A Techno Carol (with Apologies to Charles Dickens)

Part V

“Wake up!”

The noise grabbed him as well as a set of hands he knew too well. He was scared to open his eyes, but he knew where he was.

Jimmy was a little confused at first. Katy was in his room – a bad sign – and she was staring hard at him as she shook him.

“Wake! Up!”

He stared at her for a moment.

“What’s…?”

“You were yelling something in your sleep. Good thing Mom and Dad didn’t hear you because they’d have you put in a rubber room. I just heard you because I was going to the bathroom.”

He stared at her for a longer moment. Jimmy loved her frown.

“Hey, what's wrong with you?”

“What time…?”

“It’s 9:30.”

“No, not that.” Jimmy looked around the room. It was bright and sunny, and his sister was wearing a warm housecoat his mother bought for her. “What day?”

“What day? Rubber room time!”

“Be serious, c’mon…”

She took a moment to see if he was messing with her (Katy wanted to go back to bed). “You know it’s Christmas.”

Jimmy smiled and nearly cried.

It was all over.

“Man…I just had… Hey, you got your gift yet?”

Katy was no longer staring with contempt now. It was a stare of some fear.

“Are you okay?”

“No, just… Just tell if you got the gift.”

“Haven’t opened anything yet. I’m not a little kid.”

“Right. You really aren’t!” And he did the one thing she really did not expect. Jimmy gave her a great, big, tear-streaked hug.

“Hey! Watch it, freak! What the hell’s wrong…?”

“Nothing! Absolutely not a thing!” And then he jumped up and ran to the front room.

The gifts were under the tree, and he could tell that he did not get the Benevolt system, and he did not care.

“Perfect! It is so…perfect!”

His sister snuck up behind him. She really was concerned.

“You really are flipping out, aren’t you?”

“Oh, no, no, no. Not me! I am more sane now than I have ever been in my life.”

He grabbed her and twirled her around their front room until Katy’s eyes were nothing but saucers of fear.

“Merry Christmas, Kat!”

“Yeah…yeah…”

“I should have said that ages ago, I know. But time ain’t a problem now. Not for any of us!”

Katy just stared at him.

“Seriously, I am sorry about everything. I just…I had time to think things over last night, and I’ve been an ass about these things.” Jimmy stared at the display. “Gotta tell Mom and Dad.”

“They’re up, I think.”

“Right, right!” He ran past her, into his parents’ bedroom, and scared the life out of them.

But he knew that he was on the right path.

Jimmy made a supreme effort that holiday season to not care about just receiving, but instead learned to give. It was he who insisted that they go back to the St. Anthony shelter and volunteer handing out food and gifts. It was Jimmy who went out of his way to tutor kids on science and math when school began that year (he lost interest in just coding and programming). And he became one of the most popular kids not just at school, but in his neighbourhood. Jimmy never forgot the lessons taught to him by the ghosts and his experiences. And he soon found his own calling after graduating. What that calling was we cannot share here, but it had very little to do with computers.

THE END

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