The Goblin’s Christmas

Deep in the earth, where the ceilings drip constantly and the walls glint with menacing eyes, there lived a very ordinary goblin named Stench. Stench was not named after the human word for stink, Goblins had very few interactions with humans and never bothered to learn their languages, that was just a sound that his mother liked and thus named him Eh’lem Stench when he was born.

Apart from his unusual name, Stench was an ordinary goblin. Goblins lived in mines, deep in the earth. And because they lived constantly in gloom they craved gold, silver, gems and other shiny objects dug out of the earth. Stench wasn’t particularly good at digging either. But what he was very good at was getting other goblins to dig for him, stealing things, and he was very good at belittling other goblins – which is one of the few forms of entertainment in the goblin kingdom.

You might think it odd. Why would one goblin dig for another goblin? They live deep in the earth and are surrounded by gold and gems. Why would they dig for that wealth and then hand it over to another goblin?

Over the centuries, the goblins had developed a system where some of the goblins owned parts of the caves, usually the best and most productive parts. Where did they get the right to own these parts of the caves? Sometimes they claimed it was given to them by Mahklev, the goblin god. But in most cases, they realized that with a large enough force of brutal and trained soldiers they could simply steal the caves by force from the goblins who were born there, then enslave the population, and make them dig the mines for them.

This system made a few goblins incredibly rich and powerful and goblins love wealth. Over the centuries their culture developed such a love of wealth and power that owning things became their religion. Those who had the most gold and gems were considered to be “better” than others, more godly, and even infallible. Even the goblins – maybe it should be especially the goblins – who were not wealthy believed that the accumulation of more and more wealth was the only good. And so after the goblins (mostly) ended slavery and replaced it with a system where goblins were told that they “voluntarily worked” for a wage – one which afforded some of them with finer things – their society reached its pinnacle. A few very wealthy goblins, a large number of goblins who served the wealthy, and an even large number of goblins who had to dig and scrub the mines for a very meager living.

Stench was one of the richest goblins in the underworld and that made him extraordinary to other goblins but to any outside observer it would have become quickly apparent that he wasn’t very special. He wasn’t charming, he wasn’t witty, and he wasn’t handsome even by goblin standards. He looked sort of toad like, his body was quite flabby from years of decadent laziness, and his mouth was very flat and turned down at the ends. He wasn’t the kind of goblin who naturally made friends and wasn’t at all kind to others, which isn’t that important to goblins but would have certainly made him different.

Now before you start thinking that this Christmas story is going to follow any of the tropes, it’s not. There will be no storyline where we need to “save the Christmas spirit” because goblins don’t have any Christmas spirit to save. They aren’t Christians and they don’t believe in Santa Claus. They don’t even say things like “bah humbug” unless they are speaking to any of the Bah Humbug clan members. And most importantly, there will be no redemption of Stench. Stench will not be visited by three ghosts, he will not see the error of his ways, and he will not do any good deeds for disabled goblin children out of a sense of guilt for all the suffering he has caused.

Stench would sooner kick a disabled goblin child in the groin in the public square if he thought it would make other goblins laugh. And it would! Goblins loved cruelty and debasement almost as much as hoarding. And since they treated the wealthy like they are infallible gods, within moments after Stench kicked a baby goblin, kicking tiny goblin babies would soon become sport for them.

There is no redemption for Stench. In this story Stench refuses to listen to any advisors because he believes that he is actually quite infallible. Then he dies when a tunnel collapses on him because he decided to try a “new” and innovative way to dig holes (which many goblins told him wouldn’t work). After his death, another goblin becomes the richest goblin in the world, the goblins as a whole don’t learn any lessons, many of them are still constantly cruel and continue to worship wealth, and as a collective they refuse to do anything about the impending collapse of their tunnels – which has been foretold by many other goblins, the same ones who warned about Stench’s tunnel- and eventually they bring down the collapse of their entire society and they suffocate to death. Every one of them.

The End.

Merry Christmas!

Qq