Marine+Biome+fiction

= = =__//**A Crab Carol**//__=

" No!" " But Uncle!" " Good day sir, I said good day!" " All I am asking for is for you to simply have Christmas dinner with me and my finance, I am not asking you to drink poison!" " I would rather eat the poison!" " You know where I live so if you want you can stop by." The nephew tipped his hat, opened the door and left. " Bah-humbug!"

That night Ebenezer Crab slept restlessly in his sleep. " Ebenezer, Ebenezer, EBENEZER!" Ebenezer rose from his bed to see the sight of his old working pal who had been dead for seven years. " Pilchard, Pilchard Marley?" Ebenezer said, with wide eyes. "Yes, it is I, I have come to help you." "I don't need help!" Ebenezer's voice had come down. Pilchard laughed, " This is your last chance to change your life, to be a better person, to escape from the path to death!" "Death!" Ebenezer said with terror gleaming in his eyes. "You will be haunted by three ghosts, past, present, and future. Consider this as a, a present from a friend." "When do I //take on these ghosts// ?" "Soon my friend soon!" Pilchard then dissapered into dust, and was gone. Ebenezer ran up to the empty air. "Bah-humbug!" Ebenezer turned around and started for his bed. "Not so fast there lad." Ebenezer turned around to see a jolly old red snapper. "Who are you? If you don't leave soon I will call the police!" "No need for that nonsense! I am the ghost of Crabby's Past... no need to fear." "Wh, what are you going to do to me?" "I am going to show you your childhood, grab my hand and we shall leave."

There was a crash, a blur, and then the sight of a big house with several children inside. 60 years in the past, when Ebenezer was only 11 years old.

" Look there Jerry and Todd, my childhood friends," Ebenezer said said with a big smile on his face. " Are you still friends with them?" "Well you see, I um, I haven't herd from them in 50 some years." "Poor things." "What are you talking about?" Ebenezer looked at him with a confused look. "Those little sea urchins that you are eating." "What do you think we should eat then?" "I don't know it just feels inhumane don't you think?" "Well, I was young." "Now it is time to see your present."

Ebenezer woke up to the laughter of a Jolly old dolphin.

"No time to waste sleepy old man, get up now, get up." "Where are you going to take me?" "Non other than your Nephews house."

There was a light mist of snow, and they were at his nephews house. There was a woman sitting next to his nephew that must have been his nephews finance.

"Lovely woman isn't she." The dolphin said. "Yes, they look perfect for each other." Ebenezer said that as though he cared and there was a little bit of happiness in him. "Two bad you can't join them in their Christmas dinner, why is that." "Well, you see, thing is, to tell you the truth I, I can't remember." "Isn't it because you think Christmas is for fools?" The dolphin said. "Never mind that, lets go, it is now time to see your dark future." "No I don't want to, I want to stay here with my family!" "We can't, now come."

Ebenezer sat there on his bed, wondering what is future had in plan for him. Ebenezer heard a grown. He looked to his left, there was a great white shark dressed in all black, he was moving his fingers to show Ebenezer to come forward. "Wh, what part of my future are we going to see first?" Ebenezer looked scared. "You will see." The voice sounded as though it was so deep it could knock a house down.

The air started to smell musty, and the mood was dead.

"Why are we in a graveyard?" Ebenezer said with a confused tone. "Look down." The shark said. Ebenezer looked down to find a gravestone. "Read it." The shark said. Ebenezer looked down and started to read aloud, "RIP, Here lies Ebenezer Crab, 1937-2009" It took Ebenezer a moment to realize that he was reading his own gravestone. "How did this happen?" "You had taken all of the little sea urchins in all of the sea, the other crabs didn't have anything to eat so they had all starved to death, an octopus had eaten you because there was nothing else to eat for them, so they came after you."

"This can't be, it can't, how could this happen to me of all people," at that moment images and little flashbacks of his life, all the mistakes he made in the past, how he was a mean nasty man to children, and of all people his only family member he had left, his nephew. He then at that moment went down to his knees and started begging for a rewind in life, a chance to make up for his lost unmeaningful life. "Please, please, I can change, give me one more chance, I will show you that you won't regret doing so. Please, please!"

"Open your eyes." A light voice inside his mind said. As he opened he saw he was back in his bedroom, he looked at the calender, it had was still the same year as it had been when he went off to meet the ghosts. He had been given a second chance to change his future. He grabbed his top hat a coat and left his house, he ran down the street and to his Nephews house. When he got there he rang the doorbell.

The door opened, "Uncle, is it really you Uncle?" "Yes, it is me a changed man, once selfish nasty, but now kind and nice man." "Please won't you come in I will introduce you to my finance, and then we can cut up the turkey. This will be wonderful," "Yes, yes it will."

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