Mrs. Ebony Hooge was a most exceptional woman in two respects. The first was that she possessed the most wicked and uncaring heart London had ever known. Secondly, she was perhaps the fattest woman who had ever lived. Of course, you may not scoff at this. It is true there must always be one woman who is the fattest to have lived, but Ebony Hooge was fatter by a considerable distance than any woman preceding her.
Now let me describe her to you. As I do so, keep it in your mind that I as your humble, anonymous narrator with no hand in this story have no reason to lie to you.
She was pallid white of fair with skin simultaneously rubbery and velvet, stretched across her gargantuan form. Her stomach was most enormous, elephantine, conquering the entirety of her bed and spilling forward onto the floor before her. It was mountainous and wobbled softly like a great pink jelly. Her arms she could not move. They were vast and as framed in fat as fine cows, each too heavy even for her servants to accommodate. She had no urge nor necessity to move for her servants substituted finely for the mobility she’d long since abandoned. Her face was undeniably one of exquisite beauty. Her eyes were as green as any precious emerald and conveyed an utter fury of constant irritation and cruelty. She had many chins that lapped over one another like an avalanche and bounced elastic as she spoke. Her breasts (and it would be most impertinent of your narrator to mention them if they weren't so obvious at every moment) were the size of barrels and far heavier, resting on her predominant stomach. Her legs (which she had no call to use) were buried beneath that belly, out of site, but themselves host to a sheer weight of quivering blubber. Her hair was long and black and sleek and lustrous as any of the Greek muses. She weighed (and it could not be said by any other than yours omnipotent truly) more than 50cwt. I consider myself an accommodating man, so for those of you reading this from beyond the time in which this tale takes place, that is past 399 stone or, if you’re descended from traitors, 5600lbs. Yes, Ebony was quite the colossus, spending every day feasting and gorging and stuffing herself like a pregnant pig.
How often she would glut on masses of mutton and pork and kedgeree, she would feast lavishly on soused pig's head and pressed duck and lashings of broth. Her every hedonistic whim was indulged with treacle and blancmange and spleggings, bread and butter pudding and spotted dick. Why, her greed was so complete she even enjoyed stuffs below her status. Drippings and gruel, calf's head and porridge were not left off her menu. Indeed, slink was a particular favourite of hers! That is miscarried farm animals, collected as the most abject meat.
Let us join her on this day, which happens to be Christmas Eve. Ebony is howling in her hunger and screaming in the most ferocious roar at her many servants who rush to and fro in constant panic to satiate their mighty mistress.
"Merry Christmas, mother dearest!" cried a cheerful (and perhaps fearful) voice. It was that of Ebony's eldest son.
"BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRPPPPPP" ejaculated Ebony. She ignored her child as she often would unless one of them presented to her an edible treat, in which case she would honour them with an audience.
"Oh, mother, you must have some Christmas cheer! What reason have you to be morose?"
"What else can I be,"replied Ebony, crossly between crammed mouthfuls of a large wheel of cheese being fed to her by maids, "when my own children wish me a Merry Christmas instead of bringing me the one thing that will make me merry? Food! It is all I require of you and far less than what is owed me. What's Christmas time to anyone but a time for making me fatter and happier? Or a time for oppressing even more miserably those under my servitude? If I could work my will every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips should be boiled in pudding and finally made worth something! He should!"
"Mother!" he pleaded, "we make our best efforts to keep you fed and beautiful in your indolence, but every year you demand more and more of us."
"Let me hear another sound from you," fumed Ebony, spraying the boy with the masticated contents of her chomping, "and you'll be looking for employment elsewhere. That I allow you to live under the same roof as your beloved mother is payment enough. Now, quit your prattle and run to purchase me every sweet or meaty good from Miggins', the bakery!"
