A christmas Carol. Spinoff

The temperature was like nothing ever.

The freezing chill controlled the streets in the heart of London, making it impossible to get a single ray of sunlight. Most people were in their houses, getting comfortable with cushions in front of the amber glow with a hot cup of tea. But the people who weren't at home were either working or wandering through the streets.

People were wearing probably a thousand kilos of clothing just to keep themselves warm; their teeth wouldn’t stop tattering, and they had to keep moving to generate some heat. This left footprints marked in the streets, which were filled with a bunch of snowmen and snow fights.

There was one house at the corner of the street, a house most citizens hated for various reasons. One was that the man who lived there didn’t know what cold was. He had the latest technology on the market and wouldn’t leave the house unless it was summer again because, for him, his house was like summer.

Today, as usual, the man hadn’t left the house. He was wearing khaki bermudas and a shirt with various patterns involving flowers. The man had a very long and crooked nose, with white hair only on the sides of his head, which was why he always wore that Hawaiian hat.

He sat at his big wooden desk, reclining in the chair as if he were on the beach of Miami or Cancun. He really liked those. The man had stacks full of golden coins on his desk. If you decided to count them, you’d probably never finish, but it seemed like he enjoyed it.

The door flew open, and cold wind flooded the house. “Mr. Scrooge,” said a little man behind the door, covered in jackets, gloves, hats, and every winter clothing you could find. “I just wanted to ask if you could give us a charity donation. You know, with all the people not having homes and all. It’s not for us, it’s for them. Please, Mr. Scrooge.”

“What did you say?” he snapped.

“We’re collecting money for the poor. You know, it’s Christmas, and everyone needs to be with family.”

Ebenezer Scrooge took a deep breath, trying to inhale as much hot air as possible.

“Is that so? Let me tell you what—Shut the stupid door!” he shouted without compassion. “Don’t you see my outfit?”

The little man squeaked and closed the door fast.

Scrooge didn’t know why people came to his house to ask for money when they already knew he had none to give. Scrooge was his only employee, his only companion, ever since he had fired his little employee, Cratchit, who wasn’t useful enough.

There was also Marley, his dear friend, a partner whom Scrooge thought was probably the best man in the world apart from him. He used to steal from the poor and give to the rich, the flip version of Robin Hood. He made Instagram and Facebook, he had a beautiful wife, and a super wonderful life. Until Mark Zuckerberg stole everything from him: fame, wealth, power. Rest in peace, Marley.

Scrooge didn’t like thinking about that. Because of Mark Zuckerberg, he was losing all his fortune. He had to do something. So, he sold his workshop, changed his workplace to his house, stopped buying those delicious burritos at the market—a great sacrifice for Scrooge—and fired his only employee.

Scrooge pushed aside all those thoughts from his head and kept counting the money piled up on his desk. “One thousand ninety-seven,” he placed a gold coin on top of the pile. “One thousand ninety-eight,” another gold coin onto the pile. “One thousand ninety-nine,” another coin to the pile. “And...”

His hand was already on top of the pile, ready to deposit another coin, but something strange happened. A cold gust of wind passed through the room, turning off all the lights and blowing all the money off the desk. The clanking from the coins echoed on the ground.

“Dang it,” he cursed in a low voice. “Cratchit! You know you must close all the windows when we have weather like... Oh, right. I just fired Cratchit. Well, I’ll do it myself.”

Scrooge got up from his chair and walked to the closest window to his desk. It was closed. Well, Scrooge thought, maybe it came from the other window.

But as he checked all the windows, he realized they were all closed, yet the room seemed to have dropped in temperature in about ten celcius.

The heaters couldn’t have just stopped working. Scrooge had bought new ones last weekend. How could the room kept getting colder? Scrooge’s legs were already shaking, and his teeth were chattering. He wished he had bought some winter clothing, just in case.

“Ebenezer Scrooge,” said a muffled voice coming from his desk. “Ebenezer Scrooge.”

Scrooge had heard that voice once before. He knew who it was, but it couldn’t possibly be him. Shivers traveled from his lower spine up to his head; his whole body twitched, not only from the cold, but from the man who was there.

Slowly, Scrooge turned to his desk, partially closing his eyes, scared of what he might see—and he saw the worst.

Scrooge didn’t believe in ghosts until he saw his old friend sitting on his desk. His crooked grin never left his face, long white hair coming from his head, and his eyes weren’t okay. In fact, nothing about his body was okay. He was like a sort of transparent ghost. The chair could be seen through his body.

