They called it the monument when they bothered to speak of it. It had been in the city forever, and sometimes the young stopped to look at it  and wonder that it had neither purpose nor meaning.

Were the strange round things halfway down its mighty bulk eyes? Did it breathe through the holes in the strange beaky thing between them?

But it wasn’t of sufficient importance to occupy them for long and they soon scuttled off about the jobs they were allocated as soon as they dropped from their chrysalis.

Humans were yesterday and insects aren’t given to introspection.

©️jj 2020

It was all the vicar’s fault. She went on a pilgrimage to Oberammergau and came back fired with almost missionary zeal. And now Joss Beckett co-owner of The Fair Maid and Falcon, one of the busiest pubs in the south of England, is committed to organising a walking Nativity…

I picked up my phone and called Danilo Lovell. Danilo is a paranormal investigator and medium, who just happens to own his own tv production company and who owes me a number of favours. Of course he said no. So I called his grandmother, his wife, and his head of security – all of whom are friends of mine. Then I sat back and waited. It didn’t take long. Danilo called back.
“Bitch,” he said entirely without heat. “Why are you making me waste time and money on a bloody Nativity play?”
“But Danilo, it’s a walking Nativity play. And it’s currently a clusterfuck.”
He laughed. “So it needs sorting out. But why me?”
“I was rather thinking a documentary. If done right it could even net you yet another BAFTA nomination.”
I could have sworn that I heard the wheels turn as he thought that one through. When he spoke it was in an entirely different voice. Now he was all business.
“When can we meet with the clusterfuck steering committee?”
“They’ll be here on Thursday morning at eleven, thinking they are going to have to crawl to me for help.”
Danilo chuckled. “Meaning their gratitude to me would know no bounds. Better and better. I’ll be there. With Paula, and possibly Grandmother, in tow. Until then…”
He hung up and I leaned back in my chair, luxuriating in the feeling of a job well done. After a couple of minutes of self-congratulation I got down to payroll duties and consigned the whole Nativity play thing to the back burner.
It was nearly five o’clock when there came a tap on my office door. Recognising the small noise as being likely to be small people, I got up and went to open the door. My three-year-old twin daughters stood outside hand in hand, looking more than a little apprehensive. I crouched down to their level and wrinkled my nose at them.
“Is Daddy Beckett hiding behind you, my loves.”
They nodded their heads energetically. Ali spoke first “Yes he is. And he’s very frightened.” She stopped speaking and Roz took over. “He says,”she lowered her voice conspiratorially, “that he has been a stupid man, and you might be cross with him.”
I laughed and drew my darlings into my arms. After I had kissed their rosy cheeks and smoothed their shining blonde curls I raised my voice.
“Benedict Beckett, get in here and stop being such a wuss.”
He stuck his head around the corner and I could feel him all but tasting the atmosphere. When he found it calm and friendly he came all the way into the room and sat his bottom on the corner of my desk.
“Sorry Joss,” he said in a voice of real contrition. “I should know you have more than enough to do with a business to run and three kids to manage.”
Ali pulled firmly on my sleeve. “Auntie Stella did call Daddy a plonker,” she whispered in tones of deep shock.
I couldn’t keep my face straight any longer and I grinned at my little family. “I expect she did, because he did a silly. But it’s all right now because I sorted it out.”
“How do you mean sorted it out?” Ben sounded worried.
“It’s okay love, I haven’t thrown you to the wolves. I called in a favour and now the walking Nativity is Danilo’s problem.”
For a moment he looked at me as if I had grown an extra head, then the simple beauty of my plan dawned on him. “Oh, wonderful. He has all the resources and the expertise to make it something special. But how did you make him agree?”
“I sicced Grandmother and Bethan on to him.”
“That’d work. But will he do his best in those circumstances. I mean he don’t do anything for nothing, so what’s in it for him?”
“Another BAFTA nomination maybe for the documentary they are going to shoot.”
Ben’s grin spread from one ear to the other and he leaned between the twins to kiss me full on the mouth with much noisy enthusiasm. Roz waited until he lifted his head before pursing her pink rosebud of a mouth and patting his arm.
“See,” she said comfortingly, “me and Ali protected you.”
Ben picked the girls up in his big arms, kissing and tickling them until they were a giggly mess. “You did indeed protect me. Now shall we ask Mummy if she has finished work so we can go home for tea?”

To be concluded tomorrow…

©️Jane Jago

Pa grinned.

“You reckon to sell us a droid we can’t afford?”

