The Tell Tale Hobbit

[Waverly]

I once had a neighbor who would kick his dog. How horrible, I thought, to kick a creature so utterly devoted to you. So simple, so unconditional in its affection. I could not understand at the time. How could anyone? But I have come to realize that very affection was the reason he would kick the dog. Some tiny ember of malice deep within his being was fanned, not soothed, by the dog’s love. Is such a man sick? Irredeemable? Irredeemable, perhaps, but such a man is not sick. Let me tell you how I know… or have you already heard?

The have called me a madman, a monster, but I assure you now that the tempest has cleared, I’m as calm and as reasoned as any of you. It was… just something that had to be done. You might think me mad, but have I told you careful I was, how utterly controlled in thought and action? Would a wizard gone mad have waited for hours in the pitch dark of that hobbit hole? Taken hours to creep across the floor so he wouldn’t make the faintest noise? Would he have replaced the floor planks over 4 carefully dug graves down to the last peg? No! A mad wizard would have strewn hobbit parts all about the shire and wore their hairy little feet as a necklace.

Hairy. Little. Feet. That, my dear reader and only friend, is what drove me to it. I can’t stand their hairy little feet. “Gandalf,” they’d call to me, “Tell us another story.” Or “Can we see some more fireworks?” They’d have such childish delight in their voices. Even a fool could see they loved their old grey friend. I so wanted to love them back. Neigh, I did, in my own way, but I could never remove my gaze from their hairy little feet.

The sight of them filled my days and haunted my nights. I’d find hair in my bread, and I’d no just where it came from. Footprints on my carpet. Yes, I know too from where this comes. I agonized over it. I would picture their joyful frolicking in my mind and smile - but even in my mind’s eye, my focus would inevitably drift to that which filled me with such revulsion. I engaged in many such exercises to teach myself to love the little creatures. And they call me mad! How could they not understand the lengths I went to avoid the unpleasantness? I am to be commended, if anything. But the long hours spent trying to desensitize myself to their most repugnant feature were spent in vain. There was no escaping the patter, the smell, the grotesque sight, of those hairy little feet.

Finally, at length and with a heavy heart, I determined to do something about it. Something decisive. Something awful, terrible, and decisive.

[Mr Sleep]

Originally posted by Waverly
I’d find hair in my bread, and I’d no just where it came from. Footprints on my carpet. Yes, I know too from where this comes.

Better or worse than finding hair on the soap?

[fable]

I like the idea of Tolkein reading too much Poe. Please, do continue.

[RandomThug]

I second fable's notion. This is fun. Please continue.

[Waverly]

Yet even as I prepared to rid myself of them, I can show that I was sane. I cloaked the top of my staff in dark felt, and carefully coiled the cloth so that the tiniest seem could be opened, yielding a thin razor of light. Simple, yet practical and methodical. Everything outside of the thin beam remained in blackness. How could a madman take such care? This is proof of my sanity. But this is was just a mere preparation.

I arrived well before dark, and concealed myself in the pantry. And there I stayed. I dare say I nary breathed. Frodo and his companions arrived. I remained still. They ate, drank, and babbled merrily, yet still I did not move. They talked long into the night, smoking pipes and stretching out before the fire, and I was as a statue. For long hours after they drifted off into sleep I did not venture forth, until finally, with a slow certainty, I crept out of my hiding place. I set my staff alight, and opened the felt to expose a finger of light. This I aimed at the floor before my feet while I made my way over to them. It took me a quarter hour to cover the twenty feet between us, so careful was I to remain quiet. When Sam stirred and rolled over, I covered my light and stood motionless for an hour more. I even considered fleeing out the door, running and never looking back, but I was resolute.

When I at last stood over them, the light caught Pippin’s foot, and a chill raced down my spine. The very object of my ire stared back at me, naked and uncovered in this sliver of light. It mocked me. I was transfixed for long moments while anger and malice burned in the furnace of my chest. At long last, I struck out. Lightening flew from my fingers, and my staff was a spinning vortex of destruction! They could not have suffered long, and I’m sure they never recognized their silent attacker. We were free. All of us.

[Waverly]

And after the years of loathing, the long hours of waiting, it was over as quickly as that. I covered their feet in the dark, I could not bear to have them mock me any longer, and I moved to turn up the lights. Quickly, yet with a calm efficiency, I pulled up a series of floor planks and exposed the packed earth beneath. The graves need not be large, they were only wee hobbits after all, but I deemed to make each his own private resting place. Their deaths were only a matter of practical necessity; I would not treat their remains so contemptuously as to dump them in a common hole. Keeping their feet covered, I completed my work, and with all the care and precision of a master carpenter, replaced the floor above them.

