BlogFestivus #5 – Tiny Tim

“I figure I owe you this dinner. You saved my life five years ago.”

Tim grinned. “Does that make me your saviour?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” said Scrooge. “I was depressed, anything might have done it. All you did was give me your hand. I’m the one who pulled myself out.”

“Yeah, whatever. I saved you, just admit it,” said Tim. “Anything might have done it, but nothing might have happened, either. You could’ve died.”

“This is my thanks, this dinner,” said Scrooge. “Don’t rub it in.”

“So tell me the story,” asked his father, and for the briefest blink of the eye, Scrooge saw his own father staring back at him, that constant judging look, that never-wavering stare that caused lesser men to break down in front of him. But then it was gone in the blink of an eye, and there was Timothy’s father, smiling brightly with an odd light in his eyes.

“I was at the end of my rope,” explained Scrooge. “I hated the world around me and everyone in it. And yet, even after I tried to brush him aside, your son didn’t relent. Now, I’m not like one of these depressive kids these days out for attention, but what he did was open me up again to the world. I decided then and there that it was time to change.”

“Inspiring story,” Tim’s father agreed. “We could all learn from it.”

—

Note: This is a little late, but I got stuck without internet for about half a week. Better late than never, I say!

Linda penning at linda vernon humor
Tom over at Shouts from the Abyss
Maria-Christina blogging at MCWhispers
Dylan of Treatment of Visions
Sarah from Parent Your Business
Dawn blogging at Lingering  Visions
K8edid from k8edid
Eileen from Not The Sword But The Pen
Lindsey at RewindRevise
Kandy of Kandy Talk
Theodore from This Blog Needs A Title
Sandra writing at In Love With Words
Natalie from So I Went Undercover
Jen at Blog It or Lose It
Amelie from In the Barberry
Cee Cee blogging at Cee Cee’s Blog
Ashley from LittleWonder2 (this is me)
BD writing Blogdramedy

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BlogFestivus #4 – Christmas Future

Scrooge had somehow been saved.

He had almost been a statistic; suicidal rates at Christmas skyrocket, everyone knows that. But he wouldn’t have thrown himself off a bridge or jumped in front of a car. He would’ve just walked out into a world he had grown to hate until it buried him.

It wasn’t that he had been particularly touched by the little boy who had talked to him once, or suddenly believed in the kindness of strangers. But as he thought of the sight of him walking away, something had risen in his chest. A bright little ball of hope, that he didn’t even have the spirit to damn it the way he always had.

It wasn’t just some cheesy line, no, it had been somehow real, and not anything like he’d ever assumed. Scrooge was nothing if not ambitious, and that hope turned into a new goal in his mind.

He still hated his family, but they weren’t the only ones that existed. There were people out there that might understand him. And he had found them.

“Pass the turkey,” said Scrooge, sitting at the dinner table.

Familiar old hands complied. After five years, he had met that special little boy again, after Scrooge had pulled himself out of his slump, and now he had a whole new family.

“Of course,” said Tim.

—

Note: This is a little late, but I got stuck without internet for about half a week. Better late than never, I say!

Linda penning at linda vernon humor
Tom over at Shouts from the Abyss
Maria-Christina blogging at MCWhispers
Dylan of Treatment of Visions
Sarah from Parent Your Business
Dawn blogging at Lingering  Visions
K8edid from k8edid
Eileen from Not The Sword But The Pen
Lindsey at RewindRevise
Kandy of Kandy Talk
Theodore from This Blog Needs A Title
Sandra writing at In Love With Words
Natalie from So I Went Undercover
Jen at Blog It or Lose It
Amelie from In the Barberry
Cee Cee blogging at Cee Cee’s Blog
Ashley from LittleWonder2 (this is me)
BD writing Blogdramedy

BlogFestivus #3 – Christmas Present

It was getting colder. He hated snow. He hated winter. And most of all, he hated Christmas.

He wheezed into his hand. He was an old man, and it didn’t help that it was so cold. As he sat down in a bench to rest, he looked around and saw not some beautiful scape, but a hateful, biting place. A populated desert, serving to bury him faster.

“Sir?”

With looked up with a glare. “What is it?” he bit.

A blonde child looked at him with fear in his eyes. “S-sorry,” he said. Scrooge wasn’t; he’d lost his patience long ago. He waited for the boy to continue to speak.

Instead, he just stared. “What is it, boy, what do you want?” he snapped.

“You seemed lonely.”

Scrooge frowned. It wasn’t like humanity to care for him, some stranger off the street, for no reason at all. But it was known. “I’m fine,” he grumbled.

“Are you sure?”

His mouth tightened. “Why should you care?” he growled.

“Don’t you?”

“Don’t I what?”

“Don’t you care if anyone cares about you? You should care. If it were me, I’d be terribly worried?

“Worried? Why?”

“Because that’s the worst feeling there is.”

—

Amy penning at Fix it or Deal

Tom over at Shouts from the Abyss

Steve from Stevil

Maria-Christina blogging at MCWhispers

Dylan of Treatment of Visions

Sarah from Parent Your Business

Dawn blogging at Lingering Visions

K8edid from k8edid

Dave bringing it at 1pointperspective

Eileen from Not the Sword But The Pen

Lindsey at RewindRevise

Kandy of Kandy Talk

Sandra writing at In Love With Words

Natalie from So I Went Undercover

Jen at Blog It or Lose It

Amelie from In the Barberry

Cee Cee blogging at Cee Cee’s Blog

Ashley from LittleWonder2 (this is me)

BD writing Blogdramedy

BlogFestivus #2 – Christmas Past

“Give it back!”

