A Brief Study of Trolls
By Casey Douglass
as part of #fridayflash
Film and fairytale have
let the side down in recent years. Trolls are either portrayed as
blundering fools or as some human eating monster. Well I am here to
set the record straight.
My name is Arthur
Quint, and I have had the privilege of living and working with
various Trolls for the last decade. This is no small achievement, as
many people have never even seen one with their own eyes.
The difficulty lies in
them being inter-dimensional beings. They don’t live under bridges
or in dark forests you see. They simply use these as doorways into
our world. They seldom use these however, as they have most of the
things they desire in their own backyard, so to speak.
One night, I was
cycling along a back-road near my home when I was bundled off my
bicycle by something large and heavy. After a profusion of apologies
and a hastily made splint for my broken arm, Jarth the Troll offered
to make it up to me by taking me back to his world. It only took
moments for my fear to be overwhelmed by curiosity and I soon found
myself gazing across a literal uncanny valley.
The Trolls themselves
are partially made from rock, and partially flesh and blood. They
continue to grow throughout their entire lives. Once they reach a
certain size, they stop moving and simply sit or lay, gradually
becoming part of the landscape and losing their sentient spark. This
is considered a good death in Troll society. Of course some die in
civil wars and other conflicts but most Trolls can look forward to a
very long and healthy life.
They live in an honour
bound society and seem most like the olden day Samurai of Japan. This
is partly why the governing hierarchy permitted my visits. They
viewed it that Jarth had wrong me by injuring me and saw my visits as
evening the score. I don’t think that I was originally permitted to
visit as much as I have. I would like to think that I won them over
with my manner and quick humour.
Their world is similar
to ours but everything has a purple hue. In later visits I discovered
that they actually live underground in their plane of existence, and
the purple light comes from an enormous orb that is suspended from
the ceiling of one giant cavern. The size defies belief. Let me put
it this way, in the decade I have been visiting, I have only seen one
third of what it has to offer. I did manage to get to an edge once
however. There the light is very dim and things are quite dangerous;
not all Trolls are friendly. The maladapted ones literally get pushed
to the fringes of Troll society. On that day, Jarth and a host of
Troll guards accompanied me. There was no fighting, just uneasy eye
contact and chest bashing.
Troll society as a
whole is very civilised, by some standards at least. They have
institutions that we would recognise as schools, shops and banks.
They have law and order, healthcare and all manner of so called
modern inventions. They don’t quite have smart phones and computers
but what they do have is a quite lovely steam-punk technology that
does a superb job of imitation. You haven’t lived if you haven’t
seen a Troll using a sputtering cog-bound calculator.
One aspect of their
society that is hard to stomach is their currency. Their whole
society is based on a body fluid system. These are, in ascending
order of worth: urine, saliva, snot, blood and sexual secretions. Yes
it turns my stomach to think of it. It is safe to say that every
opportunity that arose where a Troll desired to pay me, I kindly
refused. It also goes without saying that you never ever want to win
the Troll lottery.
This leads us to one of
the main reasons why some come to our world. They make dangerous
trips to biohazard bins, abattoirs and the occasional raid on
sperm-banks to make their equivalent of easy coin. You might think
that this influx of external fluid would unbalance their economy and
you would be right. That is why the various gateways are heavily
guarded. Enterprising trolls occasionally avoid the beating bestowed
by the hulking guards and manage to sneak through.
Along with biological
fluids, they are also quite partial to human pornography. A copy of
Penthouse would go for...well...let’s just say that you’d need a
few buckets to collect your payment.
Sadly, the doorways are
closed now which is why I feel I can publish this small paper without
endangering them. I don’t know what has happened in their realm but one day I found a small purple pebble left outside my back door. It
was broken in two perfect halves and was covered in fluid. I think it
was a message from Jarth, my friend and my guide to that world that
is now lost to me.
We have lost the
opportunity for something remarkable and I have lost my friend.
THE END
