Prefatory Note
This was literally written in the middle of the night. I follow a few writing groups, although I don't contribute regularly to any one of them. At one group the prompt was "use repetition." I hadn't thought of anything until one o'clock in the morning, when I banged out this story. It was too long to be posted on that group's web site. I wrote a senryu to go with it:
Will Three Mile Island's
history repeat itself
here in Virginia?
--and posted that. I was notified that this violated the rules because the senryu didn't make sense without the story. (I'm not sure how much sense even the story makes to group members in Australia, but I was hoping to be told.) So, in the process of fixing that, I noticed how much room the story had for improvement.
Maybe it should have been left as it stood, but I couldn't leave it alone. We all have weaknesses and editing is probably one of the better weaknesses one can have...I left the florid language, in the Spirit of Dickens, but I had to fix a few typos, cut off some loose ends, and tie up others.
This story is fiction. Its characters are fictional. Any resemblance between their names and the names of real persons in similar positions is purely intentional. The four gentlemen with whose names I have taken liberties work for me; I have a right to goad them as may be necessary.
Prologue
Whether ghosts have more to do with grave or gravy, I cannot say. Certainly those who see them see something that is real enough. Whether that means that the ghosts that haunted Walker existed in or out of Walker's head, I do not presume to guess.
Walker, in any case, had taken over an Electric Power Company, being only about forty years old, and taken much money from the people to protect their Needy Neighbors, during a Global Pandemic And All, and spoken to elected officials in the language of their party, concerning a Clever Plan to build a Small Nuclear Power Plant on a high mountain; and he had flattered them, and promised not to raise the Monthly Rates their constituents paid--not as much as he would otherwise be obliged to do, he solemnly said.
And the Elected Officials, whose names were Morgan, Todd, and Terry, suffering the effects of the most excellent Dinner with Wine to which Walker had treated them, bowed their three heads and mumbled "Amen, amen." and waddled away to where they might loosen their belts in peace. For they had unwittingly kept pace with Walker at the table, and Walker was both younger and larger than any of them.
So they all slept; and Walker slept likewise, each in his own hotel room.
Nevertheless there arose a voice out of the wilderness, crying, "Shame! shame!' On that they all agreed. They all heard it, each in his own room.
"What meanest thou, accursed Spirit?" cried Walker, sitting up in his bed.
"Verily it taketh one to know one," said the crackling voice of a Cackling Crone. "I come to call thee to repentance, O Walker!"
"Repentance of what?" said Walker; and indeed I do not believe he knew, in that moment, which of his many secret sins unshriven this Cackling Crone might have known of.
"The deadly sin of Superbia--Hybris--Spiritual Pride!" crackled the Crone. "Whatever you want to build on a mountain, build your own house ten yards from it, and dwell therein, O Walker!"
"I don't understand this. What are you talking about?" quavered Walker.
"You know very well what I am talking about," rasped the Crone. "You shall be haunted by Three Spirits."
And she vanished away into the chilly air.
And Walker thought it must have been a dream, occasioned by his having partaken so liberally of wings, ribs, steak, shrimp, and potatoes.
Stave One
Having flown back to his home and lain down in his own bed, Walker had scarcely folded his hands to sleep when he heard a voice wailing piteously. It seemed to pass through the solid door of his bedchamber, neither knocking on the door, nor moving it. It glowed faintly--ah but its eyes glowed brightly--in a most unpleasant shade of yellow. It shuffled across the floor, bowed forward as by great pain. Shuffling to his bedside, it looked down on Walker with a terrible expression upon its haggard countenance, and, bending above his sleeping form, spewed down bile that seemed to soak Walker from head to foot.
"In the name of pity!" Walker exclaimed, turning to the companion of his life. But she slept peacefully in a dry bed, while the vile stuff that had drenched Walker's bed seemed to follow him as he arose.
"Weak though I am, and strong though you are, you shall not touch me," gloated the wretched Spirit, for such Walker now knew that it was. "Come, follow me! I am come to show you Christmas Past. I am the First Ghost of Three Mile Island."
