Eric Zheng

Assignments

Margaret wakes from a ray of sunlight beaming from a circular window directly to her little face. She yawns and pushes aside her blanket and scoots off her bed, she clutches her lower back as she winces from a sudden sharp pain. The walls hit with sunlight glow a warm orange hue. A loud boom suddenly blasts outside and the ear shattering sound forces Margaret to cup her tiny hands over her ears. The young gnomes outside were in battle again. She looks out her pumpkin window to see an army of gnomes wielding golden bows charging towards a group of giant fairy ants. She sees the ants eating her neighbor’s pumpkin house with their glittering pink wings twitching. Those poor ants must be hungry. Margaret has visited the fairy ant kingdom once before. After retirement, she was curious to explore the east side of their grass plains and found the fairy ant hills. They were generally a peaceful race so it was strange that they would come attack the gnome’s pumpkins. She watched as the young gnome warriors fired golden arrows into the fairy ant’s bodies, pink glittery goop gushing out from their wounds. The old gnome chief was never liked by anyone due to being an old greedy geezer, but ever since he passed a young gnome boy with magical powers has since taken his place. The gnome town ever since has become much more violent with every gnome being forced to train in the barracks instead of working in the magic factory. Margaret shakes her head in disappointment as she watches the young gnomes kill another fairy ant. She puts on her talk pointy hat and goes to speak with the new village chief. Going through town, she passes by gnomes selling strange round pinecone fruit recently found in the pine forest. Margaret scowls, mushrooms have always been the food of the gnomes, not whatever this new stuff was. They don’t know the dangers of unknown foods. Over by the river, the giant golem sits silently. Gnomes still continue to visit it to get their vibes checked. It’s an important tradition and Margaret appreciates it. She decides to stop by to greet the friendly golem and sit next to it to rest her old knees. The golem doesn’t speak but is a good listener. Margaret vents her frustrations about the changes the gnomes have made and how she misses the old days. Now all the gnomes are just abusing everything like harvesting wood from the sacred pink tree. There’s an old human windmill with plenty of wood that they should have taken down instead. After resting up, Margaret thanks the golem and goes to the chief’s pumpkin. The new chief was standing outside with a bunch of other gnomes preparing for an expedition to the big bird mountain. Margaret begins protesting saying that the fairy ants don’t mean harm and just need food. The young gnomes brush her off as a crazy old lady. Feeling disdained, Margaret grows frustrated and storms off back to her pumpkin house. So much has changed over the past few seasons that sometimes it feels difficult to keep up. Yes the winter was coming and a giant threat along with it but is it really worth destroying and consuming all things around them? She hopes that there is something she can do. Life has become tiring and mundane since retirement and Luke Degnan Give it a real title! Luke Degnan gnomes' Margaret wants something new without harming the nature around her. She goes to sleep in her bed as her frustrations fester. The next week the gnomes have discovered strange bones in the crater in the pine woods. Margaret sees this as more tampering with nature. More fairy ants have been coming to steal pumpkins and more gnome warriors attack them. After trying to defend the fairy ants and being unable to convince the gnome army to stop, she decides maybe it should be up to her to try to solve this issue. She grows irritated with life in the gnome village and decides to talk with the golem. She sits by the golem remembering the day when she and a few other gnomes first saw the golem emerge from the forest. The other gnomes and herself all agreed to try to communicate with it. Back then gnomes were kinder. Even though the golem had only been around for less than a year, the gnomes have integrated it into their culture. Margaret decides that if the gnome village will continue to go down their dark path that maybe she should do something dramatic as well. She asks the golem if they would want to go explore the rest of the plains. The golem, unable to speak, simply nods and slowly gets up. It’s been a long time since Margaret last saw the golem standing. Their size towers over the village. A few gnomes come rushing out to see what is happening. The golem puts out a hand to allow Margaret to stand in. She climbs into their hand and is placed on the golem’s shoulder. Together they start moving east towards the fairy ant hills. All of the gnomes react with shock and awe as Margaret and the golem slowly passes through the village, every step causing a mini earthquake. Feeling the wind, Margaret looks around with delight, she’s never been this high up before and it’s exhilarating. Off in the distance she points out the pink fairy ant hills sparking in the sun. The golem follows her lead and heads on over. Reaching the ant hills, all of the fairy ants seem to ignore the golem. Margaret brings with her some pumpkin seeds from her house and starts planting them as a new garden for the ants. A few days later, a giant dark cloud rolls in from the far horizon. All of the fairy ants seem to react by hiding in the ant hills and closing the openings. Margaret climbs inside the golem as the storm arrives. The storm passes through and enters the gnome village. Deciding whether to stop progress and go to safety or staying to preserve their work, the gnomes decide to try to defend their progress and many of them were killed in the storm.