The Hobbit

The hobbit lived alone, as most hobbits do.

He was a grumpy, old thing. And the passing of years alone didn’t help that. With a long, scraggly, gray beard and a bald head, he looked much like a rude Albus Dumbledore. But unlike that esteemed figure, the hobbit didn’t have a school to take care of, people who cared about him, and much of a height at all.

Instead, he lived alone in the very middle of the woods. Solitude was his best friend, and it stayed that way, as the trees frosted and then slowly began to melt, as leaves changed from green to yellow to red and back again.

He didn’t mind it much. No, he liked his peace and quiet. But in a town just outside the forest, people thought of him as strange.

And he certainly was, but those peculiars softened into some things to be admired when he was alone.

His wrinkled face would shape into a weathered smile, dimples making an appearance.

He would spend day after day working on his garden and walking through and around the forest, apart from the short, weekly trips to town for tools.

And when nightfall fell at last, when the stars could be seen through patches of clearing up in the treetops, the hobbit settled into his cottage - one built into a small mound that some might consider a hill, one made of grass and ground.

The hobbit’s name was unknown, but the humans didn’t care - they just called him as I do, “the hobbit”, and a name wasn’t important with the animals, who only provided company and not conversation. The animals just viewed the hobbit as a friend.

No one knew where he came from and what happened that made him despise humans so much. He had outlived those who knew him well.

The hobbit was a troubled soul.

And as the humans ate dinner beside their loved ones, the hobbit settled down with a book and a snack and began to live out the rest of his life alone.