already feeling ill, Mrs. Scrooge,” he interrupted.  “I think I shall forego the stale bread and make my way to the bed chamber.”

“I’m sorry to hear it, Mr. Scrooge,” answered the missus.  Ebenezer headed into the adjoining room.

A tiny, tinny voice emerged from the center of the collective blankets.  “Happy Christmas Eve, Papa.”  Tiny Tim’s brown eyes were surrounded by white as his face peeked from the warm collective.  The other children enveloped him.  Papa Scrooge ignored the comment from his brood, shutting the dividing curtain and removing his wraps and carelessly tossing them into a wet pile on the floor.

“I shall sleep like the dead,” said Scrooge.  And I shall awaken with a headache, thought he.  Why must tomorrow be any different from today?  And then he remembered the door’s knob – Jacob Marley’s reflection there.  Strange, he pondered.  Why should Marley come into his mind after all this time?  He had been honored to be a pallbearer at Marley’s interment, seven years before this one.  He remembered the weight of the casket – surprisingly heavy for such a narrow gentleman.  He must have been buried with his money belt.  The pallbearers had borne the weight of the casket for 15 blocks from the wake at his mansion to the churchyard.

But now?  Seven years had passed without a passing thought of Marley, and now…a reflection as clear as daylight.  It must have been a poorly digested potato.  Scrooge anticipated visits to the chamber pot.  “Happy Christmas, Mr. Scrooge,” he told himself, as he slipped, shivering, onto his cold pallet in hopes of sleeping.  He was never warm any more, even out of season.  The cold hardness of his demeanor was deeply rooted in Scrooge’s bitter heart and soul, planted so deeply within that the cold spidered throughout his existence and emanated from his flesh.  Scrooge was unaware that the temperature of a room descended several degrees upon his very entrance.  As such the man was always cold.