The Territorial

It was the kind of cold that even sensible people talk to themselves, so Mr. Edwin Lark found himself, while walking home on Christmas Eve, enjoying his own agreeable company. The year was nearly over, though one might not have guessed it from the fog, which lay about the streetlamps like an old shawl, or from Mr. Lark’s habit of keeping his phone in his pocket as if it were a guilty secret.

He was not, by nature, a gloomy man; he just had the modern misfortune of being busy. He spent his days responding to messages at all hours and his nights illuminated by screens, and his friendships maintained by brief assurances that he would “catch up soon.”

Christmas, to him, had become a calendar reminder rather than an event, something to acknowledge, swipe, and move past. On this particular evening, as he crossed the small park near his flat, his phone vibrated.

He stopped, sighed, and looked. No name appeared, only a notification that read: You have one unread message.

“That’s hardly news,” Mr. Lark said aloud, and it was at that precise moment that the bench beside him creaked, as though accepting a sitter.

An elderly gentleman now occupied it, dressed in a long dark coat of unmistakably Victorian cut, with a scarf tied neatly at the throat. He looked solid enough, though the fog behind him showed through just a little at the edges, like poor stitching.

“Evening to you,” said the gentleman cheerfully. “You might read it.”

Mr. Lark did what any modern man would do when addressed by a stranger who had appeared unannounced in a fog: he stared at his phone.

“I didn’t hear you walk up,” he said.

“Of course not,” replied the gentleman. “I seldom make noise.”

He introduced himself as Mr. Basil Crowe, formerly of this very neighborhood, deceased since 1873, and now, through what he called an “administrative error of the season,” obliged to make himself useful on Christmas Eve.

“I’m not dead,” Mr. Lark clarified.

“Quite,” said Mr. Crowe. “That’s the trouble.”

The phone vibrated again. Unread message. Final reminder.

Mr. Lark’s irritation flared. “Everyone wants something. Even tonight.”

Mr. Crowe leaned forward. “So they always have. But not everyone wants what you think.”

With a wave of his gloved hand, the park shifted. The fog thickened, the lamps dimmed, and suddenly Mr. Lark was watching himself, older, thinner, seated alone at a table lit by a screen.

Notifications chimed endlessly, unanswered. Cards lay unopened. Snow pressed against the window, unnoticed.

“This is ridiculous,” Mr. Lark said, though he felt an uncomfortable recognition.

“A possible draft,” Mr. Crowe replied lightly. “Not the final version. Those are harder to revise.”

The scene dissolved, replaced by another: a younger Mr. Lark laughing with friends, a phone forgotten on a shelf, a late night that felt infinite. Then another, and another, each one quietly marked by a message not sent, a visit postponed, a call meant for tomorrow.

The park returned. Mr. Crowe stood, brushing imaginary frost from his coat.

“You see,” he said, “the dead are not so very different from the living. We are both full of things we meant to say.”

Mr. Lark swallowed. “What’s the message?”

“Ah,” said Mr. Crowe, smiling. “That would spoil it.”

The phone vibrated a final time, and before Mr. Lark could object, the screen opened itself. The message was dated years earlier, from a name he had not seen in a long time.

“I know you’re busy. Just wanted to say I miss you. Merry Christmas.”

Mr. Lark felt something give way, nothing dramatic, just a loosening, like ice breaking on a river that intended to flow again. When he looked up, the bench was empty.

He did not hurry home. Instead, he typed a reply, longer than necessary, warmer than usual, and sent it.

Then another. And another.

The fog thinned. The lamps seemed brighter.

Somewhere, Mr. Basil Crowe marked a box on an ancient ledger and settled back into a well-earned rest.

As for Mr. Lark, he still receives many notifications. But each Christmas Eve, he pauses at the park bench, pockets his phone, and listens, just in case the past has one more thing to say, and the present is kind enough to answer.