Waking Up
I woke in a land of hobbits one day. They’d met taller people before.
They invited me to tea and a smoke and I sat down at a table. They were perfectly sized tables, for a hobbit. Whether the hobbit was tall or small—and there is a height difference even among hobbits—the tables were mostly suited to them.
I had to splay my legs to fit in with these very generous fantasy people so I could drink their carefully set out tea and smoke golden tobacco with them.
They began with stories. They talked about good humans, and bad humans, along with all the other species, at least once they got going. I didn’t like the bad humans. They were particularly vicious even if the hobbits all treated them like a game and a laugh. Telling stories is their way.
They’d pour me another cup of tea—fine bone china—and have a new pipe ready to go once I was finished with my first, honestly, very small bowl of tobacco.
There was one hobbit who kept looking at me, Gertrude.
Now, I’m attracted to women, and Gertrude was obviously a female hobbit, but I’m not attracted to hobbits. Never was. Although if the right hobbit comes along... Maybe..? I guess that won’t be happening.
Gertrude said she admired my dress, my tall legs. She tugged on the hem of it from her low-down position. “It stretches for so long!” she said, wide eyed. Then... “I wish I was tall,” she whispered.
I knew.
She said she liked my shoes. Which I appreciated. I’d gone to bed with my slippers on and was suddenly wearing a pair of sporty trainers from some 90s line from my youth.
I knew.
“Text me when you get a chance,” I said. And we exchanged numbers, quietly.
Gertrude, keeping it up, said, “Oh! Your feet must be so large to fill out shoes like that. And your toes so long and delicate. And your toenails. Oh what colours! Blue, and pink. Red! Orange!”
“Rainbow...” she whispered, conspiratorially.
“Not like my drab brown tobacco, or drab brown tea, or drab ochre tobacco-flake. Sometimes we get green tea, from travellers beyond. The tall folk who bring us things, but the green tea fades, and rots, and ends up with no colour.”
I nodded, and smiled. And understood. And I knew her.
I woke the next morning so refreshed. I was ready for anything and I didn’t know why. I walked into the office, delighted, and checked my emails fearing it would all come to an end. It didn’t.
There was an email congratulating me on my presentation last Tuesday, and another from the boss saying, “Keep pulling it out like on Friday and you’ll be going places.”
I was in a high mood.
It was all going well until I settled in for the mid-morning break. A cup of brown tea, although I didn’t know why I thought of it as, ‘brown tea.’
I got a text, “Thinking of your shoes, love. Work shoes must be so different. Different feet almost. A different world, haha. lyl <3”
I got another text a few seconds later, while I was reading the first. “This is gertrude by the way. The tiny hobbit.” And she said ‘tiny’ in italics.
The entry it came under didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t appear like any name, or number, or symbol I’d seen before.
I texted back, “Who is this? What number is this?”
“Oh, this is Gertrude. We met in your dreams last night. I thought I said I was the tiny hobbit. Remember... Your Reeboks. Or were they Pumas? Sporty... haha... don’t worry.”
I put my phone down on the work kitchen table. Then picked it up. Then walked back to my desk.
I had another email. It was my manager calling me in for a chat. He offered nothing more. “Come in for a chat. 2pm. We need to talk.”
It sounded ominous. So, instead, I texted back this Gertrude person. “You’re a dream.”
I tried to get down to work, to type up the report on the Sinkin’s account but you better believe 30 minutes later I nearly jumped on my phone when it bleeped.
“I know, girl. haha. I’d never met a tall person before, but you’re everything I dreamed of. Your shoes, and feet, and toes. I bet they’re not even hairy.”
Some absolute weirdo, I thought. Some fucken weirdo texting me.
The clock ticked down until lunch. I was getting more and more worried about my meeting with my manager. My phone bleeped again.
“I’m sorry. That’s weird. I know we’re not supposed to talk about tall people not having hairy feet. I just... I just wish I was tall. And I think we got along... There’s no need to respond until tonight. If you don’t want.”
“Until tonight!?” What the fuck did this weirdo have planned? Who the fuck was this? Could I really go to the police about some nutbag in my texts? In my dreams? Did I write about this in my journal? Did someone read my dream journal?
“Fuck off and stop texting me,” I messaged them back.
“I bet you’re some weird 5 foot 2 loser who thinks if they had more testosterone they’d be able to move out of their mother’s basement. My toenails have a fungal infection. Suck on that. #blocked”
Then I went to lunch.
Then I met with my boss, who told me I was doing well and getting noticed by the higher ups. They’d tentatively scheduled a meeting to talk about promotion, in three months, if I kept going as I was.
Then I went home.
Then I ate.
With a few drinks.
Then I had a few more.
Then I went to bed. And fell asleep.
Then I woke up.
With no dreams.
And no little hobbit asking me about my shoes, or telling me she wanted to be like me.