Day 79 (80) "A Petraitis Christmas Carol Part 3

Petraitis was startled awake. He had fallen asleep grading papers. The house was dark and cold and somewhat too big for him, yet too small for his taste. And now somehow it seemed darker than usual. Long ago he had decided that the lights were for the frivolous and so he kept them off for the most part. However, now a light was blinking and it was doing so with purpose. Petraitis remembered he had put his dinner into the microwave before starting his grading, and surely now it would be cold. He would have to eat it this way for he was not going to push the buttons all over again. His Hot Pocket would just have to be cold and since a cold Hot Pocket is an oxymoron, he somehow felt it was unnatural.

As Petraitis approached the microwave to retrieve his cold Hot Pocket, he once more was taken aback. The same face as before was staring back at him from the glow of the microwave lights. Again as previously he saw the face of Schweitzer calling out in apparent silent agony. Petraitis quickly opened the door of the microwave, crying out, "Come face me specter if that is what you are! I have known Schweitzer has been gone for one year now and surely my eyes have tricked me or this is some devilry!" But the face was gone. Petraitis sighed, and for a moment he was glad and felt ashamed for his moment of fear and emotion. He chuckled to himself the way he chuckles when he sees a child miss a bus, or fail a test. "Certainly I am working too hard with little repast, and now I am seeing reflections of time past that do not exist now in this world." He spoke this to himself. He was a bit weird in that respect.

Petraitis turned from the ghostly face he had seen in the doorknocker and again in the light of the microwave and moved to his dining room. He was not alone. The plate with the Hot Pocket clattered to the floor and Petraitis was filled with dread. Standing if front of him, weighted down with a chain made of binders and paper clips was his old partner. He was ghostly white, even for a person from Wisconsin.

"These past months you have been gone and now you appear here and test my patience?" Petraitis cried out.

For a moment Schweitzer just stood and he looked equally sad and disappointed. "Speak, specter for surely you have traveled here to vex me! So speak your mind and stop this silence! If you have nothing to say then begone for I need not be hounded by visions without meaning!"

"Silence!" Schweitzer spoke this so commandingly that Petraitis was forced to fall into the chair that faced the specter. "Silence for I come from a great distance to warn you! Tonight you will be visited by three ghosts! Heed them for if you do not you shall surely carry a chain of paper clips and binders more heavy than my own! The first will come as the clock strikes one..." Petraitis interrupted the specter, "I have digital clocks. They really don't strike anything.." The spirit sighed, "The first will come when the digital clock on the coffeemaker reads 1." Schweitzer said, with a bit less dramatic moaning.

"I have questions." Petraitis spoke to Schweitzer. "First, and I think it really can't be dismissed is this. Did you take off your shoes or are you just dragging spectral mud all over the place. I don't want he entire place smelling like the river Styx. Also, how far did you come? Aren't you just on the other side of Davie? That's like seven dollars in an Uber.."

"Will your mouth not shut man? Surely I have come far to warn..."

"Yes I know. Three ghosts. So, like two more then, counting you?"

"No." Schweitzer replied. "Three OTHER ghosts. And I'm not actually a ghost, more of an apparition. The other ghosts are full fledged ghosts. Really scary."

"Why do you come and warn me of this? Do you find no rest? Surely my evening would be less vexing without this interruption. In fact I do not believe that ghosts or you are real! Leave me and my Hot Pocket. I seek to rest now and I will not be trespassed upon by ghosts. Be gone!" And with that Petraitis dismissed the apparition and readied himself for sleep. Soon he was dozing fitfully, but it was a light sleep and in his dreams he was watching a clock and it was slowly moving towards one and his meeting with the first of the three predicted ghosts. At exactly one in the morning Petraitis sat up straight in bed for he felt he was not alone, and a hand that seemed to stretch out of the darkness but with no apparent attachment, for the body was all in the shadows, pulled the weighted comfort blanket from him and he knew the first of the three ghosts was here for his audience with him.

END OF PART THREE