The Bridge Troll

By Lisa Smart

In my lonely grotto I, the Bridge Troll, hunch. Sole sentinel of the crossing point, a

warning on the map. Brave souls – dare to confront me, the red-quilled termagant!

Accept my test of will, if you wish to journey on.

* * *

My eyes pierce the festering gloom; line by line, I toil.

Read, pilcrow. Read, caret. Read, delete. Sigh.

Parchment flakes, tension aches. I drudge on (and on).

Read, dash. Read, strike. Read, stop. Stet.

Eighty-three more pages loom, and time, it stretches long.

Read, read. Read, repeat. Read, s l o w . Squint.

Spark.

Light floods in; a map unfurls. Unhunching, I’m alert.

The spark! Jagging fresh paths in my brain. Roads are emerging, rivers carving.

Deserts shifting, mountains rising.

What is this gift, Bold Adventurer? Your map is not my map, and my map has just

expanded. Is this how you see the world?

My vision’s widening, surveying new contours and ridges. My view is clearing,

spiralling outwards from my fractal rut.

What lies here? What awaits beyond this bridge?

More than I thought.

* * *

Eighty-one pages to go now, and that’s fine by me. Though I grumble and sigh and

mar your page with red ink, dear writer, it’s not your head I’m after.

Your work gives me work, dreaded though I may be. Your vision gives me vision,

while you wanderers pass me by.

Your hope gives me hope. Isn’t hope, after all, just another perspective?

And that’s why I, Bridge Troll, harridan of words,

am a secret collector of maps.