“Easy terms if you sign up today.”

“Out’s thataway.”

“Don’t blame me when your outdated droid goes feral and kills your kids.”

“We got so blamed many he’d be welcome to one or two.” Pa put a booted foot up the salesman’s fat arse.

As he drove off Jimmy slid in from the back kitchen. Grinning.

“Had a nearly new XH150 in the trunk. Looks like ole George here is gonna get them knees and elbows what he needs. Plus a brand new pair of baby blue eyes.” 

©️jj 2020

The Fair Maid and Falcon is one of the busiest pubs in the south of England, and quite enough for one woman to run without the complication of a husband who finds it impossible to say no…

It was all the vicar’s fault. She went on a pilgrimage to Oberammergau and came back fired with almost missionary zeal. The parish should, she declared, put on a walking Nativity play. I regarded the whole idea with mild scepticism and tactfully removed my susceptible spouse from her orbit so he shouldn’t be infected with enthusiasm for this madcap scheme.
But I was too late, he had already caught the bug. He came home from a meeting that was ostensibly to discuss maintenance of the churchyard with the sort of spring in his step that I knew had nothing to do with mowing between gravestones.
As soon as lunch service was over, I beckoned him into my office.
“Okay Benny, what you got the wind up your tail about?”
He shuffled his feet a bit and looked shamefaced. It was all I could do not to laugh, but I kept my own face straight and waited.
“Umm…”
“I’m waiting, Ben.”
He came and sat on the corner of the desk.
“How come I can never get anything past you?”
I laughed up at him. “Could it not be just because I love you?”
“No. It’s witchery. And where are the gruesome twosome.”
“Your daughters are at nursery as you know perfectly well. Now stop trying to distract me and fess up.”
“It’s the walking Nativity thing. I might have said that they can finish the story in the barn here.”
“Might have said?” By now I was having extreme difficulty not giggling out loud, but I was determined not to let him off the hook quite yet.
He spread his hands. “It’s your own fault, you never came and protected me. And the vicar and the W.I. ladies ganged up on me.”
That tore it and I laughed until I was breathless. I calmed down to find Ben watching me with the kind of exaggerated patience I normally only get from our German Shepherds.
“Sorry Benny, it’s just that crafty old theologian having the nous to set Mrs Partridge on you.”
He sighed. “Why am I so scared of the chair of the W.I.?”
“I dunno, babe. Maybe it’s the blue hair.”
He thought about that for a moment then shook his head. “No. I reckon it’s the half glasses, and buttressed bosom, and the cardigans. My infant teacher was like that and we were all scared shitless of Miss Weeks.”
I patted him consolingly. “Never mind. Just tell me what you agreed to.”
He actually hung his head. “I ain’t agreed to anything. Except… A meeting here Thursday morning at eleven. Jack Ellis is of the opinion you are going to kill me.”
I sighed. “Tempting though it is to put period to your miserable existence, I couldn’t do without you. But why, specifically am I about to wring your handsome neck for you right now?”
“Because the whole fucking thing is a shambles, and if somebody with superior organisational skills don’t take it in hand…”
He took one look at my face and fled.
When I had stopped swearing and kicking furniture I had a bit of a think. The idea, when it occurred to me was so beautiful in its simplicity that I could feel a smile replacing my frown.

To be continued tomorrow…

©️Jane Jago

   

   

   

 

   

   

   

   

   

Being minuscule is a crock of shit, all the little bots were agreed on that even if they agreed on nothing else.

The bloodbots thought they had the worst job – scraping fatty cells out of the humans’ bodily canals. 

The virusbots poo-pooed that notion – at least, they said, fatty deposits don’t fight back.

The cancerbots maintained that overactive cells were the most difficult to defeat…

This argument had been going on for decades until the scientists discovered almost all illnesses could first be detected in faeces.

The shitbots moved immediately to most disgusting status.

An honour they still hold. 

©️jj 2020

Fatswhistle and Buchtooth by Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV is seminal work of science fantasy sets the benchmark by which all others are judged. Where quest meets tragedy, and comedy meets despair. Critics are calling it ‘the best ever cure for insomnia’ and ‘the book that finally persuaded me I hate science fantasy’.

A tiny weeny extract in which we explore the tender relationship between our hero and his trusty female companion.

