This Week's Story

Broadcast: September 28, 2003

RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE

Out in the forest, late at night;
   I was walking along in the pale moonlight.
Minding my business and keeping to my own,
   I was coming from the pub on my way home.

Now I tell you all this to make it perfectly clear;
   that I was doing nothing wrong and had nothing to fear.

Though the trees and their dark shapes
   took on a ghastly strange sight;
I can’t say I was hardly prepared
   for what I saw that night.

Right in the middle of my way home
   I spied a short little fellow who was actually a gnome.

A gnome is like a pixie
   or like an older elf;
Or like a fairy
    or like somebody else;

who lives in the trees,
   right in the middle;
and has a most
   annoying giggle
when you’re walking home
in the pale moonlight;
Out in the forest, late at night.

Now this gnome appears
   right in front of me
and rubs his eyes
    so he can better see;
this form, my form,
   to see what I could be.

Well, I’m half out of my wits
   and frightened to bits at this little tiny fellow.
Cause all of the sudden
   he starts to bellow
and wail and cry at me,
   "Saints be praised! What kind of monster are thee?
    I’m just on my way home. I live in the trunk of that tree!"

"Right in the middle?"
   I ask this strange gnome.
"That’s where you’re
   making your home?"

He only nods,
   now filled with real dread
out of fear that he would
   soon be dead
from an encounter with me.

Well, I’m feeling the same,
don’t you see?

"Pass on, good sir,"
   I cheerfully cry;
and I watch this
   two-foot fellow walk on by.

But then I add,
   "If you’ve got a gold coin
I could have till tomorrow;
   I’d pay you back
all that I’ll borrow.
   And I won’t mention
that tree you call your home;
   that tree that’s just right
for your kind of gnome."

Perhaps I said something wrong,
   for the little fellow turned back at me and,
staring from my knee,
   gave me a curse
   that emptied my purse
   and made my life much, much worse.

For every time I tell this story
   I feel more and more sorry
that I ever walked home
   out in the forest, late and night
   in that weak moonlight.

And now that I ponder
   and think to myself,
maybe that really wasn’t
   any kind of elf.

For it’s as plain as could be
   and very plain to me
that nobody lives
   in the middle of a tree.

Or do they?

The End