Gnomes

I am disgusted by gnomes. I am also jealous. My disgust might in fact just be jealousy. But for now, I shall read it as disgust.

The gnomes are men of leisure. They are comfortably dressed, comfortably seated often. They usually reside in gardens. They often have a hobby, say, fishing, or smoking a pipe.

Because of the altered system of priorities and responsibilities in the magical plane of reality upon and within which gnomes live, they don’t work. Simply by being gnomes, they survive. They endure. While their paint scratches and flakes off, they watch everything around them rot and die, without ever having to move off of their perch to battle for sustenance in the mud with the other creatures.

This makes them cheery, it seems. At least from afar. But perhaps, when approached, we can see more clearly how this idle state has taken a toll on them. They seem wonderfully at peace from the kitchen window, but a closer look shows them to be worse for wear, and their state of (non)affairs less desirable. It’s less certain they’re really enjoying themselves.

Maybe comfort is disgusting. And yet I am still jealous of them. Maybe I want to be disgusting.

Pictured are 6 drawings of gnomes I have made, with a fine-liner and a red crayon, on brown paper. Also, a small sculpture, made with a gnome I found in the big Tesco in Surrey Quays Shopping Centre, an offcut of wood, and two screws.

When I saw the gnome in big Tesco, I hatched a nasty plan. I wanted to get that gnome off his ass. Now, because I am cruel to him, he is stood up, bearing the log he used to lay against.

P.S... I will happily accept allegations of ageism in this mythological analysis of mine. Those concerns are not unfounded and I share them too. I can only plead that my feelings on the humble (or smug??) gnome are very conflicted and still a work in progress