"You don't really exist, do you?"
"Well," he said, pulling at his long beard with a gnarled little hand, his booted little feet barely reaching the edge of the seat and showing dark leather soles scratched and patterned by years and miles, "that depends on who's looking."
He didn't exist, of course. Couldn't.
Still, as if to humor the hallucination, I asked, "Can I touch you?"
He hesitated, but after a heartbeat or two answered as if he had not, "Of course."
So, surprised and not a little fascinated that my hallucination insisted on being real, I stood up and walked across to where he sat in my reading chair. What was it we called the gnomes back home in Sweden? Tomte. Yeah, that's right. Tomte. Yes, and this one looked exactly like that. And so lifelike.
I've had them before, these hallucinations, but not for a while, and never this strong. And now to make him vanish.
I took him in as I approached. His long, gray beard slithered down his chest like a frosty river all the way to his knees where it came to curly rest. He was probably all of three feet, if that. And look at those little hands, back in his lap now, keeping each other company. They struck me as miniature carpenter hands, tawny, knotted, strong, able. Far too vivid to be true.
I almost giggled at how real he seemed, a little nervously.
I should have been terrified, and would have been had I been new to this, but I had seen them before, and I knew that this one would, just like the others, vanish before I could reach him. Just like the one on the boulder, back in Sweden. The first one. All those years ago.
Atop the large boulder near the marsh.
:
The spring sunshine made the gray of stone and the gray and black of lichen blend and shimmer. And there he was, sitting on the boulder, still as anything. Just like this one right now, he just sat there watching me approach. Not friendly, not unfriendly, just an old gnome: pointed cap, white hair, and so very small. The wind played with his long, gray beard and tried to rob him of his cap. At one point he grabbed it with one hand to make sure the wind didn't get away with it, all the while watching me. So very, very real.
This first time I was too young (or too dumb) to be scared and I made straight for the boulder to take a closer look. What I actually meant to do was to talk to him (to hear my mother tell it, I would talk to anyone and—apparently—anything). I waded through the marshy grass and soon reached the foot of boulder and the gnome was still there, watching me.
I glanced down at the lower part of the boulder to locate the crevice I had used many times for foothold in order to scale the big rock. I found it easily enough and then looked up for the usual hand-hold to grasp and now there was only air where the gnome had been. A fast and bright April cloud shot out over the edge of the rock—so very white against so very blue that gnomes couldn't possibly exist.
I've always been told that I had fantasy to spare—a vivid imagination, that's what I had, and that's how my parents explained me and my tales to others (especially teachers).
Just imagination. And the air was so fresh and the trees were just budding and you could smell the entire world as the wood rustled and sighed and the last of the snow, gray now instead of white, lingered in the shadows.
It was a wonderful, gnome-less spring-world.
"You don't really exist, do you?"
"Well," he said, pulling at his long beard with a gnarled little hand, his booted little feet barely reaching the edge of the seat and showing dark leather soles scratched and patterned by years and miles, "that depends on who's looking."
He didn't exist, of course. Couldn't.
Still, as if to humor the hallucination, I asked, "Can I touch you?"
He hesitated, but after a heartbeat or two answered as if he had not, "Of course."
So, surprised and not a little fascinated that my hallucination insisted on being real, I stood up and walked across to where he sat in my reading chair. What was it we called the gnomes back home in Sweden? Tomte. Yeah, that's right. Tomte. Yes, and this one looked exactly like that. And so lifelike.
I've had them before, these hallucinations, but not for a while, and never this strong. And now to make him vanish.
I took him in as I approached. His long, gray beard slithered down his chest like a frosty river all the way to his knees where it came to curly rest. He was probably all of three feet, if that. And look at those little hands, back in his lap now, keeping each other company. They struck me as miniature carpenter hands, tawny, knotted, strong, able. Far too vivid to be true.
I almost giggled at how real he seemed, a little nervously.
I should have been terrified, and would have been had I been new to this, but I had seen them before, and I knew that this one would, just like the others, vanish before I could reach him. Just like the one on the boulder, back in Sweden. The first one. All those years ago.
Atop the large boulder near the marsh.
:
The spring sunshine made the gray of stone and the gray and black of lichen blend and shimmer. And there he was, sitting on the boulder, still as anything. Just like this one right now, he just sat there watching me approach. Not friendly, not unfriendly, just an old gnome: pointed cap, white hair, and so very small. The wind played with his long, gray beard and tried to rob him of his cap. At one point he grabbed it with one hand to make sure the wind didn't get away with it, all the while watching me. So very, very real.
This first time I was too young (or too dumb) to be scared and I made straight for the boulder to take a closer look. What I actually meant to do was to talk to him (to hear my mother tell it, I would talk to anyone and—apparently—anything). I waded through the marshy grass and soon reached the foot of boulder and the gnome was still there, watching me.
I glanced down at the lower part of the boulder to locate the crevice I had used many times for foothold in order to scale the big rock. I found it easily enough and then looked up for the usual hand-hold to grasp and now there was only air where the gnome had been. A fast and bright April cloud shot out over the edge of the rock—so very white against so very blue that gnomes couldn't possibly exist.
I've always been told that I had fantasy to spare—a vivid imagination, that's what I had, and that's how my parents explained me and my tales to others (especially teachers).
Just imagination. And the air was so fresh and the trees were just budding and you could smell the entire world as the wood rustled and sighed and the last of the snow, gray now instead of white, lingered in the shadows.
It was a wonderful, gnome-less spring-world.
The Mother Ship
The Mother Ship