They came out of the desert into the fertile valley of the big river, just as the sun was dropping. Buchtooth kicked her camel until it knelt and leapt off the saddle throwing her clothing off as she ran towards the water.
“Come on Fatswhistle you ugly bastard, get off your frigging camel and get into this water. You smell worse than him.”
Fatswhistle followed his companion in a much more leisurely fashion. He was just removing his cracked leather boots when she threw herself into the water. Her back was broad and freckled and as she dived, the white globes of her arse were displayed to Fatswhistle’s suddenly interested gaze. He removed his clothing at a rather accelerated pace and hurried after her into the brown water.
She was singing tunelessly and washing her long carrot-orange curls when he waded over to her and sat down. The river mud felt like silk under his buttocks and he picked up one of his own feet and looked between his toes. He watched his companion from under his eyelids finding her heavy breasts surprisingly exciting as they dipped in and out of the water. He scooted closer and put out a tentative hand. She snorted and wrung the water out of her hair. Emboldened, he touched the freckled skin on her shoulder. She jumped and swore, dunking him under the water until he saw stars…
“Gerrof.”

Fatswhistle and Buchtooth is currently out of print as one engages in secret talks pertaining to the future of that piece of one’s very soul. Instead, here is a smidgin of impeccable verse

Within the inglenook of creeping night
I steal Calliope’s wings steeped with flame
And an homunculus enters my sight
Bearing aloft a banner with my name.
I stalk to rocky kloofs of distant height
To claim the fabled phoenix for my own
And by the wounding pens terrible might
I slay the fierce chimera all alone.
Those Labyrinthine paths conquered by right
So now upon my head Theseus crown
Marks my soliloquy of posey bright
As in Morpheus arms I softly drown.
From forth my dreams thus comes triumphs of rhyme
For of the Muses choice, I am the prime.

A Bite of… Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

Question 1: Who is your greatest literary influence? And why?

Dame Barbara Cartland is in one’s humble opinion a writer in the presence of whose excellence we should all bow our heads. And if you cannot see why then one washes one’s hands of you forthwith

Question 2: What is your guilty pleasure?

One must confess to a partiality for that very out-of-fashion but delectable cocktail the snowball. And to being wholly unable to resist white chocolate in any form.

Question 3: Would you rather be a hero or a villain.

On first glance one could only say hero. But closer thought made one discern that one’s hero is always heading for heartbreak whilst one’s villain had no such feelings to injure. Ergo one would be a hero with the moral compass of a villain.

About Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

The only offspring of a doomed union between the daughter of an English Country Gentleman and the unsatisfactory son of an American stomach pills magnate, Moonbeam resides with his maternal parent in leafy suburbia. His ruling passion is writing, and as he is fortunate enough to be in possession of a small private income he is able to write with only literary excellence in mind, being able to ignore the demands of mammon that may force his lesser colleagues into prostituting their art for a few pieces of silver.
Fatswhistle and Buchtooth was a whole decade in its gestation, and you may expect the next magnum opus to take even longer as Moonbeam hones his craft to ever more delicate points.

In the meantime, one’s his fans may catch more of one’s his highly distinctive wit and wisdom in a slim volume facilitated by the rather boring women who run this blog assisted by one’s his maternal parent – How to Start Writing a Book: The Wit and Wisdom of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV.

It’s a little known fact that humans who do physical labour in zero gravity and with heavy breathing apparatus don’t last long. Given that those who died were the scum of our species, we didn’t expect there to be an outcry. But there was. 

Fortunately, self-determining machines could mine just as effectively. 

In a relatively short space of time the moon’s face became as full of holes as a Swiss cheese, and littered with broken machinery.

Still we mined, until the machines stole our satellite out of the sky and we awoke to find it gone.

Woe notides us….

©️jj 2020

Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below…

Dog was half drunk and wondering if he should have accepted the invitation to join his best friend in the dive bar on thirty-three. Teram was the kind who liked to go slumming — said it kept him grounded. He ran the family salvage company and was the hands-on type who liked to do the work at the sharp end. His idea of a good night out was to go drinking with his hard-core salvage crews.
“They are good people, Dog — and they would be made up to meet you.”
“No. They would be made up to meet Sub-Commander Arlan Stude, not Hengast ‘Dog’ Gethick, jobbing actor.”
Teram did not deny it, just rolled his shoulders as they took the glides down.
“They won’t recognise you anyway without that uniform and the sexy half-mask,” he confided. “But you got to know what you are to these boys. They won’t miss an episode. You are like their hero.”
Dog shook his head and altered course to avoid his towering bulk blocking the way for a couple with a baby.
“It’s all crap. Just kids’ stories in grown-up words. None of it real. Not like it’ll ever happen. I don’t see the real Strands ever funding a space exploration mission. They’d not see profit in it.”
Teram glanced up at him.
“You don’t get it do you, Dog? It’s not that it’ll never happen — everyone knows it’ll never happen. It’s that it shows something bigger than this.” He gestured to the buzz of humanity around them. “These are people penned into the cage this city’s become — you, your show, it opens the doors of that cage for a while. Opens the doors and lets in hope. More than hope. Real belief in a future that can be more than this.”
That was too much, and Dog shook his head.
“I’m an actor, not a fucking messiah.”

