From the Garden to the Hood: The Untold Story of Gnome the Gnome.

            Hey there. How’s it going? My name is Gnome the Gnome. Gee willikers. No one ever gets my name right the first time. Its not Gnome the Gnome, but rather Ganome the Gnome. That is, you have to pronounce the g in the first Gnome. So go ahead and try it again, would you? There’s nothing I hate more in this world than people who don’t care enough to pronounce my name right. I mean it is a simple form of respect to call someone by his or her correct name, is it not? Ok. Now that we have that formality out of the way, we can move onto the more important things. Things like, why is a garden gnome talking to you, where did this garden gnome come from, and why is this garden gnome hanging out in such a rough neighborhood? You’re probably thinking to yourself you would never ever let your kids or any loved one walk around in this hellhole of a place. So what am I doing here? What am I doing here? I ask myself that question a lot these days. I mean, when you think of a gnome, and a garden gnome in particular, images of the hood don’t really pop up do they?  They don’t and they shouldn’t have to. But sadly, here I am. Perched atop this falling down deck. At least I’m in the sunlight most of the day. The nights do get a little cold sometimes, but I just remind myself the sun will shine in a few hours. Us gnomes, we thrive in the sunlight. After all, gardens do grow from the sun, so it would only make sense that we would be in our happiest state in the sun. Winters are the hardest. I’ll admit it. When the sun doesn’t shine for days, and I’m forced to sit here in the rain I think I might not make it through. Besides people pronouncing my name wrong, the thing I hate most is when rain slowly drips down my face and there’s nothing I can do to wipe it away. Sometimes all I really wish for is for my arms to move. I have arms, don’t get me wrong, but they’re kind of stuck to my body. They’re pretty useless in fact. But sorry folks, I digress from the topic. Wait, I’m not sure that there is a topic at this time. How bout I make a topic? Let’s talk bout how I ended up in this little situation I’m in. Like I said before, it’s pretty strange to be talking to a garden gnome who’s posting in the ghetto. But believe me, it wasn’t always this way. I’ve only been here for about a year now. In fact it will be a year exactly in about three days. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been so long. Seems like it was yesterday when I was placed by Knuckles here on his deck. Nope, Knuckles isn’t his real name. It’s a nickname he got from his buddies. They call him that because he always is using his knuckles. He’s a pretty violent guy. But I suppose you have to be to live in these neighborhoods. Like they say, it’s a dog eat dog world. Every man for himself. Heck, I’ve lived my whole life in solitude. And look at me. I turned out all right. I’m a little weathered. But I’m all right. Yet again, however, I digress from the topic of how knuckles ended up placing me here on his deck. My earliest memory from my gnome childhood is crying after I fell on my face. My mother had to help me up. She sang me a lullaby that I’ve carried with me my whole life. Whenever I’m sad or a just a little down, the tune soothes me. I really miss my mother. She was a great gnome. One of the best actually. Always doing her duty. And she didn’t just do it, she did it with pride. She was a proud gnome. One of the proudest. I miss her so much. She’s been gone now about thirty years. It was just her time to go. By the end she was covered head to toe in cracks and chips. It was such a heartache to see her. I think it was the right decision for Amber to throw her away though. Every gnome dreads the day when you are thrown away. But it has to come. Just like humans die, us gnomes eventually reach a point where we can no longer give off good luck. And when we do, it’s our time to go. But mother, she gave off so much good luck in her day. It was sad to see her go. But it was time. Anyways, I brought up my earliest memory because at that time we were living in Missouri. Missouri seems like such a long time ago. Those were the happy times. I lived with my family. We were all happy. We lived in this beautiful garden. It was the perfect life. The weather was beautiful. Our family of twelve got along great. I miss all of them. Living by yourself really reminds you to not take family for granted. I sure did take it for granted back then. And now I’m all alone. Anyways, life was great for a little while. I remember when it started to go south quickly though. Our clan, if you will, was very dependent on mother. The dependence was alright while mother was around. But once mother got the trashcan, our clan was consumed by complete and total chaos. The hierarchy of gnomes was shattered, because everyone wanted to be in charge. But nobody could successfully do it. It was with this pandemonium that we tried to live for about a month. But during this month, the worst thing happened. We let our garden start to go. Flowers stopped blooming, plants died. And this was all before our eyes, but no one seemed to notice, or to care. We were all too worried about who should have the power. And the thing about gnomes is, that their success and happiness is solely dependent on the success and happiness of the garden. If the garden starts to die, the