The appearance of the Elves didn't bother him any more. At first they disturbed him because he thought Elves should look like Liv Tyler and the guy out of the Matrix but the ones who had invaded his house looked more like tiny green Oompa Loompas with bad dress sense and a severe phobia of soap and water. One of them, Partridge, tried to explain to him that Elves recognise one another mostly by smell but he wasn't entirely convinced by this explanation.

He wasn't entirely sure why Elves lived in his house now, he suspected it was something to do with his friend Orchid. He had been stoned at the time he last talked to her, and he remembered agreeing to something. Until he found out exactly what he was being careful and trying not to appear to be an unfriendly host. There were four of them in total. Partridge was the leader of the bunch and then there was Buttercup, Spung and Ethel. He had no idea what their relationships were and neither did he care in the slightest. They were all equal pains in the arse, and that was enough for him.

Buttercup had started to play the bagpipes. It is fair to say that the history of Elves as written by humans is not very accurate. Elves are not pretty, Elves are by no means big or clever in any way, Elves are not very magical, Elves are definately not hygenic and importantly to this part of our story, Elves do not posess one gramme of musical talent or ability. Buttercup's concept of playing the bagpipes was to blow into the tartan bag and squeeze it as hard as she could whilst randomly covering notes and dancing on the spot. She fell over and broke the bagpipes for the 3rd time that day. Elves are clumsy beings who are to dancing as reindeer are to knitting.

He wondered where his bottle of Rioja had gone. He found it in front of him and poured another glass, staring at the TV blankly. He tried to phone Orchid again knowing that it was pointless and he would get her answering service as usual. For a moment he considered commenting to Partridge that he found it amusing that mobile phones and New Age Hippies went together so well but Partridge was painting Ethel's ears and he gave it a miss.

He was used to the feelings of despair but normally his despair had been accompanied by loneliness as opposed to a house full of Elves. He rolled himself a joint, lit it and pondered life in general. He did this repeatedly for about 3 hours until his phone rang. He answered and chatted to Orchid for a while and she invited herself around that evening for dinner. He asked her about the Elves and she asked him what the hell he was talking about. Damn, he was sure they had been something to do with her - If they weren't then where the hell had they come from?

"Where did you come from?", he asked them.

They looked at him. They laughed and they carried on what they were doing. Buttercup patched her bagpipes, Partridge played with Ethel's hair and Spung sipped his Rioja from a plastic Coke bottle lid. He stood up and looked in the fridge and threw away the last sausage roll. He would have to force himself to the shops before Orchid arrived and he'd also have to clean up the house and himself if he was going to have any chance of getting lucky that night. He tidied grumpily around the Elves, headed for the bathroom and started pouring a bath.

Strangely, it is not recorded anywhere else in human literature that the perfect cooking temperature of an Elf is about the same temperature as a nice hot bath. It is partly due to this fact that Elves smell so badly since for obvious reasons, Elven culture never had much use for hot water. He hadn't seen them follow him into the bathroom nor did he later see them leap into the water together assuming it was a swimming pool built especially for them. What he did notice when he went back into the room was four floating naked bodies, accompanied by the most wonderful odour.

He and Orchid enjoyed their Elf Au Vin with a vegetable medley that night, and they both enjoyed the most incredible night of sex either of them had ever had. Apparently Elves are in fact blessed with some magical energising and aphrodisiac qualities after all. They left the house in the morning full of spirit despite not having slept a wink; she heading to some protest or other and he to the Post Office to pop a little card in the window.

"Small room to let with En Suite bathroom.
  Would especially suit a large family of elves."