I like gnomes. Hence the delight I took in this year’s Halloween costumes.
A number of years ago, I tried several times to incorporate gnomes into stories I was working on for classes. It never worked out.
But, as I never get rid of things I’ve written (you never know), I recently came across a few snippets of what look to be portions of a story about a young, somewhat outcast gnome. They amused me, and so I share them with you here, with a little bit of polishing:
Ffraedrich was a gnome who did not fit in with his peers. He did all the things that gnomes are supposed to do, like color coordinate his earth tones and prevent the tip of his hat from reaching higher than his grandfather could stand.
But there was something about him that seemed to repel anyone who was not his mother. Even his own brothers and sisters shunned him when going out to the fields and meadows to chase mice and butterflies with the other young gnomes.
At social events, Ffraedrich was ever an unfailing flop. Sometimes he would get up the nerve to ask a young girl gnome to dance, or offer his arm to an old mother to help her at the punch table. None of them ever accepted.
*
“There is nothing I hate more than lifting, hauling and burying dead cats,” Ffraedrich thought to himself while working under his father’s watchful eye.
“What really gets me is the hair. Cats don’t stop shedding just because they’re dead. The hair sticks to all sorts of fabric and finds its way into any orifice. How is one supposed to work with…” his thoughts trailed off as his older brother came closer with the large cart, which was already heaped with the carcasses of various rodents.
What Ffraedrich really wanted was to be is a dirger – the gnomes who wore black scarves and hats and murmured low chants at the funerals.