Dragon-Fly, Preface

Preface

On a bright and sunny afternoon, in a place that was simply referred to as The Valley, Charlie, a 103-year-old, 15-inch-tall garden gnome took his morning stroll to and from, and alongside of, the Tokomak River. One hundred and three years of age may seem old to you and me, mere human mortals, but really it was a fairly young age among garden gnomes, for they were known to live in excess of 400 years.

This was just a typical morning hike, one that Charlie took everyday, and one that typically would take several hours out of each and every day. He'd rarely venture off the beaten path that had taken him, along with the help of others, of course, several years to create.

During his morning routine, he would run across many of his woodland friends - rabbits, fairies, squirrels, groundhogs, turtles, elves, birds, and deer - who, among many, many more, were commonly found along the path. The full list would just be much too long and would take up way too many pages in the book. And, yes, you heard me correctly. I did say elves and fairies; those, along with many other mystical creatures, were commonly found in The Valley as well. You're about to be introduced to each and every one of them as the story begins and continues on.

Charlie would stop and say hello to everyone he met along the beaten path, but only for a brief moment or two. If you would really like to hold a long conversation with Charlie during his morning hike, you'd actually have to walk alongside him for as long as the conversation took. And I must warn you, for having such short little legs, Charlie could keep a good pace, and he usually did.

You see, Charlie was on a schedule. It was not to keep fit; gnomes generally didn't worry too much about that, as it was a gnome fact (sorry for the pun) that gnomes had big appetites and many showed it very well. Most gnomes appeared overweight; some would say fat or pleasantly plump. Whatever the proper term may be, or whatever phrase you choose, it really didn't matter much at all. It was simply just the way gnomes looked. They certainly didn't have the health issues that we as humans complain of in today's world. They didn't have to worry about heart disease or high cholesterol like us humans. Arthritis was certainly no issue to them either. If it was, they would be pretty crippled by the time they reached the young age of 100, so obviously they got their exercise and had pretty good blood flow. Nevertheless, they did whatever they wanted, when they wanted. They did eat healthy, they did eat often, and they did eat a lot.

The point of Charlie's routine was simply to check things over, to make sure all his woodland friends were doing well and to see to all of their needs, if their needs needed to be seen to, of course. But all in all, he needed to make his daily rounds so he could get on with the rest of his busy day of gardening.

Gardening is what garden gnomes do. As you read this story, you will soon find out that gardening was not the only responsibility that gnomes had. Yes, they had a great deal more, and Charlie, for one, took his responsibilities very seriously, which led him to an adventure no one will ever forget.

Very rarely would Charlie ever miss his daily walk, but if he ever did, a few of his woodland friends would run into the village to check on him, to make sure Charlie was all right. You see, that's how things worked in The Valley. Everyone looked after one another. Or, I should say, almost everyone. There were always a few bad apples in every bunch.

On this particular walk, Charlie said his daily hellos and how-are-yas, his so-ons and so-forths, to his friends and acquaintances along the way, and everything appeared to be hunky dory for everyone.

"No huge crisis to attend to today," Charlie thought with a great sigh of relief. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket, wiped the sweat from his brow, and carried on with his walk. Charlie had a bounce in his step, almost a skip, when things were going well. But when Charlie reached the river, his bounce took a back-step because things seemed different than the day and the weeks and the months before. There were things floating in the water headed downstream, caught up in the current. Some of the things were trapped by weeds and fallen logs or wrapped around rocks tall enough to stick up above the water line. These things that Charlie saw were very upsetting to him; very upsetting indeed.

"Well, what is this?" Charlie asked himself as he leaned over the edge of the river. He pulled some tall weeds and cattails away with his hands for a clearer view. He leaned over the waterÅfs edge as far as he could without falling in, but still the items in question were just out of the little gnome's reach. The items shined in the sunlight, glistened almost, which was what caught Charlie's eye in the first place. He grabbed a nearby fallen tree branch and carefully fished one of the shiny objects from the water.

"Why, it's nothing but a foil wrapper," he said as he stuffed it in a leather pouch strapped to his side.

Shortly after finding that wrapper, he fished out another and then another. He then found a brown paper bag farther downstream, and on the bank of the river he found a few more disturbing items, such as beer cans, pop cans, and in one particular clearing right along the shoreline were several cigarette and cigar butts, along with their paper rings and plastic wrappers, of course.