Scrooge had just unwrapped his biggest christmas, and now he was gripping it tight, struggling to hold on to it as his brother tugged it back and forth between them. He was well aware that his father had only bought it for him in an attempt to buy his love, but he didn’t care. He never wanted anyone else to have it. And he certainly didn’t want to share it with his older brother, because he knew for a fact that if he ever did, he’d never see it again.

“No!” his brother spat.

“Dad! Make him stop!” cried Scrooge.

“Now, now, son, if he wants to borrow it, you should be a good little brother and let him.”

“But dad –”

“No buts,” he said. He pulled his hand off his own present, allowing just enough so that his brother could finally pull his present from his hands.

By the time Scrooge was nine, it was a well-known fact that that toy train had always been his brother’s. Scrooge never quite stopped hating his family for it.

“I hate you, I hate you!”

“Now, now, son,” his father said. “If Santa got you coal for Christmas, it’s only because he knows what a bad boy you’ve been this year. Just think of all the things you’ve done to your poor brother.”

“It’s not fair! I hate you!”

—

Amy penning at Fix it or Deal

Tom over at Shouts from the Abyss

Steve from Stevil

Maria-Christina blogging at MCWhispers

Dylan of Treatment of Visions

Sarah from Parent Your Business

Dawn blogging at Lingering Visions

K8edid from k8edid

Dave bringing it at 1pointperspective

Eileen from Not the Sword But The Pen

Lindsey at RewindRevise

Kandy of Kandy Talk

Sandra writing at In Love With Words

Natalie from So I Went Undercover

Jen at Blog It or Lose It

Amelie from In the Barberry

Cee Cee blogging at Cee Cee’s Blog

Ashley from LittleWonder2 (this is me)

BD writing Blogdramedy

BlogFestivus #1 – Scrooge

“Psh, idiots,” he grumbled, his hands scrunched deep in his brown pockets as he narrowed his eyes at all the christmas lights and the coned tree in the middle of the mall.

He hated Christmas, just hated it. All those blinking lights, screaming of a world in the dark desperate to believe their little lives had meaning. He had once been out on the street, out in the cold, and even now, those lights were mocking him.

Even now, he was bitterly poor, but he had a stable job running a small company. Job security was low these days, though, and times were hard. He certainly had no time to waste on goodwill and gift-giving.

Who cared what people thought of him, anyway? He was busy squeezing his way to the top. People just didn’t understand how the upper class lives; they assumed that everyone there was deliciously rich, and in some ways he was, but he had time only for himself.

And that’s the way he’d want it, anyway. He had only ever had himself; his father and brother never really connected with him. They had each other, and he had himself.

The outsiders moved aimlessly around him. He was the only one with any real purpose in life.

—

Amy penning at Fix it or Deal

Tom over at Shouts from the Abyss

Steve from Stevil

Maria-Christina blogging at MCWhispers

Dylan of Treatment of Visions

Sarah from Parent Your Business

Dawn blogging at Lingering Visions

K8edid from k8edid

Dave bringing it at 1pointperspective

Eileen from Not the Sword But The Pen

Lindsey at RewindRevise

Kandy of Kandy Talk

Sandra writing at In Love With Words

Natalie from So I Went Undercover

Jen at Blog It or Lose It

Amelie from In the Barberry

Cee Cee blogging at Cee Cee’s Blog

Ashley from LittleWonder2 (this is me)

BD writing Blogdramedy

Character Sketch #6 – Dawn

Selfless.

There had been noble sentiments in her once. But in the fight of protection against survival, survival always won. Pride was supposed to be the only way to stay sane.

Only, even that wasn’t enough. And there were always those to preach what was supposedly right, but even if she did sacrifice herself or even just her dreams for everyone else, it didn’t matter.

Looking at herself, she could barely recognise her reflection. Everyone’s helpless, in the end. Helpless, and hopeless.

Melody’s eyes begged at her. She’d have knelt to Dawn’s mercy if she’d asked, but Dawn had never been interested in that kind of power. Justice was all she cared about, and with hair like that, almost blonde…

She reminded her of Belinda. That’s all Dawn really cared about in the end. That’s what it all had been for.

Belinda.

She understood now. Dawn had been selfish, and full of pride.

And Melody was just the opposite to that. Her somehow saviour.

Runaways

The ground erupted into thunder as Maddy broke through the brush on a horse.

“Come on!” she beckoned, and another horse followed her, one with reins and a simple blamket over its back.

I chased it through the dark, trying several times to mount it, but it was too tall, it was running too fast, and there wasn’t even a saddle to hook into.

“Where are we going?” I shouted through the air.

I had to stop the horse enough to get on, and now I steered it away from the trees. Maddy was right in front of me now, as I rode so high off the ground, only holding on the reins, so loose that I had to hold tight to keep from falling off. But even at these high speeds it was fun. I’d forgotten what it was like to ride a horse.

“How many times have you ridden a horse before?”

“Twice!”

“You’re practically an expert!”

“Never bareback, though!”

“Welcome to Africa!” she said. “You white people might have all these useless things, but this how we do things here!”

We’d been running for a while. Just yesterday we’d swam down a river, arguing about black people versus white people, now we were practically best friends.

Hours later, we tied up our horses and went inside a small shop, lining up along the counter to eat. Maddy stood against the wall, and I was done before I even broke out of line.

“Where are going?” I asked again.

“I’ll tell you when we’re outside again.”

I wasn’t going to find out till we arrived…