Writing Assignment: Pesky troll

By Matt

“Honest officer, it wasn’t my fault.”

How many times has that line been used over the years to get out of a ticket or explain an accident? Well in my case it was true, it wasn’t my fault. Sit back and you’ll hear the tale of the time a troll wrecked my car.

It was late winter, March in fact. I’d just gotten some bad news at work. I work at a word factory, see, and I’d just found out I’d have to work 16 hour days, six days a week. Now if that’s not a killer schedule, I’m not sure I understand what a killer schedule is.

Now as you can imagine, as I left the factory, I was in a pretty rotten mood. I mean, it was a two hour drive home and now I only had eight hours to drive home, get some dinner, go to bed, and then get up and start all over again. That meant I was going to about 3 hours sleep a night at best.

So there I was on the freeway, humming along at a cool 75 miles an hour, listening to the afternoon DJ on the radio make some of some poor drunken unfortunate. It was snowing a bit, but the roads were just wet. It was a pretty easy drive, all things considered for late March. I was in the last half-hour of the trip as I hit the city and I was getting pretty groggy. That’s why when the troll appeared, I thought it was just a paranoid delusion. Little did I know…

The troll appeared as I was passing a one of the massive tractor-trailers with two trailers hooked up to it. I pulled alongside the behemoth, hauling food for the local uber-super-duper mart. That’s when I heard it…

From somewhere in the back there was this low growl, which sounded suspiciously like my cat, who I knew wasn’t in the back seat. Just the same I glanced back through the rear view mirror. Seeing nothing, I passed it off as being a product of my weary mind.

I punched the accelerator and my car's 250 horses pulled it past the lumbering semi. As I pulled in the right lane again, I heard it again. That same low growl. This time, it seemed a bit closer. Again I looked in the rear view mirror. Nothing. I turned my attention back to the road. That’s when it happened.

The growl came again. This time it sounded as if it had come from the seat next to me. I looked over and saw it. The troll was about five feet tall, with coffee- colored skin covered in festering boils. His face was dominated by a massive nose and fat, ugly lips. His eyes, mere slits were like looking into the soul of darkness itself. Most strange, though was what came out of its mouth.

“I say, chap, nice of you to notice me. Might you give me a lift to Eleron? I’m frightfully late for a pillaging seminar, and if I don’t arrive soon, I just might be sacked. Couldn’t have that now, could we? I’m afraid my people’s idea of sacking is quite unpleasant.”

At this point, an odd feeling came over me. My stomach grew tight, my breath coming in gasps. As I tried to focus on the wheel, the road started growing more indistinct, until there was nothing but blackness.

When I awoke, I was surrounded by firefighters and policemen. My car cocooned around me, I was unable to move more than a few inches. There was no sign of the troll. After about an hour of frantic work by the rescue workers I was freed and taken to a waiting ambulance. As I was being put inside, I noticed a street sign. Eleron Boulevard.