"Jim, probably we should cancel it all and I'll stay with you?" Erin asked.
"Come on, darling," James Moriarty started coughing again and picked up a cup of hot tea. "I'll be perfectly fine here alone."
Erin kissed him, called the children, and they all left.
It was pure bad luck to get sick just before Christmas. Now his wife and children went to Dublin to spend Christmas with Erin Moriarty's (nee O'Neill) parents, and he stayed home all alone.
Finally, he thought suddenly. What a blessing, he thought suddenly. And then he felt ashamed of those thoughts.
Ten days ago he'd been in Stockholm, receiving the Nobel Prize, and there he had caught a cold. He'd received hundreds of postcards from his fellow scientists, and every other one felt it was their duty to make a joke about Descartes. It wasn't funny.
Jim glanced at the wall where all his certificates of honor hung. He had kept them in the bookcase, but when he'd got back to London, it turned out that Erin had taken them out and hung them on the wall so that everyone could see them. For the invention of the medicine… For the proof of the theorem. For this, for that… Jim wasn't really proud of his inventions. Of course, he'd brought a lot of good to the world, but helping people was in fact just his duty.
Jim sipped some more tea and set the mug on the bedside table. He would sleep through Christmas. It wasn't a big deal. He was alone anyway.
He wasn't alone.
A man who looked exactly like his school psychologist, Mr. Jones, was standing next to his bed.
"Jim!" he said, and Jim suddenly felt like he was a schoolboy again.
He didn't even correct the man that he should be addressed as 'Mr. Moriarty' now.
"Jim," Mr. Jones repeated. "Just look what you've made of your life!"
"I have a wonderful life," Jim argued. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You're living someone else's life, day after day, hour after hour," Mr. Jones announced. "Didn't I tell you that a person only lives when they try to unlock their full potential?"
"But I did it!" Jim said indignantly, pointing at the display of his certificates on the wall.
It was the first time he was so happy to have them. It even seemed to him that without them he would have believed Mr. Jones's words immediately.
Actually… Wait. Jim remembered suddenly. Mr. Jones had died ten years ago. A traffic accident or something. So who was standing in front of him and how had he managed to get into Jim's house?
"I'm here to help you, Jim," said the late Mr. Jones in a reproachful but still gentle voice. "I'll show you the root of your problems. All your problems come from your childhood."
Then he took Jim by the collar of his nightgown and dragged him to the window, and they both soared up into the cold sky. Jim just had time to think that now he was definitely going to die of a cold. Like Descartes.
He was standing in the hallway of his school, invisible to all the students, and suddenly he saw himself. Little ten-year-old Jim was walking down the hall without noticing anyone because he was reading a high school math textbook. And, of course, he ran into Powers.
"Here you are again, little brat," Powers said and gave little Jim a good kick that knocked the textbook out of his hands and sent it flying. "If I see you one more time I'll break your legs, get it?"
The bell rang, and all the students scattered to their classes.
"So how did you answer him?" the late Mr. Jones asked.
"I didn't," Jim shrugged. "He never broke my legs after all. He only threatened to do it. Well, he laughed at me, too, that happens."
"Really?" Mr. Jones laughed. "Don't forget that I'm a psychologist, Jim. What were you thinking about at that moment? "
"I wanted to kill him," Jim said flatly. "I was walking there thinking if only I could kill him."
"But you didn't!" Mr. Jones exclaimed. "You just endured it and ruined your life with your own hands! Goodbye, Jim. Just looking at you makes me feel ashamed."
Jim closed his eyes. He was ashamed, too.
It didn't last long, though. Something changed around him, and he opened his eyes hurriedly. His old school was no longer around him. He was in the apartment in Baker Street. He had seen this apartment in the newspapers many times. A famous detective lived here. What was this detective's name? He didn't remember.
The aforementioned famous detective was sitting on the sofa and giving an interview. He was very handsome, but his eyes were dull and lifeless. Without any light in them.
And there was an empty syringe under his couch.
"So you decided to retire completely and go to Sussex," the journalist in a hunting cap said. "But why?"
"I'm bored," the detective what's-his-name said in an equally flat lifeless voice. "All crimes are the same. The underworld has degenerated. No one commits grand crimes, you know, like the old days. Even bees are more interesting."
"I understand," the journalist said, and suddenly Jim got annoyed.
She didn't understand anything, of course. She couldn't understand anything, she was a fool, for God's sake!
"What can she possibly understand?" someone behind Jim said. "She didn't even notice the syringe."
Jim turned around. Next to him, there was a tall, muscular blond man with a rifle. Jim thought back hard, but he couldn't remember who it was.
"I'm sorry," he said politely. "I seem to have forgotten your name."
"You didn't forget!" the blond man answered. "You've never seen me before. I'm a sniper. I was put in prison two years ago and there they strangled me quietly. My own cellmates. For cheating on cards."
"I'm sorry," Jim said sincerely, realizing to his own surprise that he was actually telling the truth.
He had never seen this sniper, but he didn't want him in jail. Nor to be strangled there.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked, just in case.
"Nothing," the man grumbled. "You should've thought about it earlier. You read all the articles about Sherlock Holmes. You made up so many perfect crimes every time he said that criminals were not what they used to be! Did you ever commit at least one? I could've been your right-hand man, I wouldn't have had to cheat for a living. It's all because of you."
The blond man, who had never given his name, spat on the floor, turned around, and left. Sherlock and the reporter were gone, as was the apartment in Baker Street.
Jim was back in bed at home. Only he had a white beard, and his loyal Erin was drinking tea next to him. The house was filled with children's voices.
"How come there are so many children here?" Jim asked in surprise.
However, he already knew the answer. This was his future, and the children were his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and they all came to him for Christmas. They came to say goodbye to him. He was dying, of old age, in his bed, surrounded by his loving family.
"Do you like it?" a woman asked him.
Jim looked up. It was Mary Morstan, the nurse who had come to his house recently.
"What did I do to you?" Jim protested. "Or did you just expect me to tip you?"
"I became a nurse and worked all my life as a nurse because of you," she said strictly. "Sebastian at least had some fun with cards, and what kind of life did I have?"
"I got it," Jim said. "I understand everything now, please take me back, maybe it's not too late, I'll fix it!"
"That's not all," Mary said, "Come on, I'll show you what people say about you!"
This hell of a journey Jim remembered forever. They went from house to house, invisible, and in every home people found a few kind words for old Professor Moriarty, who was currently dying in his house. How his medication had helped them. How they liked his entertainment science program on TV. How many people's lives were improved by his inventions. Those people. Idiots.
Idiots.
"Have you learned your lesson?" three voices asked.
Now they were standing next to him, all three of them, the dead school psychologist, the dead gambling sniper and the supposedly alive nurse.
"Yes!" Jim cried. "I have! I got it! I'll fix it! Bring me back."
"It's Christmas night, Jim," Mr. Jones said. "You've been given a chance. A really great chance, Jim. You can start from the beginning. Don't miss it."
They disappeared, and suddenly Jim was at school. But now he wasn't invisible, no, now he was ten years old, and he was walking, captivated, staring at the math textbook in his oh so little hands.
"You're here again, you little brat!" he heard Powers say and then he felt a kick.
Jim threw his head back and laughed.
He was to get some botulinum toxin tonight.