Evil Elves are Everywhere!

By Darvell Hunt

My eight-year-old daughter is convinced that something she calls evil elves are responsible for bad things that happen. I told her I had never heard of evil elves and that they don’t exist. She said they do and everybody at school talks about them.

My daughter is at that age when scary things prevent her from sleeping—and I’m at that age when scared daughters prevent me from sleeping. So, it’s in my best interest to convince her that something as scary as evil elves are not real.

Today I noticed our laundry room light was on. My wife was not home at the time, so I figured one of the kids must have left the light on after they went looking for something in the dryer. Of course, when I asked who left it on, there were no answers. So I turned it off myself.

Not fifteen minutes later, the laundry room light was again on.

“Who turned this light on?” I called, almost yelling.

No answer, again. Of course.

They my daughter replied, rather calm, and in a lecturing tone of voice, “I told you evil elves were real.”

I suppose they are.

Evil elves tell me not to write another chapter, because television would be more fun. Evil elves prompt my kids to take on too many activities, so I have to spend my time as a kid-courier instead of editing one of my novels. I suppose evil elves also whisper into the ears of editors to whom I’ve submitted my writing, telling them that this submission is garbage and that they should reject it without even reading it (because if they really had read it, there’s obviously no way they could have rejected it).

So maybe evil elves do exist if you believe in them. That’s hard not to do, though.

It seems that evil elves are everywhere!

I suppose I have always had to overcome the evil-elf comments about my work not being good enough, that this editor or that publisher won’t want to see my stuff, or that the new book idea that just came to me is idiotic. It seems that sometimes my own evil elves are keeping me up at night.

Despite my daughter’s adamant comments about evil elves and the apparent supporting evidence, I’m trying to convince myself that they don’t exist. My writing is worth doing and I will succeed doing it.

Get thee hence, evil elves!