Under the bridge is a different matter. Under the bridge is the River Troll. He’s so ugly you can’t look him in the eye. You’d need to climb up his chest to look him in the eye, but you can’t because his clothes are slimy from a thousand years of eating sweaty children. He won’t eat me, I’m too salty.

What good do you do me, he says.
He’s not as British as you’d expect.

What good do you do me? I ask in my deepest voice. To show him I’m not afraid.

Bah, I should eat you, he answers.

Buzz off, you ugly clout, I say.

He smiles. I think I will eat you tonight.

I spit at him, near him, but not on him. If I hit him, he’d kill me. But I find the closer I get, the harder he laughs.

Tell me a story you dirty beast, I say.

What story tonight? He growls back.

Tell me a story about how true love is like a butterfly, I say.

And why should I tell you such a story?

Because I’ll tell the children and it will make them happy and I know you like the taste of happy children best. Tell me a butterfly story and I’ll tell the sad children at school and they will make better meals.

It’s a lie, none of your children ever come my way, he says.

I can’t lie to a troll. I tell the children to stay away, it’s true. But he can imagine how good they would taste if they choose not to listen.

You’re a mean little man, he says.

Go on, I say.

He sits. Strangely when he sits under the bridge his head is still near the roof, wasn’t his head touching the roof when he was standing? He sits. He still fills the space.

I’ll tell you a story, but you better send a tasty child my way or I’m not telling you any more.

It’s a story about love. And how to love. The troll holds out his giant hand.

This hand is love,

See? And you puny people really have no idea how to love.

See? He asks this as he pushes the palm of his hand into my face.

Now this is being loved, he says as he lowers his hand.

A bird-like moth flutters into his bloated hand.

You love the butterfly see? he asks.

As the moth chews at the algae in the cracks of his skin he says, you love the pretty butterfly.

That’s a moth, I say.

You love the pretty butterfly, but it’s a butterfly it’s not a buttersit.

On cue the moth flies away and the troll sits palm open. He explains the butterfly’s job is to fly away, but that we do not understand love.

That’s a shitty story, I say.

Just wait. So we wait.

We wait a very long time and the moth flies back and the troll says, so you wait and you keep your hand open and the butterfly comes back.

But only when it chooses to. And then the moth flies away.

This happens several times with no explanation, but the troll is patient and I’ve got nothing better to do. Finally, the moth comes back and
the troll says, you … your kind doesn’t understand love.

He squeezes his fist shut, veins and sinew gnash, you hold onto love like this, he says, opening his hand to the juicy mess in his palm. He licks it off, curls his finger back with his thumb and flicks me a hundred meters away.