2012, December 24^th - 19:21

 “Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Rock…’, CL turned off the radio of her car, Christmas songs were annoying.

She was driving her way home, but she felt her body very relaxed and her eyes were too heavy to keep them open.

“Warm milk and cookies… Santa’s meal.”, she slapped her own face, trying to send sleepiness away.

Things were slowly getting darker. Everything was a blur…

BEEEEEEP!!!

CL shut her eyes open. The truck passed inches beside her car.

“!”, she cursed, an old mania. Her heart beating in the rhythm of Brazilian Samba. She couldn’t  control the car and crashed with a giant Christmas tree in someone’s front garden.

Chaerin left the car as soon as could control her legs again. She had hit her head and it was hurting.  

“!”, CL cursed louder, taking a look around. She saw nobody.

“Oh, Mr. Jang! Thanks for the tree!”, she said under her breath, placing herself sit on the sidewalk. A minute, and she leaned back, laying. Her eyes closed.

It had felt like one hour and CL had finally opened her eyes. The pain in her head was gone and her car was still there.

She got up and turned around to check if there was anyone around, massaging her forehead, the spot she was sure would be black in the morning.

“W-who are you?”, Chaerin asked, noticing an unknown being under a hood behind her.

Was it death that had come to take her?

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”, said the figure, taking the hood off, exposing its face.

“Minzy?!”, CL exclaimed, running to where the said Ghost was. “Gee! You scared me!”, she tapped the other girl on the shoulder.

“Ehem…”, the said Ghost cleaned its throat, pulling its arm back. “I’m, as I said, the Ghost of Christmas Past.”, she concluded.

“Whatever…let’s get out of here.”, Chaerin took the Ghost by the hand and walked to her car.

“Where’s everybody?”, she asked, slowly stopping when she realized they were not on the street she had had the accident.

Chaerin stared at a house made by wood. Her gaze became dark and her breath got stuck.  

“Where are we?”, she asked, not taking her eyes off the house.

“This is the past.”, said the Ghost. “Your past.”, it finished as if it was obvious, taking a glance at CL’s face.

CL felt her heart getting painfully smaller in her chest. Suddenly she heard some voices and images slowly appeared in front of her. Instantly, they were inside the house.

She saw everything as a blur at first, an old video taken from old videotapes. Her eyes lost their light as she watched her childhood self in a memory.

“Merry Christmas, daddy!”, said the little girl.

“Yeah, sure.”, the man she called “father” replied.

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”, a woman hugged the little girl, sending the man a death glare.

Chaerin remembered that day. It was all so clear in her mind…

“You were such a sweet girl.”, the Ghost said, taping CL’s shoulder. “Do you remember when you changed?”, it asked.

CL didn’t reply. Words were not necessary.

“I’m preparing cookies for Santa, dad!”, cheered that little girl from before.

“Santa doesn’t exist, Chaerin.”, said that same man, his eyes reading a newspaper, an smocking pipe in his mouth.

“Yes, he does!”, cheered the girl once again.

“No, he doesn’t.”, the man said again, a little bit of annoyance in his voice.

“Dad, he exists!”, the little nearly shouted, her hands in the air, as if she was actually showing Santa to her father.

“NO, HE DOESN’T!”, the man yelled, throwing the newspaper he had in hand in the corner of the room. “GROW UP,CHAERIN!”, he yelled, not minding if he would scare the little girl.

He walked away with anger. “AND IF HE EXISTS, ASK HIM FOR FOOD BECAUSE I CAN’T EVEN BUY THAT!”, he yelled before closing the door behind him with strength.

The little girl was scared. She cried silently until Christmas came, and she cried silently until Christmas was over.

The images slowly faded away, turning into some sort of powder no one could describe.

“That was the first Christmas i…”, Chaerin started but gave up.

“Ghost… of Christmas past,yeah?”, Chaerin accepted the fact that was true.

“Why did you bring me here?”, she asked, her voice sounding a bit bitter.

“Because you needed to see it, CL.”, was the only answer she got.

Chaerin looked at the Ghost, her mind full of questions. As if reading her mind, the Ghost made a move and, with a step, the images and scenario changed.

CL saw her mother holding her ten-years-old self by the hand, walking home after going to the church.

She watched them entering their small house and finding her father there.

“At the church again?! Hope God will send you the money to pay the bills.”, he complained.

Chaerin made a face. She had never liked her father’s attitude.

Since she was old enough to judge, even though we shouldn’t judge, she had decided she didn’t like her father’s behavior.

“Check this out!”, said the Ghost, not waiting for Chaerin’s reflections, showing her something else.

They were now in a place that looked like an old castle. There were some young girls around, wearing school uniforms.

“You remember what happened that Christmas, right?”, the Ghost asked, but it already knew the answer.

“I didn’t go home that Christmas.”, CL told herself, remembering what had happened when she was 16 years old, studying at an all-girls private school.

“Hey, Chaerin! Not coming?”, asked one of the blurs, slowly forming a girl’s figure.

“No. I’m not going home.”, the younger CL answered, closing the book she had in hand.

“But it’s Christmas!”, the girl seemed surprised, slightly shocked actually.

“Christmas is just a stupid holiday to make people believe they can save their souls.”, was her reply. “Besides, my parents didn’t send me the ticket for the flight.”, she shrugged when she realized the girl’s unhappy face.

The real CL opened to speak but the Ghost didn’t let her.

“That was tough... and you lied.”, it said. “Your mom was so sad because she couldn’t have you there with her. She felt so lonely.”, it looked at Chaerin.

“It wasn’t my fault.”, she defended herself. “I’d be late anyway. All the planes were late.”, she got nervous.

“Excuses and more excuses. You learned this from your father.”, the Ghost said and took CL by the hand.

They walked for a while, Chaerin always looking at her feet, not wanting to face anything.

“Here! Do you remember this?”, the Ghost made that same movement and that powder came again, changing the animated images.

The Ghost of Christmas Past pointed to the 18 years old Chaerin sitting on a grave at the cemetery.

“You never believed I could actually do something good, did you?”, the past CL asked the grave as if it would answer. “Well, I did.”, she completed, a bitter smile forming on her face as she threw some papers at the stone.

“I was accepted in a good college. They gave me a scholarship.”, she got up, looking up to the sky, trying to forget the tears that formed in her tiny eyes.

“I’d love to rub this on your stupid face.”, she whispered. “But you’re so useless that I can’t even do that!”, she yelled, silently crying for some hours before going home.

The real Chaerin was silently crying too. The memories of her bad relationship with her father were enough to make her lose control.

He had drunk and then he drove home. It was Christmas Eve when the young Chaerin received a call from the police station, telling Mr. Lee was dead.

“Out of everything you wanted the most, you didn’t want to be like him. You should remember that.”, the Ghost of Christmas Past touched CL’s shoulder.

Both of them disappeared in a purple cloud.