The bar was not as bad as Dog had thought it would be. It was well ventilated and the people who were vaping whatever noxious substances sat in a side room where an androgyne gyrated naked on a podium. Teram’s crew sat together by the one window which offered not so much a panorama of the cityscape of the kind Dog had at home, but more like a murky glimpse into the bowels of the world — dark and lit by sudden flares.
“So, what you do, Dog?”
Someone had to ask, and lulled by the strong spirits and the rough but good-natured bonhomie, Dog almost forgot himself.
“I’m an actor.” He remembered in time and quickly added, “Used to do that commercial for Eatin’ Quix delivery?”
That met with a few nods of recall and the topic moved on. But it was too much to expect Teram would let it lie for long.
“So, what did you guys make of the latest SP? You think they will find those Kyruku?” His eyes slid to Dog and he winked. “Makes you think. Aliens and all.”
Dog said nothing as the men around him speculated.
“Ain’t no fucking aliens. If there were, we’d have met ’em by now. Stands to reason.”
“Yeah. But The Golden Strand is headed ’cross the fucking galaxy, not just round the block and home; it’s different.”
“Different? You see that view screen they get to see stuff on? Huge thing. Dream of that for our ship. What you say, boss — when we getting that kind of tech?”
There was laughter, and Teram laughed loudest of all.
“What if it was for real, though?” someone said. Dog had not picked up the names; he’d tried, but the faces were too similar — worn, weary and bleak. He recalled an odd conversation he’d had with Heila a couple of days before: she’d been going on about her fans, her people. Well, he guessed these were his people. Gnarled by life before they hit thirty, running on dreams and stardust and the false hope held out by the allure of each episode of Starways Pathfinders.
“What if? You kidding? I’d sign up in a second.”
“Yeah. Think of it. The freedom of the stars. Going where no other fucker’s ever been.”
“Be like, you’d be alive. You’d matter. You’d be doing something — something good.”
Heads nodded and someone called another round of drinks. Dog stared out of the window at the inky sludge that coated it, dulling the grim sights it would otherwise expose.

Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 0100.

The lights of Christmas guide us
Though the mists of time may hide us
They awaken long lost memory
Of how our Christmas used to be
Of stockings filled and wrapping bright
Of sleigh bells and enchanted nights
Of family and Christmas cheer
Of looking forward without fear
Though older now, we turn our face
Towards that far enchanted place
When looking back we are beguiled
By life through the eyes of a smiling child

©️Jane Jago 2020

The Christmas tree stood slap bang in the centre of the village green, in the sturdy socket where the maypole was fitted in its turn.
It was a handsome tree, if barely decorated and wholly lacking Christmas magic.
Em found its sheer joylessness offensive, and said as much to her best friend as they sat in Agnes’ cozily disordered sitting room enjoying hot chocolate with marshmallows on top.
Agnes scratched her head. “You may have a point. No. You do have a point. Even the little kids aren’t interested. It’s just a big old tree with about ten dim lights on it.”
“Precisely. And that doesn’t feel right somehow.”
“Not your fault, Em. It’s Covid 19 – robbing the world of delight.”
“I know it’s not my fault. But neither were most of the rest of the things we have dealt with in our years.”
Agnes had known Em for a very long time. “What are you up to Emmeline Vanderbilt?”
“Nothing.”
Nobody said ‘yet’ but it hung in the air like the proverbial elephant.
Agnes applied herself to her hot chocolate in the vain hope that Em might forget all about the Christmas tree. It wasn’t as if Em was even a particularly Christmas-y female, deeming the festival to be a triumph of consumerism, so perhaps there was even hope. No more was said on the subject but Agnes was left with an itchy feeling in her skin, and the uncomfortable certainty that Em was very rarely willing, or able, to leave well enough alone.

