A Simple Story (Troll Story Version #1)

It’s a simple story. 

Begins: Mentally handicapped man, body like a gorilla- mind like a babe,  mistakes a Jehovah Witness for a troll.

The Witness being a midget, a state which he could not prevent, but rather a reality of his birth and being much smaller his assailant can’t put up much of a fight.  The Manboy wrestles  him inside the house, locking him in a closet.  Closet may in fact be wrong.  It is rather a cupboard beneath the stairs in which Manboy’s mother stores goulashes and umbrellas. Only someone as small as the witness could fit in such a space without kneeing themselves in the chin. 

Manboy has been dreaming of this day.  A troll of his very own.  His mother’s bedtime stories filling his dreams with troll capturing hope.

The Witness has never heard Manyboy’s mother’s stories and cannot sympathize with Manboy’s excitement.  The Witness has his own bedtime story.  It is about the Word and that the word was definitely not kidnapped, closet, or troll. 

Manboy feed his troll squeezing treats between the crack in the door.  His awkward bulk blocking what little light the Witness has.
   
Even in such a simple story,  it is the details which are important. The detail of what exactly was fed to the Witness- what Mayboy considered with long pondering to be the best troll food. 

It was not spinach nor chips nor fries.  It was not Reeses Pieces like E.T. nor some unnamed generic sweet, but like a well placed product placement it was the specific: Skittles.

Why Skittles?  Do trolls prefer fruit taste, a hard shell, and a chewy center?  Is it a connection with the tag line taste the rainbow.  No that would surly be Leprechauns.  Chocolate would have melted.  Cereal would have crunched to dust.  Raisons would have squished and a poptart wouldn’t have fit. 

Of course the Witness could not see in the dark closet and had no idea that these were Skittles.  It may have been aquarium pebbles, hallucinogenic drug capsules, or rabbit pellet poo. 

Now the last note we have in this simple story is that Manboy called his mother, who was working hard in some cubical box, to share his joy. 

It is here that this simple story stops.  The listeners or readers laugh at the mistake and misfortune and wonder if any of it is true, but what happened then.  Does the mother rush home?  Does the Witness survive?  Does Manboy get punished? 

Perhaps the Witness finds a portal within the closet and like Alice’s rabbit hole or Narnia’s wardrobe, he is transported to a fantastical place.  Maybe he becomes a hero, battling real trolls with a mystical sword.  He falls in love with a beautiful princess and weds her, becoming King.  Perhaps this King Witness brings peace and harmony to all the fantastic beasts and creatures living in the land keeping evil at bay.

Or perhaps instead the mother comes home to find that the Witness is not what he seems and is in fact a troll after all.  She takes him out of the closet and apologizes, but he uses his troll tricks and locks her away in a troll closet forever.

Or the mother and the witness could fall in love.  The Witness in awe of her beauty marries her becoming Manboys father, reading him stories of trolls each night and laughing with friends about how they met.

Or the Witness could have sued Manboy and his mother and in a thrilling legal battle challenges the state of health care in our society and it leading to Manboy’s failure within his brain.

Or maybe both Manboy and the Witness become celebrities and host their own morning talk show.  Mornings with Dweeb an the Troll.

We will never know.  For this is a just simple story and there must not too much plot or else it may grow to be complicated.  So in the end just laugh, slowly forgetting the simple story about a boy and his troll.