Red-capped Jeroboam soldered the gear. He wound the mechanism and let it go. The device turned and whirred as he expected, so he put it down to tinker on it further.
“What are you making, gnome?” asked a human customer.
“A device that tells time. Wind it up in the morning, and it will work all day.”
“Sounds like witchcraft.”
The gnome squinted. “You could make one too, if you’d get over that ‘witch’ crap.”
This was written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt #119, Tinker. As an avid D&D player, I immediately thought of tinkering gnomes and couldn’t put that idea down!
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Love it. Though for me a gnome will always be a diddy chap who lives beneath the mossy bank at the lower edge of our woods when a kid.
Your parents must have been really encouraging of creative pursuits! Those kinds of stories are always so memorable.
My father was. He drew cartoons with crayons on our bedroom wall. As to my mother … no. She had no time for it.
We call ’em ‘stupid-stitions’ 😉
I read once where a woman was so engrossed in superstition that basically she overwhelmed herself and died in fear. Kind of like the heir of the Winchester fortune and that mystery house she built.
Wow, that’s crazy! I know people can stress themselves out, but I didn’t know you could die from it!
Kind of like being paranoid about everything.
Could anyone live with that much stress?
I don’t think so. I remember when I had a job so stressful that I developed a heart arrythmia – that’s when I decided I couldn’t take it any longer, and I left.