Gnome Hunting: Part 5

I interrupt this series of gnome posts to mention my book is now available for purchase! If you prefer to read on paper, though, you'll have to wait anouther 10 months. Back to the gnome hunt...

Continued from Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and the 13 Characteristics List

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After a series of average gnome encounters, although there were rather more than I expected, the gnome hunt took a more serious turn. In another section of the shed, I saw something that made me angry. Very angry. My sister and I, growing up, had owned a wonderful treasure called a Barbie dream house. We spent many hours with the dream house as the base of Barbie’s operations when she and her friends kicked ass and took names.

With the birth of my daughters, the dream house has been resurrected, though it hasn’t yet been restored. And what did I see in the dream house but a nasty, conniving creature hoping for a chomp of the tender flesh of one of my children! A child wouldn’t know a gnome wasn’t a toy. A child would go right up to a gnome and present herself for dinner. I almost went on a gnome killing spree right then and there, endangering myself, my family and my environs, because gnomes are very vengeful, not to mention attracted to the smell of fresh blood. But then I calmed down and realized my children would be safe, because I would personally educate them about the dangers of gnomes, as you can your children after you read this essay.

For various reasons, my children aren’t often in areas where gnomes run wild and free, but this innocent gnome hunt was uncovering a hotbed of gnome activity I had never suspected on my mother’s property. I began to grow concerned about our findings and shared my thoughts with my brother. Grandma, while possibly protected from attack by certain gnomish traits and a dog that sticks to her like a burr, isn’t exactly young, and if the gnomes had encroached on her land this much, this intimately, was it safe out here anymore? My brother, a former almost Eagle scout, assured me the gnomes have been here the whole time. It’s only that I’ve just learned to spot them. To prove his point, he led me to the very vehicle I’d driven to my mother’s house and pointed at the tire.

“There’s not much you can do,” he said. “Not here, not anywhere. Just don’t come out here alone unless you bring the dog.” Then he belched and popped open another beer.

It’s not that I didn’t believe my beer-swilling brother, but his statement bore deeper investigation. I quickly checked areas I wouldn’t have thought gnomes would be. Areas closer to the house. Areas where humans don’t fear to tread. Sure enough, right beside the path to the back patio, a gnome huddled in the bee balm, plainly disobeying the nearby sign. And another, right beside the front door of the house. The front door!

The porch lurker was even too much for my brother. Risking our lives, we didn’t just chase it away. We dispatched it and spread cayenne over the resultant mess to cloak the odor of blood. I began to understand why my mother had always kept a shovel and a hoe inside the house, beside the front door. She’d always said it was for copperheads, which sometimes slink up on the porch, but maybe she just said that about poisonous snakes so she wouldn’t scare us.

Traveling around the house revealed a couple more ugly surprises. I don’t think the dreamcatcher would be able to snare this particular nightmare, should the gnome choose to enter the house. They don’t usually come indoors, thank goodness, though I don’t know why. And it was a good thing the hummingbirds were bedded down for the night, because this one was ready for a little sweet dessert.

That’s when I heard the barking and realized the gnome wasn’t interested in the bird feeders. The gnome was tormenting the dog! Divided by glass, the red-capped villain taunted the terrier in the house, and since the beast was so distracted by its arch nemesis, the squirrel killer herself, I was able to get this close-up shot. My mother claims the dog attacks the windows when she sees another dog or a possum outside, but I have to wonder if the gnomes aren’t part of it as well. And, as with the hoe in the house, perhaps my mother is already aware of this and hasn’t informed me because she’s afraid I won’t bring the grandkids to visit anymore.

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Survival of the Fairest, my paranormal romance from Samhain, both spawned this series about gnomes and was probably spawned by my subconscious memories of gnomes while growing up. While the plot tells the love story of a fairy princess from the Realm (the Realm where gnomes came from) and a Vegas stage magician, gnomes do figure into the narrative at various points. The hero's grandfather, in particular, is also aware of these facts and figures about gnomes in humanspace, although I am doing this series to educate the public on the dangers in a matter-of-fact way instead of in a fictional narrative, during which I have taken certain liberties about the realisties of gnomology, particularly in reference to their activity levels. Not too many, though!

JW