The Mayor of
Darkville
Children’s Christmas Eve Story, 2003
Rev. Gary Cox --
University Congregational Church
I suppose it
makes sense when you look back on it, but it sure didn’t make sense at the
time. You see, the mayor was the type of
guy people trusted. Everybody knew that
the mayor wouldn’t do anything to harm the city. So why would he ruin Christmas for the whole
town? Why would he take the most fun
time of year and spoil it for every single man, women and child…
Okay, I have
a habit of starting stories in the middle instead of at the beginning, which is
a bad habit, since I’m standing here rattling on and you don’t have any idea
what I’m talking about. So let’s try
again, and this time, I’ll begin at the beginning.
It was a
normal Christmas season in
People will
never forget the night it happened.
Johnny Tucker was sitting in front of the television, watching a rerun
of one of his favorite shows. Next door,
Sally Wilson was playing video games on her computer—she was pretty sure Santa
was going to bring her some new ones for Christmas, and she wanted to play with
her old games once before the new ones arrived.
Johnny and Sally were not only next-door-neighbors, they were good
friends. Sally used to dream that she
and Johnny would grow up and get married some day. Whenever she mentioned her dream to Johnny,
he would make a funny face, and start making sounds like he was puking or
something; but deep inside, he dreamed about it too.
But that’s
another story, and that’s another problem I have when it comes to stories. Not only do I have trouble beginning at the
beginning, I tend to get sidetracked and start in on other stories right when
people are starting to get interested in what I’m talking about. So forget about all that “getting married”
business with Johnny and Sally; but don’t
forget about Johnny and Sally.
Because they are what this story is all about—Johnny, Sally, and the way
the mayor spoiled Christmas for them and everybody else in town.
Have you ever
been sitting at home when the power went out?
The TV shuts off, the lights go out, and suddenly everybody and
everything are in the dark. It usually
happens during a thunderstorm, but there was no thunderstorm that night just
before Christmas when Johnny’s television suddenly went blank. And Sally’s computer screen shut down, just as
she was about to surpass her all-time scoring record on her favorite
game—Spymaster 5000 Autoblaster with Self-Decoding Integral Laser Beam Digital
Attachments powered by QwestMaster Technology.
This was a
disaster! And not just for Johnny and
Sally. All over town TV’s shut off. All over town Christmas parties came to a
halt as the music stopped. The flashing
lights on festively decorated
And it was
like that all night. Nothing to do,
nothing to see, no games to play. And as
if that weren’t bad enough, things didn’t get any better the next morning. It wasn’t an especially sunny day, and
Johnny’s dad couldn’t even read the paper as he ate breakfast. Next door, Sally’s mom usually spent the
morning watching the news on television and running on her electric
treadmill—but not that morning.
Nobody went
to work, of course, since there were no lights in the offices. All the stores were closed. And that’s when the trouble really
started. People started getting
angry. They walked outside and started
talking to each other. “What
happened? Why did the power go out? I missed my favorite TV show! I can’t even read my paper!”
Nobody knows
for sure how the truth came out, but the truth always does come out, and in
this case the truth made a whole lot of people just as mad as a nest of
hornets. The mayor had turned off the
power. In fact, the mayor had gone to
the edge of town, taken the special key from the special room where the power
is turned on and off, and he turned the power off—on purpose! Not only that, he took the key, stuck it in
his pocket, and left town so nobody would be able to turn the power back on!
Christmas was
only a few days away, and the Mayor had ruined everything! People started calling the town “Darkville,”
since the lights were all out, and all the conveniences of the modern world sat
unused beside useless power outlets.
“Wait ‘til we
get our hands on the Mayor of Darkville!” they cried. “We’ll hold him down, take that key from him,
we’ll get the power back on—and then we’ll call a special election, vote him
out of office, and ask him as nicely as possible to leave Darkville and never
come back!”
Oh they were
mad. For two straight days the situation
remained the same. Johnny’s dad couldn’t
read the paper, so he started talking to Johnny’s mom as they ate breakfast. It was sort of funny really. They had been married for so long, they
figured they didn’t have much left to talk about. But sure enough, because it was too dark to
read the paper, they started talking...and they talked and talked and
talked. Johnny’s dad even said to
Johnny’s mom, “You know, if we weren’t already married, I’d marry you all over
again!”
Something
similar happened next door. Sally’s mom
couldn’t watch TV and run on her treadmill, so she and Sally passed the
mornings by talking about school, and boys, and all sorts of stuff. They even bundled up and went out on the
front porch to read a story together—it was too dark in the house. It was odd.
Sally and her mom hardly ever spoke to each other in the morning, and
now they were spending all this time together.
But here’s
what is strange. This same type of thing
was happening all over town. Husbands
and wives and brothers and sisters and parents and children suddenly didn’t
have anything to do. So they started
talking to each other and doing things together.
Johnny’s
parents saw Sally and her mom reading on the front porch, and they walked over
to see what was going on. “Hey, I
remember that book!’” shouted Johnny’s dad.
“That’s Green Eggs and Ham! I
read that when I was a little boy!” The
next thing you know, the neighbors are gathered together on the porch, laughing,
and reading, and telling stories about when they were young. They couldn’t remember when they’d had so
much fun. Neighbors all over town were
getting together like never before.
When Christmas
Eve finally came, Darkville was about the happiest place in the world. Everybody was watching out for the needs of
everybody else: “Hi Mr. Jones! Do you
need any firewood to keep warm?” “Oh, no
thank you, Mrs. Perez. Do your kids need
any milk—I’ve got plenty—I’ve been keeping it cold by putting it out on the
back patio!” “Hi Mrs. Jackson—why don’t
you and your family come over and play some board games with us in front of the
fireplace?” “That sounds great, Mr.
White. We’ll bring a box of crackers and
some pop.”
And then,
when it was getting late, and the children were about to go to bed so Santa
could start making his rounds, it happened.
The Mayor of Darkville sneaked back into town, took the key from his
pocket, went into that special little room at the edge of town, and turned the power
back on—just in time for Christmas. All
over town the lights came back on. The
Christmas trees lit up, and the televisions all flashed to life. The radios started to blare, and
Now, here’s
the really strange thing. You would
think that everybody would be thrilled about the power coming back on. And at first they were. Sally ran to her room and turned on her
computer to once again start playing her favorite game. Johnny plopped down in front of the TV. Johnny’s dad picked up the unread newspapers
that sat beside the kitchen table. And
people all over town, right in the middle of their games and singing and
laughing, just sort of shut up. And they
started to go home.
But then, but
then, something really really really strange happened. Sally reached down and unplugged her
computer. Johnny turned off the
television. Johnny’s dad put down the
newspaper. For two or three minutes it
seemed like nobody in that whole town talked, or moved—you could have heard a
pin drop! And then, all over town,
people silently walked over to the switch on the wall…and they turned off the
lights. Suddenly, once again, they were
sitting together in front of their fireplaces, playing board games, and singing
Christmas Carols.
To this day,
people from all over town still remember when the Mayor of Darkville turned out
the lights. And to this day, everybody
in town will tell you that those two days of darkness were the best Christmas
present they ever got.