Gary poked the stick down the hole again. He gave it a wriggle and he gave it a jiggle. The elf was definitely not coming out. He knew that he shouldn’t have trusted him.
An hour earlier, Gary had been crossing a beautiful old bridge and had stopped for a moment to admire the fast-flowing river. He was startled when he heard a strange voice say, ‘You look dreadful, mate.’ Gary felt outraged that his moment of tranquillity had been spoiled.
‘How dare you! I only went for a facial yester…’ Gary stopped in his tracks when he saw who he was talking to. It was clearly an elf.
‘Something will crawl in your mouth and die if you don’t shut it,’ said the elf. ’Now, why don’t you just admit that you feel like crap and we can move on to sorting you out.’ All of a sudden, Gary was overcome with awful sensation; what a shambles he’d made out of his life. If he hadn’t spent so many hours in his workshop, trying in vain to perfect the miniature suitcase, then maybe his wife wouldn’t have left him. He realised that he did feel like crap. He shoulders slumped and the elf took the opportunity to pounce. ’It’s ok, fella. We’ve all had things go wrong from time to time, it’s not like you’re a completely incurable dick. I’ve got some magic beans for you, and they’ll get your life right back on track.’
At this stage, Gary was so depressed that he would believe anything. He agreed to buy the magic beans from the elf for the £53.46 that he had in his wallet. The elf told Gary that the beans were back at his ‘special hole’ and so they headed off.
Once they arrived at the hole, the elf scooted down it and soon emerged with a small pot of strange looking brown beans. Gary felt for sure that they must be magical. He handed over the cash and the elf instructed him to eat the beans before promptly disappearing back underground.
It was only when Gary popped one of the beans in his mouth that he realised his mistake. It wasn’t a bean at all, but a minstrel – the chocolate that melts in your mouth, not in your hand. It was at this point that Gary remembered that he was still happily married and that he had never attempted to create a miniature suitcase. In fact, he couldn’t even fathom what the point of a miniature suitcase might be. The bleeding elf had tricked him.
Gary grabbed the nearest stick he could find and began to jab it deep in the hole. It didn’t take long before he knew it wasn’t going to help. He decided to make his way home. If he had learned one thing that day, it was this: Never stop on bridges.
never mind a stick , he should have got a kango and stuck that down the hole. it wasn’t his fault, there were no signs warning of the perils of stopping on the bridge, no reports in the local paper. o.k you could argue that he shouldn’t be so gullible but what can you do when an elf pulls a sharp one.
( you will have noticed i’ve avoided making any puerile jokes about mental elf etc. )
[...] Gary and the Elf – A allegorical tale in which a man is tricked by an elf. The deeper question is this: is the elf real or is it merely a manifestation of Gary’s inner turmoil about the war in Iraq? [...]