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“Bridges Need Trolls” – FWG Flash Fiction for 8/3/2024

It is a shame how “otherness” leads to ostracization and stereotyping for both the spurner and the compelled.


The prompt is:

 

 

BRIDGES NEED TROLLS

 

Samsodine had been living under the bridge for longer than anyone in the two villages could remember. His was the Workers’ Bridge, a simple yet sturdy construction, not like the elegant, fairy-tale Princes’ Bridge that ran parallel to his across the river.


Being a troll, it was his duty to protect the linked villages from invaders, highwaymen, and other undesirables. To guarantee safe passage, he was paid with tomatoes, apples, and the occasional ham hock thrown over the side of the bridge. When harvests were bad, though, even a clutch of flowers, tied with honeysuckle vine, would suffice. They were his villagers, after all.


One day, Samsodine lounged against his riverbank and watched the villages’ lords and their families, visiting nobles, and rich travelers cross the Princes’ Bridge. Their tributes were not the simple fare of the common folks. No, they tossed roasted pheasants, suckling pigs, and even once a diamond necklace—although it was snatched from an unsuspecting visitor when she leaned over the carved parapet.


It was Juliobin who did the snatching. Samsodine loved Juliobin. Not just from afar as some unattainable prize, but as a husband loves a wife. For that is what they were, wife and husband together, before the damnable bridges were built.


“Bridges need trolls to collect the tolls” as the saying goes. To humans, it’s a child’s rhyme. To the trolls themselves, it’s a compulsion. A centuries-long sentence separating life mates for the simple “crime” of being different—of being trolls.


Juliobin rested on the day’s tribute—there was a royal wedding that day. As the newlyweds rode across her bridge, the bride’s veil fluttered down. Juliobin snatched it and nestled it onto her head. Turning to her beloved, she blew Samsodine a kiss, which he caught despite the tears in his eyes.

 

THE END

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