My name is Gobu, it is a short name, but that’s fine for we goblins have no need for long ones. Since I do not come from the great five families I do not have a second name. But that’s fine too.
My family are snail farmers, we live furthest away from the village and spend our days quietly without visitors. Farming is a valued skill but it doesn’t mean much to me, I simply do it as my father can no longer and think nothing of it. My mother and father are slow moving creatures who sit inside, cooking and smoking their pipe. We do not speak much except about snails and my future and thus my days are spent in near silence.
We goblins live at the lowest layer of the forest, far beneath the great oaks in the mulch of dying leaves, the sun doesn’t reach that far and so our sky is always dim and grey. I wake as soon as the first muggy light hits the farm and perform my chores, taking care of the snails and tilling our fields. I work fast and finish early, and before my parents wake I sneak off south to walk. Always away from the village I walk, uphill to the light. We live in constant mud so the paths into the forest are forever-changing and I have to discover new ones whenever I trek. But I don’t think I mind, in fact I believe I like it. The further I walk the more the world comes alive, I make out birds flitting above me like shooting arrows, or I’ll see a ripe red fruit swinging in the breeze and reach out for it. I’ve often longed for the luxury of taste beyond snails and gruel but can never quite grasp it. Most goblins would get tired walking as far as I do every-day but my legs are far more powerful than the average village-dwellers and I can make it quite far up. But I always stop before I get too close and I expose myself to the sun-light. Once when I was young and heartier I made that mistake and left with a white marring on my face.

It had been many summers ago, when my father had first fallen ill and had I just discovered the taste of responsibility and of freedom. For the first time I was able to do as I wish unsupervised and so of course I fled up into the forest (as I do now). Back then I was far more anxious un-used to the unfriendly wilds and so I tread carefully, but I was equally foolish and I tread with a passion.
It was a particularly warm day and feeling particularly brave I decided to venture far further than I ever had. I had clambered up and away from the depths to where moss grew and the felled branches hadn’t rotted. I had been contemplating sitting down and eating when my breath was stolen by beauty. A lone yellow flower was sitting like an elegant lady in a small clearing. Glowing in the sunlight.           Wasting not a second I dropped my bag and raced over to grasp it, but as soon as I burst out of the shadows the light turned on me. With a smiting hand it slapped my face and I heard my own skin sizzling furiously. I lay in the moss screaming and covering myself, when the shock had passed I dashed home weeping and spent two days in pain.
When a convoy passed to pick up our snails it returned to the village with fresh gossip of my idiocy. “ Does he not know that our skin is not suited to the light ?” “ I swear their brains have rotted being out their alone”. Of course I never heard their taunts, but I can imagine.