The Impossible Quest Of Hailing A Taxi On Christmas Eve Read Online Free PDF Page B

insurance must have been asking for
thousands.
    He tried
to find her again but she was gone in a second, somewhere inside
the hospital.
    "W-wait," Scrooge said. "Is she going to spend the night
here?"
    "Every
night for the past five months," the young man said, his voice
quiet. "I'm usually her driver, my routes coincide. Plus the AI
believes that having a familiar face to take you there is easier on
the parent who's facing this, even if it's only a few words spoken
here and there."
    "It must
be, yes."
    "I know
you Mr. Scrooge. All the little bits and pieces she tells me,
everything she mumbles on the phone over the months. Half of it's
about her son, half of it is about you. Cutting corners, keeping
everything miserable so you can squeeze out some tiny profit.
Ignoring basic necessities, keeping her frozen and ill all the
time, making her unable to tend to her child. Do you like the heat
in my car?"
    "Yes..."
Scrooge said unsure.
    "How
about we turn it off. For economy's sake."
    Scrooge
grunted. "OK, I got the point. Thank you." He paused for a minute,
thinking. "What's your name?"
    "Achilles," the young man said.
    "That's
quite a Greek name," Scrooge said, the words stuck in his
throat.
    "I was
born here, you prick," Achilles said and drove them both away in
silence.
     
     
    Scrooge
had no idea where he was being taken. It was an area he had never
been to, all residential and green-grey. The houses were nice, not
too expensive, single or two story houses. It was a new
development, roads half-paven, lights half-installed, lots in a
patchwork, concrete ending abruptly in plain dirt. The houses were
decorated in blinking lights, trees and Christmas ornaments, even
those dwarves that had no relation whatsoever to the Greek
traditions but where shipped in along with all the others every
year.
    "I don't know anyone who lives here, I believe. Your AI ," Scrooge said,
pronouncing the letters mockingly, "must have gotten things
wrong."
    Achilles
rolled his eyes and sat deep into his seat.
    Scrooge
could hear voices, coming in from the house they had parked on. It
was a loud thing, a party going on of sorts. The parked cars were
few in this area, all of the houses having their own, so there
weren't any guests in this house, Scrooge deducted. The party was a
close family one. Children's laughter came out of it, high pitched
and annoying.
    After a
while, a car came and parked in the space reserved for it. A man
came out of the car, he was about Scrooge's age, but he looked more
healthy, taking care of himself. He stood tall and was all dressed
in heavy workman's clothes. His arms were strong, obviously from
manual labour. He must have been a builder or something
similar.
    As he
walked around, Scrooge noticed something. It could have been a
trick of the light, but he could swear that the man resembled
himself. Scrooge couldn't be sure of course, but there was some
resemblance, not brotherly, but rather in his general
bearing.
    If
Scrooge had been a head taller, not slouching, had arms thicker
than a tree and most importantly, if he was smiling.
    The man
went to his house and out the door children burst and fell on him.
He picked two of them up, the smaller ones, and the big one was
simply hugging him beside him. A woman came outside, carrying a
baby in her arms.
    Scrooge
squinted, but that was just an excuse to himself. He knew who she
was, he knew even before the door opened. His heart knew, even
though his thick skull needed time to keep up.
    It was
Beth.
    Oh, she
was fatter, and older. And tired, and a mess. But there she was,
happy, greeting her husband into her loving, huge family
house.
    Scrooge
fought back tears. He didn't let them drop. Enclosed in a taxi,
behind tinted windows, he was watching the woman who once loved him
too much, enjoy Christmas Eve with her beautiful happy
family.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Stave
Four
     
    They had
gotten back into the main road, and pulled over to