A CHRISTMAS CAROL (with apologies to Dickens)
Our story begins in the bedchamber of Ebenezer Famspear, CPA attorned purveyor of disinformation. It is Christmas Eve and Famspear, weary and tired, seeks only rest but is disturbed by a distant clinking sound. The noise grew steadily louder and he began to perceive a groaning sound along with it. ‘Humbug!’ said Famspear and closed his eyes. He then remembered that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains. At this he opened his eyes and made out an old man, an apparition really for it appeared more dead than alive yet moving and making a awful racket.
The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and at its end a heavy steel box inscribed "Federal Reserve/IRS." His body was transparent; so that Famspear, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.
‘Who are you?’ said Famspear, caustic and cold as ever.
‘Ask me who I was.’
‘Who were you then?’ said Famspear, raising his voice.
‘In life I was your partner & victim, Jacob Taxpayer.’
‘Dumb ass!’ returned Famspear, ‘You see this toothpick? I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you! humbug!’

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Famspear held on tight to his keyboard, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!
Famspear fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.
‘Mercy!’ he said. ‘Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?’
‘Man of the worldy mind!’ replied the Ghost. ‘Do you believe in me or not?’
‘I do,’ said Famspear. ‘I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?’
‘It is required of every man,’ the Ghost returned, ‘that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!’

Again the specter raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

‘You are fettered,’ said Famspear, trembling. ‘Tell me why.’

‘I wear the Tax-chain I forged in life,’ replied the Ghost. ‘I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?’
Famspear trembled more and more.

‘Or would you know,’ pursued the Ghost, ‘the weight and length of the tax coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have labored on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!’
Famspear glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable; but he could see nothing.

‘Jacob,’ he said, imploringly. ‘Old Jacob Taxpayer, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!’

‘I have none to give,’ the Ghost replied. ‘Oh! captive, bound, and double–ironed,’ cried the phantom, ‘not to know, the years of labor paying a tax easily avoided! And you Famspear & all your sockpuppets, with your distraction, lies & ridicule. Your incessant jawboning about "3121 wages, you have no proof ... wackadoosters." Your nasty Cyber Museum of Scams & Frauds hides the real scam and supports the largest fraud on earth - central banking. But in death we learn the truth of a very limited tax, but crafted by men like you Famspear, to deceive and ensnare an entire nation!'

‘Stop spirit, I pray thee!’

‘You will be haunted,’ resumed the Ghost, ‘by Three Spirits.’