A Troll Story

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As the two blundered through the brush, Tosh the troll couldn’t help feeling a little anxious. Although he had been looking forward to it since a fortnight, now that he was actually getting nearer, his heart skipped a beat. “What if it all goes wrong? What if I end up looking more gruesome than I already do?” You see, Tosh was not your everyday troll, no way. Or at least he thought he wasn’t. To start with, he simply despised being a troll, but since he couldn’t help it, he hated it all the more when somebody reminded him of it. He also hated his name. Tosh. Really, why Mama would name him thus, he couldn’t figure out, but he wasn’t going to stick with it. No deal. Trolls maybe goofs, but he was smart enough to devise another name for himself; B.T. it was short for ‘baby troll’, something Mama troll called him, and he had simply abbreviated it. But that is saying a lot for a troll, and nobody knew what it meant except for his cousin, Slosh, who was walking beside him now. Ok, so his name included the bad word, troll, but he had to put up with it; he couldn’t think of a better one. I believe you’ve got the general picture. Let’s move on to what he used to do to make up for it. Every two days, he’d spend hours upon hours in the local spa, getting all sorts of trollish concoctions and ointments painted and massaged onto his face to try and make it ‘a little more presentable’, as he put it. He thought it could make him win the Mister World Contest for Trolls, but his cousin had views otherwise.
“A bone fer yer rotten thoughts,” grunted Slosh, making Tosh jerk out of his reverie back into the present. “Ya’re ugly.”
“Look who’s talking.” Tosh had little patience for Slosh’s ideas about his mien, especially at this moment.
“Well, Slosh is talkin’, n talkin’ good.”
“Whatever.” Tosh paused. “ I just hope he’s not sleeping his lazy head off when we get there.”
“I ’ope ’e is,” Slosh smirked. “I’ll ’ave a nice chance ter whack ’is ’ead in two.”
“Oh do try and not be a troll for once,” groaned Tosh.
“I dunt like the guy,” Slosh made a face, “alwaiz sleepin n sleepin.”
“Well, he says, he thinks, or… or, ‘medigate’, or whatever the word is. He has to do it for the powers he has.”
“Darn the powers!” Slosh punched the air. “ I bet ’e ain’t ’ave no powers. Layer.”
“The word is ‘liar’. But thinking or no thinking, he should better get up when we get there.”
“No worry. ’e’ll get up good n proper when e’ll see yer face.”
“It’s not my fault I look like Brad Pitt.”
“Na, coz ya look like ‘arm pit.’”
And that brought their conversation back to ground zero. The pertinent person of their conversation was a crazy old troll who lived a secluded life and claimed to possess healing powers. All the trolls thought he was a little loose in his head and called him all sorts of names, but secretly every one of them believed in him and came to him whenever they had an abrasion or two (you see, trolls being trolls, hardly get any wound worse than an abrasion under normal circumstances, which, if left unchecked, would be forgotten about as quickly as two minutes after the accident. But since they all were rather mystified by the hermit troll, they always used to visit him). Anyway, Tosh could not be left behind in this mysticism_ ‘B.T., the different’, quoting his own words. And so, many a time he had called upon the hermit, and every time he was told to wait a while as his ‘wound’ was rather too deep (bone deep, you could say) to be ‘healed’ with ordinary means, and hence, special arrangements and preparations would have to be made. And today, after all the waiting and nail biting, finally, he was summoned to the presence of the mighty (read whacko) hermit troll. Today was Tosh’s big day. Upon inquiry he was told that the hermit would give him such an ointment that would make him not only look more ‘less-trollish’, but also feel the same. The hitch was, the change would not be permanent, as what one is, one is, and that cannot be changed, at least not in the soul, and therefore, Tosh would have to apply the ointment every single day for the rest of his life all over his thick body. And, no points for guessing, Tosh was ready for it.
“They say beauty is skin deep, so don’t go after it,” mused Tosh, after a long silence. “What would I do to just get skin deep!”
“W’o say?”
“Ah, leave it.”
After a pause: “How happy I’d have been to be different.”
“Ter be somebuddy elze?”
“Yeah, to be somebody else.” Another pause. “ Haven’t you ever wondered what it feels like to be somebody else?”
“Like wot?”
“Like anybody else! Like the goblins, or the elves, or the dwarfs, or… or the Men.”
“I ain’t think too much, n good fer me, or so it seems, elze I’d turn into some troll-nut like ya.”
“To live a different life,” Tosh continued. “Not like this, trudging along being one ugly troll, who everybody hates and who hates himself because of that.” He spat. “A sad life with no escape, just chained within it for the worse.”
“Talk simpul, baby troll.”
“Don’t you call me that. It is what Mama calls me. You should call me B.T., no, Mister B.T.”
“’Mister’, huh? Where did ya catched it frum? I bet ya bin talkin’ ter them ‘Mans.’”
