You’ll have to excuse the fact that this next piece again features a gnome, but, honestly, there was no avoiding it.
Writer’s Digest Prompt: One day, you are out in your yard when the next-door neighbor’s garden gnome suddenly walks over and starts telling you about “what is really going on.” Write this scene. http://forum.writersdigest.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=33991&posts=24&start=1
My short story:
Sweat dripped down my sunburned cheeks one blistering afternoon. It had rained recently, so the mower was a bear to push through the thick, green grass as I edged closer to the privacy fence separating my lawn and my neighbor’s, so I stopped and cleaned the wet clumps of mulch from the blades. Seeing a large stick directly in my path, I picked it up, gave a quick look around, and tossed it over the fence, which seemed fair since the tree it came from was on his property.
“Watch it, ya meat head!” shouted a little voice with a heavy New Jersey accent.
I jumped to the privacy fence and looked over, seeing nobody that could have said anything. Convinced that the heat was getting to me, I headed to the house to get some water.
“Don’chu walk away from me. You want I should be so disrespected?” shouted the little voice again.
I spun on my heels, and there by the lawn mower stood a ceramic garden gnome, tapping the stick I’d thrown in the palm of his hand like a baseball bat. I rubbed my eyes and squinted, wondering If hallucinations were a sign of a sun stroke or not.
“You just gonna trow a stick ovah deh in my lawn like it’s some sorta dump, and not tink deh would be repercussions?” said the gnome.
Beside myself, I nervously asked the gnome where he came from.
“Joisey,” he said.
It wasn’t really the answer I was looking for. I repeated the word in a hushed question as I stared at him.
“Yeah, as in the Gawden State. Wheh else would a gawden gnome come from, genius? You gotta problem wit dat?” he said, pointing the stick at me.
I put up my hands and told him that it seems like he was quite a ways from home.
“Yeah,” he said, slinging the stick over his shoulder. “The family wants to, um, expand its bidness to a new market, if you know what I mean,” he said with a sarcastic chuckle.
I wiped the sweat off my face with my shirt and asked him what sort of business brought him to town.
The gnome started tapping the stick in the palm of his ceramic hand again and said, “Don’chu worry about dat. All yous gotta do is show a little respect, and stop trowing sticks into my lawn.”
He pointed the stick at me. “Or else suddenly you might find da gate was left open and ya pooch ran away. Or else you might find ya door bell ringing in the middle of da night. Or else ya might find dat it looks like a bunch of kids played stickball on da side of ya Buick some morning,” he said and swung the stick like a bat. “It’s unfortunate dat tings like dat happen sometimes,” he said with the same, sarcastic chuckle.
I wiped my face with my hands and shook my head, but then it occurred to me that I did have a flat tire within hours of my dog relieving itself in their lawn the week before. So I agreed and promised to respect the gnome’s property.
The gnome pointed the stick at me and said, “Yeah, but dat ain’t deh most important ting bout dis here conversation.”
I asked the gnome what he meant by that, thinking of my dog’s safety.
“Deh most important ting,” he said, “Is dat dis heh conversation never happened.”
As he neared the hole in the fence that he apparently came from, he turned back and said, “So forget about it.”