A Modern Midlife Christmas Carol by Alana Oxford

Author:Alana Oxford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 8N Publishing

4

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS FUTURE

The spirits were getting increasingly darker. Not necessarily in their messages, but physically. Or maybe metaphysically was a better word for it. The future was even stranger than the present, and murkier.

The Ghost of Christmas Future made the 2:00 a.m. room look brighter by managing to be darker than the night air around it. If pressed to describe it at all, the best Eliza could say was a black hole. It was just an impossibly black sphere, which was also hovering near the Scrooge print. That must have been the source powering this whole incredible night. Everything seemed to start with that.

Next, she couldn’t help but think of Tiny Tim.

“I don’t want to see anything about dying,” Eliza said. “No matter who it is. That’s something we all have to face eventually, I’m well aware of that and I don’t want to pretend deal with it before I have to do it for real. Can we agree on that?”

“This is not a message of death, but of life. A possibility, and nothing more.”

The future was definitely weirder than the present. It had an audible voice, but it was all over the place. Almost like a different person was speaking each word.

“Are you…” Eliza struggled for the words to pin down what she wanted to ask. “Just one being or many?”

“I’m a state of flux. The future is never truly known. Every thought, every action can change the outcome. I am a combination of possibilities based on the trajectory your life has taken so far. I am also partly made up of your wishes and desires. What you are and what you could be.”

Fran and the Present had already done an impeccable job of blowing her mind. Wrapping her mind around what the Future had just said was futile.

“Are you saying this vision is nothing more than a dream?”

“It is one of many possible realities you could live. A dream is never real. This vision is wholly possible.”

Again, not an answer she could totally grasp, but it sounded more substantial than a dream.

“Ok,” Eliza said. “Lead on.”

She did not expect what started to happen.

The other two spirits had eased her into the transition subtly. The future was not subtle. It was more like every sci-fi movie she’d ever watched, when a spaceship jumps into warp speed, or hyperdrive, or whichever terminology they use. Countless tiny pinpricks of light filled the room, like she was floating amidst a tightly condensed night sky of stars. One of them started glowing brighter and looming larger until she felt a sensation of rushing toward it. The other points of light streaked by like long lines. Just as she thought she would fall down from dizziness, everything was still, and then the normal world blinked to life around her.

She was in her own home, although it was slightly different than when she’d left it. The kids’ backpacks were nowhere in sight. Neither were any of the little things they managed to keep strewn around no matter what.

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