The Last Goblin Today

He took a deep breath. The green fire in his eyes flickered.

A song for the last goblin.

As the first gray light of dawn touched his back, Snikk walked to the edge of Harlow. He looked back once. The village was still asleep. The fountain gleamed. The new road stretched straight and true toward the factories and the freeways. the last goblin

One by one, they had laid down their rusty knives and leathery caps. They had stopped stealing laundry from the line. They had forgotten the recipes for nettle beer and the old curses that made a horse refuse a shoe. The warrens under the cairn fell silent, then caved in.

No one answered.

He lived in a dry well at the edge of a village called Harlow. The villagers did not know he was there. They had paved the cow path, drained the bog where the will-o’-wisps once bred, and renamed their children after saints and kings. They were good people. They paid their taxes and buried their dead facing east.

Snikk picked it up. It did not ring. It was broken. He took a deep breath

All save one.