Two days later, all of the Little Botheringham seven sat together in Ellen’s house. When everyone had a glass of a very nice red wine, courtesy of Em, and a handful of Lilian’s Caribbean spiced beer nuts, Petunia asked the question that five of her sisters had been edging round.
“Okay Em. What gives? You called an emergency meeting, and we all sneaked in here so nobody knows we are breaking the Covid rules. But now you are sitting there all tight-lipped and giving us nothing. Talk, will you…”
Everyone else sort of winced, although Petunia seemed unphased and regarded Em with one upraised eyebrow. For a moment, Em’s reaction hung in the balance then she shrugged and grinned.
“It’s the Christmas tree.”
Agnes groaned. “Why ain’t I surprised.”
“Because you know me quite well. And because you know as well as I do that the tree is a damp squib this year.”
To just about everyone’s surprise Ginny smiled fiercely. “And it should be magic.”
“Precisely.” Em grinned at Ginny finding it hard to see any trace of the downtrodden creature who had entered their lives a year and a half ago. Now Ginny was sleek and glossy and perfectly well able to stand on her own feet – although she had lost none of the kindliness and care for others that had been the best part of her while she was still an ordinary mortal.
Ellen sighed. “Okay. It’s a given that the tree is crap. Partly because of the bugs and stuff, but mostly because the parish council has decided the tree is ‘common’ and not inclusive, and a lot of the bastards are still sulking about the golf club they thought they were going to get.” “True, and eventually we are going to have to get people on the council, but that won’t sort out today’s problem.”
“What will?” Agnes spoke with unusual sharpness. “We can’t be doing anything dramatic. It’s not important enough for that.”
“Not important?” The others rounded on Agnes, who leaned back in her chair and laughed fatly. “Right. We now know that everyone is on board.”
Em leaned over and patted her friend on the thigh. “You crafty old bat,” she said, not bothering to hide her amused admiration, “it’d have taken me two hours of arguing to get this lot in line, but you got them with three sentences.”
“Everybody needs an ology – mine is psych.”
“Yup, you are certainly a psychopath.” That was Petunia again. The class clown.
“Cycle path? Well her ass so wide enough to ride a bike over.” Lilian cackled at her own wit.
“At least I ain’t so skinny that I have to by my clothes at ‘bones are us’.”
“Nah. You get them at ‘rent a marquee’ don’t you.
By now the loud girls were howling with mirth and Em had visions of a very long day. However, someone else took a hand.
“Shut up you lot. Let’s hear what our beloved leader has in mind.” Jamelia seldom spoke so firmly and it had the desired effect. Silence fell, and six pairs of expectant eyes were turned on Em.
“Okay. I have looked at our options and we don’t have that many. But. I think I have a plan that works. A Children’s Christmas sponsored by The Ladies Circle. Socially distanced. Outdoors. I can get that Tristram to provide a big screen and some electrics, also he is willing – after a bit of arm twisting – to put a couple of his apprentice assholes on making a film of the children doing their schtick in lieu of the abandoned nativity play. All done on something calked Zoom of which I wot not.”
Agnes nodded. “So far so good. What else?”
Lilian stuck up a skinny arm. “Some proper barbecue? Loaded rolls and maybe hot chocolate?”
“Something of that ilk.”
“Music. Will have to be recorded. Otherwise we will run foul of the rules.”
The spate of shouted suggestion and counter suggestion was both loud and protracted, and it might have gone on even longer if Em hadn’t chosen to exert her influence as Queen. She concentrated briefly and her aura made itself felt. The room gradually quieted and Em inclined her head to Jamelia, who had been quietly writing in her ever-present notebook.
“Right. Tristram and his kiddy film. I reckon Agnes is the best one among us to keep an eye on that – being the one with most children. Food and drink. Lilian, Petunia and Ellen. With Lilian in charge.
Invitations you can leave to me and Ginny. That means Em is in charge of doing something about that deplorable excuse for a Christmas tree. Which is what she intended all along.”
“Indeed. Are we in agreement then?”
All hands were raised.
“What date are we looking at?” Lilian asked. “I need to know. Food and all. And budget?”
“December 18th. The kids last day at school. And the budget is flexible. Whatever you can’t get donated we can cover.”
Ellen put her hand up. “How about if the children get to keep their hot chocolate mugs? I know a potter who has madly overproduced Christmas ones and I’m sure she could be persuaded to do us a deal.”
“Good thinking. Hot chocolate and maybe gluhwein?” Lilian nodded, then she gave Em a sharp birdlike glance. “I won’t spend too much of your money dear.”
Ginny looked hard at Em.
“Why do I have the idea there is something you are not telling us?”
Agnes laughed. “Because there is always something she isn’t telling us. We just have to hope she ain’t bitten off more than she can chew.”
Em was offended. “When did I ever?”
“You want a list?”
The room dissolved into helpless laughter and Agnes poured everyone a fresh drink.
There wasn’t a lot of time to get the thing off the ground, but vampires have huge resources of normally untapped energy to call on so everything got done in a timely manner. Even if a couple of young computer nerds did learn rather a lot of really fruity language, while some local businessmen found themselves wondering precisely how they came to agree to sponsor such a small event…

