The gnomes had come from out of nowhere, on a random Wednesday night. Jerry noticed them, just as he was falling asleep. They were rummaging around in his underwear drawer. He could see them in the darkness, shadows imprinted on the darkness. He could hear them whispering...loudly. He snatched his phone from off the nightstand, turned on the flashlight, and aimed it at his dresser.

There were two...no, three of them. Two were standing around his dresser, and the other in his underwear drawer. He could see his legs wiggling around. Comically. If anything. The gnomes looked just like the tacky gnomes you'd find in a garden. Faded colors, chipped paint, glossy dead eyes, dirty and faded beards. Fear didn’t consume Jerry, but amusement did.

"What the hell are you guys doing here," Jerry asked, his voice thick with sleep. "You're the things that have been running around downstairs and moving all the stuff in my kitchen."

The two gnomes that he could see did not move. They simply stood there with their tiny little hands open, and up in the air. They hissed back and forth, as the one in his underwear drawer struggled to get out of the dresser. It didn't take long for Jerry to realize that they spoke a different language.

"Now," Jerry said as he straightened himself on his mattress. "Normally, I'd be up in arms about a bunch of gnomes stealing my underwear...but I just can't deal with this tonight. Could you please leave? Go downstairs and sleep?"

The words sounded funny to his own ears. Him letting three random gnomes that popped up out of nowhere reside in his living room felt foreign. The gnome to the right seemed to understand what he was saying. He nodded and gestured for the other one to pull the gnome in the drawer out. Jerry pushed himself off his bed and escorted the three little gnomes out of his bedroom, and then he closed his door and went back to bed.

A commotion occurred, right as Jerry began to doze off. It came from his kitchen, and he could hear pots and pans as they collided with the tiles. Jerry pushed himself out of bed, a flurry of curse words spewing from his mouth. He ripped open his bedroom door, flipped on the hallway light, and trotted down the stairs. He kicked each gnome in the behind, flinging one into the fireplace, one into the sink, and the last one into the trash can.

Then there was silence. Silence and glorious sleep.