Return to New Arden

The Gremlins

The Gremlins had always been there, they were there when the land was a thick green forest. They were there when it was wide farmland. They were there when the town of New Arden was built and beside it an airfield. That was the time they truly found their calling. The Gremlins were always a playful bunch, they liked to tinker. The aircraft suffered but the engineers were always one step ahead of the Gremlins. It was the engineers who gave them their name. The Gremlins snickered, they liked it.

Time rolled on and the land for the airfield became the grounds of New Arden College. The Gremlins were adapting nicely to modern life. As well as breaking things their favourite occupation was helping them go missing. Particularly the displacement of items owned by absent minded professors. Then at last came the age of computing and the Gremlins greeted it with glee. Here was another tricky sensitive machine that they could play endless games with.

At the moment the Gremlins in the IT department were not happy. Things were being moved and the people were changing. It started innocently enough with a trail of cartons headed from one side of campus to the other. A bin was brought in and old equipment and unwanted files chucked into it. The Gremlins for all that they liked to make a mess in other people's lives did not like it in their own. Of course, their definition of mess and our definition is very different. They don't mind mess as we know it at all so long as it stays in the same place.

The dissatisfaction of the Gremlins was felt in various ways, emails did not arrive or went to the wrong person. Files did not save properly, paper got jammed in the photocopier and on one bleak Friday the server went down entirely for an hour. An hour is a long time in the life of a panicked Student whose paper is due. Everyone turned to the IT department and they did their best to calm frayed nerves. The Gremlins sensing the winds of change could not be turned back, packed up their faery tribe and headed for their new home. There was some scuffling and fighting as each sort a tiny space to call their own in the new offices. The humans were largely oblivious to it all except that they complained that the new place had a draft. To most humans Gremlins are invisible although there are various imaginings about what they look like nobody has ever truly seen a Gremlin.

The Gremlins listened to the conversations springing up between the IT people. It seemed that a new IT wizard was coming to take over the department. The Gremlins knew a thing or two about Wizards. They remembered the Druids, they remembered the Medieval courts, they remembered the Harry Potter craze, they had googled it. None of them were quite sure what an IT wizard was but surely, he could only be another human.

On Monday the IT Wizard arrived. He was tall and Lanky with a curved nose and his name was Brian. The Gremlins peeped out from their corners and watched with interest. They watched the staff meeting unfold with all the usual jockeying to impress. The Gremlins grinned Brian was definitely a human among other humans. They decided that it was business as usual but as a sign of welcome they played all their tricks at once. The photocopier crashed, email accounts shut down and Brian's glasses went missing for ten minutes. At the end of the day the IT department was tired and frazzled and a little like a crew of soldiers who had been tested by war. Like a good captain Brian stayed until the end.

When the last employee had filed out the door. He looked about the room with a mix of suspicion and wonder. The Gremlins watched and waited, sure that he could not see them. Slowly Brian went to the cupboard where they kept the spare cables and took out a box of assorted broken items. He placed it in the middle of the floor and addressed the apparently empty room.

"Gremlins these are for you, you can have them all to yourself if you fix them for me."

There was a hushed pause and then a gust of air whisked past Brian's ear.

Smiling he left.

Alone in the IT office Gremlins emerged from every corner and went to examine this box of toys.

Then they began to do what no Gremlin had ever done in the history of time. They began to fix things.

Things went much more smoothly after that day, it seemed that Brian's reputation as a wizard in IT was true.