Gnomeville's Mystery - Part 10
There have been 9 of these so far. Each has been from a different person. We have passed the story to a new person after each to add what they wish to it. Each and every one has been wonderful! They have all added to the story and its complexity. We are coming to a point in the story that things might start coming together. I'm honored to be part of such a creative and communal effort.
If you have not already read parts 1-9 then I highly recommend it before reading this.
Gnomeville's Mystery ~ Part One by @snook
Nerffin and the Troll Baby, Gnomeville's Mystery ~ Part 2 by @grindan
Gnomeville's Mystery ~ Part 3: Rainbows and Cupcakes by @enginewitty
Gnomeville's Mystery ~ Part 4 by @wwwiebe
Gnomeville's Mystery -- Part V -- The Not-So-Dead Tree by @summertooth
Gnomeville's Mystery - Part 6 by @slothlydoesit
Gnomeville's Mystery Part 7 - A Family Told Tale of Gnomes by @bigtom13
A Gnomeville Mystery - Part the Eighth by @willendorfia
Gnomeville's Mystery ~ Number 9 by @omra-sky
Thanks for all the twists and turns guys, it's a real treat!
I'd like to thank @willendorfia for linking the Blue Willow Discord. For todays post I spent some time with blue willow. Just playing really, but I came out with some great art from it. It was from that art that I was able to hand craft a wonderful tale! From the images I was able to get there, a full brain of previous stories, and just a bit of ingenuity.... 😉 We've got ourselves a part 10!
Without further ado...
Gnomevilles Mystery Part 10
Gnome One's Awakening
"I'm alone now. Hmmm. Have I been here before? Where? Alone? Who me? Yes you! Oh yes, I've been there! That's where we're going!" he expresses brightly.
Then down the trail he trots merrily mumbling aloud, "The goo, yes. Who gets the go? You gets the goo. Oohhoo! I gets the goo!".
"But wait!" Gnome One exclaims... stopping dead in his tracks.
"If I gets the goo, then who am I?" he asked.
"Well you're you." he returned, a bit slower as if deep in thought.
"I'm... Gnome... One." he said almost in a hush.
"If I'm Gnome One then who's Gnome Two?" he said sadly.
"Well Gnome One, you are Gnome Two... I'm not Gnome Two, Gnome Two is you!" he shouted!
"If I'm Gnome Two, Gnome Two is you for I am you!" his voice echoed through the underworld.
"Well I'm not Gnome Two! So you aren't either!" he concluded sternly. "Let's get an ale and sort this out." he grumbled, as he began to walk merrily... mumbling once again. "Where is the ale? The ale is gnowhere! If the ale is gnowhere how will we get there?" and in a blip he was on the far outskirts of Gnomeville in front of a tree.
As Gnome One approached the tree, still merrily mumbling as if not skipping a beat, a door began to form and a sign above it saying only "Gnowhere Bar". He entered, closed the door and the sign and door disappear back into the tree.
He casually takes a table like he owns the place, the server, Gnelly, saw him enter and was already on route to the table to drop it off.
"Fa' Koon Steven." he stated intently. "Fa'Koon, koon, fa', koo, steven, ste stevie, kroon..." he went on for quite some time. "Arghh!! Another ale!" he shouted and continued to grumble on under his breath. "I know I'm somebody damn it!" slapping his hand on the table.
Gnelly, overhearing his grumbles, let's out; "It's Charles you old nincompoop! Charles Kune, you're Gnome One. You made me remember it literally eons ago when we first met." "We've met?" expressed Gnome One. "For gnomes sake ya ripe geezer ya carved it into the bottom of the table. Told me to say the name and remind you if you ever forgot."
In a haste he flips the table over, spilling what's left of his ale everywhere and sees: "Charles Kune = Fa' Koon. You're Gnome One. Drink one more ale".
As he stands up the server is there with an ale in hand stating; "And you told me to give ya this too now get yourself situated while I clean this up". "Every freakin time..." she mumbles under her breath as she cleaned with an endearing smirk.
Gnome one goes back to grumbling at his table. "Charles Kune." he muttered under his breath as he searched his memories. About half way through the ale he shouts "Eureka!" jumping this time, knocking the table and ale over again. "Gnelly! I've got to go!" he shouts and bolts for the door! "Not without your damn pipe ya senile goat!" Gnelly shouts with a gentle, almost loving, smirk on her face handing him his pipe.
Taking it in a rush, he takes 3 more steps and in a blip is at his place combing through a mountain of books, papers and old photos. Then, there it was... a picture....
Shaking at the sight of it he trembles "I remember everything." "I'm Gnome One. I'm the first gnome of Gnomeville. I was human." I remember it all. The transformation was brutal." he says softly, nearly in tears, to himself. Shit, have I been a gnome for 56 years? That is so long. Not a aging can really make a guy forget time I suppose." he said softly. I'll never forget how terrible it was. It was like a sickness, it spread through my whole body.
