New Flash Fiction: The Gnomes! The Gnomes!

If you go out into the garden late at night, just watch out for the gnomes warns Daniel Lamb in our latest flash fiction story. Daniel Lamb is a twenty three year old writer from the North West of England. He used to make up stories in the playground as a child and make his friends play all the different characters whether they liked it or not. Now, he just writes the stories down in an attempt to avoid the possibility of characters getting bored and walking off half way through. Although this still happens from time to time. He has a pet hedgehog called Madame Prickles. He keeps a blog which can be found at https://horizoscopesandintrospectacles.wordpress.com/ 


Gnomes
by Daniel Lamb


You may ask why I am hiding in the bushes. It is a good question to ask. I’m not a peeping tom or anything, let me just assure you of that, right off the bat. I’m hiding in the bushes for perfectly legitimate reasons. 
     
I’m hiding from my wife’s gnomes. 
     
I’m not really into gnomes myself. I can take them or leave them. I usually leave them. My wife loves them though. She’s gnome mad. Loves garden gnomes of all varieties. Every time we go down to the garden centre, she seems to come back with a gnome. Sometimes it’s a small gnome, perhaps sitting on a toadstool looking all cheerful. Other times, it’s quite a large gnome, perhaps holding a fishing rod or with an oversized pipe in its mouth. The point is, she loves gnomes and our garden is full of them and has been ever since we moved here. I’d say we’ve got about fifty gnomes all in all. There’s so many that I’d started to barely notice them anymore, they’d just become part of the scenery, as nondescript as, say, the pavestones or the outside tap. It didn’t really matter how large or colourful or odd looking they were, I’d just stopped noticing them. 
        
Then a couple of days ago one of them turned to me and said ‘Alright, Davey? You couldn’t move me into the shade, could you? Can feel myself starting to crack in this heat.’ 
      
I blinked at the gnome. Then I stuck a finger in my ear and twisted it. 
      
‘Go on, be a pal, Davey boy! I’d do the same for you,’ the gnome said. There was no question about it. It was definitely the gnome speaking.
       
I blinked at the gnome.
     
‘Can’t you move yourself?’ I asked, completely dumbstruck.  
     
‘Move? Whoever heard of a garden gnome that could move of its own accord? I think you’re cracking up, Davey.’ 
     
I walked over to the gnome, picked it up and popped it down in the shade cast by the neighbour’s apple tree. 
     
‘Cheers, Davey. Much obliged,’ said the gnome, which had been fashioned with a lute in its hands. 
      
I went inside and made a cup of tea. 
      
I considered broaching the subject with my wife that night in bed, but I thought she might think I was taking the piss. Later that night, as I was lying awake, I heard a crackling noise coming from outside the bedroom window. I couldn’t sleep as it was. I was playing the whole gnome incident over in my head and trying to decide whether I should go and see a doctor in the morning. The last thing I needed was this crackling noise adding to my insomnia. I got up and pulled back the curtain ever so slightly to investigate. I peered down into the garden. 
     
There was a fire roaring in the middle of the garden. A pile of twigs had been placed in a dustbin lid and set alight. Black smoke was curling up past the window and into the night air. I ran downstairs and out into the garden, barefoot and in a panic. I grabbed the garden hose and turned it to full power and doused the flames until there was nothing but the blackened and burned remnants of kindling. And a gnome. The cracked and melting vestiges of a garden gnome. It looked like it might once have held something resembling a lute. I gazed around at other gnomes, each of them silent and still. Each of them watching me with their hollow, staring eyes. Each of them smiling. But I could find no mirth in those smiles. Not then.