The Ghosts of Christmas
I wrote this poem/story for the recent challenge which is taken down, probably because I made a silly remark without thinking and my apologies.
I can't check to see if I'm writing on the correct criteria. but that's ok, because the challenge is no more.
I hope the challenge is put back.
Mr Ponsonby was a mean rich man who owned a shop.The shop sold items anything from A to Z.Every morning he would arrive early and increased the prices.“Hey you, are you not increasing my value?”Mr Ponsonby looked around and saw that it was the skeleton standing behind the door.“You are the smelly fisherman who went missing out at sea,Months later you ended up like this after the sharks tasted you.”The fisherman didn’t look brown nor had a ghastly smell.He looked a very polished skeleton. Mr Ponsonby closed his shop and hurried home.It was a ghostly kind of day,Bitterly cold, dark sky and no stars or the moon.The trees looked like skeletons with their branches hanging down with no leaves.He sat on his bed with his night shirt and cap on and started counting his takings for the day.As he was nodding off, he was woken up by someone running with chains on him.It was a skeleton with heavy chains round his body that it couldn’t move well.It came inside Mr Ponsonby’s room.“Oh why Mr Ponsy, you’re scared by your best friend Lord Rupert?Of course you can’t see my handsome debonaire looks without my skin and flesh.I’ve come to get my winnings from the card game I won at the Manor.You called the police and said I cheated and I was chained and taken to the gallows.”Mr Ponsonby closed his eyes tight and went to sleep. He was woken up by a voice whispering near his ear“Today is the day we got engaged and you gave me this plastic ring!”“Oh this can’t be my sweet Emily,She doesn’t look like my sweet Emily.She was pretty with long dark hair and eyes to match.This looked like her grandmother who died about 100 years ago.”“It’ is I your sweet Emily, I died about 20 years ago with a broken heart,All my pretty looks with my long black hair are mixed with the earth under that tree,I only have my skeleton to look at.One day Ponsy you would look exactly like me.You wouldn’t look rich in fancy clothes,Just a skeleton like me, wobbly and couldn’t stand still.” What a dreadful dream, Mr Ponsonby thought as he went to his shop.His mind was working all the time on the skeletons.Sweet Emily was right,I too would look like any other skeleton years after I’m buried.So why am I trying to be rich and handsome?He entered his shop, the skeleton behind the door looked at him.He started reducing the prices and had a Christmas sale.A student walked in and bought the skeleton.“This is dead cheap Mr Ponsonby!”