owners of the garden will most likely stop caring. And once they stop caring, the garden gets beyond manageable. Once it becomes unmanageable, well, there’s really no use for a gnome. But excuse me, I find myself digressing again. After mother died, well, the garden went to hell. All kinds of beautiful plants and flowers died. It was such a shame. That’s a gnome’s worst nightmare. And sadly, for our clan, it came true. Oh so very true. So like I said, once a garden dies there’s really no use for us gnomes. And so like we all feared, out came Amber. The look on her face while she trounced through her once glowing garden, was one of shame, of disappointment. And if we had the ability to change the stupid looking grins that forever inhabit our faces, we would have had the same look. That look of hers, it killed me. Our clan had failed her, and now it seemed as though she was giving up on us. She trounced through our home, our sanctuary, and one by one she picked us up and threw us into a big crate. The eleven of us remaining suddenly found ourselves cramped in a crate, and one on top of the other. Crushing each other, we waited for the sunshine. I have no idea how long we. It could have been a day, or a month. But the darkness was engulfing. It was everywhere, and everything. Some of the younger members of our clan had trouble dealing with it. When all you’ve known your whole life is the sun, darkness can do unimaginable things to you. So we sat, we waited, seemingly forgotten, until one day the top came off and the sun poured in around us. I’ve never been blinded like that before and when my eyes finally adjusted, we were all lined up on a table. We each had a price tag on us, and then I knew. Amber was selling us. That traitorous, backstabbing…well forgive me. I don’t like to speak ill of people. But, none of us could believe it. We were going to be separated. We probably would never see each other again. Those few hours on the table were the worst of my life. One by one people came, bought each one of us, and hurried off in different directions. Soon, there were only four of us remaining. And then three. And then two. And then finally, someone came and pointed at my brother, and then I was on my own. I’ve been on my own ever since. Everyday I think about my family. We were so close. And now thousands of miles probably separate us. No one should have to deal with losing family. It’s not fair. But then again, that’s life. Some people say life’s to be treasured. But life is hard to treasure alone. So anyways, I sat alone on the table for a few more hours. Longest hours of my life. Finally, a man in a tie-dyed grateful dead t-shirt staggered up to the table. He smiled, almost laughing, and pointed at me. A few dollars exchanged hands, and the man grabbed me. I didn’t know what to expect. The man was nothing like I had ever seen. Parked a few yards away from my old home was a large bus. This wasn’t your average school bus though. It was painted all kinds of crazy colors, and on the side read, “love is all you need.” Clutching me tightly in his sweating hands, the man stumbled onto the bus. The inside of the bus was filled with couches and beds and the bus smelled strongly of skunk. It seemed odd to me that this bus would smell of skunk, but what was I to do? This was my new home, and all I could do was adjust. Adjusting was hard, to say the least. This bus was nothing like my home in Missouri. Smoke constantly skewed my vision, and at times I almost felt like I was floating. It was the weirdest sensation I had ever felt. My time on that bus all seems blurry to me now. I have no idea how much time passed on that bus, and the things I saw are hard to put into words. Compared to where I am now though, I miss those times. As soon as the tie-dyed man brought me onto the bus, he placed me on the dash. And there I sat, perched at the front, forced to take in all that surrounded me. There were probably about ten people living on that bus, and there was a constant background noise of laughing, giggling at times. Compared to the silence I’m forced to withstand now, I miss that noise. Those people were so gosh darn happy. Anyways, we drove. We drove, and we drove, and we kept driving. We would stop occasionally. There was usually some kind of music involved with the stopping. Before this part of my life, I never got to hear music. Now it’s all I hear. I saw more people during my time on the bus, than most gnomes would see in five life times. They were all the same though. They were all dirty, and they all laughed constantly. After a long period of floating, laughing, and strange music, I saw from my perch a sign that read, “Welcome to California.” I had heard stories of California when I was growing up. The stories were all folklore though. The way they were told, you could easily have thought California was a made up place. The hustling and bustling cities, the oceans and palm trees, the constant moving of people. They were all stories though. I would never have dreamed that I would ever actually find myself in California though. The amazement nearly killed me. We kept driving past that sign, and all I could think of was those stories. Mostly mother had told them. She had met a gnome once, before she settled at Ambers, before the she started the clan that had been there. They had seen it all before. Mother would have been proud of me. I like to think that