And so he did, this oppressed boy of only 13-years who had spent every moment of that time in dedication to his bloated matriarch. Mrs. Hooge, who married her husband only for his money, showed no compassion or affection for anyone but herself or for anything but food. Every street for miles around was a decrepit rookery, home to the miserable and bewildered. Each person was employed in either the workhouse or factories of Mr. Hooge, or the mansion of his opulently waited-upon wife. They were paid little, but it was all they could do for work as Mrs. Hooge also made sure her husband was owner of all the property nearby. All rent was paid to her. Essentially, her workers laboured for near nothing. For entertainment she would berate and mock them. There was very little food available as victuals from across the city were bought up to feed Ebony. The houses surrounding her glorious home grovelled like phantoms, dingy, drafty hovels cowering in the shadows of Ebony's towering mansion. She made her husband work harder and harder each day to bring enough income to feed her and as a result his factories pumped out choking smoke and soot across the ether. The entire town was blanketed in black as if a stormy night was forever approaching. The only soul remotely happy was Ebony Hooge.
Perhaps the most familiar of Ebony's nurses and servants was the young woman Ms. Rosita Cratchitt. She had served her lady since Ebony was 8 when she herself (a daughter of her mistress's first and now deceased, governess) was only 4. She approached, tired more so than she would be, for Rosita was heavy with child.
"Mrs. Hooge…" Ebony was most unwelcoming to any interruption of her eating, especially if it did not pertain directly to her.
"WADD IS IT?" she screamed.
"I… I would like to ask if, since you've so many other servants available, perhaps I could take tomorrow off. If it would not be too bold, or inconvenience my lady."
This was perhaps the bravest thing anyone had done in the presence of Ebony, for her fury was well known and she was not idle about following up on her ungodly threats. The only reason the young, knapped Rosita asked was that her child would likely be born tomorrow. Ebony was well aware of this.
"And I suppose," she scolded "you will next be expecting me to let you have MORE than that one day a year off? Perhaps a wage increase? Then you will expect me to adhere to the pathetic tradition that at Christmas time the roles are reversed and masters must obey their servants? I gather you would have me leave my luxurious bed and hand feed to you all the food under this roof so you can become even fatter than you already are?"
Rosita was most apologetic, but Ebony's anger had not run its course.
"Why, for your audacity I ought to have my loving husband put you on the treadmill and keep you there even as you pass that bastard street-rat in your bloated belly. I ought to let each of my sons have his way with you like a common dollymop! You are lucky I am as kind as well as beautiful and instead will only make you work unpaid tomorrow before being beaten senseless by my lover. Most likely there will be MORE punishment between then and now."
For the rest of the day she worked the 23-year-old Rosita to her very bones. Her giant form benefited greatly.
For now you may have lost hope, dear reader, but remember, this is Christmas. Famously a time for miracles...
~~
In the cruel streets outside, the fog and darkness thickened so. The cold grew intense. In the main street, at the corner of the court, a party of ragged men and boys gathered, rubbing their frost-bitten hands and winking their eyes, looking up at Mrs. Hooge's great home, the lights and fires inside, and every scrap of food, imagining such rapture. All poulterers and grocers about town were empty, having sold their wares for Ebony's Christmas feast, leaving not a one pitiful ort for the ragamuffins and gegors. Ebony, in the stronghold of her mighty mansion house, gave orders to her 50 cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a woman of her household should, drooling like a hound at the thought of tomorrow's repasts. That night she feasted upon plum pudding and cold bone turkey. She devoured pheasants and gravy and over 1000 Stars of Bethlehem. She filled her gut with boiled smelts and creamed potatoes and maraschino velvet, Yule pastries with maple syrup. She was full with creamed sweet breads and devilled oysters and caviar. Each whit of food she inhaled avariciously and spared none for her starving children. Then, very close to midnight, Ebony found herself cloyed and exhausted from her day of indolence and gormandizing. She fell asleep, and it was only then after washing her with sponges of warm, perfumed water that her servants were allowed to leave.
Now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the room, except for its sole occupant. Usually about this hour Mr. Hooge would crawl into bed with Ebony, unnoticed and uncared for by her, and conceal himself under the vast flap that is her hip. Often he would dab it up with her many folds, taking his comfort making love to her chasms of flesh. Tonight, however, she was alone. Christmas brought a peculiarly excited hunger over Ebony and she demanded her husband work his servants even harder at the shinscrapers and factories to pay for her yuletide feasting. Yet, as the great church bells chimed one o'clock that dark and cold morning, something exceedingly extraordinary happened in that room.
