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ISTJC 'XCVI
STAVE 4: THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS
Back in his bedroom, Scrooge watched with fear as the third Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which left nothing visible except one outstretched hand. When it stopped, Scrooge kneeled before it; for this Spirit seemed to scatter gloom and mystery in the very air around it. Its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread.
"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Telecommuting Yet To Come. " said Scrooge.
The Spirit said nothing, but pointed with its hand.
"You are about to show me shadows of things that will happen in the future, " Scrooge pursued.
The Phantom seemed to nod, but only slightly.
"Ghost of the Future. " he exclaimed, " I fear you more than any specter I have seen. But since you mean to do me good, I am prepared to follow you with a thankful heart. "
It gave him no reply. The hand pointed straight before them.
"Lead on. " said Scrooge.
The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him, and Scrooge followed in its shadow.
They saw endless crowds of moving people, jammed together like ants on a narrow pathway. Each person’s face was anguished with the pressure of fighting through the crowds to a job, and the sadness of leaving behind a better, happier, more productive place to work.
At one intersection, the entire city was brought to a standstill by teeming crowds of workers trying to get to jobs across impassable highways and by-streets.
At another, they saw the air thick with pollution.
Elsewhere, the found a downtown area populated only with empty boarded buildings. At a glance, Scrooge realized that the companies once occupying these buildings had gone out of business, unable to afford the high costs of heat, light, and rent, particularly in a competitive environment where other companies had switched to a telecommuting strategy, and therefore did not have such a heavy burden of expenses to bear.
At one point, Scrooge saw his own warehouse, with workmen from the bank boarding up the windows and taking down the venerable "Scrooge & Marley " sign. An anguished cry escaped him as he realized his own firm had succumbed to the rising costs of supporting the offices and infrastructure needed for a work force that had to do all of its work in this one place, every day.
"Tell me, Spirit, " he begged. "Are these the shadows of the Future That Must Be, or the only the shadows of what Might Be? I must know, for I have learned a great deal, and I want to change. Oh, how I want to change. I want to change! "
Exhausted, Scrooge slipped to the pavement at the Phantom’s feet and fell into an insensible slumber, the vision of his beloved warehouse gone empty and unused still burning in his mind.