though. In reality though, mother would be disgusted. She would be disgusted with us for fighting, for letting her precious garden go. She would be disgusted to know that we had all been separated, sold off like some object. My mother hated to think of us like objects. She would always tell us that us gnomes, we have way too much pride, too much love for what we do, to be thought of as objects. It was her dream actually, that one-day gnomes would have freedom. That we wouldn’t be allowed to be owned, sold, tossed around at the discretion of our “owners.” No one ever had the courage to tell her that it would never happen though. However, I’m glad no one told her. She would have been crushed. Ah, once again, I’m so sorry for digressing. When I think of mother my mind wanders. Back to my journey though. After entering California we drove for some time, until one day, we didn’t drive anymore. After all the days of driving, the months of driving, I never got to drive in that bus again. They just left. I never saw the dirty people again. You know what? You probably think I was fine with that. But believe me, I got into such a rhythm with them. The constant bumpiness of the road, the smoke, the strange behavior. I still miss it. After the initial shock of the change of scenery, I started to somewhat enjoy it. I mean you have to remember that us gnomes aren’t made for cross-country road trips, but I actually kind of liked it. Sometimes I get to wondering that maybe gnomes don’t have to spend their whole lives in a garden. Sure, that’s why were here. That’s our purpose, but still…there’s a whole world that I never knew really existed. Now don’t get me wrong, I still miss my family to death. I always will miss them. They’re family, and nothing makes you forget family. But this world, I’ve come to realize just how big it is. Come on, look at me. Now I’m in California. That mystical land of bedtime stories. Here I am. But don’t let me appear to be happy. I’m not happy. I’m miserable in fact. The things I’ve seen…no gnome should have to witness. We’re a happy folk. Just look at the stupid grin on my face. We’re supposed to live in gardens and bring luck to the flowers. We’re not suppose to see people get shot, beaten and robbed. Unfortunately the answer to the question your asking yourself right now, is yes. I have seen those things. I’ve seen more than I feel comfortable telling you about. Cars come slowly rolling down the street and I’ve learned to hold my breath. If I could move than I would duck. But I can’t move. If I could move, believe you me, I would not still be here. But with the blessing (or curse) of being a gnome, all I can do is hold my breath and hope the spray of bullets don’t come my way. One time, I felt the wind from a bullet passing by. It was right up there on the list of scariest moments in my life. Sometimes at night, all I can think about is back home in Missouri. I don’t know if I can call it home anymore. This deck is my home now. But sometimes all I can think of is my family and the times we spent together. The constant cheerfulness of my memories haunts me now. There’s no cheer where I live, just despair and hopelessness. It’s no ones fault really; it’s just a vicious cycle. A cycle that swept up Knuckles and countless other kids. I say kids, but by anyone’s standards Knuckles is no kid. By my estimate he’s around thirty. But who’s to trust a gnome? Anyways, like I said before, Knuckles is a violent man. I’ve seen him go crazy before. When he starts on one of us rampages, there’s not stopping him. The emptiness in his eyes during these rampages is heartbreaking. I don’t know what triggers his anger, but I do know that when it starts all I can do is look away. You’re probably wondering how Knuckles ended up with me on his deck. After all, that’s where my story began isn’t it? I was on that bus for days. Remember the crazy painted bus I told you about? It sat in a parking lot unnoticed for days. People passed by, some glanced inside, but they all eventually kept walking. That is, except for Knuckles. I remember him glancing in, smushing his face against the glass. After several seconds of staring, almost in awe, he entered the bus. The bus probably smelled awful because he didn’t stay long inside. He stayed just long enough to grab me off the dashboard, and then he bounded away. He carried me for a few blocks and after laughing to himself, placed me on his deck. And here I sit. Watching everything. I guess you could say I’m waiting too. I’m not sure for what though. Maybe just for a change. I don’t like it here, it’s cold and the despair is everywhere. You can feel it. There’s not a garden in sight. Just cement and rundown buildings for as far as you can see. This is no place for a gnome. This is no place for anybody really. And so now you’ve heard my story. I hope I haven’t bored you too much with my rambling. When you haven’t heard your own voice in so long, it’s hard not to ramble. But I appreciate you listening. No one has really taken the time to listen. As a gnome it’s easy to feel unappreciated. Sure, some people find us amusing to look at. We seem to be able to make people laugh. But no one cares enough to listen to us. So again, I thank you. And now I am going to go on living my life. And as you continue to do the same, try not to forget my story. Knowing that someone cares suddenly makes life a little easier to live. Namaste.