One lone goblin walked toward them through the mess, gracefully avoiding the flail of limbs (though who they belonged to was anybody’s guess) and the gibbering cries of sentient photocopiers. He did, however, pause politefully for the carolling choir of vest-wearing rabbits, for they were announcing his presence in Latin and oh oh oh ohs.
Anna waited for him with a slight smile on her face. If she was being honest with herself, this was the best work day she’d had in years, and she was thoroughly enjoying herself.
The rabbits completed their song and backed off, and the goblin - who must have been some sort of leader, given the deference shown to him - stepped forwards, and stood across the floor from Anna.
She realised immediately that he was no normal goblin. Though he wasn’t much taller than three feet and his appearance was as ungainly as all goblins, his form was somehow immense, towering in a manlike shape, and he moved with a power and a majesty that dwelled in and around him.
The two faced each other, hands at their sides. A tumbleweed drifted across the floor, wearing a cowboy hat. Somewhere in the distance a goblin could be heard singing the theme to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
The goblin took in the situation at a glance, determined what had happened, and drew his proverbial pistol. A mischievous grin flashed across his face as he took the first shot.
“Now miss,” the mysterious goblin said, managing to perfectly match her drawl, “do you really think this is the right thing to do to my poor boys on Saint Valentine’s Day?”
Anna didn’t bother asking why he thought it was Saint Valentine’s Day. If it could be her birthday in March and the prelude to Christmas in early December there was no reason it couldn’t be Saint Valentine’s Day too. (Though she vaguely entertained the idea that maybe she’d been doing so much overtime she’d forgotten what month it was, and it was really April Fool’s Day. If so, she’d be forever grateful to that greatest of days.)
“Of course it is. Cleanliness is next to gobliness, as the adage goes.”
The goblin barked a short laugh, then sank down to one knee.
“And yet methinks more momentous matters merit our meditations-”
His voice was totally serious and completely steady, as if what he was about to say was the most natural thing in the world
“My dear, happy Valentine's Day. Will you marry me?”
Anna's hands went up to her mouth, breaking into an involuntary smile of pure bliss.
“Are you being serious?”
The goblin king blinked. Of course it was a joke, but it was a serious joke - as were all those told by the goblins, for they were the only types of jokes worth making. There was, so far as the goblins were concerned, no point in making jokes whose outcomes were not a matter of cosmic significance. He hadn't expected her to say ‘yes’ - or even consider the idea at all - but he'd never go back on his word.
“…Yes.” He said, staring deep into her eyes.
As he said this, Anna squealed.
“Yes!”
The goblin had experienced a lot in his uncountable aeons of existence (for Halloween is timeless, and thus immortal), but spontaneously accepting a proposal from a stranger was a new one, and the shock must have shown on his face.
“I’ve always dreamed of a whirlwind romance,” Anna sighed, clutching a book from famed romance publisher, Wallmark.
The goblin king looked unconvinced, because a love of whirlwind romances in the general did not imply accepting this whirlwind romance in particular.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Perceiving his ‘bruh’ look, Anna hastened to explain.
“It’s all well and good to quit,” Anna said, waving one finger about, “but what about my next job? Will it be any better? Any less soul-crushing, devoid of any playfulness, cosiness, or jest? And is this dreary abnormality not constitutive of all the city’s endeavours?”
And thus it was that the goblin king had to ‘eat his own words’ - having inveigled his way in by saying that humans were dreary without goblins, he now had a human yoking herself to him in a desire to be more like a goblin.
But he was on the Nice List, and so kept his word.
“And you think that joining the mayhem of the night carnival would be cosy?”
“Absolutely. To paraphrase the Poet, ‘the point of going on an adventure is to come home again,’ and nothing seems more adventurous than this,” she declared, motioning to the state of ever-shifting espièglerie that was Das Gleiche’s corporate headquarters, post-goblin encounter.
“Not that I have no interest in you, of course, but I figure we’ll get to know each other after marriage,” she tacked on. “And anyways, you know what they say - you only know your spouse, after they become your spouse.”
The goblin shrugged. He had indeed heard ‘them’ say it (‘them’ being that inscrutable, obscure coterie responsible for all ‘they’ say), and knew ‘they’ meant it with all their heart. But he figured he’d try and skewer her on one last point, his attempt at a (quite rude, really) prank having blown up in his face.
“You’ll pardon me, then, for asking a probing question - but why ask my goblins to clean? If you know your Boynton, you must know her famous passage: ‘three singing pigs say la la la! “No, no!” you say. “This isn’t right. The pigs say oink all day and night.”’ So say the pigs - and goblins are the same. It is in the nature of pigs not to sing, and in the nature of goblins to cause chaos - and you don’t want to ask someone to go against their nature.”
But goblins and elves are not the only ones who know a little about time. Demonic cultivators need to know about time too, if they want to steal it. Anna rubbed her hands, years of evil and babysitting guiding her footsteps.
“The pigs say oink all day and night - but is the humdrum routine of daily existence all they’re to be confined to? Do we not read in Boynton” - and here Anna’s tone took on a hint of desperation, as if she was speaking not of goblins but of someone else - “that on Christmas ‘all the happy pigs go ha ha ha!’ And, on Halloween, strange reversals occur, and we find that the pigs do indeed go ‘la la la.’ And if pigs can break free from their Fate and sing, why can’t we?”
The goblin chuckled. “Perhaps they’ll fly next.”
“Perhaps they will - it would certainly get them away from the big bad wolf, and who knows what sorts of reversals may occur, if the day is strange enough.”
The goblin considered her words, then banged his cane on the floor.
“And lo, strange reversals may make it that cleaning is, itself, a form of mischief.”
He turned to his men - er, goblins - who, in a strange reversal, looked ready and eager to clean. They held their brooms and mops like spears, rags wrapped around their heads. He drew his feather duster out of his cane (he didn’t hold with sword canes).
“Alright, my verdant colleagues! You heard the mistress - it’s time to clean up the mess.”
And hooting and hollering, his verdant colleagues did just that. ‘They fix! They sweep! They scrub the floor! The house is clean! They’re out the door!’ (After all, the real mess had yet to be cleaned up - the demonic cultivators were still at large.)
Anna went to leave herself. She’d submit her formal resignation later, but she was done. She was going home for a rest. It was freedom time: she was going to eat two entire tubs of ice cream, and nobody was allowed to tell her what to do.
But the goblin wasn’t done.
“Are we forgetting something?”
“Doubtlessly. I’m a forgetful girl,” Anna drawled. This was true - she’d lost her car keys just that morning, which was impressive since she didn’t even own a car. (Perhaps the greatest feat in Anna’s career was the day she misplaced the phone. Judy never found out how, exactly, she was able to lose an entire rotary phone, replete with all its cables and the phone box, and Anna was never quite able to find it. Alas, some things must remain a mystery.)
The goblin’s lips drew back in a grin, his ears waggling. “You don’t think your day is done yet, do you? You chose to throw in with the goblins, and the goblins are in for a night of mischief and revelling.”
Anna blanched as it occurred to her she’d just accepted a new job without checking the overtime conditions, until her mind finally registered the second half of the sentence. Overtime partying didn’t sound so bad - the opposite of bad, really, for ice cream shared was better than ice cream eaten alone, after all.
The goblin gestured behind her, as if motioning for her to climb onto something, then froze. He looked around.
“Now, where'd I put that unicorn?”
(A unicorn is a terrible thing to misplace, but sometimes it happens.)