Where Have All the Goblins Gone?

We are among you. In the shadows we bide our time, hidden, waiting... waiting for you to finally vaporize yourselves into nonexistence, for your cities, your grotesque raping of the Mother’s body, to decay and crumble, until, at last, when only a whisper remains to suggest that human beings once walked the earth, we shall reclaim our birthright.

In the old days, you had many names for us: fairies, elves, dwarves, gnomes, pixies, brownies, leprechauns, nymphs, imps, satyrs, and trolls… and, eventually, demons and devils, come from Hell to tempt and torment you. But we were always here, always the same: goblins. Elementals. The true children of the Great Mother, burst forth fully formed from her womb, not some tree-climbing, flea-infested mammal that developed the absurd gift of opposable thumbs. And we watched, as you squandered your blessings, unknowing, unappreciative, undeserving. We learned not to interfere, neither to guide nor try to help, for fear of being hunted and eaten like some other helpless mammal, or, later, being chained and forced to lead you to some legendary pot of gold or other meaningless treasure.

There were those who stayed, who chose to inhabit your towns and cities, changing to fit your changes, as we always had to fit the Mother’s. But yours were not natural, a perversion, and our fellows were perverted in kind. The gremlins are now no more than glorified cockroaches, with an eye toward mischief, and, more likely nowadays, malice.

When you see a shadow flicker in the sunlight, with no breeze to conveniently explain the occurrence, no fluttering paper bag, that is one of us. Count yourself blessed, mortal: you have been granted a privileged moment to witness a spark of the primordial beauty that still beats deep in the heart of this world.

Thos whom your “ancient” Greeks called muses? Again, us. Those of us who could not bear to stand by and watch the monkeys tear glorious Eden apart in their orgy of rampage. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (That was mine. Okay, I wasn’t technically the one that whispered the line into that simian’s ear—some chum of mine stole it from me during a moonshine-infused debate on the meaning of being. No, not your moonshine. Actual filaments of moonlight. Bottled. Powerful stuff. And for the record, I wanted to call him Harold, not Horatio.) Nearly every object, every idea of pure beauty, that one of your kind created—your Aristotle, Leonardo, Mozart, and Elvis—he had an unacknowledged chaperone guiding him. You are not creators, composers, nor architects… you are vessels. And you should fall down on your knees, weeping in gratitude, for having been so used.

The time of man is drawing to a close. Even you, with your fatuous monkey brains, can sense this. And when the last skull of homo sapiens has crumbled to dust, we will again dance freely in the moonlight, scaring our young with delicious tales of the bogey-man, and rejoice in the restoration of a world once rotten. We are patient. What are a few centuries, but drops in the pool of eternity? We have time. You do not.