Digimon Christmas Carol: Chapter 2
Matt awoke and only saw darkness outside his window. So he decided to listen to the bell.
He was astonished that the bell rang twelve times.
"That can't be." Matt said. "I fell asleep at two at night, there's no way I could have slept all through the night." Then he started thinking about what Tai said to him, the first spirit was supposed to appear at one. He sat on his bed and waited. Soon he heard the bell and Matt knew that it was one. Then light flashed all over the room and the curtains of his bed were drawn aside and Matt found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor. It was a young girl about his size with bright pink hair. Her dress was white with pink flowers trimmed all over it.
"You must be one of the spirits." Matt said. "Tell me, who are you?"
"I am Mimi, the ghost of Christmas Past." The spirit said.
"Long past?"
"No, your past." Then she put out her hand and grabbed him gently by the arm.
"Rise and walk with me." Mimi said. Matt didn't want to leave his bed, and he knew that his nightgown wouldn't be warm enough for him to go outside. But he couldn't resist her grasp and rose. But then he got nervous as she approached the window.
"I'm mortal." Matt said. "And I will surely fall."
"Take my hand you shall be upheld in more than this." As she said that, the two of them passed through the wall and stood upon a country road filled with fields. The entire city had vanished and the darkness was gone and replaced by a clear, cold winter day.
"Good Heaven!" Matt said in excitement. "This is where I grew up."
"You recollect the way?" Mimi asked him.
"Remember it! Why I could walk it blindfolded."
"Strange that you have forgotten it for so many years." Mimi observed. "Let us go on."
The two of them walked along the road and Matt recognized everything along the way. They continued on until they arrived at a little market town. The town was filled with boys with high spirits and shouted to each other with great joy.
"These are but shadows of things that have been. They can neither see us nor hear us." Mimi explained.
Matt recognized and named every traveler that set foot into the town. In fact, he was rejoicing to see them. He was even filled with gladness to hear them shout out Merry Christmas to each other, But what was a Merry Christmas to Matt, what good has it ever done him.
"The school is not quite deserted." Mimi said. " A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is still there."
Matt knew it and he sobbed. They left the road to the town and soon approached a mansion of red brick, with a little weathercock on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. Matt and Mimi entered and went across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. The door was open and inside they saw a room filled with plain deal forms and desks. At one of these was a lonely boy reading near a feeble fire. Matt knew that it was him and wept at the sight of his forgotten self.
"Poor boy." Matt said with sorrow. "I wish ... but it's too late now."
"What's the matter?" Mimi asked.
"Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should have given him something, that's all."
Mimi smiled and said "Let's see another Christmas." As she took Matt's hand. Matt noticed that his younger self was growing older and the room was getting darker and dirtier. Matt looked at Mimi and shook his head in sorrow. Then he glanced towards the door.
It opened and a blonde girl, who was a few years younger then the boy, rushed into the room and threw her arms around the boy's neck and kissing him.
"Dear Brother." She said. "I have come to bring you home."
"Home Zoe?" The boy returned.
"Yes." She said in a cheerful tone. "Home forever. Father is so much kinder then he used to be, he spoke to me so gently one night that I wasn't afraid to ask him if you could come home, and he said yes, and sent me a coach so I could bring you. Father still wants you to be a man, but first we're going to spend Christmas time together."
"You are quite a young woman Zoe."
"Always a delicate creature." Mimi said. "She had a large heart."
"Indeed she did." Matt said. "I'll never forget her spirit."
"She died a woman and I think she had children too."
"One child."
"Yes, it was your nephew."
"Yes it was."
At the time, they left the school and found themselves in a large city. It was Christmas time there too and the streets were filled with lights. The ghost stopped by the door to a warehouse.
"Do you know this place Matt?" Mimi asked him.
"Know it!" Matt said. "Why I was an apprentice here."
They went in and found a man with a welsh wig over his short, dark hair. Matt cried in excitement.
"Why it's Ken! Bless his heart, he's alive again!"
Ken laid down his pen and looked up at the clock, which pointed at seven.
"Hey Matt, Izzy!" Matt's former self was now a young man. He came in along with his fellow apprentice.
"That's Izzy Izumi." Matt said to Mimi.
"Come on guys." Ken said. "It's Christmas Eve, so there will be no more work tonight. And let's have the shutters up!" Soon both the younger version of Matt and Izzy got the shutters up, everyone they could find.
"Now let's clear everything away, make sure there's plenty of room." Ken said. Soon the room was lighter and filled with a large fire and the room was warmer. Great food was filled all throughout the room, and fiddlers filled the room and the warehouse was turned into a house was transformed into a ball room.
Then Ken's wife Yolei entered the room and other young boys and girls followed her. Soon Ken and Yolei started dancing together and some of the other young boys and girls were dancing too. Even young Matt had a good time as a young girl with reddish brown hair approached him and soon the two of them were dancing. Then when the clock struck eleven, the ball broke up and Ken and Yolei greeted everyone as they left the room.
During the time, Matt had enjoyed himself more then he'd ever have. He recognized and pointed out every fact about the whole experience.
"A small matter to make these silly fools so full of gratitude." Mimi said.
"Small!" Matt echoed her.
Mimi pointed out that the two appetences were pouring their hearts out, giving praise to Ken, and after that she said.
"Why is it no? He has spent only a few pounds of your mortal money, is that so much that he deserves praise?"
"It isn't that." Matt said, heated by the remark and speaking a lot like his former self. "It isn't that spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it costs a fortune."
Matt felt Mimi's glance and stopped.
"What's wrong?" She asked.
"Nothing particular." Matt said.
"Something I think?"
"No. I just would like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all."
Soon Matt watches as his younger self closed up the place and left.
"We must go, my time runs short." Mimi said. Then she took him to a new area. Matt wasn't sure where he was, but again he saw himself, much older than he was before. Next to him was the girl he was with earlier, and she was older too. Matt noticed that she was in tears.
"Sora, what's wrong?" The younger Matt asked her.
"It matters little." Sora said. "To you very little. Another idol has displaced me and if it can cheer and comfort you in the time to come, I have no cause to grieve."
"What idol has displaced you?"
"A golden one."
"This is the even handed dealing of the world! There is nothing on which is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the power of wealth!"
"You fear the world too much. All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your noble aspirations fall off one by one, until the master passion. Gain engrosses you, have I not?"
"What then." He returned. "Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I have not changed towards you."
Sora shook her head.
"Our contract is an old one." She said. "It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You have changed, when it was made, you were another man."
"I was a boy!"
"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. It is enough that I have though of it and can release you."
"Have I ever sought release?"
"No."
"In what then?"
"In changed nature, in everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us, tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now. I don't think you would?"
"You think so."
"I would gladly think otherwise if I could. May you be happy in the life you choose." Then Sora left Matt's former self and the two of them parted.
"Spirit! Show me no more, why do you delight in torturing me?" Matt said. "Please, remove me from this place."
"I told you these were shadows of the past." Mimi said. "They are what they are, do not blame me if you don't like what you see."
"Please remove me, I cannot bare it. Please, haunt me no longer." After Matt said that, Mimi took him and returned him back to his bed. Matt quickly sank into a heavy sleep after that.