Ebony was stirred, awaking quite suddenly. She was most unused to being alone as she awoke. She was often surrounded by her family or servants or cooks, each there for the sole purpose of stuffing her face with jentacular joy. This moment then was not unusual, because she found herself far from alone. At the side of her bed appeared a spectre! A ghoul bound in chains that rattled as he did glide towards her. It hovered above her and she was shocked to see this uninvited spirit, but more so that someone was here who was not presenting her with food.
"Oooooooo!" wailed the ghost, "like, boo and… shit. I am a very scary ghost and I'm haunting you. Wow. Look, you're being haunted. Isn't that scary?... No? Okay. Fuck it. I mean, honestly, I'm fine with haunting people and everything, just send me to a time I'm familiar with. Like, Victorian era? I don't even know how they talked back then. It's all "forsooth" and stuff. This place hasn't even got cars yet. Cars!"
Ebony found these words confusing.
"How now," she said, caustic and cold and impatient as ever, "what do you want from me?"
"Much!" the apparition bellowed. "It is required of every man and woman that the spirit within the individual should walk abroad among all others and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"
Ebony was losing interest. She knew this was not a dream, for she only ever dreamt of food, and the pain of hunger in her stomach was so intense it would wake her up anyway. She did not care for this translucent interloper, her life was one of such complete epicurean endeavour that anything outside that realm, be it God or ghost or goblin, was irrelevant to her.
"I do not care for your words. I hope your death was a painful one. Now I shall sleep again."
Ebony closed her eyes and almost fell asleep as the ghost retorted.
"Yeah, look, sorry, we're really not supposed to go off script. We have prepared responses for everything but it's mainly for the ghosts haunting you from India since you can never tell what they're saying."
Fortunately Ebony had not paid attention to these words, for they would have meant nothing to her. She opened her eyes.
"Basically, I'm here to show you the errors of your ways, tonight me and two other ghosts are gonna come and show you the past, present and future and all the times you dropped the ball to try to make you regret and atone for your sins and eventually become a good person. Just like that all-time classic story, A Muppets Christmas Carol."
"What is a Muppet?" Ebony asked.
"It's like… felt? But flappy. Basically halfway between a sock and a stroke victim."
"Are they delicious?" asked Ebony.
"Not sure, I mean, the pig probably is… never mind that, I'm here to show you the beauty of Christmas. For you see these chains (the spirit was now pulling a script from his jacket pocket and reading straight from it,) these are the chains I forged in life. I made it link by link and yard by yard. I girded it on of my own free will and of my own free will I wore it. Each link of this chain is a mortal sin from my lifetime, and each of us is smith to our own. You wear such a chain yourself. Yours is longer even than any who will wear one after this life." Then, coming off script, the spirit said, "No, seriously, yours is looooong. It's got more links than Reddit. Anyway, I am the Ghost of Christmas Past. Now, rise, and walk with me."
To that, Ebony laughed heartily, for she had not walked since she was very young.
"Right, I see your point. Well, let me do a ghosty thing… here, let's try this."
Everything Ebony saw faded in to white, and she had no sense of where she was. When vision returned she found herself in her grandfather's home, the way it had been before he had passed (an event she was not sad about for his last will was most generous) when she had visited his mansion every Christmas season. It was Christmas Day, and though that was tomorrow Ebony knew she had come to be in the past. The fire roared in the room put aside for her, a great tree in the corner loomed over the many presents laid out. Ebony found herself in her old bed, which was less than a fifth of the size of her current bed. Though she once took up half the space now she far outgrew it, and her hips hung heavily upon the floor, covering some distance, while her belly was bigger than the whole mattress. Before her she could see her family gathered by the fire, as was always the tradition, including a younger version of herself. The memory she was seeing was of when she was but 8-years-old. She was comparably thin, weighing a mere 10 stone (allow me to translate again, that is 150lbs.) She, her younger self, that is, was sat naked on her father's lap, bouncing up and down and being presented with a bowl of Christmas pudding and custard by her grandmother. The fat young thing would shove the food greedily in to her mouth and giggle with gluttonous glee.
