Earlier in the year I looked into my portfolios and sketches to find that some of my earliest works where badly fading. The graphite on the paper was almost a ghost of its former strength. This little drawing of the Ghost of Christmas past, in particular was becoming a memory. Something told me it was time to bring her back. She had been waiting over 35 years. 

Scrooge awakens to find a benign spirit gazing upon him. A little startled as one would be having your bed curtains pulled open, he’s a bit abrupt in his exchange with the ghost. His coldness is thawed by the touch of a hand upon his heart and his resolve is broken. His room transforms to places of his youth, places long forgotten by his now cold heart. Some memories are good, some bad, but all his own, revealed by the parting of a curtain.

Seeing himself alone, in a school vacant of his his friends at Christmas, the ice thaws and tears flow from Scrooges eyes. Robinson Crusoe and Alibaba are his only counselors and even the green parrot looks for a way to brighten the boys spirit. 

Light begins to shine when his sister Fann comes to rescue him from school. The light becomes brilliant as he becomes apprenticed to Fezziwig and finds himself swept away in the arms of his daughter. His newfound family and the love of his life are no match for his feelings of insecurity and struggles for wealth. The ice begins to reform as he pushes all he loved away from him. On a desolate London street he parts from the last vestiges of love he’s ever known. He returns to hide behind the curtains, the safety and security of wealth that protects him from the world.

There he will remain until someone parts the curtain.