Merryville

MERRYVILLE

BY

F.A. Jacques

To my parents

wife and daughters.

Chapter 1

December 23

The village was finished, but it didn't have a name yet.

Chris Hogan had worked on his gigantic Christmas village every night since the first of the month, and now it was done. He stood in the doorway of his apartment's second bedroom looking, God-like, over his creation. He had spared no expense to make sure every detail was perfect.

At thirty five years old, Chris was an accomplished architect. Like every other day, he wore a meticulously pressed, designer black suit pants with a white dress shirt and long black tie.

Chris lived in a luxurious apartment on the tenth floor of a downtown Manhattan building, surrounded by rich people — big business owners, doctors, pilots and lawyers. His apartment had three rooms, even though he only needed one. A giant 70-inch plasma television dominated his living room, and everything was new, even though he'd live in this particular apartment for several years. He changed his refrigerator every two years because he was afraid that it would break and he would lose all the food inside.

From the outside, everybody saw a beautiful modern-day apartment building decorated with superb Christmas lights of all imaginable colors, but there were no colors shining in Chris's window. The reason was really simple: he hated Christmas.

In Chris's mind, the only thing that mattered in life was to be the best and have the best without affecting his bank account. Chris had worked on many new projects in cities around the country – many skyscrapers, theaters and restaurants. It was his one and only passion and he was really good at it. He had no woman in his life. He used all his time for his job − work and work again. Every one of Chris's friends and family were married, except him.

Every year for the last four years, Chris had hosted a Christmas party at his apartment. Even though he hated everything about the season, he still liked his family and friends — so long as they were all out before midnight, just to make sure he could avoid all the midnight kisses.

The only thing he did care about at this time of the year was his Christmas village.

Ten years ago, Chris saw an article in an industry-leading architecture magazine about an architect who had built a big Christmas village. In his quest to be the best at everything, Chris knew he had to build a better Christmas village, which would appear in the magazine the following year. He spent thousands of dollars on little houses and people figurines, and put it all together in one of his rooms, and every year, his village had won the prize for the best Christmas village of the city and the front cover of the famous magazine. Chris worked harder and harder and spent more and more money every December on his village, to ensure his place as the winner.

It was certainly always reported to be the biggest village. His reached to the furthest corners of the room. He had to use an extension rod to put the last figurines at the back of the village because it was too far to reach.

Now, as Chris waited for the magazine representative to arrive, he examined his completed village, his gaze landing on each building and house and each person to make sure no one and nothing had been left out.

There were exactly 355 characters inside the village each with their own place to live, and almost all the buildings, people and animals inside the village had a story. Chris knew these little details could mean the difference between winning the best Christmas village prize and not.