A Christmas Carroll

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Neil


Part Three – The Ghost of Ameobi Past

…In the last instalment, Ebeneezer Ashley was visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past. The ghost, clad in a variety of hats and chewing on an ever-present apple, took Ashley on his BMX bike back to the first Christmas Ashley had spent alone as a child…

Ebeneezer Ashley was drooling in his sleep. In his dreams, he was frolicking in a KFC bucket the size of a football team (a traditional stadium, not one of these corporate-sponsored monstrosities), skipping through the breasts, legs and wings like a fat child on a pogo stick.

“That’s rank, mate.”

He looked around the bucket, but could see no one. None of the pieces of chicken had a face.

“You’re drooling, pal…” said a disgusted voice. Did he know that voice? No. But it was another Newcastle accent. He took one last look at the mountains of chicken surrounding him before opening his eyes. He focused his eyes ahead of him, staring for a good few seconds before his eyes focused on a figure sat on the edge of the bed. It was another tall black man, except this one was dressed as Santa. Well, Santa in a black and white costume. He continued staring.

The apparition read his mind. “You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“No,” replied Ashley, scratching his skull. “You look like the last one.”

“He’s my brother.”

“Na, you’re not the young one.”

“He has more than one brother.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m the ghost of Christmas present. The second of the three.”

“Hold on, mate. Let me get this straight. Your brother took me back in time. I assume another brother will take me to the future. No offence mate, but you’re not a patch on your ‘so-called’ brothers” scoffed Ashley. “What are we gonna do, look out the window?” Ashley chuckled out loud.

“Shut your mouth and you might learn something. Not least, respect for others. Now get off your fat arse and follow me”. The apparition walked to the far bedroom wall, then paused to wait for Ashley.

“Sure, I’ll come with you, Santa…” muttered Ashley, dragging his carcass up from the mattress. He looked around. “Where’s your bike?”

“We’re going through the wall. Exercise would do you good…” he muttered, staring at Ashley’s tightly stretched pyjamas.

“Ah, I’ve done this before…” said Ashley, striding forward confidently…

“Wait.”

“What?”

“We’re going quite a distance, so you have to run through it. Go too slowly and you’ll just drop outside” explained the ghost.

“Ah. Sure thing.” Ashley curled his toes twice, bounced on the balls of his feet and launched himself at the wall as fast as his chunky legs would carry him.

The sound of laughter filled his ears as he slowly returned to consciousness. He looked ahead and the ghost was laughing, while behind him the chandelier was rocking on the wall. The wall? Oh… Ashley slowly picked himself to his feet and shook his head to clear the cobwebs.

“I just ran into the wall didn’t I?”

“Aye.”

“Why would you let me do that?”

“Cos you’re a doylem. Realise you’re not in a dream now?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now follow me…” said the spirit, his voice tailing off as he calmly stepped through the wall.

Ashley looked around. Ok, he thought, let’s try this again. But slowly this time…

 *****

 … and stepped into the back room of a pub. What was this? Pardew was there, as were the rest of his staff, including Ameobi. He was definitely the ghost of Christmas Past! He looked exactly the same. In fact, Ameobi seemed to be staring right at him from beneath the peak of his baseball cap. He was smiling.

“Can you see me!?” he asked Ameobi.

Ameobi shook his head, then traded a look with his little brother, who also worked at the company and also appeared to be staring directly at Ashley. They both started laughing, and then returned to the conversation.

“So they’re your brothers?” he asked the ghost.

“Yes.”

“How come you don’t work for me?”

“Never passed the trials…”

“Ah. What’s going on here?”

“Work Christmas party.”

“What? I didn’t arrange a work Christmas party. I’m certainly not paying for one! Hey, you! Pardew!” he shouted at Bob Pardew. “What the hell are you doing having a party for the employees!? I’ll string you up, you chancer!”

He tried to launch himself at Pardew but the ghost’s hand held him back. “He can’t see or hear you. Just be quiet for a minute, you mouthy bastard, and you might learn something.”

