The troll

The troll reached up and scratched three claws along the underside of the bridge deck.

The sound this maneuver made, as concrete filed substance from claw, was horrible enough, but as no one was there to hear it troll was left feeling disappointed.

"It would be better with a chalkboard", he said. From where he sat he could only touch his middle three claws to the bridge, so after a couple more screeching passes he stood up to sharpen the rest of his nails. He began to scratch harder, increasing the volume of sound and causing bits of concrete to join the shower of debris. He continued, one paw after the other, building up a rhythm that amplified in volume until the deck of the bridge began to vibrate with the troll's beat. He adjusted the speed of his scratching to match the frequency of this vibration, and the bridge began to emit a deep harmonic hum. The troll liked this new sound, and tried to hum along.

A car came along and started across the bridge. The driver was surprised to observe that the paving of the bridge was bumpier than one might expect. The car had not progressed very far when a concrete wave came along and tossed the car off the bridge. The driver, being from the city, honked his horn, but it was already too late, and in any case the horn presumably would not have been enough to make the waves of concrete stop.

The troll, hearing the horn, turned and saw the falling car. He reached out and grabbed it out of the air.

"That was great! Make that noise again," the trolled yelled at the car. But the driver was not in an agreeable mood.

"More more!" The troll yelled. The driver had to turn on the windshield wipers because of the spittle from the troll's breath, but he still did not hit the horn.

The troll gave up, but - not wanting to give up his new noisy toy - tucked the car into his left nostril for safe keeping. The driver, of course, was not pleased about this, so he finally started honking again. The troll, delighted to have the noise back, especially now that it echoed out of his nose, merrily resumed strumming at the underside of the bridge.

So sometimes there really are happy endings.

.....

The scariest monster

The creature sucked back its lips to thrust out its teeth, and opened its eyes wide to bare pupils as dark as the night sky. Then it exhaled, the breath roaring out its nostrils with such velocity that the very air burst into flame, and a cloud of smoke rose to replace the heavens. But no one noticed.

The monster roared again.

Then the man turned away from the microscope. "I have never seen anything like it, he said to his colleague. "What do you think it is?"

"A mold maybe."

"I could swear it moved just now."

"Then maybe it is a dinoflagellate."

The creature heard this and was furious. "Dinoflagellate? Your fate would find solace were it merely so. But no, I am no mere protist. I am your greatest fear."

But the scientists could not hear this because their ears were too big for such tiny wavelengths.

The creature incensed at their indifference, leaped up to attack, but hit its head on the lens of the microscope.

A sticky fluid oozed, first from one eye and then the left, and started in streaks down the creature's cheeks. But the wretched creases were too much for that emotion, and the tears dried in the ravines of the horrid face. "Why isn't anyone afraid on me?" wailed the scariest looking monster in the world, who was also the littlest monster in the world, then he resumed his journey across the petri dish.

.....

The second scariest monster

It is not very well known that the most frightening monster that has ever prowled the earth is a creature smaller than the tip of a sharpish needle. Its looks are so hideous that even the bravest soul would wither upon seeing it. This would happen, were it not a bit too small to see. So not surprisingly, discussions of the most frightening monster generally move on to discussions of the second most frightening monster.

Despite such attention, no self respecting monster would be happy with second place. So the second most frightening went to visit the best monster hairdresser to get spruced up.

"Hey number two, what will you have me do? A tight perm like last time?"

"Something even worse would be fine."

"Worse?"

"I'm taking a shot at the top spot. Cant you make me scarier?"

"You mean you are trying to be the scariest monster? Do you want me to give you bangs?"

"That might not be enough, even if they were crooked. Can't you come up with something more drastic?"

"Well." The hairdresser thought about it. "No."

"No? Are you sure you thought about it? Maybe you just thought about thinking about it."

"Sorry. Don't you have any ideas of your own?"

"No. I need to get creative."

"Sure. Why don't you take an art class?" Suggested the hairdresser.

"An art class? That's a great idea."

So the monster enrolled in night school painting class.