The night of December the eighteenth saw a lorry creeping quietly down the village street and a crew of burly young men in orange coveralls converging on the Christmas tree, tutting and swearing. A couple of extremely powerful arc lights made the green as bright as day and the young men soon stripped off the paltry excuse for decoration that had halfheartedly draped the tree, replacing it with a fairytale concoction of silver and white – with hundreds of tiny artificial candles on the ends of the branches. Within the hour they were gone, although anyone truly observant might have noticed one of their number calling at Em’s house and having brief conversation with the lady herself. But those who are observant are also wise enough to not ask questions.

Friday morning, and a steady stream of hefty young men, under Lilian’s acerbic guidance, set up the barbecues and lit the charcoal in the huge braziers that would add warmth as well as the scent of herbs and roasting chestnuts to the event.
Promptly at two-thirty another lorry crept into the village, but this one parked at the edge of the green. Agnes went and had a word with the driver, who accepted a large pack of untidy sandwiches and raised one oily thumb.

Agnes phoned Em. “Everything is in order here, and the tree looks lovely. But where’s the magic.”
“You are a bigger kid than the kids. And you’ll just have to wait and see.”
Em ended the call and sat down with a bit of a bump. Erasmus dropped from his perch to land on her shoulder.
“It will work,” his coolly precise tones echoed in the vaults of her head. “The small ones owe you, and they know it. They will not fail. And besides which they are quite looking forward to being angels instead of demons.”
Em was comforted, even if she couldn’t help a small niggle of worry. Erasmus laughed, not unkindly. “Your kind can never quite give up the insecurities of being human. But perhaps that is for the best, you are enough of a force of nature without fancying yourself infallible.”
“You are such a comfort to me. Not. But, on the other hand, how does an overripe banana grab you?”
“By the testicles.”
Em went to the kitchen.

It was six o’clock when Agnes banged perfunctorily on Em’s back door.
“I’m coming. I’m coming.”
Em emerged, wrapped in the softest of shearling lamb and booted to the knee in conker-bright leather.
“Show time,” she said brightly before shutting the door and leading the way towards light and brightness and good smells.
Two hours later: the Christmas film had been watched and applauded madly, while an inordinate amount of pulled pork, hot chocolate and booze had disappeared down the throats of young and old alike. The church clock struck eight and as the last chime fell into the night the lights on the green went out, as did the village street lamps. The sudden dark might have been frightening if it wasn’t for the music that filled the air. Then a voice spoke.
“All the stars in the heavens came to bless the child who lay in a manger.”
And the sky was filled with twinkling stars coming from the direction of the church to fly round and round the tall tree. At first the light reflected from the silver bells and streamers, but then…
“Look. Look.” It was the voice of a child. “The stars are lighting the candles on the Christmas tree.”
Sure enough, one by one, the hundreds of candles on the tree were springing to life as the ‘stars’ flew dizzily round and round. Then, one by one, the shining stars flew away, back towards the church where it was outlined by a rising moon.
As if that was not magic enough a great voice cried out from the sky. “Come Dasher, come Dancer, come Prancer, come Vixen, come Comet, come Cupid, come Donner, come Blitzen, come Rudolph.”
And there He was – on his sleigh perched atop the lorry which had brought the cinema screen and electronic wizardry to the village. He stood, tall and strong, throwing brightly wrapped gifts into the crowd.
As the lights in the village slowly blinked back on, a cloud briefly crossed the moon.
When the children looked again, Santa was gone, and so were the shining stars, but the gifts on the ground were real and the candles flickered and gleamed on the Little Botheringham Christmas Tree.

Season’s greetings from Little Botheringham – and a reminder that Much Dithering in Little Botheringham, with more tales of village life and vampires, will return sometime in the New Year…