Troll Matrix

So I was drafting up a two-axis troll matrix the other day with Bridge Material across the top (rope, wood, stone, iron, etc.) and Spanned Item on the side (watercourse, viaduct, chasms/voids, etc.), so as to better catalog the variety of trolls one might encounter on a given journey.  I started to extrapolate the matrix to situations that one would not normally associate with trolls – for example the instance of a nanofiber space elevator cable which bridges between the surface of the planet and low earth orbit.  Big troll, no doubt, but where is “under” for that particular bridge?

Naturally this progressed to an exploration of abstract troll conditions, such as a shared third language bridging the misunderstandings between two foreigners abroad.  (Are botched idiomatic expressions the trolls of such a bridge?)  This quickly got silly, until I was saying “Love is the bridge that spans the gulf of historic enmity, man.”  Which in turn made me think of a yet-to-be-recorded AC/DC song:

When we cross that bridge

We’re gonna burn it

But before you ride

You got to earn it

First you gotta pay that toll

You owe seven dollars to the

LOVE TROLL.

That is all.  

 --Steve Kilian

Hollywood Harvest

A Classic Joke and A Classic Comedy Routine Meet, With Unsatisfactory Results

 

Bass Up High

Some left the comfort and warmth of their stars and ventured out onto the pale strands that link the constellations.  Dwelling out there they forgot their origins, and gradually made the necessary modifications to their bodies so that they could survive the interstellar chill.  In so doing they merged with the filaments on which they dwelled, growing in length while decreasing in corporeality, so that to later generations of observers it appeared as if those lines were never there at all.  They attributed accounts of the lines to the fanciful imaginations of their ancestors.

 

But these great strings exist.  And, as the sky wheels about in its aching progression, they quiver and resonate in wavelengths measured in parsecs – not the tinny music of the spheres, but a huge thrumming bass solo that sunders black holes and births quasars with its rhythms. 

 

BARROOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM HOOOOOOOOOUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMM BARRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

 

--Steve Kilian

Regarding the Dawn of Language and thus the Dawn of History as a Continuous Narrative of Events, Places, People, and Things

Mr. Bingles

 

Regarding the Dawn of Language and thus the Dawn of History as a Continuous Narrative of Events, Places, People, and Things

At least he knew he was a “he” and not an “it.” The lesser members of the troop did not, acting like hyenas, smearing themselves with filth and spurning the grooming advances of their fellows. But he knew this was wrong. They were different, they were the People of the Gourd. Antelopes would drink from the watering hole with their mouths, and mudfish would flap in the shallows, breathing in the wetness. But the people of the gourd would scoop up the water in vessels and bring it to the shade-trees and drink together.

*

One day after picking nits from one of the females he went to the gourd-field. He found a big, dry gourd and sniffed it to be sure it was good. It was. He brought it back to the water hole and found two of the younger males wallowing in mud.

*

Enraged, he cuffed them about the face and shoulders with his open hands, bellowing and plucking at his erection. He cracked the gourd open on a rock and tore out the seeds and fibers, flinging them at the bleeding males. He waded into the water, scattering the lizards and two gazelles that had paused to watch the fracas. He filled the gourd and drank from it. He filled it again and poured it over his head. He filled it a third time and brought it to the males and forced them to drink from it. They crouched and trembled in bewilderment. He pointed to the gourd and to the water and to the two of them, over and over again. He barked at them and pointed to the gourd. He pointed at them and howled, his larynx going raw as he pounded his fist against his chest, leader of the People of the Gourd -- a people who didn't know that they were any different from the animals and insects they ate. Still they shook, uncomprehending.

*

He paused for a moment, panting. His grandfather had done the same thing, trying to show the lesser ones where to find the fattest grubs in the rotting logs. But every morning the lesson was gone. For them, every morning was the first morning, and every night erased what had come before. They needed some way of knowing that would last beyond the final swallow of water, the last taste of the grub. They needed some sound for things that was apart from the thing itself.

*

Finally, he held the gourd up in the light and croaked out, “Gooooord.”

*

So it began.

*

*

-- Steve Kilian

*

The Polar Turtle

Sun O)))