The monster had never been very good in school. A monster, being bad, is obligated to be a bad student. He had always tried his best to not do what was best to do. For example, when in math class, the teacher asked him to divide 48 by 8, he had growled, snatched a pencil from the hand of the girl sitting next to him, and thrust the pencil into the machine of his ragged teeth. The teacher shook his head in disappointment and walked away, while the girl started to cry - which was too bad because the monster had a crush on the girl - but neither noticed when the monster spit the pencil out, piece by piece, in six fragments. The monster had done well in PE, especially in track, where he would hold back at the start of the race, then chase the other runners until they collapsed in exhaustion and terror. He was also pretty good at history, as the evil deeds of humans fascinated him, but then the teacher kicked him out for cheering during the section on the great war. As he liked to cook he had been one of the better students in his cooking class, and would have received at least a B plus had he not poached and eaten the teacher.

But his experience in art class was different, in that he could do exactly the opposite of what the teacher advised and it would turn out well. As long as he made what he wanted to make the result was satisfactory. When the teacher brought in live models he painted them disemboweled, and he relished in the splatter painting project, but his favorite part of the class was the self-portrait, for like most artists the thing that most interested him about art was himself. His first self-portrait revealed his artistic genius, for he made something greater than the subject: when finished, his portrait was more frightening than he himself.

The teacher came by for his usual critique. "That does not look like you."

After the teacher walked away he made a few adjustments - to himself not the painting - after which he was as frightening as the painting.

The teachers round of critiques eventually returned back to the monster. "It still does not look like you," the teacher said, looking at the painting.

"Yes it does."

The teacher turned to look at the monster and screamed. "It does!" he yelled as he ran out of the classroom.

Feeling inspired, the monster set about on a new portrait, even better than the first. When he was finished, he adjusted himself to match his creation.

"Soon I will be the scariest monster," he said as he started the next self-portrait.

But in the end things did not work out as well as he might have hoped. His horribleness did develop as he became increasingly adept at matching his paintings. But one day one of the other students, having grown jealous of the monster's skill, came over to his easel and painted over the monster's self portrait with a thick coat of lamp black paint.

After that the monster might have been the scariest monster, but like so many other monsters he existed only in the dark, and no one could see how terrifying he looks.

.....

Not right

It is probable that there is a ghoul living in your shoe. Haven't you noticed the smell? Not that one, the left. You should pay more attention the next time you put your foot in. Don't bother beating the empty shoe with a hammer, if that was going to work your fat foot would have crushed it by now.

The only way to get rid of the ghoul is to hang it. Tie the laces of the shoe to those of its mate, and throw the pair over a telephone line. Surely you have seen that done before.

.....

Silver haired creature

I have discovered a creature that lives in my old mirror. It resides in the silver, and I suppose that long ago it haunted the silver mines of the mountains in the old colony. When the slaves extracted the ore the creature must have come along with it, its evil soul turning to mater just as the ore turned to metal.

It lives in the silver, swimming like a fish behind the glass. But whenever I look for it it hastens to disguise itself to look like me. Its pantomime is perfect, even if it has it backwards.

As time goes on I think more and more about this creature. What does it do when I am not there? What does it look like when it is not me? I fear I can never know, but i suspect it is up to something mischievous.

I have a growing suspicion about the nature of its trickery. It has come to expand on the pantomime: sparked by a creative vein in the sparkle of the silver, it has set about to transform what I think is me. Very gradually, with tiny steps one hundredth the size of a centipedes, it is altering its mimicry such that each day it looks little by little less like me. It wishes to trick me, making me forget my own appearance, but I shall not be deceived. With each change I know that the reflection is becoming more of a stranger. Already now I know not who is portrayed in the glass, but it is not me.

Or is its power even greater than I thought? I met another mirror today and its reflection showed that I have come to match the mirror monster's deception. By some grotesque mechanism the creature has made me follow its representation. The reflection now precedes its source, and I am made to wonder what is the creature's plan for me. If it is leading me away by my reflection, what am I becoming?

My only wish is that the monster had not chosen to live in the bathroom mirror as opposed to some other reflecting surface. Whenever I sing in the shower I hear the echo of the reflection singing along, but this echo eventually takes the lead, and then starts to go astray at the chorus, which is why I end up singing I the song wrong.

.....

Household pest

The silver spirit in my mirror is not unlike the one that lives under my bed. He has been there since I was a child. Back then I was afraid to lean my head over the edge of the mattress to verify its presence. Later, once I was older and had started to accumulate knowledge and other junk, I was persuaded to believe that such things as monsters do not exist, so I stuffed some of my accumulated junk under the bed without considering that I might be crowding the monster. Eventually, in the course of my life, last week came around and I finally looked under the bed.