"It was so, so painful." he continued with a cringe. Eventually my friends and family left because of the transformation. In fear they may also catch it. I lost everything, it took me over. Eventually I felt myself being wrapped in some sort of cacoon..." he went on. "But before that!" he exclaimed...
"I remember..." he said looking to the ceiling.
"Oh shit!" he exclaimed a the sight of is old photo from just becoming a gnome. "No wonder the stork left me!" he adds scoffing as he let out a small chuckle.
"It wasn't just me though... was it? There was someone else." he gasped.
"Norman! Norman Crantz, that old devil!" He let out with a hoot at the sight of his old pal's photo!
Then sighed. "Where are ya Norman?" He looked at the back and saw Normans name scribbled there with a date of 1967. "I miss ya, ya kooky bastard." he said softly as he packed the pipe Gnelly wouldn't let him forget.
It was then that he remembered Norman was the only one with him as he started to transform. That somehow Norman caught it too. Yet, Normans transformation was far worse than his own. As he reminisced with the photo began to remember the gruesome transformation that his lost pal Norman went through.
He found some old pictures of Normans Wife, Qwenith:
"Ah Qwenith." he remarked fondly. "Where has time gone? You're long gone and Norman is in the wind."
"Norman." he says with a reminiscent tear, "I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry. Your transformation seemed endless but you finally made it. Yet, I'm not remembering..."
"Oh fuck!" Gnome One cries seeing pictures they had taken of the transformation that Norman went through, "Did we take these out of morbidness? Sheer curiousity?" he thought.
"Normans transformation was fast! Gnome One reminisced. "Well, the first stage of it was. I remember it now. We were just outside having a beer like a normal Tuesday night and within a matter of an hour, tops, Norman was a gnome. I'm not a talking about a living, breathing, real gnome mind you, a solid concrete super heavy gnome!! No one could pick him up.
Took him 3 months to get out of that exact position in the yard. During that time, whatever cocoon-ness had me all wrapped up had spit me out inside of some house I'd never been in in my life and when I walked outside it was fucking tree!"
"Qwenith took care of both of us, hoping each day to see Norman whole again. What a doll!" he remarked with a glint in his eye.
"When he woke up though, total gnome. He was like the gnome of gnomes. That is my guy Norman. I was so excited when he woke up and he knew right away who I was gnome or not." Gnome One proclaimed.
"He went out that same night, hair as red as the sunset... stood on a rock... and changed. By morning Norman was a troll.
"Qwenith became afraid of him. She left and his whole world fell apart. Almost 3 years he was a troll. Every single night of it he went out to that rock hoping it would change him back to a human. I stuck around him. He was pretty sad most of the time. Angry a lot... hungry all the time!" he continues with a chuckle.
"Oh Norman," he mutters softly to himself, "you had everything with Qwenith. It was so sad when she left."
It was not long after Qwenith left that Norman recovered to being a gnome. On the 967th day of him howling at the moon all night, he finally changed back into a gnome by whatever strange magic we both caught in the forest. He became a gnome again."
"But he was different", Gnome One goes on. "He...shh!"
"Hmm... thought I heard something. Oh well, after Norman came back we made a deal. Since we're gnomes and sort of immortal now, why don't we vow to never be mean to any creatures. That we would only use our magic for good and that we would make a place that any gnome could live and be happy." he says. "So we created Gnomeville to be that place. A place for all gnomes to live and be happy." he said sounding confused. "We made a deal with the trees and everything should be good." he finished in a huff.
"Then why..."
Easily distracted, he interrupts himself with; "Well, being a gnome was fairly easy to get used to. I mean, you get to fuck with magic, so we were having fun at first."
"Not being human anymore we did not need our human names so we even renamed ourselves. I picked Fa'Koon, hoping it would remind me of Charles Kune, but Norman picked something else I can't remember. He kept calling me Steven and we would banter back and forth. It was a great time being a Gnome with Norman back then. The village was growing, gnomes were happy..."
"One day Norman just got fed up though. He told me he had to become human again. That he had to get back to Qwenith. Said he heard that you could become human again by getting enough humans to see you again." rambles Gnome One.
"I was like, Norman stick around here and chill we just created this dope spot for all gnomes to live and be happy."
"He's like, No way Charles, watching her go like that was just way to hard."
"And I understood. Before I knew it, he was walking away. Out to become human by making them see him a lot. I seriously thought he was crazy."
He had really been through it. So there was nothing I could do to stop him. He was my friend, maybe I coulda... shh"
"Oh, I guess it was nothing. I thought I saw something out the window." he remarks.