Then Walker lost the ability to pretend that he did not know exactly what they were all talking about. The Spirit showed him the mountains whither the indigenous hunters had followed the deer, the bear, the wolf, and the buffalo. All of these led them unfailingly to the mysterious places where a Spirit of Waters caused water to spring forth from the mountain ground. And the hunters prayed to the Spirit of Waters, but although the waters continued to flow, the spirit did not protect them from the plagues brought in by the pale-faces who came after them.
Then the pale-faces began to build houses and farms in the mountains, and for the most part the waters continued to flow. They prayed to the Father in Heaven. This pleased the Spirit of Waters also (for it is modest), and likewise the Spirit of Earth, so that they spared them from the worst kind of Mining Disasters such as occurred further north. Still, rocks fell, and a few of the mysterious springs ceased to spring forth from the ground but flooded the mines, and the miners became ill; and they said, "We can dig no deeper." And many of them, also, passed away.
So the land remained for the use of the deer, the turkey, and perhaps the buffalo--but not for the miners. For one must never presume upon the good nature of a Mountain Spring. One never knows how dangerous it may be to disturb a Mountain Spring.
"I knew all this before," said Walker to the Spirit. "You are wasting my time."
Then as they stood on the crest of a ridge, the Spirit spewed another portion of bile upon him. And this bile burned with such acidity that it sank into the ground. Walker perceived that the Spirit then forsook him, and the land fell down beneath his feet, and more land fell down around him from above. Very soon he found himself standing in a deep hole, choking on the evil smell of black mold. The earth continued to rumble, and a rock bounced off a boulder, which still stood, Walker having fallen down its side, twenty feet above where the ground had crumbled down. And a skeleton heaved out of the crumbling earth--and the skull tumbled down the rubble and thumped Walker's head, and then it ricocheted down into his outstretched hand, and bit him. It was a cougar's skull, and its fangs were sharp.
"Come back here!" Walker roared in the direction the Spirit seemed to have gone; "get me out of here!"
The Spirit did not appear to his eyes, but laughed horribly in his ears. Walker awakened on the floor, clutching the bedpost. And it seemed to him that some of the delicious repast at the hotel might not have been all that it seemed.
Later Morgan, Terry, and Todd all said they had seen those things happening to Walker in a powerful and unpleasant dream each of them had had, on that night, also.
Stave Two
Walker arose, and took only black coffee for breakfast, and for the first time felt the truth at first hand of the old saying that black coffee in times of stress is an excellent Purgative. At the office he locked himself up with a lot of Correspondence. Much of this consisted of indignant letters from people who did not want a Small Nuclear Reactor in their part of the world. Walker sent out a Memo advising his staff that there would be no Christmas Bonus this year.
"I know what Bruce will say," said Karen from Public Relations to Cynthia from Accounting at the Water Cooler. "He'll tell me to quit, and he'll move out so that I can be a Single Mother and get Welfare. He wants to move out anyway."
Cynthia amiably cursed Bruce, whom she had never met, and returned confidence for confidence: "Mother's just going to lose her house. I can't help her make payments without the bonus."
Walker sat up very late watching television (there was a Major Sports Event to be watched) but at length his eyes closed.
This time the thing that seemed to walk right through the door was not wailing. It was a woman, of the hearty, horsey, and somewhat horse-faced type. She wore a black leather motorcycle jacket, with boots and trousers to match, and carried a riding crop.
"I thought you were the Second Ghost of Three Mile Island," Walker gabbled, turning his head away.
"I am!" this apparition cried. "I am the Spirit of Christmas Present! Don't you feel in me, in my aura, the greed and rapacity of this ungodly season of guilt and debt and embezzlement. Look upon my face and behold the frazzled remains of the soul that was born into a time when people tried to create prosperity by spending more and more money on less and less value, and see what it gets them! Follow me, Walker!"