The bed had seemed unusually lumpy that night. In particular there was one large bump exactly where i was lying. Wondering why, I leaned over the side of the bed to see underneath, and discovered the monster laying on the underside of the bed. It was sleeping there, upside down and oblivious to gravity, exactly under me, like a reflection.

"Hey." I said. "What are you doing under there?"

"Trying to sleep obviously. What else would I be doing in bed?"

"You're not speaking accurately when saying you are in bed. You are under it."

"You should have noticed that specifically I am in the underside of the bed."

"How do you do that, by the way? Why don't you fall to the floor."

"Why don't you fall to the ceiling?"

"Gravity of course."

"Gravity? Of course? Then that you can explain gravity? Gravity doesn't explain anything unless you explain what gravity is."

"I admit I am not sure what gravity is."

"Then why bother talking about it t all? Why have a word for something if you don't know what the thing is?"

This argument provided my first inclination of how horrible that monster was. Further proof came the following evening when a terrifying noise arose from under the bed. It sounded like two creatures: one moaning as it choked to death and one growling and cackling as it performed the choking. I again put my head over the side of the bed.

"Hey, you are snoring." I said.

"I am not. To snore one must be asleep, which I obviously am not since I am speaking with you."

"I mean you were snoring. It woke me up."

"Did you notice that the snoring stopped as soon as you woke up?"

"Yes."

"That's because you were the one snoring."

"No, you just woke at the same instant I did. Haven't you noticed that we always wake at the same moment." I said.

"Yes, but that is because you copy whatever I do. I awoke because you were snoring, then you awoke because I awoke."

You see? This was how horrible the creature was. Every conversation we had turned into an absurd argument, with him always taking the viewpoint exactly opposite my own. It was his evil nature to always oppose me, like a reflection, with everything backwards.

Plus, I think he was the one that brought the bedbugs.

.....

Barbarian

My usual barber was not in today. Instead there was a strange looking fellow I had never seen before. He did not bother to ask me how I wanted my hair cut. He just started right into it. First he poured some shampoo into my ears. Then he used his teeth to gnaw off clumps of my hair.

When I asked where he learned his technique he claimed to have come from a country I had not heard of before, but I know he simply was not even human. So there is your proof: monsters do in fact disguise themselves as barbers.

"What was the shampoo for?"

According to his explanation, it was so I would not be disturbed by the sound of the gnashing teeth.

.....

Winner

We had an election. During the campaign the news leaked out that one of the candidates was an evil ogre. The leak was attributed to the work of a foreign cyber intelligence agency - possibly either the Russians or two teenagers in a garage in Tucson.

The released information said nothing about which candidate was the ogre, only that it was one of them. Debates were held in order to distinguish who was the ogre, but the outcome was always inconclusive, for though many people saw clear evidence for which candidate it was, those people were all in disagreement about which way that evidence pointed. As the date of the election drew near, people grew afraid that the ogre might become elected, as it was speculated that an evil ogre would make a worse president than a human would.

"Don't vote!" I heard it first on the corner near the subway station. A group of young people were waving signs and shouting in time. One of the signs advertised discount cellular service, the others said things like "No vote = no ogre". The underlying idea spread quickly through the country: since we could not be sure which candidate was the ogre, the only way to insure that the ogre was not elected was to not elect any of the candidates. The faces of celebrities spoke on TV, informing us that not voting is the American thing to do. People signed no-vote pacts. An emergency bill was even passed, to give financial relief to the corporation that had been given the contract for counting votes. On the eve of the election, all polls indicated that voter turnout would be zero. Pollsters have above average imaginations about the average voter.

In actuality, voter turnout ended up being one of the highest on record. All candidates received lots of votes, but one of them received even more than the others, so we decided to make that one president.

We never did figure out if that candidate was the ogre.

.....

Bug

It turns out there was a bug in the door, that is in the door to the store.
It was one of the old style, swinging automatic, at the supermarket.

Step on the pad in front of it and it opens for you,
But always too slow, as if you don't have something better to do.

Like buying stuff. In the supermarket.

