Scrooge

Go AWAY! I don’t want to hear your awful Christmas music! Stupid carolers! I wish people would just let me be. Do you know what it like to have people crowding around you yard at night when all you want to do is sleep? It’s maddening. The other day, a young boy asked me, Mr. Scrooge, why are you always mad? And I just looked at him. I looked at him like a Rhino looks at a hunter. With flames in my eyes I said “you wanna know why I’m always mad?” I’m mad because you kids won’t leave me alone. I’m mad because it Christmas and I hate Christmas! I’m mad because everyone always seems so FUCKING HAPPY all the time and I’m Miserable! Don’t you get it kid? I’m mad because there no emotions left for me to feel. I’ve tried, really I have. A nice woman tried to help me across the street yesterday, but I yell “don’t touch me!” because I’m afraid that if she does, she’ll peer into my soul if only for a second, and become engulfed in misery and sorrow. I’m mad because every time I get close to someone, every time someone reaches out, I drive them away with my unkempt hair, and my bad breath, and my smelly clothes, and my foul FUCKING temper! Last week, I went to the store for some whiskey. The bag was heavy and I dropped it. The bottle inside broke and whisky poured all over the floor. Across the room, the store owner said, “don’t worry about it sir, take another free of charge.” So what did I say to the kind man? What were my words of appreciation and thanks? Did my lips curve into a smile and then open to say how much that meant to me? NO! I said, you sir, can take that bottle and shove it up your ass! I don’t want your damn alcohol. This is the stuff that ruins me, don’t you see? You sell me whiskey when I’m drunk, and when I’m too fucked up to even hold it, you say “PLEASE SIR, HAVE SOME MORE! PLEASE SIR HAVE SOME MORE!” MORE? MORE? You try to give me more so that I eventually have nothing else but my own drunken self to blame for everything I see around me. That’s what it’s like isn’t it, to have nobody but yourself? Right? Right?! No one loves me. No one ever loved me, and when you’ve relived your past; when you’ve seen how you are; and you see that you die ALONE; you don’t want anyone else to get involved in your shit, because you know it won’t end well for them. Hell, how could it if it doesn’t end well for you? So I said to the boy standing in front of me, looking up with his big fucking doe eyes, I said “I’m mad because people like you treat me with such kindness, such love, that I can’t take it! My heart has shriveled to the size of a walnut, and it beats furiously to try and keep my old decrepit body from falling apart. See kid, even my heart is furious. ANY MORE QUESTIONS?” And then I heard an all too familiar sound. I heard the sound of that little boy’s heart breaking, and he cried! He cried and he wouldn’t FUCKING STOP! Go AWAY! I said to him. I don’t want to hear your awful cries. Stupid kid. I wish people would just let me be.