Her whip never touched him; but Walker prudetntly followed her, nonetheless.
First they looked in at a window and read a College Student's appeal for a Professional Writer to help him solicit funding on Go Fund Me, to purchase a Doctoral Degree from a Big-Name University. The Student, whose gender was not apparent to the eye, typed on a new and expensive computer; its desk also supported a new and expensive phone, a new and expensive game device, and a new and expensive sound device. Its shoes alone had cost at least $250. It had chosen a school where the Minimum Economy Package of tuition and residence fees cost a hundred thousand a year. It had not chosen the Minimum Economy Package,
It picked up the expensive telephone.
"Mom? Did Dad get my message?"
Silence.
"Mom, you're living in the past! Your generation could 'get a job,'" the Student said bitterly. "You just about have to have a four-year degree to get a cleaning job now. All the entry-level jobs are automated."
"Come on!" said the Spirit impatiently, and led him to another window. This was an office window. The Spirit's touch awakened a video camera. The time it displayed was ten o'clock of the previous morning.
"I'm a veteran and I have a family, but none of that other stuff is applicable," a man somewhat younger than Walker was saying. "I was laid off from work because of the Global Pandemic. I could go back to work. I apply for jobs every day. Job hunting is my job. I want to provide for my family."
"Well, your best chance of getting them housing, at least, is if you can get that psychiatrist to agree you have some sort of mental illness," said the woman at the desk. "If you'll just be honest and show your feelings, I'm sure Dr. Hobbs can help you."
"Come on!" The Spirit stopped the video and led Walker to a third window. An old couple were sitting by their fire.
"We can't pay the taxes on this house any more. We'll just have to go into one of those retirement projects. I hate it, too, but that's just the way it is..."
"You can move into one of those filthy projects. I'd rather die in my own home, first!"
"Come on!" So the Spirit dragged him from house to house, showing him the Economic Effects of the Global Pandemic.
"Your father always kept the electricity paid up, at least. I'm cold."
"It's fifty degrees outside, Mother."
"And I'm cold! You've got to let me turn the electricity back on."
"Even if I were earning money I wouldn't have money to pay that money-grubbing Walker, that wants to put in a Small Nuclear Reactor...If I could afford another half-dozen solar collectors that would keep your feet warm."
At the office the next morning people sympathized with Walker's hangover. They all assumed he'd incurred it at a party.
Stave Three
"Wal-ker..." the Third Apparition drawled. "You' in a heeeap o' trouble, boy, fah sho."
Walker groaned. "I think that's from some sort of old song or movie, but it was before my time. You're the Third Ghost of Three Mile Island, right? That's in Pennsylvania, right? So what's with the Deep South accent?"
"I'm from the Deep South," the Spirit rumbled. "An' I'd gladly acknowledge Virginia to be the seat of our Suthun civilization if Virginia would kindly not poison our drinking wa-tah."
"What are you talking about?"
"Follow me, boy." The Spirit appeared to be a massive man, old, with white hair and a long white beard, but he moved as easily as Walker did. "
They saw the Small Nuclear Reactor on the mountain. They saw the mountain crumble into the stream that swirled at its foot. They saw the stream sink, hissing, into the ground. They saw the river steaming in the town below.
They followed the river into Tennessee, where it flowed into the Tennessee River. They followed the Tennessee River westwart, seeing dead wildlife washed up on the shore, sick people in the towns around. They saw butterflies with defective wings in Knoxville, fish with defective gills in Chattanooga, and birds with defective feathers in Huntsville. In Corinth they saw a small group of wheelchair users rolling in sad, slow circles around a building. "Dying For Energy," was painted on the back of one wheelchair. "Appalachian Power = Heartland Cancer," on another.
"Spirit!" Walker protested. "That's not fair! Lots of nuclear reactors don't blow up."
"They don't be situated on land that's been mined, ovah distuhhbed ah-tesian wells."