"These are just memories,"announced the spirit, "they can't see us or hear us or anything. I've brought you here to show you the misery you have brought upon all who have celebrated the season in your presence in the hopes of saving you from the fate I have received. We ghosts hope to avert the afterlife of misery you have not been able to spare yourself from. See, now, how you bring misery on others."
In the scene before them young Ebony scoffed down a tray of mince pies as her elder sister opened a present. It was a Fruit Cake, this child was most used to receiving such gifts. The young Ebony began to slobber and reached out her flabby arms as an indication for the pan-sized cake to be brought to her. Her mother snatched it from the gift's receiver and held it up to her imperious daughter's face so she could eat without effort. Ebony's past-sister held back silent tears, she would not get any presents again, nor had she done so since Ebony was born. "
Jesus, lady, you were a fucking bitch," said the ghost "seriously, everyone hated you. And apparently this is the nicest you've ever been."
Ebony cocked her eye, "A single fruit cake? That is all that was given to me?"
Then the ghost of Ebony's mother opened the door, there stood a ragged 4-year-old urchin. The orphan Rosita Cratchitt was shivering with cold, dressed in shrewd rags and sucking her thumb fearfully.
"Ebony, my darling angel," her mother called, "we've brought you a new pet. She is the child of the governess we are replacing. If ever you need anything simply call upon this urchin and she will get it for you!"
The young Rosita cried, perhaps sensing what horrific servitude she had been brought into. Young Ebony had terrific fun that Christmas, ordering the meek Rosita to run back and forth fetching her food, inflicting the most exquisite misery upon her. The contemporary Ebony watched her younger self being fed (I should mention, it was perhaps an effect of the spirit's otherworldly powers that Ebony complained not a single time of hunger) making note of all the food that went through her erstwhile lips. She contemplated on these things.
"So I see, spirit, how much I have greedily devoured in my life, and how I have treated both my siblings and young Ms. Cratchitt in my service, and you are right that I must regret these things." Ebony said with an air of graveness about her voice.
"Well, off to a good start then. Maybe I'll get my Christmas bonus after all, at least if that sexual harassment case falls through. I swear I never even touched her. But, anyway, (returning to his ghostly echoing tone) my time grows short, forsooth, I must verily return to that plain from which I traveled and stuff. Good luck to you, Ebony Hooge, I wish for your next chaperones success."
With a flash the Spirit of Christmas Past disappeared. Ebony was back home in her comfortable bed which was very nearly big enough for her.
~~
She was about to call for one of her servants when she noticed a new figure stood by her bed side. This spirit was a young girl, perhaps 15-years-old, dressed in the most popular attire of her future generation. Had she walked down the streets in Ebony's time she would be considered naked. Her hair was a fake blonde, her skin orange. Her breasts were exagerated by surgery.
"Eewwwwww OMG! You're gross! Like, they told me you'd be fat but that is ridonculous. You're like Springer-fat!"
"I assume you are the second spirit to take me to enlightenment this evening?" balked Ebony.
Well yah, obvi" the ghost replied, "apparently I'm allergic to collagen so they're gonna let me live again if I do this. I guess YOLO was bullshit after all. Anyway, I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present or something…"
"Ooooh" cooed Ebony as she rolled her tongue across her lips, "If it is Christmas presents and cants you're delivering then they are surely for me, I am the only recipient of any tidings around this way."
"No, you retard. Not gifts. Christmas present, as in Christmas right now. I'm supposed to show you how you've been pissing people off or something. I dunno. Anyway, come on then, I don't have forever."
Another field of light blotted out Ebony's surroundings. This time, she found herself seated on a great reclined throne, summoned from the ether to suit her specifically; she was looking over the production floor of one of her husband's spikes. Thousands of men laboured under the whip of harsh punishers, the paupers breaking back and bone to carry and move and sweat all in the name of a few pennies. Ebony saw her husband, the scurf, looking over his workers, a great carnal sensation overcame her loins. These boys as young as 5 would work 16 hours a day for pitiful wages, even on Sundays.
