Marley: Stave IV
In Stave IV, Marley must confront what the Ghost of Christmas Future reveals to him.
Marley
by Thomas Broderick
Stave IV
One year later, Marley left Scrooge early in the evening and descended into the city’s slums, into the same place of poverty where the Ghost of Christmas Present had told him to seek.
He waited.
As London’s clocks struck midnight, the final spirit appeared. It was a vision of Death. A face of oblivion, its robes were imbued with the same darkness. The only visible parts of its body were the hands, bones held together by a force that Marley could not fathom. It turned toward Marley and approached him. It did not walk but floated on the thin mist covering the ground.
“One of your kind, the Ghost of Christmas Present, told me to find you. My friend, Ebenezer Scrooge, will suffer my fate unless you help him. What must I do so you may grant me this request?”
The spirit did not reply.
Marley stood as straight as his chains would allow. “I do not fear you, spirit. How else could you worsen my eternal punishment? Now please, show me what you must. Whatever trial you have for me, I will face it.”
The spirit pointed its hand to a bank of mist in the distance and moved toward it. Marley followed.
The mist was not mist, but the fog of war - dust and gunpowder and the stench of decay. Marley and the spirit emerged onto a street. Marley recognized the place at once - Paris. But it was not the peaceful city he had known as a young man. The once scenic boulevard had been reduced to a battlefield. At street corners, barricades made from broken oxcarts and other trash burned. Around them, soldiers picked through the remains of defeated enemies – their own people.
This tragedy was not the revolution Marley had barely escaped as a young man. This was something else, something much worse.
Marley knelt next to one of the dead. “I don’t understand. What happened here? What caused all of this?”
The spirit continued, and Marley had no choice but to follow. The next scene was the opposite of what Marley expected. Yes, the field they stood on showed signs of ferocious battle, but there was no fighting. All around them, young men in different uniforms played under the bright winter sun.
“I fear you have made some mistake, spirit.” Marley walked toward a group of men kicking a ball. Nearby, older men, officers, played cards on an overturned crate.
Like a conductor readying his wand, the spirit raised its finger. At that moment, the sound of distant explosions echoed off the decimated horizon. The young men became stone. The games and merriment extinguished, they retreated to facing trenches. Marley followed the English-speaking soldiers. In the trenches, he found weapons beyond imagination - portable bombs and guns fed with endless chains of cartridges.
Marley fruitlessly grabbed at a soldier reaching for his gun. “What curse has come over you, boy? Are you mad? Why do you intend to kill those other men? Can't you see they're boys just like you?" Marley's words had no effect.
“How is this possible?” Marley muttered aloud. His hands were shaking. “Where does it end?”
Walking through veils of smoke, Marley witnessed horror previously unimaginable. The Ghost of Christmas Present had been right. Ignorance and Want had torn off their chains. Hoisting banners the color of blood, they had killed their kings. They had not only shaken the world but shattered it beyond anything Marley recognized.
In the chaos, new masters appeared, and with them familiar miseries: starvation, torture, cruelty, and oppression.
The last of the seemingly endless terrors was a desolate farm. Two oriental children, their bodies little more than flesh-covered bones, picked at a fallowed field frozen harder than stone. Around them were no pack animals, cats, dogs, or even rats. Scanning the horizon, Marley did not spot a single bird.
“I found one!” The boy exclaimed as he pulled a worm from the ground. The girl, much weaker, stumbled to the boy's side. The boy tore the worm in half, stuffing the smaller piece in his mouth before feeding his sibling. They immediately resumed their work.
“Their parents?” Marley asked as though he already knew their answer.
The spirit pointed to one of many crumbling mud huts. Marley approached it only to stop at the entrance. Flies crowded the crude openings that served as windows. The foul stench that attracted pests pushed Marley away.
Marley bowed his head. "What good does showing this to me do, spirit? We have traveled thousands of miles and over one hundred years in the future. How is it possible that Ebenezer caused this?”
The spirit began to move away, presumably toward the next vision.
Furious, Marley grabbed the spirit’s robe and held tight. "I refuse to go any farther!” He bellowed. “Why are you still trying to dissuade me? To prove that saving Ebenezer will have no impact on the world? I may be a condemned man, but I am not an ignorant man.
“Every man’s soul has value.” Marley lifted his chains as high as he could. “If that were not the case, who or what would bother punishing me?” The links made a great clang as they hit the barren ground.
“So, what is your answer, spirit? Will you help Ebenezer come next Christmas?”
After a long pause, the spirit nodded.
“Good. Now take me back.”