"Litter!" Charlie said in disgust after filling all his pouches and pockets to the brim with the trash that he found. "LITTER!" Charlie said it again but this time with a much louder, angrier tone. "No one litters in The Valley. We obviously have guests, intruders - unwanted guests." He paused, grinding his teeth. "HUMANS!"

They just didn't have litter in The Valley. Wrappers and beverage cans, that is, just weren't heard of here. Everything in The Valley was handcrafted by gnomes, elves, and dwarves. They made wooden goblets and tankards for drinking and had no need for wrappers or any commercialized items, for the most part. Very few people in The Valley could even recognize the litter that Charlie found, but Charlie knew exactly what it was the moment he saw it.

You see, human hands made Charlie. He was made from a mold that an artisan designed. Quick-drying cement was then poured into the mold to form his body. After the cement dried, he was painted and sold at a store, to sit out in the backyard of a human's dwelling. Charlie's job was to watch over a very large flower garden and to add character to the garden with his colorful presence. He did it well! An artist obviously made him, and must have seen a gnome in person, because the likeness was miraculously and impeccably formed.

Tending a beautiful garden wasn't that bad of a life for Charlie. In fact, it's what garden gnomes lived for. Having his very own garden to tend was really a dream-come-true for a gnome, a garden gnome that is. There are many other kinds of gnomes as well - woodland, arctic, farm, and dune gnomes, just to name a few.

Eventually, the owners of this beautiful dwelling abandoned their home and moved far away or possibly even passed on. Nobody knew for sure. Regardless of their outcome, Charlie was left all alone in this very large garden, much too large for one lonely gnome to tend all by himself. Charlie worked hard to maintain the garden as long as he possibly could, but, along with the abandoned house, the garden slowly deteriorated around him. Charlie just couldn't keep up without the help of the owners, so he too eventually left the garden and went in search of a new home, a new life.

During his stay at the garden, Charlie became all too familiar with humans' trash, known as litter or garbage. In fact, over the years of tending the humans' garden and watching the ways of human life, Charlie slowly lost respect for the human race and its culture. He felt that most humans, though not all, mind you, were wasteful to some extent.

As if that weren't enough, some humans were full of hatred, and no one seemed to have any patience for anything at all. Everything was in such a hurry. Hurry here, hurry there, and nothing ever seemed to get fixed properly. Seems "the quick fix" was always good enough for them. And, as for animal life and nature, most humans had little to no respect at all.

Charlie had witnessed countless sick and dying animals in the garden, due to the strong pesticides that the humans would use to protect their plants from what they called "rodents" and "pests," which just happened to be gnomes' friends. Charlie himself fell ill from the strong pesticides more than a few times.

Charlie did what he could for the sick animals, but most of the time it was much too late, and that made Charlie very, very sad. At times, when the pesticide levels were high, he would stand by the hole in the fence where the animals would pass through and warn them of the pesticides so they would not come in.

Charlie knew there must be more to life - something better, something with more meaning. So he set out on his own to look for a better, more meaningful life and, perhaps, a new home, and just maybe a garden he could call his own.

Charlie crawled through the same hole the animals used and never looked back. He walked and walked for what seemed like weeks, if not months, in search of this special place that he yearned for. He finally stumbled across a magical opening, an entrance that led him here, to The Valley. Charlie finally found what he was looking for: a new home, one with a garden and an adventure that he or I, and hopefully you, will never, ever forget.

When he reached The Valley, he was pleasantly surprised to find more of his own kind and made many friends, even some who were other kinds of beings and life forms. He learned why he had such a passion and yearning to help and to save animals from danger. He learned about the oath that all gnomes must take at a very early age, an oath to do what they can to save ailing animals and those in danger, or suffer the consequences.

It wasn't bad enough that Charlie found litter floating downstream in the Tokomak River that day, but what Charlie ran across next just about put him over the edge. And he now had grave concerns for the future of The Valley and for everyone and everything that lives there.

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Gnome's Oath

We are placed on this planet to serve.
To help, to save animals in their times of need.
To do whatever we can, whenever something
can be done, to aid distressed animals or
those in danger. If I refuse or ignore an animal
in need, and the animal suffers for it, then I,
the gnome, will turn to stone, never again
to turn back into flesh until my penance
has been paid, which may be never.
I will then serve as a statue in a garden
strictly for decorative purposes.
I agree, also, to respect property and
never to destroy it unless it is mine to destroy
or endangers something of greater value.

This oath applies to all male gnomes,
the young and the middle-aged.

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