     And so they bungled on, Slosh, with his head lolling from side to side and humming a silly self-made tune, and Tosh, his gate reserved, and eyes glazed, staring at the far distances, as if lost in thought. He was. After this talk of being somebody else, he was planning on increasing his stakeout frequency, and watching Men more closely; especially trying to adopt the way they walked and talked. All his young life, he had done that, secretly watching and envying Men, and trying to impersonate them. Trying to be ‘different’, and ‘better’. One thing he couldn’t grasp, though, and that was the way every Man seemed to have a different body of different colors and styles, or was it some kind of covering they wore? (Clothes, you know). But he was sure after more intense staring and maybe listening_ though he couldn’t understand a word they said_ coupled with a bang or two on his melon-like head to get his brains (did he have any?) working, he would be able to fathom that, too. And so this continued till Slosh broke the silence.
“I ‘ate ya.”
“You ate me?
“Na, I ‘ate ya, ya know, dunt like ya.”
“Oh, hate me.”
“Yea.”
“Thank you.”
“Na, me serious.”
“Why?”
“Wot? Serious or ‘ate ya?”
“Hate me.” Tosh snapped his stubby fingers. “Let me guess, because I’m so gorgeous?”
“Na, coz ya make me feel sick.” Slosh made a gagging sound, and pretended to puke.
“Why?”
“Ya.”
“What.”
“n yer walkin’.”
“What.”
“n yer talkin’”
“WHAT!”
“It’s so untrollish.”
“Oh.”
“Ya’re not a troll n ya’re not a sumbuddy elze,” Slosh paused. “Ya’re nobuddy.”
“I am.” Tosh fidgeted with his fingers.
“Lemme guess,” Slosh snapped his stubbier fingers. “Ya’re a mukkee.”
“A what?”
“Ya know, the one w’o copies everythin’ others do.”
“You mean a monkey?”
“Yea.”
“No I’m not. I’m B.T., the different. B.T., the better.”
“Na ya’re not. Ya’re Tosh. Tosh, the nut; Tosh, the mukkee; Tosh, the com… com… compluzed.” Slosh was surprised at himself that he was able to pull off such a big word as ‘complexed’. He was surprised he even knew it.
Tosh growled.
“n this ‘ere colors u do on yer face, this makes ya look mad.” Slosh wiped his finger across Tosh’s face and dabbed a makeup free line. Tosh growled louder and slashed at him. Slosh dodged and lumbered away into a muddy slush. He, true to his name, loved sloshing in the mud, which, Tosh thought, was a very preposterous proposition, or to put it in his words, ‘too trollish’.
     Ever since the spa regimen, Tosh had started daubing his face thickly with troll-makeup to make do till the hermit troll’s summons. The make up effectively hid his features, but made him look like some nameless, unidentified species that scared all the trolls away. But he didn’t give it a bone’s splinter worth of thought. Anything was more welcome to him than looking like a troll.
“C’mon, get me.” Slosh hollered in his raucous voice. Tosh just stood by the slush’s bank and growled.
“C’mon, do be a troll fer wunce!” Slosh made a face at Tosh and drooled, which, apparently, was too much insolence for Tosh to bear, and so he shuffled in after him. But he hadn’t gone far when he slipped and splattered in the mud facedown. When he extricated himself from the gooey mud, he was plastered all over with it, as if somebody had tried to make his casting. Slosh waddled over to him and helped him to a pond of cleaner water so Tosh could wash off the mud.
“Ugh!” Tosh scowled when the mud was off. “I look hideous like a troll.”
“Ya are a troll,” Slosh reminded him.
“Thank you for reminding me,” Tosh grumbled. “As if that is something I will ever forget.”
“Look Tosh,” Slosh said softly, sitting him down on the tuft of grass that grew on the water’s edge. “Look at yerself in the water.” Tosh did. “Ya look like a plain hideous troll again.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Na, look again.”
Tosh looked.
“Ya look like a troll, Tosh; like somebuddy, not nobuddy. Ya look like a troll. Tosh, the troll.”
Tosh kept on looking.
“Ya said somethin’ abut beauty and skin deep? Yer color was skin deep, Tosh, n it just got washed off. n look wot is left behind; beauty!”
Tosh still looked.
“Nobuddy ’ates ya fer what ya are. Nobuddy ’ates ya coz ya’re a troll. A lion eates a deer, that dunt mean the deer should ’ate ’imself coz ’e thinks the lion ’ates ’im n so ’e should put on color n act like a lion. A deer is a deer, n so is a troll a troll. Look at ya. Ya’re the same ugly, stinkin’ troll. If ya cut yerself, ya’ll bleed black troll-blood, not silver unicorn-blood. But it’s ok. It’s ok ter be wot ya are. It’s ok ter be beautiful yer own way.”
Tosh’s eyes misted over by tears (but later he denied it, and claimed it was just due to too much staring).
“ Ya want ter be different? Better? Ya dunt ’ave to be somebuddy elze fer that. Listen ter yer ’eart n do good, n folks will call ya B.T., the different; B.T., the better.”
Tosh looked up from the pond, with tears streaming down his cheeks (again, the same denial later). A light, cool breeze started blowing in their faces. “No, Slosh.” He whispered. “They will call me Tosh, the different; Tosh, the better.” And he hugged Slosh in a bone-crushing embrace. “Ya look dumb, ya talk dumb, but ya think Man.” He winked at Slosh, a huge smile broadening on his face.
“So, race ya back home? Slosh asked, getting up.
“Ya bet!”
     And as they charged through the brush, grunting and snorting and guffawing, they were the happiest and the most contended trolls to ever walk Troll-land.