The First Ghost

Just as he was about to fall asleep, he startled awake.

He couldn’t believe his eye. Was that? Was it Jacob? The apparition came closer.
“What do you want? Who are you?”, Ebenezer said, believing someone was trying to play a trick on him.
“You know who I am.”
“Humbug, you’re dead!”, he took up his cane trying to hold the intruder back, but it went straight through the shimmering guise.

“I am here to warn you Scrooge. You don’t have much time left!” For the first time Ebenezer took a closer look at the Apparition. Almost see-through and wrapped in chains pulling him down, but the rest was undoubtably his former business partner Jacob in his usual suit even.
“Stop gawking and listen! These Chains are of my own making, and you are crafting your own every day. Three ghosts will appear to you this night. Listen to them, so you may be spared this fate.”

And with that, he was gone again. Ebenezer rubbed his eyes, slowly going back to bed. This must have been his imagination.

But the second he sat down on his bed again, a young man in a suit walked through the wall.
“Ah, there you are, come with me.” And with that he grabbed Ebenezer by the hand and things changed.

After shaking off his confusion Ebenezer looked around: “This is my first office! The place where we founded the company! But how can we be here? This building burned down years ago.”
“I am the Ghost of Christmas past. This is indeed your first office and look, there you are.”

A young Ebenezer entered the room with a spring in his step. It was late at night, but he was spritely working, looking up to what others had accomplished.
“I remember this time. We just started out working on this new software. I really wanted to do this. To make something proper. To be proud of what I made. I always made sure things worked right.”

He made his way around the desk to look at what young Ebenezer was working on.
“We just had a major release! Why is he so calm? This is huge!”
“As you just said, you always made sure things worked right”
“...”, Ebenezer didn’t know what to say.
“Shall we go on to the next stop then?”, the ghost asked, but the scenery was already changing.

“This is the meeting room of the new office, we grew quickly...”, nostalgia overcame Ebenezer before he was interrupted by a discussion.
Client: “You can’t expect me to actually pay for this.”
Young Ebenezer: “Well, yes, we provided you with the updates you wanted.”
“But half of it is not even working properly. Even the old functionality is flawed now. We had to shut down and go back to the old system.”
“Every software comes with a few bugs, just give us time to fix them.”
“No. You are lucky if I don’t take you to court for the damages your “upgrade” caused.”
The room goes silent as the client leaves.

“But how should I have known?”, Ebenezer asked the ghost.
“How? Let us see.”

The Scenery changed again.
“This is... This is the Christmas party we had at the first company I worked in!”
“Yes, it is, but look there.”, the ghost replied.
Ebenezer watched in silence as the small development team talk about their latest release, remembering the part of the team that made sure quality standards were met, seeing his former boss making sure all of them are happy and an equal part of the team.
He inevitably thought about bob and the rings below his eyes, he wasn’t really part of the team, he just checked after things already happened.

Ebenezer shook himself out of deep thought: “Bring me home, I’ve seen enough.”
“As you wish.”
Back in his bedroom, the ghost left the way he arrived, leaving Ebenezer to his thoughts.

 

TO BE CONTINUED...

STAY TUNED!

 

About The Author: 
Christian Piske
Automation Engineer
Qualysoft GmbH

 

 

 

 

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