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The Dark Elf
My brother just about holds a monopoly on recording community theatre in northern New Jersey.
For a time he stopped liking doing it, but continued to do it as requests continued to come in.
During this period he began to dislike it so much, that he literally price-gouged clients in advance, when a group asks him to record their stage play or musical.
He demanded a massive amount of cash up front, a ridiculously large pre-order amount of units, etc.
But no matter how much he tries to get them to say That's Insane, and they can go find someone else... my brother's skill at it is such that they invariably agree to his high demands.
Dammit! he would think to himself at their acceptance, as he instantly would become honour-bound to do it.
Back when he was doing it regularly and before his Distain Period, he had set up an editing bay in the cellar of the new Verona [New Jersey] house.
He had started out shooting with two cameras, and manually editing them... he quickly upgraded to transferring them digitally to computer and editing them there, each copy being the same quality of a master copy.
As he would use two to three cameras for a shoot, and his editing quite professional, his reputation grew throughout most of northern New Jersey, much to his eventual annoyance.
But he soon found he was not alone in the cellar.
When he had moved back east, he had brought with him his dog Cami (a loving lab/doberman mix), and a male grey California Spangle he'd named Mickey (named after the Mouse), even though we had Bast and a female grey tiger-stripe named Mickey (named after the similarly coloured female cat my parents had when they lived in Brooklyn prior to my birth).
Amusingly, our mother could never seem to tell apart our two Mickey cats.
While both cats were equally affectionate, the distinctions were pretty obviously, really.
My brother's male cat Mickey was streamlined and all grey, with the stripes and dots.
My female cat Mickey was grey with the black stripes, but she was chunkier and she displayed a bright-white bib and white paws.
One evening while watching TV, my brother's Mickey sauntered into the room.
"Now, which cat is this one?" Mom asked.
Simultaneously dead-pan, my brother and I replied: "Mickey."
None of the pets were allowed in the cellar.
While working down there, my Sensitive brother could sense Something Watching Him, and on numerous occasions he had espied Something down in the cellar with him.
As I was the closest thing to an "expert," he told me about it.
It was obviously a tiny biped, not a raccoon or 'possum that'd somehow snuck in, particular as he could only see it peripherally.
Even when, out of the corner of his eye, he could see it running across the floor in the area with little light, the creature was absolutely silent.
Not even footsteps (or paws) could be heard on the hard, bare concrete.
I went to and asked my metaphysics teacher Vinnie about it.
He deduced that most likely it was a Dark Elf.
A Dark Elf isn't a malevolent entity, they just like Dark Places.
When one feels they are Being Watched in a dark cellar or such, most likely it's just a curious Dark Elf.
I explained this to my brother, who was fine with it.
It wasn't like the entity got into his stuff or anything.
One summer day he and I were home alone.
While editing, he had open the cellar door to the backyard, a citronella candle in a tiny bucket to ward off flying bugs.
Deciding it was time for lunch, he extinguished the candle, returned to his equipment and spent his usual minute or two shutting down everything.
Once all the equipment was off, he made sure the candle was out, and came upstairs, where I made for him a grilled cheese sandwich.
We chatted for maybe a half hour or more, at which time he figured it was time to get back to work.
As I began cleaning up, I suddenly could hear my brother from downstairs, literally shouting; "Goddammit! I told you not to...."
Whoops, I thought, as my brother's voice trailed off.
Had I turned on something downstairs and forgot to turn it off?
I often used my mother's computer, also downstairs, but I couldn't recall using it that morning.
I rushed downstairs, already in Apology Mode, asking what had I done.
"No, it's not you," he said with great annoyance.
"It's your [effin'] Dark Elf: he relit the candle again."
Sure enough, the citronella candle was lit, and not by my brother who had made utterly certain it was off before having gone upstairs.
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