Arthur Percy was, by all accounts, a model gnome. He stood proudly in the sunny border by the kitchen window, his figure a defiant splash of colour against the deep green of the conifer. His true-blue trousers and darker blue jacket were immaculate, his black boots perpetually pristine. He stood at ease yet vigilant, one hand tucked into his pocket, the other resting lightly on the handle of his small shovel. Perched atop it all, his cherry-red hat.

His post was perfect. He stood in the heart of the garden, where the air smelled of freshly cut grass and early morning dew. Every morning, as the lady of the house stood at the sink doing the dishes, she would look up, smile, and give him a little nod. Their quiet, shared ritual. When she went out to hang the washing, she'd pass him and offer a quick "Hello, Arthur Percy," always made his smile broader. The husband was less consistent, offering a brief nod only when she was nearby. But one breezy afternoon, the man had paused while weeding and mumbled, "Garden's going to get a lot busier soon, eh, Arthur?" The gnome hadn't understood, but he had waited in happy anticipation.

Then came the darkness.

The worst day was always the day of the Great Removal. Arthur Percy knew it was necessary to protect his brittle form from the frost, but the garage was a horror. It was a vast, cold cavern, smelling of old paint, and damp concrete. There was no light to speak of; only a faint sliver around the worn side door told him if it was day or night. And the spiders. They thrived in the dusty corners, their webs an insult to his tidy nature.

His only moments of reprieve came when the husband visited the back of the garage. A trip to retrieve a tool or, more likely, a bottle or two of his favourite ale. The husband would often have to move him to get to carefully stored ale. "And one for Arthur," he'd always declare with a chuckle, setting the bottles down, before quickly moving Arthur back. The gnome never got his drink, but the brief recognition was enough to warm him until spring.

The spring that followed was filled with sun, the scent of new life, and a wondrous new sound: the quiet, hungry cries of the baby. The "little nipper" was everything the lady and her husband had wanted and more. Arthur Percy watched the parade of family (aunts, uncles, grandparents) all coming to marvel at the tiny bundle. He saw the tired-but-happy smiles of his parents and felt a part of the extended celebration, even if the late-night feeds meant he, too, yearned for a good night's rest.

He watched the little nipper grow with astonishing speed: from a still bundle to rolling, then to crawling. It was the crawling that brought an end to his golden age. One sunny afternoon, the lady and her husband were enjoying a rare moment of peace on the patio, while the little nipper played at their feet, not five feet away. Arthur Percy was observing the flight of a bee when suddenly, the ground seemed to shake. The little nipper, on an unstoppable mission, made a beeline straight for his brightly coloured form.

Bonk.

A moment of impossible wobble. Arthur Percy saw the patio paving rush up to meet his ceramic nose. That would have been it, a glorious, shattering end. But the husband was quick. He snatched the child back, righted the gnome with a curse and a relieved breath, and checked him over. "Saved your big nose, old lad," he muttered.

The next thing Arthur knew, he was back in the garage. But it wasn't winter. He silently protested. He hated the garage, but this felt different. A punishment, an exile.

His time in the dark was mercifully short. One morning, he was hauled out, cleaned with a soft, damp cloth until his colours seemed to sing again, and carried out of the garage. He breathed a sigh of relief.

But he was not returned to his conifer post. He was set down hard on the front doorstep.

This new position was different. Colder. He missed the familiar, sheltering green of the tree. The sun didn't hit him the same way and there were no friendly solar lights to ward off the gloom. He was exposed, facing the vast, dark street. The lady barely acknowledged him here, preoccupied with the demands of the house. He felt demoted, abandoned.

Then, a sudden, firm understanding settled within his clay frame. He wasn't a plaything; he was a sentinel. He was the first line of defence, the watchful eye on the world outside their sacred walls.

He was the Guardsman of the House. His duty was now to watch.

Arthur Percy settled into his new role with stoic acceptance. The world here was different from the soft, enclosed green of the back garden; it was a stage for the comings and goings of the entire close, and he was the sole, silent audience. He began to keep notes, a ledger of observations etched only in his mind.

His first entries were often complaints about the small indignities inflicted upon the property he now guarded. The worst offender was the neighbour's cat, a sleek shadow of black and white that regarded the front garden as its private latrine. Every other morning, the same patch of the flowerbed was desecrated, much to the silent fury of Arthur Percy and the vocal annoyance of his owner. He took note of the culprit, waiting just inside the conifers opposite, seemingly daring the ceramic gnome to challenge him.

Then there were the odd, singular events. One humid afternoon, an old, mangy fox ambled onto the lawn. Arthur Percy expected it to hunt or scavenge, but instead, it delicately retrieved a perfectly intact hen's egg from its mouth and solemnly buried it beneath the pot where the lounge window overlooked the street. Which Arthur thought was all rather odd, and so did the lady of the house when she dug it up weeding, she looked very confused, but shrugged and took the egg away.  The fox returned a week later and was most put out to not find his hidden treat, most put out indeed.

The immediate shock of being left out in the cold arrived that very first autumn. The air bit sharp and hard, and the frost coated his cherry-red hat in white rime. Arthur Percy braced himself for the husband's strong hands to lift him, to carry him to the dark sanctuary of the garage. But the hands never came. Christmas decorations went up around him, the front door was garlanded, but he remained on his post. His service, he realized with a quiet, lonely acceptance, was now permanent. No more summer friends by the conifer, no more hated-but-safe winters in the garage. He was a fixture, a forgotten necessity.

