Mercy for Marley
"Why are you bothering me, Marley, why?" Scrooge lamented after reeling back from visions of his past. Although each scene was nested safely in his memory, Ebenezer Scrooge much preferred to dwell on the future. He once dismissed his younger self as naïve, foolish, and short-sighted for his contentment with his impoverished state. The younger him would have wasted away in the poorhouse if cold logic and financial reasoning hadn't given him a swift kick in the pants. Still, as Marley witnessed by his side, the young buck bearing his features knew love. He had his chance with Belle, but his older self couldn't convince her that his ambition to keep them both firmly out of poverty was the greatest demonstration of his love. The old man knelt on the floor, now feeling too weak in rehashed heartbreak to stand.
Jacob Marley stood ten paces away in his dusty, dark gray suit with ratty patches on the shoulders and cuffs. His smoke-gray neckerchief was knotted neatly around his neck as it was no longer required to hold up his jaw. "You must learn from your past to change your future," the specter offered as he walked nearer to his friend. His chains that looped around his torso and down his arms and sides hardly bothered him now. His mission to keep hope alive lightened his burden to an almost comfortable degree.
"Your gift of insight is null," Scrooge snapped, his pain quickly shifting to anger. "You show me a frozen world! I am an old man, and beyond all hope!" Marley flinched and then shook his head with a pained frown.
"Do you resign yourself to this, then?" Marley gestured to himself. "We walk our deserted paths in chains because we have nothing else to do." Now, standing at Scrooge's side, he stepped back on his left heel and kneeled to his level. "There is nothing but despair." Marley bowed his head in silent plea and extended his arms outward as if he was pushing against a wall in front of Scrooge's face.
Scrooge watched the ghost prostrate himself and grabbed Marley's hands at the wrists. He was offended that this trip sought to paint him as a clear villain. His motives were logically sound; should he not at least receive credit where it was due? Marley, the man who understood him better than anyone else he knew, now treated him like a tyrant. With a scowl, he slowly rose to his feet. Marley's head jerked up, and Scrooge could make out a ghostly tear sliding down the deadly pale cheek. "It is good for you to be able to cry when there is no consolation." He tossed Marley's wrists to his right and watched the rest of the man twist to land on all fours. Marley quickly stood back up and shied away with his head tipped toward his chest.
"I understand." Scrooge made an "X" with his hands and then extended his arms to his sides. "But that's it! Why do you not leave me be?" Marley then reached inside his left coat pocket for a handful of spirit dust which he used to summon elements from Scrooge's past. The old man saw what was coming and seized the ghost's wrists once more, giving the right wrist a hard squeeze until Marley unclenched his hand. The dust fell, and Scrooge threw Marley to the floor once more.
It occurred to him that he could say whatever was on his mind. Marley didn't seem willing to fight back. "I hate this existence if there is no hope, and I hate you! Cursed be you to cry!"
Marley's weeping face stared piteously at his friend as he began to sink into the floor like quicksand. He rolled onto his side and kept a pleading arm raised until he was completely swallowed. Scrooge watched him disappear, feeling more helpless than ever. "Be damned," he muttered, glad to see Marley leave. His gaze lingered over the area when bright sparks of red fire shot up from the floorboards. Scrooge jumped back out of instinct, but the fire did not spread. "Damn you," he whispers with a miserable shake of his head. "And damn me, too."
LATER THE NEXT MORNING…
"To anyone who is wanting for money and mercy this Christmas, here's a little oil to rotate the wheel!" Scrooge stood on his balcony, a reformed man. He wouldn't have ever believed that his entire personality could change overnight, but, alas, it had. Christmases present and future came without delay despite Marley's absence. Christmas present modeled the giving of others, and the Christmas of yet to come gave him a glimpse of involuntary giving. It now seemed logical to him that if there was to be any giving on his part, then it ought to be when he is alive to reap the simple rewards of a smile and a kind "Thankee." His money bags were open above a gathering crowd who witnessed the first of many fistfuls of cash to fall.