I was done. One could walk into the hobbit hole at this moment and never suspect what had taken place. I practiced looking shocked, amazed, saddened at their disappearance. I could look any way I pleased, because the crime was perfect, and I would never be suspected. But it wasn’t really a crime, after all. And I wasn’t really saddened. I was relieved, like I had been pinned under a cart and had at last mustered the strength to roll it off me.

That is when the knock came at the little round door. I hesitated, but only for a moment. What did I have to fear? My work had been flawless, and not a single clue remained to bear witness to what fate had befallen the tiny hobbits. After a pause, I rushed to open the door. I reveled in the fact that my crime, if that you must call it, had been perfect. A grim Aragorn greeted me with a small measure of surprise. “I was looking for Frodo.” He announced, and I replied, “I had been looking for him myself, but he is not in. Please, come inside.”

Yes! I bade him come inside. Why not? I grabbed first one small chair and then another, placing them directly over the floor where the hobbits lay. I giggled a bit, giddy at the thought that I could be so bold. “There is no sign of them,” I said, taking a seat. And of course, there was not. Not a trace.

[Waverly]

We chatted a bit about the day’s weather, and other light topics. Here was Aragorn, famed ranger, sitting right on top of the corpses and he was oblivious to their fates. What better proof could there be that I had succeeded? That I had been meant to succeed? I could have hustled Aragorn back out into the night, but admit I was emboldened what my careful and detailed planning had accomplished.

I didn’t feel tired. I felt positively exuberant, but I yawned nevertheless. And I creaked as a yawned. My joints had never felt stiff, but I had heard it. A low creak. Load enough that I’m sure Aragorn must have heard it as well. Following the creak was a whisper. I couldn’t hear the words. There could not have been words, for the only one to speak them was the wind. I shifted uneasily in my chair and wished we had set them in another room. The night’s excitement had become too much for my nerves. But I could not turn the conversation onto a path that would see it end.

Aragorn prattled on. The whisper rose again, and on he talked. “Beneath your feet.” What? Whose feet. Visions of hairy little feet filled my head, and I felt cold sweat drip down my sides under my clothing. Did the horrid little imp still have his ring? Could it have sustained his life even as I brained him? He must still have it. Underneath the floor; with him. Smoke filtered up through the planks. I knew they were all under there, alive or undead, taunting me while they puffed on their pipes. Aragorn saw it as well, but this cruel tormentor didn’t say a word. He kept chatting as if the very floor beneath him were not coming to life.

But it was. I heard them clang mugs. The smoke now billowed. “Beneath your feet.” Aragorn, with diabolical malice, continued to sit as if daring me to explain this strange turn of events. Then he had the nerve to smile at me. Smile! How dare he smile as the ungrateful vermin clamored beneath us. “Just tell me you know, and be done with it!”

I sprang to my feet and tore up the floor. “There! There!” I shouted. I pointed without looking, but between us lay an opening in the floor, four pairs of hairy little feet poking out from the earth. Aragorn grimaced and turned away, while I dropped the planks and fell to my knees before the graves. “It was the feet, wasn’t it?” He asked in a soft voice. “Yes. The hairy little feet.” He nodded, and slowly, as if in moving under water, began replacing the floor.

[Waverly]

“There’s more down at the Prancing Pony, dancing on the tables with their nasty, dirty little feet.” What? Why would he tell me this? Why was the vile fiend tormenting me further? I thought that if he didn’t raise his sword and slay the murderer of his Halfling friends within moments, I would conjure up a fire that would turn us both to ash, and the terrible evidence of the night’s deeds with us. And as I contemplated this frightful end for us both, he crossed before me whistling a bright and cheery little tune.

I’d have brought the blaze down upon us, but curiosity stilled me for a moment. When Aragorn reached the fireplace, he began to pry out the bricks with his dagger. I watched him intently until his true purpose could be known. I had not noticed, but the mortar around these bricks was lighter and less covered with soot than others in the chimney. It took him but a few minutes, whistling all the while, to remove a small stack of irregular shaped bricks to reveal a vault within the fireplace. From this opening spilled two tiny bodies, each with a pair of hairy little feet.

[fable]

Gets better and better. Keep going.

[Nippy]

Nice work Waverly. I like it.

[Maharlika]

Need I say more?

[Scayde]

LOL...Well done Waverly...I may never read Poe in the same way again

[Littiz]

...other than

[Jaesha]

But what, I wonder, ever happened to Smaug?

[fable]

I hope there's more to this. I'd really like to read about a small but spunky group of heroes, quietly eradicating all evidence of hairy Halfling feet from the world.