The younger Ameobi brother spoke up. “Hey boss…”

“Call me Pards, Sammy,” said Pardew with a smile.

“Of course, Pards. Why’s Mr Ashley not here?”

“I don’t know, young Sammy, mate. I asked him a few times but he just ignored me. I even sent him a few emails. Nothing back.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Yes it is Sammy. We might not see eye to eye on stuff, but it’s Christmas. It’s not the same without him here.”

“Who’s paying for this party?” Ashley asked the ghost.

“They all paid towards it, just like they all paid towards your present.”

“They got me a present?” asked Ashley, more confused than emotional.

“Yes.”

“But… why?”

“Because it’s Christmas, and that’s what people do at Christmas. They do nice stuff for other people. Even you.”

“They like me?” asked Ashley, with a tear in his eye. “Really…”

“No. Of course not. You’re a twat. But they’ll give you another chance. ‘Tis the season for forgiving…” chuckled the ghost as the clock struck twelve and everything faded to white…

To be continued…


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A Christmas Carroll

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Neil


Part Two – The Ghost of Ameobi Past

…In the last episode, Ebeneezer Ashley had been visited in his home by the chicken-eating ghost of Fat Freddie Marley and warned to change his spendthrift ways. The KFC bucket-wielding apparition had predicted that Ashley would receive three visitors and would end up a changed man…

Ashley shivered slightly and slowly got back to his feet. He looked around the room. He checked under the bed and under the sheets. It was useless. There was no chicken there. He climbed back into bed. It can’t have been a dream. Maybe he’d had food poisoning from the Chinese food he’d ordered. That must have been it. And now he was having vivid hallucinations. But then why did his bed smell of fried chicken?

He paused to think. He often ate fried chicken in bed. Yep, no doubt about it – he was just hallucinating. He’d sleep it off no doubt. He pulled the sheets up high over his round face and willed himself to sleep.

He tossed and turned for about twenty minutes, but still there was disquiet in his mind. He pulled the blanket down a little to get some air, and saw something. Another figure. What had he eaten from the takeaway? This figure appeared to be a tall black man in a baseball cap, perched upon a mountain bike and chewing an apple. He chuckled to himself.

“Alreet?” asked the apparition. ‘Another apparition with a Geordie accent’, thought Ashley. ‘God, I hated these northern monkeys’.

“You look just like that lazy Ameobi. He’s a member of the frontline team, I think…” muttered Ashley, smiling to himself.

“Shola?” asked the apparition, in his deep baritone of a voice.

“No idea. The useless one. Been at the company since before my time. Could never get rid of him. Tried to send him to Stoke once. He still came back. Like a bastard boomerang.”

The apparition slowly chewed his green apple. “What do you want? If you’re after Marley and the bucket of chicken, it’s already gone” said Ashley, ruefully.

“Na. Come with me.”

“What?”

“Come sit on the back of me back. I’ll give you a backer.”

“Sure. This is all in my mind anyway…”

Ashley clambered out of bed, taking a moment to size up this Shola-like figure in front of him before shuffling around him and perching himself on the edge of the bike seat.

 *****

“We’re there”, rumbled the apparition gently.

“I’ve only just sat down.”

“Get off and have a look.”

Ashley could tell he was somewhere else. Outdoors. It was daytime, but he couldn’t see anything. The apparition was now wearing an oversized top hat, and it was obstructing Ashley’s vision.

“Did you change hat?” he asked, puzzled.

“Aye”

“Why?”

“I like lots of different hats.”

“Ok. So hang on… before I get off this bike, tell me who you’re meant to be?”

“Am.”

“What?”

“Who I am.”

“Whatever.”

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

Ashley chuckled at his own imagination. In his hallucination, Ameobi thought he was a ghost. And not just any ghost. A ghost with delusions of time travel. “You must take me for a monkey…” he mumbled, shuffling off the bike seat to stand beside the apparition.

