'Bunty And The Gnome' by Alison Wassell

Bunty starts reading glossy garden magazines and tells the gnome to make other arrangements. He is hurt, although not sorry to be going. Lately he has heard her describing him as kitsch, ironic and, worst of all, tacky. The gnome has a better pedigree than Bunty, his ancestors having adorned the gardens of wealthy Europeans as far back as the eighteenth century while hers were lowly peasants, labouring on the land.

He departs at night, the only time he is mobile, leaving his fishing rod beside the pond for Bunty to find in the morning. It has always, he feels, cramped his style. Returning to the forest from whence he came, he easily secures a position guarding the earth’s treasures. This new role is a much better fit for his skillset and he thrives, which is more than can be said for poor Bunty.

In the gnome’s absence the koi carp pine and go off their food. One of them falls victim to the neighbour’s cat. It doesn’t stop there. Bunty has underestimated the gnome’s guardianship of her home. Every storm now tears tiles from her roof, and a sinkhole appears in the garden. Her house is burgled twice and she returns from holiday to find it a burnt-out shell.

Bunty locates the gnome and pleads with him to come home. His laughter echoes through the forest, but he takes pity on her and offers an alternative solution.

After a difficult period of adjustment, Bunty settles into her new normal. Considerably shrunken, her limbs turned to wood, she dangles from a tree, something between a wind chime and a mascot. The gnomes tolerate her, for the time being. She feels she has stumbled into a fable, although what the moral of it is she is not entirely sure.