December 21 - Carol

Malcom X-mas.
Pete stared at the computer screen for a moment, and then typed, "We're not dreaming of a White Christmas. A White Christmas is dreaming of us!"
It didn't have the same ring as, 'We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us.' He deleted it.
And then stared at the otherwise blank screen.
At that late point in the afternoon, Pete was beyond frustrated, mainly because Malcom X-mas was such a promising title.
Malcom freaking X-mas.
Militant black leader rails against The Man, and gets in some digs against Christmas along the way. Throw in a crap ton of jokes, give some Malcom X sound bites a little Christmas flavor and then BAM! Done. Damn thing writes itself.
Only in this case it wasn't.
In fact, it wasn't doing anything but mocking him. He stared at his computer screen and saw nothing but a promising beginning followed by a large blank expanse.
The perfect metaphor for my career, Pete thought, a bit unfairly. Pete's career had had not only a great start, but also a great everything else so far, owing largely to Pete's unparalleled work ethic, which still served him and Chick Magnets, the Comedy Central sketch comedy show he wrote for, very well. The only thing he lacked right now was inspiration.
In the past he would have powered through his writer's block. Actually, in the past, he never would have had writer's block. It never came to that. He and Carol, his old mentor and partner in sketch comedy writing crime would load up on booze and/or whatever recreational pharmaceuticals she could score from the interns, and they would work through the night to crank out something that inevitably ended up being hilarious.
That's the way it had always been at Chick Magnets. Work was a party, but partying often felt like work. The two full time pursuits blurred together so thoroughly that it was impossible to separate them--not that Pete or Carol or anyone else on the writing staff would want to. Being a comedy writer in New York City--and getting paid handsomely for it--was the dream gig of a lifetime, and they would put as much into it and get the most out of it as they could. Most of the time, that meant long hours.
And controlled substances.
And a lot of both at the same time.
And in time that combination took a toll.
When Carol (inevitably) died of an overdose, Pete took over as head writer. And the combination of 1) seeing his partner/best friend die and 2) turning 40 was the wake up call that made him realize he couldn't go on like that forever. He quit all his bad habits, focused exclusively on work, and for the past seven years, workaholism was his only vice.
And this was what he had to show for it: a well paying job, writer's block, and pariah status among the rest of the staffers for not partying anymore, even though he swore up and down to them that unlike last year (and the year before and the year before) this year he would make it out for the Christmas party.
But first, sleep.
And then, Malcom X-mas.
He popped a couple of Valium and momentarily felt like a rock star again for not being 100% drug free after all. And then his giddy self congratulatory feeling was immediately replaced by self loathing for having actually believed he was cool again.
And then he fell asleep.
When he opened his eyes a few minutes later, his old writing partner Carol was there.
"All right, Pete," she told him. "I'm sure you know why I'm here. It's flogging the dead Christmas cliche time. Let's get this over with."
"Carol?"
"Yeah," she said. "I'm the ghost of Carol here to visit you and warn you about the way you're wasting your life by working so hard and tell you to look at how I ended up and don't make the same mistakes I made and all that crap."
"Did my mother send you?"
"So you accept that it's me."
"I accept that I'm dreaming."
"Close enough."
He sat up straight and stretched and took her in. She looked the same as she had when they had first started working together. Then it struck him and he smirked at her.
"Oh, fuck my ass. I'm gonna be visited by three ghosts tonight, aren't I?"
She rolled her eyes apologetically. "Yeah."
He laughed through a yawn. "Seriously?"
"What?"
"That's like, every Very Special Episode ever. I can't believe you're playing the Scrooge card."
She shrugged. "It's the only way they'll let me out. And before you ask, no, I can't tell you where they're letting me out of or who they are. Or what it's like where I am or anything like that."
"OK, so basically anything I might be interested in you can't talk about."
"Pretty much. These visits are pretty scripted."
"So it's basically me learning the real meaning of Christmas, huh?"
"Yep."
"Is that why they sent you? Does this make you the Christmas Carol?"
"Nice one."
"Is tonight going to scare the Dickens out of me?"
A middle finger was her reply.
"Come on. Don't hate me because I'm literary."
And another middle finger.
"Boo! Boooooo!" he said. "Bah! Bah Humdog Millionaire. I guess it doesn't matter to them that I'm Jewish?"
"It's all the same to them."
"Whatever. Fine. But do you at least get to hang out, or do you have to take off?"
"Sorry, just you tonight."
"That's lame, but I figured as much. Well, all right then. Off with you. Send me my first ghost."
She started to leave, but then turned around.
"You look good," she said.
"Clean living," he said. "So do you, by the way. Younger. You get to choose what age you are, or what?"
She smiled and nodded.
"Nice. But why'd you choose 35?"
"Try 25, asshole."
He laughed. "See you . . . at some point, I guess." Then he straightened up in his chair and said with gravitas, "Now, bring me my first ghost at once!"
"Have a good night."
"You, too. Now get out of here already."
She started to walk out the door, and he called after her, "Run to the light, Carol Ann!"
The first ghost came about an hour later and showed him his college days and early career. Booze, pills, women, success, good times.
"Not much here I'd change," he told the ghost, shrugging.
The ghost frowned.
"Sorry, but it's true."
The next ghost showed him images of his brother having Chinese food with his family and watching TV. The ghost looked sad.
"Have I mentioned we're Jewish? Christmas really isn't that big of a deal to us."
The ghost responded by showing him images of the rest of the writing staff partying.
"OK, if this dream sequence ever ends I promise I will go to that party. There, will that make you happy?"
The ghost made him focus more on a group of writing interns complaining about money.
"Whatever, they're interns," Pete said. "It's called paying your dues."
The ghost looked at him disapprovingly.
"What? Hey, don't bitch at me. Bitch at accounting. Besides, if they want a better paying job there's nothing stopping them from leaving."
The final ghost came next and took him on a tour of the future that ended with him looking at his tombstone.
"Yeah, I get it. I'm going to die someday. What's your point? If I work less, am I somehow not going to die in the future?"
The silent ghost's lack of a response indicated to Pete that he'd understood.
"I know you're always the quiet one of the bunch, so I don't really expect you to answer me on this, but why is it that in every rendition of this story the sight of his grave freaks Scrooge out so much? What, like he didn't realize he's going to die someday in the future? Not me. I know I'm going to die someday, but until then I need money to pay for things. And so I work. And this business is competitive, so I work hard. Why are you patronizing Christmas ghosts always so unable to understand that?"
The ghost stood impassively.
"OK, if it'll get us through this faster I'll promise to be a better person and be nice during Christmas. Even though I don't celebrate Christmas. Because I'm Jewish."
There was no response from the ghost.
"Do you want me to cry? OK, I repent! I repent! Jesus."
The ghost shook his head and walked away, and then Pete woke up and everything finally fell into place. He finally got it, and he quickly typed the title before he forgot it.
Of course.
A Malcom X-mas Carol.
In which the title character is visited by a series of ghosts on Christmas Eve that ultimately teach him an important lesson about love and acceptance and Christmas.
There.
At least he had the framing for the skit. Now he just had to come up with the jokes.
He put on a pot of coffee, emailed the writing staff that he probably wouldn't be able to make it to the party after all, and got to work.