Almost a Garden Gnome

Chapter 1

I've got a scythe in one hand and a hoe in the other. I'm wearing what looks to be a dirt-colored, hooded potato sack loosely around my body, and I've got a big fishnet in tow. I guess when you become a little Grimm-Reaper looking dwarf in someone's garden, you've got to come to terms with your life-choices. And I guess when you take on that role hoping to ogle at a smart-dressed twentysomething year old guy, you've got to come to terms with your character flaws. I like this guy. He's nothing like me. I hope he doesn't have a hoe in his hand right now.

Take the first guy you've ever fallen in love with. Now take the second guy. The third guy. The mail guy. The taxi guy. Hell, take any guy. Just keep taking the guys and stacking them on top of each other like cheerleaders until you've got a full sixteen of them (and then a little over half a guy). That's one hundred feet—that's how tall my guy is. Well, one hundred and change, I guess. What's twenty feet when you're already taller than sixteen guys?

Tuesday is grocery day. I skulk around in this putrid burlap rag, tied in the abdomen with a short rope to make me look more ladylike, but really making me look more like a rogue monk, just in case he notices something suspicious about his garden. It matches the color of the soil—kind of. It does now, anyway; I had to roll around in the dirt to get it stained this tone. Once again, I have to reflect on all of the things that have happened in my short life that led to this point.

My hope is that he doesn't see me, but then, my hope is that he does see me. You don't get it? I don't get it. I've been alone around here for so long that I talk to the squirrels just so I don't start talking to myself. Squirrels are not terribly conversational, and I am not terribly stable anymore, especially with the disappearing act I have no choice but to perform every time Man visits his backyard.

Somehow I want self-preservation, even with my questionable-quality lifestyle, and somehow I want human companionship—for me, two completely dissonant ideas, and two completely basic needs, the first of which I am barely satisfying. Sometimes, I talk to the squirrels in an English accent, just to keep things interesting (they are still pretty stoic).

So now, I'm looking up through the vines of this strawberry pot, trying not to stare directly into the sun, and thinking that I'm going to take a big step tomorrow, because what's to lose?

I'm-

Going to talk to a chipmunk.

Well, no. I'm going to talk to The Man. One small step for Man, one giant leap for mankind. And if Man isn't, in fact, kind, tomorrow will be my first time jumping down a squirrel hole.

As I'm unpacking my thoughts, I'm absentmindedly stabb- I mean weakening the vines with my scythe. No, not stabbing, because, like, 'stabby' would probably be another character flaw. A fat squirrel interrupts my thoughts as he effortlessly chews a monolithic strawberry fresh off the vine with his teeth—I say, "Wow!" And he swipes at me, chattering as he stuffs his face, looking like a blood-mouthed heathen with no finesse at all, the cocky bastard.

Pulling down my hood all emo-like, I jump up and roundhouse-kick a neighboring strawberry angrily, which, as you would imagine, stays very much attached to the long, green vine. As I'm gawking at the berry, impressed with myself for jumping so high, albeit with no fruits of my labor, I'm forced onto my knees by two very forceful squirrel paws crashing onto my shoulders—I scream, I hear squirrel-chattering, a berry unceremoniously smacks itself onto my head, and both squirrel and berry are off into the underbrush...

O-oh no...

I was always told I had a loud scream...