“Recognise it?” asked the apparition, continuing to chew on the apple. His top hat had now changed to a flat cap. Ashley turned his eyes in front of him.

“I’m at school. Boarding school. Hang on, can they see us?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“Aye.”

“All the kids are running around playing. But where am I?” asked Ashley, thinking aloud in that annoying style which enables a half-competent writer to vary the way he describes stuff so it doesn’t all sound the same, and uses less words. “I can see parents now. My parents aren’t here, though… The kids are going home with their parents. Where am I? Everyone seems so happy and playful.”

“It’s Christmas. Everyone loves Christmas.”

“I don’t.”

“You did. Walk alongside me…”

“Can I not get back on the bike?”

“Nar, move it, fatty.”

The apparition pedalled towards a wall in the school building at a leisurely pace, with an already-panting Ashley struggling to keep up. Once the bike had passed through the wall, however, Ashley stopped. He held out a podgy finger and gently poked it towards the wall. It passed through. He followed his finger and found himself in the room where had stayed on his first Christmas away from home. He saw a small boy, not quite podgy, playing with a toy on a small Christmas tree with a tear in his eye. He remembered. He had spent all that Christmas in the school with only the support staff for occasional company. No other kids. This would be the first of many Christmases he would spend alone. He swallowed his emotions and looked away from the child.

The apparition was still chewing his apple thoughtfully, but his flat cap had now become woolly hat with bear ears on the top. The apparition stared straight through him.

“What are you trying to prove?”

“You used to like Christmas. Until now, anyway…” He pointed the apple at the young Ashley, who was now staring out of the window forlornly. “Understandable I guess…”

“What purpose does this serve?”

“You seen the other kids. They all loved Christmas. Hell, you used to.”

“I was a child.”

“It’s not too late.”

“Listen, mate, this is all exploitation! You have no right to come into my bedroom, late at night, to try and abuse my emotions like this. You’re exploiting me for your own ends”.

The apparition’s slow laughter rumbled through the still air. “I thought this was in your imagination?”

“It is. And I want it to stop now!”

No sooner had he uttered those words than he was back in his own bed. He wiped a tear from his eye with a sausage-like finger. He picked up his pillow and flipped it so he could relax on the cool side. As he did so, he noticed something hanging from his finger. A decoration from his younger self’s Christmas tree. He smiled gently as he played with it between his fingers before putting it under his pillow. “Bloody vivid hallucinations” he muttered as he drifted off to sleep…

To be continued…

 

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A Christmas Carroll

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Neil

Part One – A Visit from Beyond

“Doing anything nice this year, guv?”

“What?” replied Ebeneezer Ashley, his highlighter pen hovering over the balance book and his eyes fixed on the source of this impertinent question.

“It’s Christmas, guv! You got any plans?” repeated Bob Pardew, Ashley’s under-manager in his thick London accent.

Ashley fixed him with an icy stare from his dark eyes, which lay buried behind a pair of fat cheeks. He twirled his pink highlighter pen between his porky fingers and shook his round head slowly. He had been lumbered with Pardew after sacking his previous manager, whose major crime had been to be popular with both the employees and the customers. Pardew was the only one who would take the job, and he had proven surprisingly adept at it. In fact, after an initial period of distrust, both the employees and customers were slowly coming to appreciate the job Pardew was doing. Ashley would have to do something about that, but that would have to wait for a later date.

“Christmas?” repeated Ashley slowly, letting the word linger in the air.

“Yeah!” replied Pardew, his head nodding like an excited dog.

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Sorry boss” replied Pardew. His eyes grew big like a puppy waiting for forgiveness.

“It’s all about spending money none of us have…” continued Ashley, ignoring the huge amounts of money currently residing in his bank account.

“So there’ll be no money for strengthening the team?” asked Pardew, his head dropping with sadness.

“Listen, pal, I’ll decide when the time comes.”