Now they seemed to fly northward through the air, across Kentucky, and looked at another house. A visiting nurse was lifting what looked like a frail old woman from a wheelchair to a bed.
"Thirty used to be code for 'the end,'" the frail old woman wheezed. "Will age thirty be the end of me?"
The nurse said kindly that she didn't know.
On the door of the house a placard read:
"Home of the Smith Family. Enter at Own Risk.
Pappa Smith Died of Cancer, 1987
Mamma Smith " " ", 2010
Daddy Bill Smith, " " ", 2018
Mommy, Jane, " " ", 1998
Sister, Jenny, " " ", 2016
Brother, Joe, " " ", 2017
My Little Nephew Benjamin, " " ", 2018
Sister in Law " " ", 2019
I Have Cancer
Have Mercy. Rob at Your Own Risk
Pray For Us"
"That's all in the past!" cried Walker. "That was before my time! I had nothing to do with that!"
"You might luhhn somep'n from it, boy," the Spirit said. "See-ismic distuhbance allowed radon gas to rise up th'oo theh house. Of co'se the young-ah generation ac-cel-erated the progress of canc-ah, sprayin' that 'Roundup' on theh yahd. But you must beh the blame for not giving yo' people this future."
They seemed to skim eastward across hills. The houses presented only a slight difference to Walker's eyes. A shelter had been raised above each roof, holding solar collectors that faced southwest and blazed with reflected sun.
"A half to a quahtuh of those collectahs pow-ah each house," the Spirit said. "The rest of it, in this fu-chah, yo' still sellin' in the cities."
"Is that more profitable? I've got stockholders to think about."
"Might not be quite as profitable, but it's lowah risk."
"Spirit! Those stockholders don't want to think about risks!"
"They won't be hearin' much, when they be dyin' o' canc-ah. An't won't do any good t'cuss yo' name, boy, 'cos you gon' sink in yo' own pit."
Walker seemed to be falling from a great height. He heard a voice that reminded him of a recent acquaintance.
"I have tried, repeatedly, to sponsor legislation that would empower my constituents to harvest solar, wind, and water power for resale to Appalachian Power..."
"Terry!" Walker screamed. "I thought you were with me!"
"We are," said another voice. "What is good for the Plain People of the Point of Virginia is good for us, and also for you, Walker. Though I am a quiet and conservative Elected Official, the Ghosts of Three Mile Island have shown us that much."
"Todd! Y'gotta help me sell..."
"I have helped you sell," the third voice agreed, "but in these dreams, which we have all in some way shared, I have seen our mistake. We must invest directly in the people, first, before even considering a more suitable site for the Small Nuclear Reactor."
Clutching at something he could not see, which he took to be either the arm or the neck of an Elected Official, Walker sank onto a hard surface.
A light came on over his head. "What do you think you're doing? Trying to strangle the bedpost?"
Stave Four
Upon arrival at the office, Walker summoned all his high-level employees to an emergency meeting where he announced:
"Plans for the construction of the Small Nuclear Reactor will be postponed indefinitely. Due to the Global Pandemic, we must invest in the community we serve. All customers who have roofs facing southeast will be issued solar collectors. Those who are interested may also request wind and water power collectors. The area for which the Small Nuclear Reactor was proposed is sparsely populated and thus has solar energy to sell to the cities."
"That will cost a lot," said Cynthia from Accounting.
"The people will pay for it," said Walker. "But as the payment will be deducted from the amount we pay them, rather than added to bills we send them, they will have no complaint; especially when they consider the alternative of a Small Nuclear Reactor. Also, as the initial investment will be lower--Christmas Bonuses all round!"
"The man's a genius!" sang out old Mike from Maintenance & Repairs; and, after some more conversation about the details of the new plan, all the people said "Amen."
Postscriptum
Bruce did leave Karen. The next day Karen inherited Money, quit her job, and stayed home to be a full-time mother and homeschooler, and Bruce came back. Cynthia and her mother lived happily, in their separate homes, ever after.
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