Arthur Percy silently catalogued it all. The fading colours of the close, the accelerating speed of the children, the quiet disappearances of the old. He was no longer just guarding a house; he was the keeper of its history, and the chronicler of the life that flowed around it.

As weeks turned into months, the strange events faded into the background, replaced by the crushing repetition of routine. Yet, in that repetition, Arthur Percy began to see the true passage of time.

He observed the children. On the first days of his watch, he'd see the young boy from two doors down being walked to school by his father. The boy wore a bright, branded jumper and carried a backpack that looked half his size. A year or so later, the father began to stop at the end of the close, watching the boy walk the final steps alone.

Then came a year when the familiar bright jumper was replaced by a dark blazer and a tie. The boy seemed taller, leaner, his stride suddenly long. He no longer waited for his father, and the father no longer watched. Now, he and a cluster of other teens walked past Arthur Percy with a kind of serious, adult purpose, their backpacks strapped tight to shoulders that were wider than their father's had been when he'd first started walking them.

The "little nipper" followed the same path. First, a pushchair, then a bicycle, then the dark blazer and tie of secondary school, his height now level with the top of the door frame. His gait was now an echoing thud, heavy and purposeful.

The most poignant routine belonged to Joyce in the corner house. Despite her age and the unpredictable English weather, Arthur Percy could set his internal clock by her weekly trip. She would wait on her porch for a black cab to ferry her to church, always clutching her handbag and carefully adjusting her coat. For years, she was the bedrock of consistency on the close, her life a comforting rhythm.

Then, one Tuesday, the cab arrived, and a car containing her extended family pulled up behind it. Arthur Percy watched them help Joyce into the car, carrying a few small bags. She paused before getting in, looking back at her front door and her small, well-tended garden for a long moment. Arthur Percy did not know where she had gone, only that she was simply gone.

A few silent, perplexing weeks passed. Her small garden, which she had fussed over every spring, began to look unkempt. Weeds rising in the beds, the lawn growing shaggy. This visible neglect felt like a betrayal to Arthur Percy. He watched as various people came and looked at the house, pointing and talking quietly. Then, a few months later, a removal van arrived, and soon after, a new, young family began making their mark. The children's laughter brought a new, vibrant noise to the close, a different kind of life, but Arthur still felt a tug of sadness seeing Joyce's once-loved garden now so wild and untended beneath the lounge window.

He noted the cars, too. Some families changed their models every few years (a new colour, a better engine) while the elderly gentleman two houses down always nursed the same, beige saloon, polishing it every Sunday until its faint dents gleamed. The world shifted around him, a relentless cycle of new cars, new lives, and ever-growing children, and he was the only constant observer.

The years marched on, measured not by seasons, but by the relentless passage of other people's lives. Arthur Percy ceased to be a brightly coloured decoration and became, simply, a fixture. He was moved only when the windows were washed or the front door was scrubbed, and each time he felt a terrifying surge of instability.

His handsome colours had faded drastically. His once-proud dark-blue tunic was now a pale, chalky sky, and his vibrant cherry-red hat had been bleached by countless suns to the colour of dried salmon. The cold of his first permanent winter had left a faint, hairline crack running from his sturdy black boots up to his knee, a secret weakness he never showed. The wind now felt less like a breeze and more like a heavy, chilling hand pushing at his brittle shell.

The most pronounced marker of time became the annual December party. As the month began, Arthur Percy noted the increasing excitement in the house. The "little nipper," now taller than the lady of the house, began to glow with festive anticipation. The party itself was a chaotic explosion of light, laughter, and sound that often spilled onto the porch.

He watched the family mature. He saw the lady's hair silvering, and the husband's walk becoming slower. And he saw the "little nipper" transform. The child who had almost toppled him was now a young man, often bringing home friends and showing a casual, adult deference to his parents. At fifteen, he was now nearly as tall as his father, his voice deep and unfamiliar. He had completed his journey from tiny threat to confident young man under Arthur Percy's silent watch.

It was fifteen years to the day since Arthur Percy had first stood on that front doorstep. The late autumn had arrived with a vicious temperament. The sky was the colour of wet slate, and the wind, funnelling down the close, hit the doorstep with punishing force.

Arthur Percy felt agonisingly brittle. His base was dusty, slightly tilted, and he knew he was dangerously close to the edge of the stone step. He had guarded this house, cataloguing its history, noting the shift from old life (Joyce) to new (the replacement family), and documenting the growth of a child he had inadvertently helped protect. He had completed his watch.

The wind suddenly shifted, hitting his broad ceramic back like a sudden, heavy slap. He fought it, his base scraping against the stone in a high-pitched, unheard protest. His weakened leg, fractured since that first winter, couldn't hold against the force. His final, silent thought was not of himself, but of duty: The little nipper will watch them now.

Then, the wind claimed him.

He tumbled forward. No grand shout, no dramatic sound. Just a sharp, heartbreaking crack as his cherry-red hat met the cold pavement, followed by the smash of his body.

The next morning, the front door opened, and the lady of the house stepped out. She saw the familiar shape of her old, faded gnome lying fractured on the stone. A small, involuntary gasp escaped her. She knelt slowly, gathering the pieces of the shattered ceramic.

The tall young man, the "little nipper," followed her out, tying his tie. He glanced down, seeing his mother's sorrowful face and the broken statue.

"Oh, the gnome," he said, carelessly. "It's just an old gnome, Mum."

The lady, holding the faded, fragmented clay, looked up at her son, her eyes welling with sudden, sharp tears. She didn't correct him. She knew the truth that only she and the fragments of ceramic shared: it may have been just an old gnome, but he was also an old, faithful friend who had stood his silent watch through all the years.