The Impossible Quest Of Hailing A Taxi On Christmas Eve

THE
IMPOSSIBLE QUEST OF HAILING A TAXI ON CHRISTMAS EVE

By George
Saoulidis

An
adaptation of the classic novella

"A
Christmas Carol,"

By
Charles Dickens

Published
by Mythography Studios

Smashwords Edition

Copyright
2015 George Saoulidis

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this author.

Stave
One

"Marley was
dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that," he
read out loud from the first page and then shut the book closed. He
exhaled, a puff of frozen breath forming in front of his mouth and
said, "And this is supposed to be a fairytale? How
morbid."

He held
the book in his hands, a real, physical print of "A Christmas
Carol" by Charles Dickens. It was only a mass-produced cheap copy
but it was vintage enough in this time and age. His late partner
had left it on his desk, with a handwritten dedication for him.
Scrooge never figured out why.

His name
wasn't really Scrooge of course. He was John.

People
just called him like that, and the nickname stuck. It was just that
every Christmas Eve since his business partner's death on the exact
same day, he was reminded of the man. Scrooge didn't have any
pictures or anything, just the worn old book in his drawer. He
never got to read the thing, it was too dour. He just held it in
his hands, feeling the paper, thinking. There's something about the
texture of books that appeals to people. The shiny, glossy surfaces
of the reading devices nowadays just don't evoke anything
similar.

Across
the freezing office was his assistant, Clara. She was a single
mother of one, in her late thirties and needed a new dye of blonde
hair. She could have been attractive, if she had managed to get
some sleep, enough money to pay her bills and a miracle to lift the
worry off her shoulders. She was an accountant, the only employee
to Scrooge, and she ended up juggling every single job, manning the
phones, doing the accounts, fixing technical issues with the techs,
keeping the office livable with a couple of plants.

She was
currently rolled up in a blanket like a gyro wrap, shaking and
sniffing her nose. The frigid office was dark, illuminated only by
the lights outside, some colourful ones from the Christmas
decorations, others simply street signs and lamp-posts, and also by
the computer monitors on their desks. She was wearing knit
colourful gloves and was tapping away on her phone, constantly
stopping to check out something on her monitor by pressing a
button, sighing, and then turning back to her phone. It was doing
gling sounds all the time, filled with incoming and outgoing
Christmas wishes to old friends and faraway family. The glove tips
wouldn't normally work on the touchscreen, but she had those
popular touchscreen gloves with capacitive elements sewn in the
fingers. It was a small comfort in the cold office.

"Mr.
Tsifoutis, it's still not working," she nagged to no one in
particular.

"The
server works half the time, so it's good enough. How many hours do
you need to input a few accounts woman?" Scrooge grunted, his eyes
not lifting towards her.

"But I'm
waiting for over an hour to finish this up and go home. The IT
isn't responding, they must have left the office for Christmas
Eve." She sniffed her nose. In the beginning, she was trying to do
it quietly, discreet like a lady should, but after years and years
of enduring a winter office she had just given up and pretty much
blew her nose like a loud trumpet.

"Bah!
Customer service they call it! It's the same thing every Christmas,
you just can't get any work done anywhere," Scrooge spat out, his
face turning sour.

"People
just want to go home to their families Mr. Tsifoutis," she
explained softly.

He got
the hint. "Days off with pay... In my day, you could work 14 hours
a day 7 days a week and not get paid till four months later," he
said shaking his finger.

She
waited calmly for him to finish his rant, pulling up the blanket in
a futile quest to make herself warm.

"Christmas! Bah! Nothing but a marketing ploy, I tell you.
Selling Christmas ornaments and Christmas gifts two full months
before the holiday itself. And the waste of it all! The city
lights, paid with my taxes. Stupid snow frosting on buildings,
requiring money to put on and then money to clean off! A waste.
They slap a Christmas packaging on products and mark-up the price
by 30%!"

"Thirty
percent," she nodded patiently.

He still
had more coming but he suddenly felt tired, so he sagged back into
his chair. The back was worn and some screws were poking out of the
lower back, making it really uncomfortable. He didn't spare any
cash to get new office chairs of course. They were fine and sturdy,
they still had at least 10 years of good use. "Anyway, go home.
I'll finish up here and upload it in a while. You're gonna drain my
account anyway, you can have the day off tomorrow."

She
stood up and smiled, putting her stuff in her bag, arranging her
desk, pulling down the blinds.

Scrooge
grunted at her, "But I want you here the next day half an hour
earlier!"

"Yes
mister," she said, and watered the plants, cleaned up her cup of
tea, picked up his cup and put a new cup of water in the boiler.
She left it boiling, cleaned up the tiny little kitchen, went to
turn off the Christmas lights she had brought to decorate the
office, remembered Mr. Scrooge had already demanded her to stop
wasting power and turned it off, went back to her desk and sent the
accounts of the day to her boss, went to his desk, threw away the
trash, dusted off his hanging coat, leaned to his computer, pulled
up the accounts so he could update them as soon as the server was
running again, went back to the kitchen, poured hot tea, brought it
to his desk savouring its warmth for a second too long, stood in
front of his desk ready to leave and then said
goodnight.

