A Gnome of My Own

A Gnome of My Own

By Plot Roach

Nancy wiped the sweat off her forehead, careful not to touch her face with the noxious chemicals she was using to scrub the boulder clean. She was twenty minutes into the job and it looked as if her scouring were for naught. The colors of the spray paint bled a bit, but were not removed.

"You'll just have to go through the rest of your life with a bad tattoo, my friend" she said and patted the boulder while throwing the scouring pad in the bucket beside her. She shifted off the group of rocks and lost her balance when her foot came down on a pebble that rolled out from under her shoe.

Serves me right to die out here where no one would look for me or care, she thought, pulling herself up from the ground. Her hand came down on the side of the boulder and she pulled it back lightning fast -but not fast enough. Somewhere an edge she had not seen on the rock was sharp enough to cut her. A red line opened up in the middle of her palm and she flicked her hand, flinging red droplets everywhere.
 Nancy rummaged through her backpack looking for a bandana to stop the bleeding until she could clean and tend to the wound -which was hard to do one handed, since she didn’t want to bleed all over her bag if she could help it.

It wasn’t until she calmed down that she remembered to rinse the cut with water from her water bottle and remembered that she had tucked a spare bandana in her back pocket when it had fallen off her head earlier during her work on cleaning up the graffiti off of the boulders in the park.

Nature Walk Reserve was a little patch of peace and quiet in a city overrun by gangs, hoodlums and otherwise unsavory people. She wasn’t paid for the upkeep of the park, but she did it in the knowledge that she tried to keep this one little oasis from being swallowed up by the rest of the taint of the city.

She turned to the boulder and checked to see what kind of bloody mess she had left on the rock along with the smudged graffiti. But in her search she found nothing, not a trace of red that had not been added to the boulder from a spray paint can. She closely inspected the edge that had cut her –no, nothing there that she could see.

It was at that point that the poorly wrapped bandana felt off her hand and she began dripping again. She watched as tiny droplets of red splashed the base of the boulder -and then watched as they disappeared into the rock itself.
"What in the –" was all she managed to get out before the rock started moving and she was forced to backpedal in order to keep from being crushed by the rock –thing- that now stood before her. She tripped and her feet went out from under her –it was probably that damned pebble again.

"Help!" She squawked, going down. But the boulder-man moved faster than she even thought possible for such a large chunk of rock.

"By your command." It said. A voice low and filled with deep friction, as if it was made by the rubbing of stone on stone. Well what else would it be? She thought. He’s made of stone.

"Er..Can I help you?" She asked, extricating herself from the large stone person who had recently partaken of her blood –and hoped that he had had his fill.
"I am here to help you." it said.

"How is that possible?" she asked.

"You bled and brought me to life." The stone man said.

"And?" She asked, still backing away, afraid that he might get thirsty again.

"It is a pact between mage and elemental: You bleed to pay our price and we serve you until you banish us."

"Wait," she said. "I’m no mage."

"But magic flows in your blood." The stone man said.

Nancy was about ask what the stone thing meant when she remembered that her mother had said that her biological father had been a magician for kids parties and small events. Her mother had said that he was very talented, and could have made more of his life if he had only applied himself more. He had died in a car accident before Nancy was born. Coming home from a show at the children’s hospital to perform for terminally ill children, he had been side-swiped by a drunk driver and his car flew over a guardrail into the canyon below, killing not only himself, but his doves. Of the rabbit, they only found tufts of hair and assumed that coyotes had run off with it.

"Magic, huh?"

"Yes, my mistress. I am at your command."

He wasn’t bad looking for a boulder, she thought. Maybe I’ll call him Cliff, or Stone or something clever, but definitely suited to him.

"What is your first order?"

As she shifted her position to get a better look at him, her foot once again slipped out from under her, and she ended up twisting her ankle and wounding her pride. Once she was up, she glared at the ground and pointed, screaming: "Squash that damned pebble!"