"This," exclaimed the ghost "is how you've hurt people you don't even know just so you can enjoy your Christmas dinner. Apparently these guys are like whipped and beat up and stuff and not fed for days on end, just because of how greedy you are."
One nickey child, not 11, carrying a heavy sack of grains on his back, collapsed under the heat. He fell to the hard floor where Ebony's husband approached him and beat him with a cane.
"Ungrateful street Arab! I have told every one of you that you work in the name of my beloved wife and that I will accept no slacking or skulduggery, yet you've the NERVE to lay there when she goes hungering? You need a good thrashing, boy."
Ebony's husband beat the child some more before a particularly cruel punisher grabbed the boy by the scruff of his neck and dragged him out in to the snow to viciously do down on him.
"Yes," Ebony replied to her phantom "I see now just how much pain and suffering I have bought on those unknown to me. I need not see any more, take me home."
"That's cray-cray that you say that," replied the Ghost of Christmas Present, "'coz we're going to your place right now actually."
The next destination was a dark and cramped room with a low ceiling. Ebony and the spirit looked down, as if the image was playing in a dark pool, for the room was far too small to accommodate Ebony's gut. The floor was covered in straw and several children whom Ebony recognized as her own were crouched in the cold, curled against one another for warmth.
"Brother," squeaked the youngest girl, 3-years-old, "do you think mother will allow us food this Christmas?"
The ghost turned to Ebony. "So I guess these are your kids. I had a kid once at my boyfriend's prom. Anyway, these guys, totally miserable. They live on scraps in the cellar under your room and spend all day preparing your meals and wiping your ass. That's disgusting, if I had to do that I would literally die, again. But, yeah, these kids will die in your service, never having known happiness, or warmth, or love other than what they feel for you."
"Yes," Ebony's son replied to his younger sister, curled up on his chest, "I have every faith mother will allow us to eat this Christmas. I know she loves us dearly and that it is only our foolishness that prevents her from showing more affection. Some Christmas miracle will warm her heart and we shall share the season together, in love, all of us!"
Ebony watched her children, shivering and stomachs rumbling, almost shedding a tear for seeing how they lived.
"Ghost, show me no more of my children. I cannot bear to see them this way anymore. Return me home to my warm chamber."
"No can do, there's one more place I'm supposed to take you."
There was another great vista of white and this time Ebony found herself on another bed. This was not her own though, it was far smaller. It was the bed meant for holding the entire Cratchitt family, Rosita and her husband and their three young children. Their single-roomed house was one of the smallest in the city, for Ebony had made a habit of decreasing Rosita's wages quite often until she had next to naught to live on. The Cratchitts sat about a rickety table in the center, excitedly discussing their planned feast for tomorrow.
"It will be a double celebration, I hope" pondered Mr. Cratchitt, Rosita's husband.
"If I am finished my duties in time to return home," replied Rosita, "and you are not kept up at the workhouse. I should hope we spend this Christmas together if Mrs. Hooge takes to sleeping earlier this year."
"And perhaps our tiny Tim can join us" smiled Mr. Cratchitt, placing his hand over Rosita's protuberance. He assumed it would be a boy, he planned to name him Timothy and had great stock in such a miracle happening. It was unknown to them that their child would be born a cripple, but the Ghost of Christmas Present made it known to Ebony.
"Let us see, mother, please, let us see it again" cried one of Rosita's children.
"Very well then," Rosita capitulated, "but remember, we won't be eating it until Christmas day. Tomorrow, when I return from working for Mrs. Hooge, I shall cook it for us."
Rosita produced from the larder the subject of her children's excitement. It was a goose, but not the grand delicious looking thing you imagine sitting in the center of a table. This was tiny and shrivelled, as if it had been fed nothing in life. Most merchants would not stock such cheap runt animals if there weren't so many poor people about these parts that could only afford such a bird. This was withering and would only produce a tiny slither of grey meat for each family member. But in the eyes of the children it was a glorious proud fowl that they were most grateful to share in.