Well there was a bug in the door. I don't mean a true bug. It wasn't a hemiptera. In fact not an arthropod at all. Sometimes people say bug when they refer generically to creatures that are annoying and small - the crawly little buggers that bug you, but not one of those either.

"Then You mean a bug in the programming?"

No. I suppose some bugs live in code, but there was no code in those old doors. What I mean is the door was possessed by a bug of the evil-spirit variety. You know, one of those monster that live in machines, the disembodied ghosts that seek out physical things to make up for their lack of a body. You sometimes find them, for example, in crosswalk buttons and coin-operated newspaper machines. Haunting old mechanisms make them feel alive.

"How did you know there was a bug in the door?"

The door would only open for certain people. It chose who to let in and who to let out of the supermarket. By thus regulating input and output it gradually collected certain types of people inside the store. Its not clear whether the door was trying to keep people it liked or trap people it disliked, but over the course of the day the shoppers would accumulate just inside the doorway, their icecream melting in their carts. It was sad to watch the chosen ones push through them to be let out by the grace of the bug. Eventually the manager would let the captured ones out through the the loading dock in the back.

"Why didn't they replace the door?"

It would not have done any good, since the bug would have just moved to the new door. But it was a bad situation for the store, so one day the manager had a talk with the bug. They must have worked out some kind of deal, because now the bug is in the register on isle three, and store profits are rising suspiciously.

Some might think that the bug moved not to a register but to the manager himself.

.....

Collected in puddles

On the rainiest nights the creature collects itself in the puddles. This occurs only when there is so much rain that the water drips off the tip of your nose to fall to the pavement and gather with the other drops in the sidewalk's shallows, and only at night when the sky is dark enough that the puddles reflect nothing but the emptiness of the most distant regions of the universe. It is then that the creature, fueled by the oils washed from your skin, has the energy to fill the empty reflection of the puddle with its own image.

If you forget yourself, and let yourself out into the wet darkness, be careful not to pass over any of puddles, and if you cannot avoid crossing puddles do not look down, for if you do you will find that the surface is occupied by the reflection of another.

But in truth I know you, and know that you are like everyone else: my warning will have an effect opposite of the intention implied by the meanings of the words. By telling you not to look, I have invited you to look. And now you even challenge me more, asking that I reveal what you will see reflected in the puddle. But don't you understand that you are asking me to describe the monster you see in place of your own reflection, and this is something only you yourself can see.

What I can do instead is tell you what it will feel like. The puddle will seep in through even the most weatherized footwear, and you will feel the cold in your toes as the water perfuses your socks, and as you walk away trying to forget what it is that you have just seen, the water in your shoes will gradually warm from the heat of your own body until you no longer notice it. You will forget that your feet are even wet, until you get home and take off your shoes, and discover a dampness which - along with the image of the reflected monster - will never entirely leave you.

.....

Cold hearted

I am embarrassed to tell you of this episode. It occurred on what was not one of my best days, in the same way today is not much better. I suppose this is why I dare to tell you now, in hopes that I might warm my cold heart with your sympathy. Oh, I know that is a stupid desire: the only heat I will ever feel is that of my hell, and until then my life is set apart by ice. I shall tell you nonetheless.

The woman was attractive to me. Or rather I was just attracted to her. What I mean is it was all in me. The force was mine, this was not the gravity of two celestial bodies pulling on each other, this force came only from me.

"Hi." I said.

"Hi." She said. "Do I know you?"

"No."

"So?"

"What?"

"So it seems like you should follow up with something. Strangers don't just walk to each other and say hi without continuing the conversation."

"Why not?"

"It is awkward. So we don't say hi and hi and then just stand here in silence. If you are going to not talk to someone, can't you do it by yourself?"

"It would not be the same. Its nice standing next to you."

"Are you really this creepy or just pretending?"

"Wouldn't pretending to be creepy be even creepier?"

"You're right. You are creepier"

After that I felt sad, and tired. Talking to people is hard work, so I decided to rest, just for a little while.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"Resting." I said, curling up on the floor with my hands tucked between my knees.

"Right here? You are going to take a nap? You walked up to me, said the word hi and little more, then decided to take a nap at my feet?"

"Yes. What is wrong with which part of that?"

"I don't know if its the parts or what they assemble into, but something is wrong with how you act."

