Merryville

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

December 24

Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz!

Chris opened one bleary eye. Seven o'clock. With a groan, he thrust one arm across his face, and the other threw the screeching alarm clock across the room where it landed in a corner. Chris smiled at the silence and fell back asleep.

Bzzz!

Not again.

Chris reached for his alarm clock, but it wasn't on his night table. The buzzer rang again. Chris groaned. It was the front door. Chris sat up in bed and glanced down at his discarded, but surprisingly still-working alarm clock in the corner. 11:00 on Christmas Eve. He had so much to do. Chris jumped out of bed and padded through his apartment in his bare feet and boxers to the door and pressed the intercom button. "Nicklas, is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me. What'ja do, sleep in?" His friend Nicklas replied mocking on Chris.

"Yeah. Come on up." Chris yawned as he pressed the door release. He couldn't believe he had slept the morning away. He had planned to get so much done with his family and friends coming over. Nicklas had promised him yesterday that he would be by to help get things set up.

A few moments later, Nicklas knocked on the apartment door. "You look ready," Nicklas said, eyeing Chris's boxers and mussed hair.

"Shut up."

"So let's see it." Chris led him down the hall to the village, which was always Nicklas's first stop.

"Wow, Chris. You did a great job. With that arch, it really is a new village."

"Thanks."

For the next hours, Chris watched Nicklas prepare a big buffet on the dining room table including little hot meat sandwiches warmed in the oven. Nicklas also made coffee and picked up a few stray magazines in the living room where they had fallen from the coffee table during Joe's visit the day before. Chris only ordered some more food from a restaurant and waited on the couch.

As the sun sets, casting an orange-yellow glow all around New York, Chris's guests – about twenty people in all — trickled into Chris's apartment. Like Nicklas, they all wanted to see the village first.

"Merryville," His nephew Raphael said. "You gave it a name this year, Uncle Chris."

"I did. You like it?"

"I think it's great. A town needs a name even if it's only a town for Christmas."

After everyone had finished ooh-ing and ah-ing over Merryville, they filed into the living room. Since Chris had no Christmas tree, everyone laid their gifts in a corner of the living room. Chris had put his single gift to himself in the corner the day before.

The next stop was the buffet, which Chris's guests gushed over. Chris took all the credit, after all he had chosen and bought the foodstuffs they were eating. Nicklas laugh about it.

Shiraz Hogan, Chris's sister, sat on a chair that gave her a good view of Merryville. Chris let Shiraz hug him when he joined her, but didn't hug her back.

"Great village, this year, Chris. I bet it has a whole new story, too." His sister said.

"Of course. Can't have a new village with an old story."

"A new village with a new name. What made you think of 'Merryville' for a name?"

"I didn't. It came with the arch I bought yesterday. It just seemed to fit.