With continued apologies to Mr. Dickens, I offer my third story in the series of futuristic peeks into the characters of his lovely novel. Although I wrote these stories a couple years ago, I’m enjoying re-posting them for a fresh reading this season.

# 4 The Spirit of Christmas Present: Living in the Here and Now

Reggie sat slumped in his chair, his right leg carelessly propped over the chair arm, gloom written all over him. He’d been this way for weeks, and hitting the bottle wasn’t helping him any. It just gave him a horrible headache the next morning. So tonight, he’d left off the booze, but he sat in a stupor anyway.

“Well, what a pretty picture you make tonight, Reginald, old boy!” The voice jolted him upright; he looked around.

“Who’s there?”

The voice took shape: on the sofa to his right, a well-tailored man gradually came…