Who Put The Stump

What's That Up There?

The curtains behind the Mayor's lectern slowly opened out to reveal a white screen, and the lights dimmed down a little, shrouding the audience into a mysterious and suspenseful environment. The projector, metres above the astounded multitude of citizens, switched on and presented the finalised image of Simpletown's tree...

The tree was covered in many decorative lights, its bright yellow and green patterned luminances peeking through the branches' needles keeping the string of lights on the steady. Shiny ornaments, from round red simple spherical baubles, through to tiny trinkets - some of Dummkopf's forks hung on some branches, through to candy canes and gummy worms arranged on the higher branches. But what struck the audience into sheer silence was one ornament atop of Simpletown's tree...

...it was a being, bean shaped like the rest of the citizens, with wings and a bright halo. What was that, Fumbles wondered... Lax almost forgot about the sweets and gummy worms on the tree and just gazed, mesmerised, at the mysterious bright figure. Discussions of "I've never seen that before" through to "Does it even belong here?" and even towards, "It's so... beautiful" spread amongst the group.

"We have decided to enhance Simpletown's traditions of decorating the tree," the short green Mayor continued, "by adding a new topper to the annual Christmas tree. As some of you have never seen it before, we have decided to take the divine route, and introduce you to the celestial representative of the holidays... the angel."

Fumbles and Lax stared at the tree, and then at each other, with the most surprised expressions they could ever share. "I wonder how this fella remains perched without falling off," Fumbles pondered. However, Dunce gestured a "not now, please" by waving both his hands lowly, blushing out of embarrassment, as he did not want to participate in the discussion. From there, Fumbles stayed quiet, and remained listening to the rest of the Mayor's speech.

"The angel is associated with many narratives," the Mayor explained the figure's significance, "especially those associated with this holiday season. And because Simpletown is far from being simple, but rather in the spirit of ingenuity, we are pleased to have the opportunity to select one lucky citizen to pose as the angel on the top of the Simpletown Square tree. Any applicant interested in posing as the Tree Angel is welcome to attend the photographic auditions by Simpletown Square."

- - -

It was sundown, and through the hotel window overlooking Simpletown Square, Fumbles watched the very first decorations reach the bottom branches of the tree. He watched in awe as the construction-grade cherry picker cranes gently lifted up the crew and their decorations - the first of the string of lights and the forks - to the starting bottom branches, and with a smile, they laid the string of lights carefully as possible.

One cherry picker crane, holding up a slender, lime green worker in a hard hat and vest, happily hung up the string of lights, and fixed each length along the lines to make sure they didn't fall from the branches. Meanwhile, another round, rose pink worker (again, hard hat and vest) on a separate cherry picker crane happily hung up Dummkopf's decorative forks on some of the bottom branches - he paused for a while, worried whether the lights would switch on and whether he could pierce the wiring and hence cause chaos. Fortunately he was in the clear as both workers were happily cooperating with the job.

'Aren't those decorations beautiful?' Fumbles pondered, watching the workers on their cherry pickets starting their task of dressing up the tree, and noticed just how shiny the forks were amongst the lights.

As the first string of lights switched on, the rose pink worker in charge of hanging the forks notices an anomaly - one of the bulbs near his presence was burned out. Without any further second thoughts, he unscrewed the defective bulb, shook it around to see if it was really burnt, and then signalled the crew on the ground to lower the cherry picker. As he pointed to the empty socket, as of asking for a new bulb, he accidentally stuck his hand in the socket...

Fumbles gasped in shock and dove down to the ground, shielding his eyes from the unexpected brightness of the rose pink worker's unexpected electrocution. "Yikes!" he yelped, trying to stomach the calamity of it all.

However, the same worker pulled his hand free, and as his cherry picker crane successfully lowered to the ground, the crew were shirked at what happened to the rose pink worker - his charred flesh now exposed his skeleton, his hard hat sitting on the formerly rose pink worker's skull, and his vest now in tatters. He only responded with a facepalm gesture, one displaying his shame for accidentally touching the socket.

The lights switched off, as another worker - skinny, lavender, and wearing a hard hat - took the now skeletal workmate's place with a new bulb, and once the cherry picker crane reached the level of the empty light socket, he happily screwed it in and completed the job. He signalled with one little wave, and the lights came back on after the bungled job.

"I'm glad I didn't get a job fixing up the lights," Fumbles sighed, before finally closing the hotel curtains and settling down for a full nights snooze. Perhaps the next day he would see the whole tree fixed and ready for display.