Fiction Fragment Friday

A quick update on NaNoWriMo. I think I have something really special with this years novel. Unfortunately I have had some setbacks on writing it this week. I am behind. I will need to do quite a bit of writing this weekend to catch up, but I know I can do it. I also have some time off around Thanksgiving that I can use to catch up as well. I have not given up.

For this week I have something new. I had a sentence or two pop into my head and it amused me enough to write the whole story. I hope you enjoy this light and fun Fiction Fragment Friday.

  I hear the pitter patter of little feat coming down the hall.  If only it were children, but mine are long grown and moved out.  The little feat I hear are the gnomes most likely tracking mud all through my house.  I’ve seen those tiny little feet prints so many mornings, but yesterday morning was the last straw.  I opened my bedroom door and stepped in a pile of dog poop.  I don’t even own a dog and if I did, I’m certain it couldn’t spell out the words “watch your step” in its own feces.  The sound from the hall had to be the gnomes and I was well past the point of being fed up. 

  I got up out of bed and stomped to my bedroom door.  Opening the door, I paused to examine the hall.  First, I looked down to make sure there was nothing in front of my door.  I would not fall for the same trick again.  Then I looked both ways down the hall.  There were in fact muddy footprints on my floor, but I didn’t see what made them.  I took a step out into the hall only to trip over one of my golf clubs sticking out in front of my feet.  The floor quickly approached my face and I barely had time to put my hands out to absorb the impact.  The club had not been there when I looked down. 

  I heard that annoying cackle throughout the hall.  The little buggers were laughing at me.  It sounds like it was coming from all around me including the bedroom I had just come out of.  I turned back and saw that my wife’s underwear drawer had been opened and its contents thrown all over the room.  A bra was dangling from the ceiling fan slowly turning in a circle.  I looked to my bed and found a large water stain on it positioned to make it look like I had wet the bed.  My water class sat empty on the nightstand.  I reached down and picked up the golf club.  This had gone on long enough.

  “Get out here and face me you stupid porcelain menaces,” I whispered.  I didn’t want to make too much noise and wake my sleeping wife. 

  I looked up at the bed again and got my first glimpse of a gnome actually moving.  It was standing on my bed next to my wife.  It held a finger to its lips like it was shushing me.  Then it pulled its hand back as far as it could and with one swing of its tiny little arm smacked my wife as hard as it could right on her bum.  She let out a loud yelp and slightly jumped causing her to roll off the bed and onto the floor.  She looked livid as she sat up and stared at me with eyes that could stop a charging army.  “Jeremy Brenner what the hell do you think you are doing?  Do you think that was funny?  I could have broken a hip.”

  “But honey it wasn’t me.  It was the gnomes.”  I knew I had made a mistake as soon as the words came out of my mouth.

  “Oh, not this nonsense again.  For the last time the neighbor’s gnomes are not alive and they are not out to get you.  You have just gotten forgetful in your old age and can’t remember where you put things.”  She stood up and looked at the bed.  “Is that what this is about?  Did you have an accident and were too embarrassed to say anything?  It’s just something that happens to men your age, but we’ll discuss it with your doctor at your next appointment.  Why don’t you go downstairs for a bit while I change the sheets and get the bed ready again?”

     “Yes dear.”  She didn’t understand.  She never believed me about the gnomes and who could blame her.  It did sound pretty ridiculous.  I sat my golf club down and left the bedroom.  When I stepped into the hall, I felt something squishy and almost slipped.  I managed to grab the door handle and not fall as I thought not again.  Looking down I saw the words “Bed Wetter” written in dog poop.  I heard the laughing again down the hall and the sound of the front door opening and shutting as the gnomes left the house.  I swear one of these days I’m going to get those gnomes, but for tonight once again they have won.