The Garden Gnome that moved

‘If you stand really, really still, they will not notice you and they will not hurt you.’

The Garden Gnome told the quivering leaf hanging next to him.

‘No movement whatsoever! They will just pass you by as not interesting and unwanted. And that is what you want, to be left alone!’

The Garden Gnome did not confirm understanding from the green, shiny leaf, he was just happy to have somebody to chat to. It had gotten so difficult these days to find somebody trustworthy to chat with.

They all seemed to have ulterior motives, nobody was just genuine nowadays.

The Gnome sat motionless surveying the garden.

Black birds were coming and going making noise and keeping busy with building yet another nest.

‘Wait ‘till the cat sees it!’, the Gnome muttered to himself making sure he was as still as possible.

The female Black bird (she was Brown actually, but in the old age tradition she had taken on the name of her husband) was carrying big smocks of dry grass somewhere in the ivy covering the garden walls. Her burden was bigger than her head, and the Gnome wondered how was she able to see where she was flying with the grass pointing at all angles in front of her eyes.

‘Whatever!’, the Gnome muttered to himself and made sure to remember to stand completely still so as not to draw attention.

That was when a large wood pigeon landed close to him and started to pick at the grass looking for seeds. The Gnome really would have liked it if all these birds had gone somewhere else, but unlike him, they did not sit still, they flew all about the place, made lots of noise and were a nuisance to the Gnome that just wanted to pass unnoticed.

Days were blending in nicely one into the other and the Gnome happily gave out to the sparrows, the doves, the finches, the black birds, the wood pigeons, and when they were at a safe distance even to the crows, all, of course, making sure he was motionless and unnoticed.

Until, on a bright, sunny day, the Gnome felt himself being plucked from the comfy garden soil and brought to the water faucet. Here, with quick hands, the woman of the house cleaned him and then, once done, put him up on a table to dry in the sun.

The Gnome felt so exposed there, high up, for everyone to see, freshly washed, with his camouflage of green moss and dirt all cleaned up. The end was near, he could feel it in his terracotta bones.

As the day progressed and the Gnome dried out, he could feel a nice warmth coming over him.

‘So, this is how the sun feels!’, he was surprised at how pleasant it was. He had never allowed himself to go to the sunny part of the garden, because that would have implied for him to move and everybody knew that movement can mean the end.

The Gnome spent the night high up on the table, and the next morning he enjoyed the most wonderful sunrise. He had never seen anything like that before and part of him was still in disbelief that it truly existed.

All these things were in the world, all these colors, truly mind boggling.

Another day spent in glorious sun, and the woman and the man came out of the house and joined him. While they were chatting companionably, the woman pulled out a box of paints and painstakingly started to paint him, bringing back to life all his beautiful colors faded by all the years spent hiding in the darkest, most humid corners of the garden.

When she was done, the Gnome was in awe of how beautiful his colors were and he was surprised at how happy that made him. He had forgotten all about what it means to take care of yourself and what effect that has on your state of mind.

Once the paint was all dried and he was ready, the woman returned him to the garden by placing him in the sunniest and most visible spot, she knew he usually liked to hide, but she thought to give it a try, you never know, maybe he had a change of heart.

And, as it turned out, he did. The Gnome loved his new spot, all nice and dry on a large flag stone, in a place where the sun seemed to shine only its gentlest rays all day, out of the way of the cat or the hedgehog, where he could still see all the birds and make sure they were behaving themselves.

Sometimes, when he was sure nobody was looking, the Gnome would even allow himself a little dance of happiness as sometimes, the happiness he felt needed to be expressed as otherwise he would burst out of his nicely painted shell.

‘This is happiness!’, the Gnome muttered to himself, while being battered by the Irish rain, ‘to know you are where you belong in the world.’