Wallgnarps
Perhaps, or maybe I should say most likely, you haven’t heard of Wallgnarps. Grandad came from London, England 60 years ago. He’s been telling his children and grandchildren all about Wallgnarps ever since. Well actually he’s been telling anyone who will listen, be it his children, grandchildren, or the unsuspecting young woman sitting next to him on the plane.
Wallgnarps, Grandad will tell you, are little creatures that hang upside down on the little stonewall laneways throughout England. They are similar to bats in that they hang upside down, fuzzy or I should say furry like a mouse and without the wings. They hang by their tails like American opossums. Some can be the size of a fist, but they can grow larger, to roughly the size of a small melon. It can be rather unnerving to come across one, especially if you have never seen one before.
Imagine yourself walking casually down an old country lane in Devon, it’s a beautiful sunny day. Who am I kidding, it’s more likely gray and cloudy and threatening to rain – a lovely day as I was saying. Imagine, you are strolling down the lane, hugging close to the wall as you go around the curve, you hear the roar of the engine of an oncoming motorist. You don’t want to be hit, the locals have a reputation for speeding down the lanes, so you pause to wait for the old Land Rover to pass.
In that short space of time, before the old jalopy skirts around you, you get a creepy feeling that something is inches from your right shoulder. You don’t want to lose site of the vehicle, but what… is… that… thing? You want to jump away, but if you do you’ll land right in the path of the car barreling down on you.
Really your back should be pressed up against the wall, so Mister Andretti doesn’t run over your feet as he careens down the road. But that thing…? It has huge eyes – dark and piercing, staring you down, and it starts squeaking a high-pitched warning – you’ve come too close. Its fur is a light brown to match the stone wall. Its little clawed feet grasp the wall and its tail is wrapped around the vines of the ivy that climbs and intertwines itself with the blackberry brambles that hang over the wall from the farmer’s fields.
What you don’t know is what it will do? Will it bite? Jump on you? Climb in your hair and scratch your face? Or even worse maybe it has rabies! I really can’t tell you. I’ve never come across one myself. They are so rare.
My father, Grandad, is the only one who really knows. He’s been telling people about them ever since he was roped into being Dungeon Master in a game of D&D back in 1985. And yes, he did tell some poor college student on the plane to lookout for them on her next trip to England!
Original flash fiction essay written by Laura Lane first published in Flash Fiction Friday in 2020