I Notice When You Don't Talk to Me

I'll tell you the story about the goblin that ate fire.

It was a rotten and greedy goblin. She'd snuck into a giant's house, and because of how giant things work the goblin found she had swollen up to giant size herself. However, the last meal in her belly didn't, because magic is funny that way, and so while she had been just a little bit hungry before, she was famished now that she had a great giant empty belly and only a very very small half digested smack in it.

So she found the dining room, and, sure enough, the giant's table was laid out with an enchanted never ending feast lit with torches and served on gold plates. Even though it was never ending she was so hungry that she tried to eat it all anyway.

The more she ate, the more sprouted magically from the table. The faster she ate it, the faster and quicker it erupted from nowhere.

The great hungry goblin was so ravenous that she was not discouraged, used both hands to shovel every morsel into her vast mouth, hinged so far open that she could no longer see her own hands tirelessly thrusting sustenance down her gullet. Suddenly she gasped and gagged and choked and sputtered, clutching at her throat!

Wheezing and gulping for air she failed about till she fell down on her back, striking so hard against the floor that it dislodged the obstruction in her throat and caused her to choke it down whole.

Still shocked and surprised and out of breath she kept tumbling backward and out of control right through the back kitchen door and out of the house, back to her normal size, and down the steps and off into the woods where she finally lay still.

When she began to feel herself again, she noticed she felt hot all over everywhere, for though she did not know it and had not reasoned it out yet, she had absent-mindedly swallowed the giant's torches .

And great fiery torches of fierce flame lit by dragons they were, though now she was just a very tiny and unassumingly normal goblin.

She went on to be the mother of all goblins, the fire in her belly always destroying whatever she ate, always leaving her hungry and angry, but forever cooking within her unlimited imaginings and ingeniously clever hatreds. And that is why all goblins are so bitter to the core of their bellies, and so clever as to work out any plot or trap or weapon.

Because from then on, all true goblins have had a bit of that stolen fire in their bellies. And it forever drives them to evil madness.