"Good
night Clara," Scrooge said with the tone a boss has when he allows
his employee to leave.

"Maybe
we should do the upgrade Mr. Tsifoutis," she said hesitantly. "Our
service depends on it, it's been years. I've shown you the cost,
it's not that high and..."

Scrooge
raised his hand interrupting her, "I know. I'll think about
it."

She was
referring to their service, which was their object of trade really.
Scrooge was running an accounting internet service for small
businesses. Despite that their platform hadn't been updated in,
pretty much ever, they were still competitive due to their low
prices. The cost was kept down of course, by skimping on things
like proper furniture, internet hosting, required employees and,
office heating.

"Merry
Christmas sir," she said cordially and turned to the
door.

"Bah. A
marketing ploy I tell you. Don't you listen to anything I say
woman?"

"Of
course I do, but Merry Christmas anyways," she said and she meant
it.

As she
was opening the door, Scrooge's cousin showed up. He was fat and
huge and was always huffing from exertion, making his cheeks red.
He made a great Santa Claus, so he showed up in costume. "Hello
Miss Clara! Merry Christmas to you," he said and presented a small
gift to her. "For your son." Then he reached into his red Santa bag
and fished out a party horn as well.

"Merry
Christmas Mr. Tsifoutis," she smiled back. "I'm sure he'll love
it."

"Ho ho
ho!" the cousin bellowed out and then leaned in to whisper, "Is
Scrooge still here?"

"Yes,"
she replied, "Go right in, he's just waiting for the system to
unfreeze."

"Unfreeze? Why, in this cold it might take some time," he
said with jolly, half-stepping in the office.

She
sneezed and then blew her nose loudly like a trumpet, that echoed
into the corridors. Cousin Santa blew his own party horn in a
similar note.

They
both laughed and wished each other happy holidays.

Scrooge
hid his face in his palms. He didn't really want to face his
cousin, he was dodging his invite for days.

The cousin Santa came in and bellowed, "Ho ho ho dear
cousin!" and blew his party horn, in a loud
prrr
. He then went to the decorated
Christmas lights and turned them on, illuminating the place in
various flickering colours.

Scrooge
stood up and ran to the lights, turning them off. "Are you trying
to bankrupt me man?"

"Come
on, a few LEDs wont make a real difference. Be merry! Be jolly!" he
said, blowing his party horn and turning the Christmas lights on
again.

Scrooge
turned them off. "Bah! It's just a marketing ploy."

Santa
turned them on. "Will you come to our Christmas dinner
tomorrow?"

Scrooge
turned them off. "No. I have work to do at home. Clara won't be
coming to work tomorrow, I have to keep up the pace."

Santa
turned them on. "You can't possibly work on Christmas Day! Come to
us for dinner. There'll be turkey! And sweets! And chocolate. We'll
have a merry old time..."

Scrooge
turned them off. "A waste, overpriced dinners when you can't afford
them. Don't be coming to me for loans in a few weeks."

He was
referring of course, to actual loans. He'd never lent out money
just like that, not even to family, whatever little of both he had
left. They were actual personal loans, signed in triplicate,
incurring interest at "market average" rates.

Santa
sighed and gave up. "Fine. I know you've seen my invitation days
ago. I know the message I left to Clara was passed to you. This is
just some excuse, I don't know why you don't want to spend the
holiday with family. Anyway, the offer stands. Our door is always
open for you," he said, blew out the party horn one last time,
though it was something sad this time, and left.

Scrooge
shut the door and sat back down to his uncomfortable office chair.
He pressed a button on his computer and waited for the server to
respond. It took more than two minutes for it to spit out an
"error: unreachable" message.

It was
fine. He could wait. The hosting service he used was the cheapest
one there is, and that meant it was poorly maintained and came with
customer support that didn't really care.

He
picked up the tea, that was scalding hot when Clara brought it but
now was barely warmer than the freezing room, and sipped, while
staring outside into the dark Christmas Athens. It was still
afternoon but it was already pitch going for black.

Someone
knocked on the door and he stood up, protesting loudly all the way.
"What now? I told you I won't come to the damn dinner," he mumbled
and opened the door.

He
looked down and saw three little children, fluffed out with big
coloured coats and knit caps and gloves. The girl was Romani, the
boy was Greek and the second boy was Nigerian.

They
cheered in unison, "Na ta poume?" which was the protocol of
Christmas Carol initiation. They didn't really have the patience to
wait for a proper reply so they began jingling away their little
triangles and singing.

It was
so merry and sweet.

Scrooge
yelled at them and shushed them. "Stop this racket! Stop at once.
Who told you to start with this cacophony?"

They
extended their little gloved hands and waited for their treat.
Their paycard was in hand, a simple tap from another would confirm
a small-amount transaction instantly.