I closed my eyes to rest. As she walked away the sound of her receding footsteps was like that of a dying heartbeat. This reminded me of something, so I brought my hand to my neck. After a minute I felt a single thumping throb. I did not wait for a second beat, one was enough for me to know I was still there.

Later I realized that someone was kicking me.

"Sleep it off at home." That's right, I thought as I awoke. I was in a bar! And the bartender was kicking me out.

"I'm not drunk", I said, just lonely. "So thank you for the physical contact." But I knew enough about humans to stand up before he could kick harder. "If you will sell me a glass of alcohol I will drink it at a table like a human would do."

After he handed me the drink he gave me a look meant to remind me to get the hell away.

Ok.

I found a table, and after I sat down I checked my pulse again. It was up to two and a half beats per minute. The foot of the bartender had apparently had some effect.

The drink made my teeth cold. I should have taken the ice out. The cold was intolerably painful, so I thrust my teeth out into the warm air of the room. I sat like that for a few minutes, breathing across my teeth, while I clawed the ice cubes out of my cocktail. Then I saw the woman again, sitting a few tables away. I stood and walked over to her, with my cold teeth still out.

I held the ice out as I spoke to her through my teeth. "Why is everything so..." A beat of my heart interrupted me. "Why is everything so cold?" I said. Then I broke the ice with the pressure of my finger tips.

She looked at me with disgust. "Are you some kind of monster?" She said.

"Yes."

I waited, but she didn't even ask what kind of monster I was.

.....

Monsters

More scientists agree with the theory that the monsters never actually died out but rather merely evolved to blend in with humanity, but the mechanism behind this is not in the least understood. Some say that the monsters merely look like normal humans, but this is absurd, as monsters are more monstrous than any one person could be. Other researchers have proposed that monsters came to look like ordinary objects, such as old shoes, and that the monsters are waiting quietly in this state for the opportunity to be monstrous again. There is considerable support for this theory, as it explains the origin of the old shoes occasionally discovered hanging on telephone lines.

Another theory proposes that monsters evolved to look like groups of humans. That is to say, no individual human comprises a monster, just certain groups. The monster is embodied in multiple bodies.

The phenomena is similar to how atoms can make a molecule, though in the case of humans, the components do not need to be physically together to form a monster. It is more like how stars make up a constellation or how millions of people simultaneously watching the same cat video on the internet define humanity.

Multiplied humans make a monster. Can other animals coagulate in this same way? Perhaps. Once there was a smelly old dog and the six flies that hung around him, which together may have added up to a monster of sorts, but it is unlikely, even if you do factor in the dog's tapeworm. No, it is probably only humans that can make a monster.

On one occasion I happened to meet a person who was part of a monster. He seemed normal enough, and not a bad guy at all - but then it was the group rather than he that was evil. I asked him if he knew he was part of a monster, but he denied that he understood what I was talking about. Most people are like that, making the mistake of thinking they are just themselves.

Is there an opposite equivalent, that is are there some groups of monsters that are less monstrous than a single human? Can a group of monsters be more good?

Of course not, That implies an ontological impossibility. Humans define goodness as being a supreme example of themselves. To say something has greater good than a human can possess is as nonsensical as saying something is more human than a human can be.

.....

An accident

The troll walks into a barber shop.

"Are you joking?"

No. Trolls are no laughing matter.

"It sounds like the start of a joke because you used the present tense. Why didn't you say walked."

Trolls are very old, so its rude to refer to them in the past tense. It reminds them that they have been around such a long time.

"But you did earlier. When you talked before about the troll under the bridge you used the past tense.""

Right: but that was before. I said that in the past so I used the past tense.

"So it isn't a joke?"

No it is not. Trolls take their haircuts very seriously. A troll's whole look depends on the haircut. If the hair isn't done right the troll risks looking like an ordinary homeless person living under a bridge. So as I was saying, the troll walks into a barber shop, and the barber says, "What will it be?"

"Just trim the armpits today, and a little out of the ears - not too much though, I hear the latest trend is to keep it long."

"Ok. What about the nose hairs?" asks the barber.

"Of course. But be careful of the left nostril."

But the barber is not careful enough, causing the driver of the car to start honking his horn again. Then when the barber uses the brush to whisk away the trimmings the troll sneezes, causing a horrible automobile crash.

The moral of this story is that if the road turns unexpectedly bumpy you should drive carefully to avoid getting into an accident.