There and (Regrettably) Back Again

Around this time of year, I start sleeping with my windows open. As far as I’m concerned, there are few pleasures in life that rival sleeping in a warm cocoon of blankets in a cold room. On weekdays, however, the pleasures of a blanket cocoon are slightly compromised when one has to depart from said cocoon into a very chilly apartment in the morning. When my alarm clock goes off, I tend to hit snooze and glare for a few baleful moments at the general surroundings of Wednesday, or worse yet, Monday.

I was describing this phenomenon to a friend in an email when I added as an afterthought that an Apartment Gremlin would be the perfect solution to this problem. (I should note here that I choose the word gremlin more for the pleasure of its pronunciation in conjunction with the word apartment. As a deep fantasy nerd, I realize there are other creatures that would be much more appropriate: brownie, fairy, sprite, etc. Again, the nerdhood runs deep.) An Apartment Gremlin, in my mind, would wake up around 3 or 4 am and make the rounds in my apartment, closing windows. Consequently, I would be able to fall asleep in a chilled apartment and wake up in a blissfully warm one.

My mind grabbed the idea and ran with it.

I’ve always had a fascination with things small and magical. I can trace this inclination to the books my grandmother read to me as a child: all of the E. Nesbit stories, The Borrowers and its sequels, and anything by Elizabeth Goudge. These books were inhabited by fairies, helpful bees, elder relations of suspiciously magical character, and other invisible goings on, and all of them had the ability to make it seem as though magic, and its presence and dealings in everyday life, was the most normal thing in the world. It went even further than that in many cases: often the magical creatures were characterized by very human foibles, from general prejudices to outright fussiness. It’s entirely possible that the reason these books are mainly written for a younger audience is that children can accept more readily the idea that mixing magic and Mondays isn’t so outlandish. Harry Potter wasn’t the first British child to discover a world of magic coexistent with his own; he is only one of the most recent and, I might add, he seemed more surprised to find it than most of his literary predecessors. Most other young, British protagonists in fantasy books simply took magic as a matter of course. I think especially of Lucy, emerging from the wardrobe into Narnia and promptly taking tea with Mr. Tumnus.

The distance now separating me from The Five Children and It and all the other stories is a bit wider than the breadth of the Atlantic. When I fantasize anymore, I don’t often dream myself into Maria Merryweather’s perfect tower room or Arrietty’s sub-floorboard living room. I dream about mystical, perfect grad school scholarships and an herb garden outside of a grey house in Maine. In a way, these are the adult incarnations of pots of gold and fairy tale castles. We just ground them, hauling them into our world and putting coffee cups down on top of them so they won’t blow away.

Sometimes I wonder about the point at which we stop importing ourselves into worlds of fantasy and start bringing fantasies into our own realities; when the trappings of dreams must become more real to be more acceptable to the adult mind. It’s not that one is necessarily better than the other, but the difference is certainly startling. The change, though, isn’t necessarily permanent, and sometimes the wonder does come bubbling up.

As soon as I formed the idea—Apartment Gremlin—a remarkably detailed image came to mind and rapidly wrote itself into something like a story:

It is just before dawn in my apartment. The light is subdued, and the air is cold. There is a small cottage underneath my bed, which is conveniently set upon risers. The structure is mock-Tudor, fashioned from cardboard, plaster, whiteout, thatching, and scraps of cloth; particular attention has been paid to the windows, which are adorned with curtains within and shutters without. There are sturdy window boxes, which boast an assortment of Corsican mint and sweet violets.

From the tidy cottage a small figure emerges, stretching its arms over its head to work out the night’s kinks. It has a broad face, decorated with a beaky nose and determined eyebrows. It wears its sugar-floss hair in different colors, depending on its mood, and today has chosen a wealthy tuft of pale green. On its spindly body it wears indifferent brown trousers and a bottle green vest, which is decorated with a silver watch chain of which it is very proud. One may note that there is no watch upon the watch chain; gremlins take very little note of the institutionalized measure of time per se, but are quite fond of the lovely adornments humans give to the measure of time: arms of clocks, chains of old fashioned watches, and the brief and entirely insistent music the keepers make at an especially appointed hour. This gremlin’s personal watch chain was cleverly adapted from an old silver necklace chain, polished to enviable brightness.

Fully awake, the gremlin surveys the expanse of hardwood floor and mountainous furniture with quick, business-like approval, and clambers nimbly upwards towards the windows. At its polite request, the windows lower themselves silently, only making an apologetic, muted whump as they seal. It taps the radiator on its way to the kitchen, to politely remind it of its duties, and before the gremlin has had its tea, warmth has begun to creep back into the apartment.

It enjoys a meal of precisely one Cheez-It and a small cup of Constant Comment tea. I came to understand very early on that gremlins are not appreciative of thimbles as drinking receptacles and reserve special disdain for all things pink. As a result, I was obliged to find a doll’s tea cup, which was not difficult, that most especially had no pink decoration of any sort, which was surprisingly difficult. When I obtained a light blue china cup, the gremlin was exceedingly pleased.

Its first meal of the day is also its last, since gremlins have very short days: they do not favor brightness (and so avoid morning and afternoon), cannot abide darkness (and so avoid night), and their disfavor of pink predisposes them to avoid sunset entirely. They seem only to enjoy the few silver hours between true night and glaring dawn and in an adaptation, which may only be described as peculiarly British, they take particular delight in gloomy days with soaking rain. As a result, I often wonder about the gremlin population of Seattle and whether or not it is, in fact, an untapped resource.

After its meal, the gremlin casually retrieves a vicious looking shrimp fork from behind the toaster and descends competently to the floor. In the remaining time before true dawn, it stalks a now domesticated population of dust bunnies in their usual haunts. It feels no compunction in their slaughter, because (as it pointed out in our one conversation on the matter) there will always be more. I had experienced some surprise at its pursuit of the dust bunnies, their extinction not being a feature of the gremlin’s original contract, but (again, in our one conversation on the matter) it noted to me that the bunnies had themselves gone quite feral and that it enjoyed the hunt. It had also taken the difficult procurement of the blue cup to be a gesture of good will, and had been pleased to return the favor.

With the dust carcasses skewered on the bristles of a well-placed hand broom, the gremlin yawns (which, in gremlins, is primarily a function of stretching its feet luxuriously) and walks back across the floor to its cottage. The warmth of the obedient radiator has made it sleepy, and it takes a final cursory glance around the room before it enters its home and closes the door behind it.

I come back to my awareness at my desk, shaking off the curiosity about whether or not the gremlin has a mailbox. I feel predictably silly and surprisingly sad, and I realize that I miss the combination of wonder and everyday acceptance of the possibility of magic. It is simultaneously necessary and terrible that we grow out of it, perhaps only satisfied as the eccentric aunt or uncle who still secretly believes and provides a suitable and supportive backdrop for another child’s story.

I also realize regretfully that tomorrow morning, I will wake up with no cottage under my bed, the windows open, the room cold, and a rampant population of feral dust bunnies.