"What was it that Norman changed his name to?" Gnome One thought as he tried tirelessly to remember...."
"Oh my! That's right, he used to send postcards!" hollered Gnome One, digging deeper into his pile of photos. "I'll find something." he says, still digging.
"Here they are! I don't believe it, it's working! I should have been keeping up!" he yells. Digging even further, and more hastily. "There's Norman, there he is! And he's nearly human!" he shouts. "I can't believe it! Haaaaa!" he lets out a roar that could be heard throughout the forest. "Let's see here... hey, I've been...yada yada..." he quiets to a murmur as he reads...
"That's it!" he yells. "Here it is! Here it is! Here it is! Here's his name on the back of one of his postcards!" he yells again, so overwhelmed he jumped and hit his head on the light above him.
"It says right here," he reads, "Greetings from your pal Gnomer."
"Look, look, look!" he yells as if he means to show them to himself. "I'll show you!"
"Here is right after he got his first bike. This one reads:
Greetings from your pal Gnomer,
I just got my first motocycle. I've been using its loud engine to scare humans in to looking at me. I think it's working, I'm feeling more human already. Thanks for supporting me when I became a troll. I'll never forget you man.
"I don't know if it's working Gnomer, your face is kinda..."
"Oh here's another, this one says:
Dear Charles,
I'm sorry I left. Gnomeville was fun but I've really needed to process all of this. It's not been easy. You've always been a good friend. I got a new bike. These days I just dig riding it. It's a killer feeling. Not sure if I'm becoming any more human but I've met a lot of great people now. I've also started to adjust to how everything happened man. Some tragic shit, but I'll push through. signed "Norman/Gnomer, your lost friend"
"Good for you Gnomer, I've been so worried!" he lets out in a hoot!
"This next one reads:"
Charles Fa'Koon Steven Kune,
My dear friend. It's been a long time brother and I feel torn. Qwenith is long gone, I've moved on and I'm doing really well. I got a job as a movie double in a cartoon series. Life is actually great man. I'm missing you and I'm missing Gnomeville. I can feel something is different there and I want to come home. I don't know if I can though. I've dedicated so much of my life to becoming human again, that I'm not sure if I can make it back to Gnomeville now. I sure wish you were here right now, You always knew what to do. signed "Norman Crantz, friends forever" PS, the the bike is new.
"And here is the last one." Gnome One says softly, sounding almost sad as he reads. "It's dated June 14th 2023. Wait, that was just a couple weeks ago! he shouts. I have to read this one! Does he say where he is?!" Overwhelmed he reads the heading, his reading becoming slower and more concerned sounding as he read aloud to himself...
Charles Kune,
This might be the last time I can send you a postcard. I'm so close to human now that I've lost touch of what it means to be a gnome. I don't know my way back to Gnomeville and every day it's a struggle to remember how to write you these post cards. Christ, I have not seen a gnome in so long its crazy. I was at Yosemite National Park yesterday looking for Gnomeville and caught this human laying down near Mariposa Grove. Some bigmouth, the bike was not loud enough to scare this one. Instead he talked to me so I offered him a beer and we bullshitted for a while.
He's not a drinker so more for me but ya know he really got me thinkin. Maybe I don't really want to be a human anymore. I've been fine for decades as a gnome. Had a ton of fun scaring humans into looking at me. Yet, once i was done talking to this guy, I transformed more than ever toward being a human again. I'm nearly human now look at me! The bike is pretty sweet to right?
Honestly, I'm kinda lost though Charles, I'm not sure which way is up. I might have made a mistake taking this path. Sure hope we get to see each other once more in this life. You stood by me brother. You were a bright light in a dark tunnel. I will never forget you. signed "Your Gnomer."
"Oh no! What do I do?" yells Gnome One! "Yosemite National Park?! Two weeks ago?! That's super close to Gnomeville! How long has he been riding around looking for us?!" he sad in a panic. "I have to find him! Or... he has to find me? If he finds me, I'll never find him! I've got to find Gnomer!" He shouts as he franticly dances about.
"Calm yourself down old gnome." he says to himself sounding and feeling wise. "You'll not get anywhere going in half cocked. Remember, the young bull that ran in only fucked one. The older bull that walked in calmly fucked them all." he states attempting a look of wisdom toward himself. "I'm not sure what you're on about over there." he states plainly, "But I'm gonna hit this pipe one last time before I go find Gnomer."
Upon hitting the pipe for the final time before his incredible journey...
He's nearing the door...
Pipe in hand...
"Wait!" he shouts, standing inches from the door. "What about Gnelly?!
All Images from my inputs at Blue Willow Discord AI.
Gnomeville's Mystery Part 10
Gnome One's Awakening
This chapter by Michael David
Co-founder of #thealliance and loyal since before the egg.
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