A Ghostly Plot

As soon as Henry materialised back in the ghosts' office, he headed straight to Future's TV screens, scrutinising them to see if there was any difference in Mr Brittas' future. The Christmas ghosts, who had been steadily drinking since he left them, came over to join him.

"We didn't see any changes whilst you were gone," confirmed Future, her aura now a gloomy grey.

"We didn't see it get any worse, at least," Present added as a half-hearted attempt at positivity, "so you're doing better than me."

"I think we just have to accept he's unchangeable," said Past.

Throwing his arms up in a gesture of despair, Henry turned to them. "I just can't even begin to understand him. How can someone, especially someone who claims they want to bring about utopia, see the two outcomes from a simple choice and think that the option where everyone is miserable is the best one?"

"Bloody idealists!" exclaimed Past, causing the other three to jump. He shook his head, then took another swig of his whiskey before continuing,"Always the worst to deal with. So wrapped up in their own idea of how the world should be that they can't see things as they actually are. We've never had one like this though. Usually, once they've seen how unhappy they are making the people they care about, they start to crack! Then, one final bit of scaring from Future, and we're done; another member of society reformed and improved. But this man… this man…"

"I'm so sorry I subjected you to him," Future said to Henry. "I should have just gone and done my job. Now, we've just ruined your success rate as well as our own." Her aura turning an angry red, she turned to the other three ghosts with a look of determination. "So, I'll go now; show him his future; tell him that if he doesn't give up his dream, the result is disaster; scare him into changing."

Henry gave her a kind, but sad, smile. "I don't think it would work, unfortunately. I don't believe he's capable of seeing himself as the cause of problems, only the solution."

Past and Present mumbled their agreement.

"Well, we can't let this happen!" Future urged, gesturing once again to the disasters on her screens. She pointed to a particularly nasty explosion. "Maybe I should just take him here, and leave him there until next Christmas. With any luck, he'll get blown up and solve everyone's problems!"

"No, we can't do that," said Henry. "Too much of a paradox risk. If we left him in a particular future and anything happens to him, he can't then come back to present to cause that future, which means it wouldn't exist for us to leave him in, so we wouldn't have been able to take him in the first place. Standard grandfather paradox stuff, I'm afraid."

Deciding he was too drunk for the complexity of this, Past let out a groan. "Record-keeping would have a fit having to untangle that."

Present nodded. "True. It takes them months to deal with the timeline-change paperwork from our usual cases. It's why they only give us one go a year."

"And, of course, whichever of upstairs or downstairs got him would kill us for sending him to them early," added Past.

Future sagged. "So what do we do?"

Feeling totally defeated, Past and Present could do nothing more than shrug in response. For a few moments, the group stared at the screens in despondent silence. Then Henry gasped and looked back at the other three, a devious smile dawning on his face.

"Well, we could always…" he began, and, to a rapt audience, he outlined his idea for resolving their Mr Brittas problem. As he spoke, the three Christmas ghosts also began to smile.

"I like it," said Future, when Henry had finished, her aura becoming a sunny yellow.

"So we are agreed?" asked Henry.

"We are agreed."