Wishing Gnome
He’s going to wish he’d never met him
I regretted going on this hike, especially alone. But there was nothing else to do on Monday, so I thought, eh, why not?
I hiked up the mountain, through the wind and its force that ripped at my skin.
Somewhere on the mountain jutted out an ancient well. I smiled and flipped a coin into it.
“Ow!” the well replied.
“Sorry?” I said back.
“Why did you flip a coin on my head?”
“Oh I’m terribly sorry,” I said, “I didn’t know anyone was in there.”
“Well, now you know. Can you help me get out?”
I reached out my hiking pole and something took hold, and I pulled up. What I saw was a small grubby, ugly creature with grey skin and a twisted chin. he wore black, ragged cloth. They glowed silver intermittently.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“I’m a gnome, by the way, encase you were wondering.”
“Oh. Good for you.”
“My name’s Gaz.”
“Hi Gaz.”
The gnome looked around, awkwardly. “Could you erm, give me a lift?”
“Daddy, who’s that?”
I looked down from my paper at my seven-year-old daughter, Melissa. “That’s Gaz, he’ll be staying with us until I work out to do with him.
“I’m a gnome,” giggled Gaz.
“Yep,” I said.
“So, Mr Gaz, what were you doing down a well all that time?” asked my wife, Sandra.
“Well, I wasn’t enjoying myself, that’s for sure.”
“Quite.”
“Well, the thing is,” Gaz said, stuffing toast in his mouth, “I was collecting wishes.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, soaking them up. I’d lost my magic you see and I’d thought I’d take up some wish magic.”
“Did it… help?” She asked.
“I have this glow… and my farts now twinkle.”
Melissa laughed, “you’re funny.”
“See!” said Gaz, grinning, “someone gets me!”
I sat in my cubicle at work.
“Hey,” said Nigel across from me, “I’ve heard you’ve adopted a gnome.”
“I haven’t adopted one,” I said, “he’s just a guest for a while.”
“Pretty stupid thing to do, Max.”
“Yeah…I guess it is.”
Nigel then told the news to everyone else in the office, and the background ambiance of the rest of my day was the noise of mockery.
In my garden, I saw Melissa talking to Gaz.
“You don’t look like any of the other gnomes we have,” Melissa said to him, pointing at the ornamental gnomes that were busy either fishing or doing the gardening, in their static way.
“Yeah. I’m less ugly,” he grinned.
After a month, Gaz said he felt like going home to the mountains. I said I’d take him.
“I live in the invisible village down there,” he said, pointing downward as we stood midway.
“How do you know where it is if it’s invisible?”
“It’s visible to me,” he grinned.
“Were you ever able to grant any wishes? Being that you, in your words, you soaked them up?”
Gaz grinned. “Oh, just one.”
“Oh?”
“For a while, I was someone's friend.”
I opened my mouth, shut it, and then smiled. “Goodbye,” I said.
He nodded, then walked off, into the visible mists.
Based on the ‘scenarios’ prompt — A hiker finds an old stone well, built into the side of a mountain