He was wearing the same clothes he had worn on the last day he lived: a white shirt and some gray jeans. But around them, he had something he had never had before—chains. Chains tied to bricks, piggy banks, safes, and a lot of heavy things. Everything was a white-transparent color—his clothes, the chains, his face. He looked like snow.

Scrooge feared he was a mutant snowman trying to get all his money, but he knew it wasn’t. He knew that the man in front of him was...

“Jacobo Marley?” Scrooge said, too stunned to move.

“It’s me,” he said lazily, his dead-white eyes fixed on Scrooge’s. “It’s me, Jacobo Marley.”

“But I thought you were dead,” said Scrooge.

Now was the time for him to make a move, to grab the keys on the desk, get out, flee the country, maybe go live in Australia and learn kickboxing from the kangaroos—just in case Jacobo Marley came to his house again.

But his gut told him to stay and listen to Marley. Scrooge had heard that ghosts only came back to the living world because they had something unfinished to do. Maybe Marley wanted to get revenge on Zuckerberg. Well, he hoped it was that. He didn’t want Marley to seek revenge on him.

“I am dead,” Marley said, grabbing a coin from the desk. Before Scrooge could say anything, the coin disappeared into thin air.

“My coin!” Scrooge rushed to his desk but stopped a few meters away, fearing Marley could do the same to him. “What do you want? If you want me, you have to fight me.”

Marley laughed, and it sounded like if it was coming from a faraway place “I didn’t came to kill you. I came to warn you.”

“Warn me about what? About Zuckerberg? Because if we are going to destroy—”

“We aren’t destroying anyone,” he said firmly.

Scrooge opened his mouth but decided it was better to keep it shut. He didn’t think it was a good idea to be arguing with ghosts.

“I came to warn you that you’re a reckless, avaricious person with no heart for anyone, dishonest with your clients, greedy with your money, and... oh, wait. I forgot the last part. Well, it doesn’t matter.”

“Was it personal?” Scrooge asked. He hadn’t heard those words directed at anyone before, and he didn’t expect they would be aimed at him. He was also trembling from the cold emanating from the chair.

“Nah,” Marley confessed, his whole body now glittering in the light of moonlight. “It’s part of my punishment.”

“What punishment?”

“Why do you think I carry these chains?” he asked, showing the heavy chains that were tied to his body.

“Er—” Scrooge pondered that question. For him, Marley couldn’t have done bad things. He believed Marley was better than anyone else. So why the punishment? Because he had been too good, or was it because he had stolen burritos from an old lady once?

Marley kept looking at Scrooge, but Ebenezer tried to avoid his friend’s gaze. His eyes were very creepy and gave him a bad vibe.

“Because—” Scrooge hesitated. “Because you stole burritos from an old lady?”

Marley laughed. “Nah, that was nothing. It was because of this business, because we were greedy and tricked people into buying our stuff—”

“They deserved that. And give me that!” Scrooge lunged at Marley, who was now grabbing another coin, but was surprised to find that Marley wasn’t solid or liquid. He wasn’t any state of matter Scrooge knew. The coin had also turned the same transparent, glittering color as Marley. “YOU ALREADY DISAPPEARED TWO OF MY COINS! GIVE THEM BACK!”

Scrooge had almost forgotten the cold in the room, maybe because his anger was heating him up. But now he knew that Marley was no friend of his. Stealing money? How dare he?

Marley only grinned, that same grin that used to hypnotize ladies when he was alive—at least, now it was a mystery if it would be able to hypnotize them again.

“Ebenezer, Ebenezer, Ebenezer,” he chanted in a cold voice. “Haven’t you learned that money isn’t everything?” He raised his wrist and looked at it. “Good gracious, I should get going.”

Marley got up from the chair and passed through Scrooge’s entire body, making the old man shiver as if he had taken a cold bath, even though he wasn’t wet.

Scrooge turned his gaze to Marley, who was fading from sight, carrying the cold feeling with him, followed by the chains that bound him for eternity—or so Scrooge thought.

Then Marley stopped in front of the door, turned back, and looked into Scrooge’s eyes, which quickly drifted apart. “By the way, some spirits are coming here tonight, so I recommend you wear some winter clothes. The first one at one o’clock, second one at two, and third one at three. Goodbye Ebenezer."

“Wait, what? Winter spirits? What do you mean?” But it was too late—Jacobo Marley was nowhere to be seen.