The Goblin Next Door

The Unfortunate Incident of Mrs. Pickering’s Poodle

Let’s get one thing straight: I don’t eat souls. Never have, never will. The whole idea is absurd, like accusing a vegan of secretly hoarding pork chops. Souls taste like burnt hair left in the sun: dry, bitter, with a lingering aftertaste of alpaca poop. And let’s not forget the texture. Imagine chewing on a wad of expired aspirin wrapped in mothballs. No thanks. I’ve got standards.

This whole “soul-devouring monstrosity” narrative? Blame Brother Reginald of Bumfluff Abbey, circa 1347. A real piece of work, that guy. We’re talking a monk so bitter, he made gargoyles look cheerful. Rumor has it he started the lie after I accidentally vaporized his prized turnip garden during a particularly enthusiastic game of inter-dimensional hopscotch.

(Look, the rules were unclear, and I told him not to plant root vegetables in a ley line intersection.) To get revenge, he scribbled “BEWARE THE SOUL-SUCKING GOBLIN BEAST” in the monastery’s ledger using handwriting so atrocious, it’s a miracle anyone could read it. Though, to be fair, “soul-sucking” might’ve actually been “scone-sucking.” Medieval inkblots are a bitch to decipher.

But nuance dies faster than a mayfly in a hurricane when you’re a seven-foot-tall mass of sentient smoke. Take the villagers of Woolspit, for example. Really lovely folks, if you ignore their habit of conflating “glowing eyes” with “definitely plotting to curse our livestock.” All I did was lean over a pasture fence one evening to count sheep, for fun, mind you, like a cosmic Sudoku and suddenly I’m Public Enemy No. 1.

Never mind that their prized ram, Gerald, had the IQ of a soggy crumpet and a face only a mother could love (and even then, grudgingly). Next thing I know, they’re waving torches and chanting Latin hymns that rhymed, which, I’ll admit, was impressively on-the-nose for an angry mob.

“Heathen goblin-fiend!” screeched the mayor, brandishing a pitchfork like he’d just discovered capitalism. “You hexed our sheep!”

“They’re literally just standing there,” I tried to reason, gesturing at the flock, who were busy nibbling grass and ignoring the concept of object permanence. “If anything, Gerald hexed me. Do you know how demoralizing it is to be judged by something that licks its own butt?”

But logic is a foreign currency in rural medieval Europe. They burned my cave to the ground… along with my antique ottoman, my limited-edition “World’s Okayest Goblin” mug, and a perfectly good collection of 12th-century taxidermied hedgehogs. All because Gerald the Sheep started balding three days later. (Coincidence? Absolutely. But try telling that to a town that thinks rosemary wards off gout.)

So yeah. Here I am, centuries later, lurking beneath the floorboards of a split-level ranch in suburban Ohio. Turns out, suburbia’s no better: just swap Latin chants for Nextdoor rants and torches for gluten-free scones. But at least the Wi-Fi’s decent.

My latest misunderstanding began with Mrs. Pickering’s poodle, Monsieur Bubbles. The little rat-dog dug up my foot bone collection (a hobby, not a fetish, thank you) and proceeded to parade around the backyard with a femur like it was at Westminster. Naturally, I yelled. A polite yell! The kind that says, “Kindly return my tibia, sir.” But Monsieur Bubbles? He dropped dead. Heart attack, probably. The little guy was 14 and subsisted entirely on bacon grease and rage.

But no. Blame the goblin creature with glowing eyes. Classic.

The Art of Miscommunication

Humans are obsessed with labeling things. “Monster.” “Demon.” “Goblin.” “That weird mold in the shower.” You’d think a species that invented interpretive jazz could handle a little ambiguity. But no. The second I oozed out of the air vent to apologize (and retrieve my femur), Mrs. Pickering screamed like I’d announced a timeshare presentation.

“IT’S THE DEVIL!” she wailed, hurling a fondue pot at my head.

“I’m a goblin,” I corrected, ducking. “Devils have hooves. And better PR.”

She fainted.

Look, I get it. My aesthetic is… niche. I’m seven feet of sentient smoke with a voice like a chainsaw gargling gravel. But I moisturize! I cry at rom-coms! I just also happen to enjoy collecting femurs and muttering ominous limericks. Is that so wrong?

The Haunting (That Wasn’t)

To appease the neighborhood Facebook group, the Pickering family hired a “paranormal investigator.”

Greg, a man whose neck beard had its own gravitational pull, arrived with a backpack full of gizmos and a catchphrase: “I ain’t afraid of no ghost!”

I hid inside the washing machine.

“EVP session commencing,” Greg intoned, holding his voice recorder aloft. “Spirit! Why do you torment this family?”

“Torment is a strong word,” I muttered. “I watered their ferns when they vacationed in Boca.”

Greg’s eyes bulged as the recorder played back my gravelly baritone. “Did… did it just sass me?”

I sighed. Being misunderstood is exhausting.

An Unlikely Ally

Enter: Timmy Pickering, age 10, amateur mycologist, and the only human in Ohio with a functioning brain cell.

He cornered me in the garage while I was reorganizing my rib cage. “You’re not scary,” he declared, clutching a jar of lichen. “You’re just… sparkly mold.”

I bristled. “I’m a goblin entity of darkness.”

“You named your femur ‘Steve.’”

“…Steve’s a good name.”

Thus began our détente. Timmy agreed not to “exorcise” me if I helped him pass his science fair. (Turns out, “Do Goblins Prefer Sunny or Shaded Haunts?” won 2nd place. Lost to a potato battery. Rigged.)

The Great Fondue Fiasco

Everything went sideways at the block party.

Mrs. Pickering, emboldened by boxed wine, decided to “reclaim her home” via a DIY smudging ritual involving sage, a hairdryer, and Mariah Carey’s Christmas album. The resulting smoke alarm symphony brought the entire cul-de-sac running.

Cornered in the pantry, I did what any self-respecting goblin would do: I panicked.

“BEHOLD,” I boomed, swirling into my most terrifying form: a vortex of shadows and teeth. “I AM THE NIGHTMARE THAT DEVOURS THE…”

Timmy kicked me in the shin.

“Ow! Rude!”

“Stop being extra,” he whispered. “They’ll literally call the National Guard.”

So I improvised.

Grabbing a ladle, I channeled my inner Julia Child. “Bonjour, mortals! Tonight, we’re making… fondue.”

Twenty minutes later, I was teaching the HOA president how to properly emulsify cheese.

The Goblin Who Came to Dinner

I still live under the floorboards. Timmy feeds me Funyuns. The Pickerings installed a “goblin door” (a dog flap with gothic trim). And every full moon, the neighborhood gathers for my infamous “Haunted Hot Dish Night.”

Monsieur Bubbles’ grave? I put googly eyes on the headstone. It’s what he would’ve wanted.

So yeah, I’m a goblin. But I’m their goblin.

And if you tell anyone I cried during The Notebook, I’ll wreck your Wi-Fi.

The End