“We could get a few people in. We could even strengthen the team in a few key areas without spending any money!

“Do you have any idea how much free costs!?” roared Ashley. “Get out, you little shit! You’ll get what you’re given this year!”

Ashley threw a paperweight after the rapidly fleeing Pardew, only just avoiding hitting him as it shattered against the wall. Ashley grumbled some obscenities and closed the balance books. He had saved the company enough money for one day, and decided to return home and get an early night. The company had a lot of money which could be raised in the new year sales.

*****

After watching Emmerdale with a Chinese takeaway, Ashley lit a candle and went up the stairs of his mansion to bed. No point wasting money on lights when a candle would be fine, even if it did often mean that the last thing he saw before bed was Harry Redknapp’s face in the melted candle wax. He needed a good night’s sleep to prepare his fire sale in January, so he tucked himself up in bed and blew the candle out. No more Redknapp dreams… He closed his eyes…

And heard the rattling of a chain. He opened his eyes. Nothing. He shuffled further down the bed and closed his eyes again, but the rattling started once more. He put a chubby hand to his belly. Nope, it felt ok. It clearly wasn’t that. He threw the blankets off and sat bolt-upright. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw a fatter, older version of himself sat on the edge of the bed eating from a KFC bucket.

“Here, you want a wing, Ashley?” asked the figure perched on the end of the bed.

Ashley held out a hand, and the figure held out the chicken piece, which passed through Ashley’s hand.

“What?” asked Ashley. He tried reaching again, and this time his hand passed through both the succulent piece of chicken and the white sleeve of the figure. He started trembling with fear. “Freddie Marley? I thought… you were… I mean…”

“Settle down, bonnie lad. It’s not really me. Well, I mean it is. But I’m not real. Fuck, man, I’m not explaining this very well. I’m dead to this world now, with the exception of my frequent comments in the press” said Marley through greasy lips. He had sold the company to Ashley several years ago, and was the last person Ashley would ever invite into his house, least of all allow to perch his fat arse on the edge of Ashley’s bed while eating fried chicken and wiping his greasy fingers on the sheets. Or at least it looked like he was wiping his fingers on the sheets. “My soul is not at peace,” continued Marley. “I am condemned to eat fried chicken in limbo for eternity”

“Sounds good…” muttered Ashley, licking his lips.

“Well… aye it is. But I mean, that’s all I can do. No more expensive lesbian shows in Spanish brothels, no more stealing money from the books and no more being treated as Buddha by members of the local press. Just me and this bucket. Been a few years now. I miss the thrill. And the same will happen to you unless you change your ways.”

“You’re trying to tell me how to run my company?”

“It’s not a company, it’s more than that. It belongs to more than just you and your mates. I realise that now, but it was too late for me. You still have a chance to change your ways.”

“What?” scoffed Ashley. “I didn’t get where I am today by listening to others’ opinions. It’s my company. This is how I’m going to run it. Anyone says otherwise can chew a brick.”

“Then you will be doomed.”

“So be it” replied Ashley, growing in confidence. This was obviously a weird, Chinese-food provoked dream.

“Listen here, man, you fuckin idiot. I’m sat here with a bucket of fuckin fried chicken, and I fuckin love it! And I don’t wanna share it with you for eternity. You’re gonna get a chance to change your ways and you’d better fuckin take it, you cockney prick.”

“What? You don’t come into my house and speak to me like that.”

“I’ll do what I fuckin like. Here, watch this…” Freddie Marley stood up, dropped his suit trousers and striped boxer shorts, and started rubbing his arse along Ashley’s linen sheets, much like a dog with worms would do. Ashley launched himself at the fat intruder, passing through both him and the bucket of chicken before crumbling into a blubbery heap on the floor. Laughter rang out across the room. Marley’s voice boomed through the still night air, and the pain in Ashley’s body convinced him he was no longer in a dream: “You will be visited by three visions. You will change your ways. You’re not getting my fuckin chicken.”

 

To be continued…

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