Ebony watched as they licked their lips over this tiny dead thing. She noticed how much joy they took in a thing that she herself would find no value in.
"I see, spirit, I understand now the conditions of those who work for me compared to my own. I see now things must change."
"Okay, well this isn’t a communism thing if that’s what you’re thinking. Don’t be thinking that. Anyway, if you’re done maybe now I can get my hot porn-star-lips. Oh yeah, this other guy's gonna replace me, he's really creepy though, total mouth-breather, I'd watch out for him…"
~~
Ebony found herself returned to her bed. She was getting used to this movement, but she could not settle there for long because already the third and final guide had appeared. The Phantom slowly, silently approached. It was shrouded in a deep black cowl which concealed its face, its form, nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.
"And you are the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?" said Ebony.
The spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.
The next place Ebony found herself was in a large snowy field, rested on a bed placed conveniently beneath her. She felt no cold despite the biting wind. There was a group of people nearby and she could overhear them speaking.
"I could not have conceived she would live so long!" said one voice.
"Indeed, she would have been missed by none but her husband and children had she not outlived them all" laughed another.
"I imagine the city will be better off. Working conditions will be better, now there is no longer her name in which to oppress anyone. There will be lower rent and more food for everyone! Why, her tyranny is over!"
The crowd cheered as snowflakes drifted softly.
Ebony turned her fat face to the hooded spirit.
"What is this you show me? Why are these urchins all so happy?"
The spirit simply pointed again, as the laughing crowd departed to reveal what they had been so joyous about. The gravestone read;
MRS. EBONY CLARA HOOGE
1814 – 1908
Buried here and remembered only for the joy her
death brought and the weight she achieved of 250cwt
(FYI that is 28,000lbs or 2000 stone!)
Yes, this field was not just a graveyard, it was her grave. Ebony had been buried at such great size from her years of greed that she encompassed the entire cemetery. Indeed, other coffins and corpses had to be exhumed to make room for her body. And not a single person cared that she was gone, but for the happiness this brought them. Ebony could not believe the inscription on her stone. For the first time in her life there appeared to be a change in her. She understood all she had seen.
"Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life! Promise, that perhaps this is not set in stone and that I can change these things for the better! Oh, please, spirit!"
The Spirit nodded beneath its cloak. Ebony could make better of her life than the visions she had been shown, which I must assure you were entirely true and accurate.
She sobbed and wailed, "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach."
This was what the spirits needed to hear. There was a final great flash of light and Ebony found herself back in her comfortable and familiar bed. Though she could not appreciate it, for at last she was fast asleep.
~~
She awoke late the next morning. Yes, the room was her own. The bed was her own. Her servants surrounding her, they were her own and they could see her as clearly as she could see them. She was fluttered and glowing with the night's events and the new ideas she had seen, the new passion in her heart.
"I am not dead! And morning has finally come!"
Joy filled her heart. Stood closest to her was the son who had brought her Christmas cheer the previous day and hoped for a miracle the previous night.
"Good morning, mother. Once again you have grown a thousand-fold more beautiful than you were yesterday!"
But she had no time for this flattery. She was surrounded by her every servant, her husband, her children, her loving mother and father (who came to help in her feasting every Christmas,) Rosita and all her governesses and maids. Each one of these was unaware of the metamorphosis she had undergone that night.
"You, boy," Ebony cried, "what day is it?"
Her son smiled, happy simply to be acknowledged.
"Why, mother dearest, today is Christmas Day."
Her servants began bringing in platter after platter of Christmas breakfast.
Ebony cried with elation, she had not missed it. She could make amends!
"Oh, what joy!"
In came servants carrying present after present.
"Oh, what splendour!"
They gathered around, ready to feed her.
"Oh, what utter misery I will now invite upon you all!"
Yes, dear reader, most probably you have guessed it, but the visions of the night before did not serve to lighten the heart of Mrs. Ebony Hooge. In fact, nothing about her had lightened for a considerable time. Simply these apparitions of the past and future had made her more greedy and selfish than ever she was before.
