La ville
où tout le monde doit aimer toute l'année
____________________
In this town, Xmas tree ornaments are hand-carved, and
each ornament is a likeness of someone in the town. Each person in town who is
old enough to do this has his or her own Xmas tree, and carves the ornaments for
that tree by themselves. Each and every person the ornament-carver cares about has
an ornament carved in their honor and hung on the person’s tree. The likenesses
are remarkable: the townspeople, one and all, are very skilled at this after so
many generations.
But what is more astonishing than all that is why they do this: these tiny icons of
their loved ones are created and put up because the more trees one’s image is
on, the more powerful the Xmas magic is for that person, and hence the more of
their wishes will be granted come Xmas morning. Getting an ornament hung for
you on someone else’s tree increases the odds that all your Xmas wishes will be
granted.
Because of this oddity the people of the town are both
very social and unfailingly nice to each other. They hold doors open, help the
neighbors with yardwork, volunteer for charity fundraisers. They offer help to
those who need it, compliment each other, never argue. They share what they
have and in general everyone treats
everyone else as though each were royalty.
Every person, man and woman and boy and girl, too,
tries to make as many new friends as he or she can throughout the year. Their
lives are endless quests to be as nice as humanly possible to as many people as
can be.
It seems as though all this niceness, being primarily
motivated by the desire to have bigger and more spectacular Xmas wishes
granted, would start to wear on a person after a while, would seem fake. But
the wishes don’t work that way: fake goodwill
towards other townspeople garners one nothing, so the feeling is genuine.
And anyway, even if the behavior was fake it’s still a
pretty good way to live.
No comments:
Post a Comment