While I Was Sleeping...

A love story bloomed. 

Allow me to introduce Wicklow, the Merry Reader of Brigadoonberry (better known as my bookshelf).  He and his band of friends have been my faithful companions for a year now.  Lively, spritely, and jovial, Wicklow was a popular lad.  As all library gnomes are wont to do, he read and read and read until the sun shone through the curtain veil.  When he wasn't reading, he enthralled audiences with brave tales of tempests, labours, love lost and found, and of course, happy endings. 

But Wicklow had a secret, one he hid deep in his heart.  He was lonely.  He tried to fill the emptiness in a million different ways.


He played hide-and-seek with Sir Dooley...

 He watched Cake Challenge till his eyes burned...

He threw back pints with his best mates, Londonderry and Dublin...

All to no avail.  No matter what he did, his heart still felt empty.  

Until last night.  When he met her.

Wicklow fell in love for the first time in his life.  Having never been in love, Wicklow naturally wondered how he could get her to notice him.  So, he began to devise ways of impressing her.


He thought, "Shall I write a sonnet?"

He thought, "Shall I play jazz?"

He thought, "Shall I sing of my travels?"

Yet, none of them seemed right.  He was not a sonnet.  He was not jazz.  He was not a grand adventure.  He was just Wicklow, a library gnome.  And in the end, being the smart fellow that he was, Wicklow did the right thing.  He showed her...himself.

And she was impressed by his honesty...and his herb garden.

So when the moon reached its zenith, they got married.

And had wonderful children together.

Now, Wicklow's heart is full and satisfied.   And my bookshelf is filled with little readers eager to begin their lives as library gnomes-and-a-half.  We couldn't be happier (or cheesier).

To love, literature, and lutefisk.  Happy Valentine's month, folks.