"Mummy! Daddy! You've got a lot of making up to do! As a child I was naïve and believed I was content with your servitude to me, but now I see how little I was truly given! You will spend the rest of your lives and your fortune working for my forgiveness!"
Rosita Cratchitt held a silver platter, upon which sat a glorious cooked turkey and a boarder of roasted potatoes and Yorkshire pudding and stuffing.
"Rosita! You whore! You have received treatment FAR superior to what you've earned. You will NOT be going home to your family tonight and if you give birth during my service tonight (which, thanks to the spirit's foreknowledge, she knew Rosita would) I will devour the lame infant. It will be of no use to me in service. I shall be sending for your gutter-snipe children to help serve me today, and while I'm at it I shall help myself to that pathetic excuse for a turkey you've blasphemously kept for your family instead of me!"
She licked her lips thinking of guzzling back the turkey AND the lame Cratchitt child. Rosita broke down in tears, buckling to her knees. The emotion Ebony could ignore, but that Rosita was failing to serve her was unacceptable.
"And clearly you're paid too much and not worked enough if you've money and time to buy a bird. So I think a wage cut and some unpaid overtime are in order."
She quaffed a saucepan of gravy as her eldest son stuffed her with cranberry sauce.
"Boy, you and your filthy siblings will NOT be fed this Christmas either. As I have explained to you, Christmas is a time for ME to be joyous and as my children you are my servants. From now on I will honour Christmas in my heart and such feasting and such servitude will continue all the year. I am aware of the Past, the Present and the Future and shall not allow the neglect I have seen myself put through to come about. I have seen my demise, I am a tiny thing of 250cwt, I shall not waste my life starving to be anything less than 625cwt (70,000lbs or 5000 stone)! Even then I will consider myself mistreated! Now, everyone, feeeeeeeeeeed meeeeeeeee!!!"
~~
Far, far away our epilogue takes us, beyond God's dominion. Yes, we go now to a realm of blood and lust, a place where the bottom-feeders of the universe meet in debauchery. In a sordid bar on the edge of a cliff of bones, overlooking the pacific void beyond creation, creatures from the depths of nightmares and the apex of impossibility come to unwind. The Great Old Ones gather to drink and offload their troubles on a sympathetic barman. Succubi and Abyzou, past their prime, sit with crossed legs in cocktail dresses, dragging at their cigarettes and offering to buy young men drinks. The Deathen-Morvids of Gothicca XIV, the most fearsome conquerors in the galaxy, burst in, drunkenly singing a football anthem.
In one dark corner, three spirits meet.
"Merry Christmas, boys" says Christmas Present.
Across the pub, a werewolf waiting tables rips the throat from an anthropomorphic pig who only tipped 6%.
"You too, darling" replies Christmas Past.
Christmas Yet-To-Be nods.
Over by the pool tables, H. P. Lovecraft gives the jukebox a quarter to play Like a Virgin.
"Pretty good then, I'd say, that was our best job yet" brags Christmas Past as he downs a White Russian. "She's worse than before."
Christmas Present giggles. "Yah, totally. We done awesome, Christmas will totally suck forever now. This new form of reality will spin outwards, like ripples in a lake, to affect all of time. Now everyone is gonna know Christmas as a time for greed and luxury and hedonism and junk. Christmas miracles? Not anymore, LOL." She takes a sip from her martini.
Somewhere else, The Evil At The Hearts Of All Men comes out of the bathrooms without washing his hands and grabs a fist of complimentary peanuts.
"Then I propose a toast," says Christmas Past, "to our Mrs. Ebony Hooge!"
The three spirits bump glasses and drink down.
"aaaaand," adds Christmas Present, "to our awesome plans, which have totally screwed over the name of the Lord and made him look like a dick, and all the other campaigns we're planning against him."
They raise their glasses again.
This time the final voice speaks. It is my own, your humble narrator, the Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come.
"Yes," my rattling voice hisses, a dead smile of fangs splitting my decayed face, "God fear us, every one!"
THE END