Gnomelandia Day
Filleted on October 15, 2006.
October 12 was Gnomelandia Day, a day of remembrance and supplication, decreed by His Gnomeliness Haldûrburðgar, Protector of Gnomekind, Conqueror of Man, Lord and Emperor for Life, after he conquered my hometown and infested our houses and streets with trillions of gnomes. The entire Gnomish Army paraded up and down Main Street (“Æþaldur Way”) like a bunch of cavorting yaks, displaying their terrible weapons and their white little gnomey beards. I hid in the crowds and prayed for Gavrilo Princip to do his thing to Haldûrburðgar, but he never showed. Gnomish Air Force jets screamed overhead, gnomes descending from them on golden parachutes. Or maybe those were just butterflies and grasshoppers all over Alyssa Milano’s feet and between her toes; so hard to tell…
Having nothing more to wear than a green homburg, my triangular briefcase, a long and rambling website, and a life preserver shaped like a twelve-year-old boy, I didn’t dare attend the Gnomelandia Ball, as I had wanted to. I’d stand out like a sore bum. All the gnomes went; I hoped to infiltrate the ball and kill them all like MacGyver—with a paperclip, an old porno mag, a broken doorknob, and some twine I had found under a mattress in 1989—thus freeing us from their gnomely oppression.
Instead, I stayed home and listened to my MP3 collection of underdogs gone on farting sprees and hamsters dingling their berries in the face of Iggy Kalamazoo-Kintaki-Meeps. I played with the flower pot and a copper teapot that my sandal-footed little Loquisha gave me, too. (Are we there yet?) As the parades continued by my house and the Gnomish Navy shelled the coast in a demonstration of their awesome power, I realized: Hypoglycemia and digititis continued to have no sway over me; nor did Hrothgar or Vasco da Gama. The gnomes survive for now. Next year, gnomes, next year…