I step into the street and the wind licks my shirt, tugs my sleeve from my ruined arm and thwaps it back and forth, I hope, all night long.

The brewery is puffing gobs of yeast into the warm night air. I go straight at the corner, I don’t want to go near the gallery and get sucked inside and have to clean up.

I’ll wander down to the river. I cross as many bridges as I can to keep the vampires away. Streets downtown are bright.

You see half as many stars as you would in the suburbs, and a hundredth of what you might see in the country, but city lights are bright, sometimes the lights are programmed to filter through all the rainbow colours. I suppose the city lights are every bit as beautiful as the stars. These are my stars, the lights on my not very busy downtown streets.

My sleepy metropolis. It gets busy on 8th Avenue but it’s empty by 9th. I can be as social or as antisocial as I like.

It’s mostly toothless demons

this time of night.

I head for the river because the toothless demons don’t cross bridges either. They sit at the edges of the river popping and pooping and peeing.

The shore is as dirty as the poop-filled river but the bridges are pristine.

Under the bridge

is a different matter.

Under the bridge is a 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 say.

I use my deepest voice to show him I’m not afraid.

Bah, I should eat you.

Bug off, you ugly clout.

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.

What story tonight?

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

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.

I can’t lie to a troll.

I tell them to stay away, it’s true,

but imagine how good they would taste if they choose not to listen.

You’re a mean little man (says he).

Go on.

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 pushes his palm into my face.

Now this is being loved, and a bird-like moth flutters into his bloated hand.

You love the butterfly, see?

The moth chews at the algae

in the cracks of his skin.

You love the pretty butterfly.

That’s a moth.

You love the pretty butterfly,

but it’s a butter fly, it’s not a butter sit.

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.

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 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,

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 yards away.

I soar through the warm air, I judge

my trajectory by the faintness

of his laughter.

I land softly in the bosom

of a one-eyed witch giantess.

She plucks me by my pant leg

and lowers me

to the ground.

That was lucky, I say, turning myself upright.

Nonsense, she says. There’s no such thing as luck. There’s ready and not ready.

Tell me more, I say to the giantess.

She folds her tit back into her blouse

and says dismissively,

You are not ready.

She takes two gigantic steps

and she is gone.