A Christmas Consultant

“Scrooge!” The voice was less terrifying than he’d been expecting, more posh and nasal. Scrooge lowered the blanket: a dimly transparent figure stood at the end of the bed, grey hair, grey suit, navy tie, dazzling white shirt. It was holding an attaché case in one hand and a business card in the other.

“I’m the Consultant of Christmas Past.” The figure looked at its watch. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with my report.”

Scrooge looked puzzled. “Report? But I thought I was supposed to travel with you, revisiting scenes from my past.”

“Oh, no. Not at all. You wait here,” the consultant looked around disparagingly, “and I’ll be back to present my findings.” There was a small phut, and the room was empty again.

It was almost a full hour before the ghost returned. “Where’ve you been?” demanded Scrooge. “I thought we supposed to be travelling back in time, reviewing my past successes and mistakes. What’ve you been doing?”

The Consultant looked smug. “Interviewing past associates. Taking soundings. Measuring efficiency. It’s all here.” He patted what Scrooge now saw was a thick sheaf of papers clutched to his chest. “My report. You see,” he continued before Scrooge could interrupt him, “your problem is that the ratio of good deeds to bad needs optimising. You’ve really got three options. Oh.”

The clock’s hand moved closer to the hour.

“Anyway it’s all here for you to read, together with my invoice.”

“Your invoice! But I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do.” Scrooge realised he was speaking to empty air. He pulled the bulky document towards him and opened it at a random page: Option 3(a)iii, he read...

“You see, I’d never do that.” Sitting next to him in the bed was a youngish man, tanned face, open-necked shirt. “I mean, that’s what consultants used to be like, all take your fob watch and tell you time. Leaving you with a set of recommendations you could never implement. But times have changed: we do things differently now.”

“We?” Scrooge became aware that the room was full of similar young men all tapping into their phones or talking to their laptops.

“We’re the Consultants of Christmas Present and, I can tell you, we prefer to work in partnership with our clients. None of this running back to the office to write our report: we know that much of the value we create comes from transferring our skills to your...” The Consultant paused, eying Scrooge’s teddy bear, “... staff. We’ve a much more hands-on approach and our network of global offices will help you implement whatever plans you have to expand. We’ve already converted your counting house into a shared services centre and would recommend full-scale outsourcing as soon as the opportunity arises. Your IT, frankly, is antiquated and we can, for an additional fee, undertake to ...”

“Fee?”

“The team we’ve assembled here doesn’t come cheap, but I think you’ll find that our values of innovation, integrity and team work enable us to...”

“I thought this was supposed to be about me?” Scrooge had to raise his voice to be heard. “It seems that this is really all about you!”

“... Perhaps if you looked through some of our thought leadership you’d appreciate that we’re bringing leading-edge thinking. If you go to our website, you’ll find videos from past clients.”

The Consultant was still talking as the clock struck two. Scrooge, who had pulled his pillow around his head, looked out into the darkened room and saw... himself.

“Who are you?”

“You mean, who am I?” the twin replied. “I’m the Consultant of Christmas Future. I’m you.” He waved a hand and Scrooge found himself standing in his counting house. The place had been transformed: white light streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows; bright sofas where wooden desks had been. There was Bob Cratchett writing on a white board in a break-out room and there... yes... there was Tiny Tim working on his PowerPoint slides. The Scrooge-to-be patted him on the arm and pointed to the sign above the receptionist’s desk: Scrooge & Co.

“No! No!” Scrooge was still screaming when he woke, familiar bedclothes heaped around him. “Anything but that.”