"Do not be ashamed," he said to the townspeople with their cocked heads and dubious stares. "This is the money of God!" He nodded encouragingly with a merry smile. "Take it all! That's right!" What he gave in excess was received in abundance. "It was never good for anything to me," he murmured quietly to himself.
"Nor to me," a familiar voice spoke from his side. Scrooge turned to see his friend smiling proudly at him. Scrooge's eyes glistened with tears of joy, but he struggled to not let them fall.
"Jacob!" he gasped with a wide smile that grew into hearty laughter. "It is good to see you, my friend!" He tipped his bag of money over the railing and let it all fall to the eager crowd. "You were right all along; there was always hope for me." He sighed with an ashamed shake of his head. Up until this point, he was certain that his words caused his dear, departed partner to suffer in hellfire. "Could you forgive this pig-headed old fool for ever doubting you?"
Marley extended his right hand for Scrooge to shake. "You are already forgiven." His light eyes were in earnest and seemed to be sparkling. He looked over the balcony and waved to the joyful people he saw brandishing their free cash and waving their thanks. Marley knew he would be invisible to all but Scrooge, but the temptation was irresistible. As Scrooge was the surviving partner of their firm, Marley knew some of those bills passed through his hands. His friend must have thought the same thing as Marley noticed him staring at his ensnared body.
"You are still fettered," Scrooge observed with disappointment clear in his voice. "I am giving away God's money for the both of us, Jacob. I don't understand."
Marley touched a link of chain hanging over his chest to acknowledge its presence. "Your donations are by your own free will, Ebenezer. Try as I may to interfere in human matters, I have lost that power forever."
"But you helped me, guided me to the path of righteousness!" Scrooge asserted, his heart hardening with anger at this perceived injustice. "Surely, that was a good turn worthy of some reward!" His friend gave him a soft smile.
"I am in no pain," said Marley, stretching his arms in free, fluid motions to demonstrate the lack of resistance. "Look to see me no more."
"You cannot stay for Christmas?" Scrooge pressed, not wanting to have to say goodbye so soon.
"My time is nearly gone," Marley replied, backing inside the house. "But know that I will sit beside you many a day while you still live. If you speak to me, I shall hear you." The ghost gave a final nod of his dark-haired head. "May you have a pleasant life, Ebenezer. Merry Christmas."
Scrooge watched Marley vanish for the last time. "Merry Christmas…There goes the best friend a man could ever have." He touched his eyes with a finger and smeared away the tears. Jacob's funeral, as he recalled, was quiet and uneventful. Scrooge shed a single tear and hardly gave Marley's passing another thought. Grief made one unproductive. Now, Scrooge felt true grief sink its teeth into his soul for the first time. He retired to his chambers and wept, bouncing between joy, shame, and grief. "Mark my words, Jacob," he whispered to his bedposts. "I will keep Christmas within me, always. Your effort to save me will not be in vain."
Ebenezer Scrooge was better than his word. He kept both friends and family, laughed often, and became as good a gentleman as anybody in town ever knew. A couple decades later on his death bed, Scrooge found himself surrounded by all of his loved ones. His clerk's wife, Mrs. Cratchit, held one of his hands while his nephew, Fred, held his other. Not one dry eye could be found in the room. Bob Cratchit had the wonderful idea of going around in a circle to share their favorite memory of Ebenezer Scrooge while he was alive to hear it.
As the man lay dying, he smiled at all of the teary-eyed faces. His sweeping gaze paused as the room and everyone in it began to fade into a white, blank nothingness. He felt his breathing cease, which was taken over by the sensation of a steady stream of air coursing through his lungs without the effort of drawing in breath. "Floating on air" would be an accurate phrase, if air existed on this plane.
"Scrooge." Ebenezer smiled in recognition of the voice and willed himself to move toward it. In the blank space, shapes began to appear. A very large and beautiful arch came into view, which Scrooge immediately recognized as the pearly gates of Heaven. Marley stood outside the gate with his arms open in welcome. His face was youthful, and his burial suit had been restored to mint condition. Scrooge looked him over and was overjoyed to see that his chains were completely gone. Scrooge's last worry vanished, for he knew that for his own reconciliation, God had saved some mercy for Marley.