3 THE TROLL DISTRICT
The following morning, several things were going through Fiengus’ mind as he drove towards the address. Firstly, he was of course concerned about going to the troll quarter; it was not a place people went to. What made this worse was that he didn’t really know why people didn’t go to the troll quarter, leaving the reason open to his overactive imagination. Secondly, he did wonder several times what the diet of a troll might look like and if it bore any resemblance to him. To avoid thinking about the possible gruesome things that may or may not happen, he reflected on the day so far. To begin with, he liked having a purpose to his life, all be it a very uncertain one. Nevertheless, he enjoyed the feeling of being on a quest or adventure of sorts and decided that he would focus on that good feeling. This was of course accompanied by the fear of the unknown, but Fiengus felt that he barely knew himself, let alone the big wide world, so fear of the unknown should be ignored. The Mayor had crossed his mind too, and most of the thoughts of him were not flattering. Fiengus felt that it seemed unusual to have in charge of an important town like Von Dufflestein, a man so hopeless, so easily shifted in mood, to the point of instability, and as far as Fiengus could see someone completely useless at their job. His was a very important job after all.
He didn’t have long to think about these things, as he had arrived at the troll quarter. After parking his car, he paused and looked up at the large gate that blocked the road ahead, which made up part of a very large wall. The wall could not be seen over, as it was so very tall and to add to its height and imposing character, forks and knives had been cemented along the top, all with their points skywards. Trolls, Fiengus recalled from an article he had read about them, were suspicious creatures. They feared most things and as result were rarely seen outside of their own communities. They did not completely close their doors however, as they were afraid of not knowing what was happening in the outside world. From what Fiengus could gather, they were unpredictable and driven by a fear of most things, which made dealing with them very, very tricky.
Fiengus drew a deep breath and approached the gate. A large, brass horn stuck out of the wall with a smaller similar shaped horn underneath. Next to this sat a button and a sign that read: “Push the button and someone may answer, if not accept this and go away.” This seemed a little rude and off putting, and with this and a wall crudely decorated with cutlery a bad feeling was finding home in his gut. He pushed the button. There was a few seconds pause. Nothing. He waited. Fiengus decided that he hadn’t pushed the button long enough, and despite the sign, rang again. Again nothing happened. He became frustrated and was about to turn around and leave, when he remembered that he would have to return to the Mayor, who seemed to be incredibly severe on people who failed in their duty, even when it wasn’t their fault. Fiengus resolved to ring one last time, and pushed the button down and held his finger on it.
A crackling sound came through the receiving horn and then a voice came through, “Stop pushing the button!” shrieked the voice. Perhaps it was the antiquated looking communications device, but the person on the other end had an incredibly high pitched voice. “What are you doing?” it continued.
“The sign said to push the button, so I did,” replied Fiengus, who had by now removed his finger from the buzzer.
“Do you do everything that a sign says so literally?” Fiengus had no answer to this; the question seemed too ridiculous to bother with. The person on the other end continued, “What do you want here?”
“I want to enter the troll quarter.”
“Business or pleasure?” queried the voice. Fiengus had to think about this, he remembered that this was a covert mission.
“I’m here visiting a friend of mine,” he eventually answered.
“Are you visiting them for them for business or pleasure?” inquired the voice.
“Well,” said Fiengus, “neither really, it’s personal.”
“You’re being very guarded about this. Are they terrorists, these friends of yours?”
“What?” cried Fiengus, “Of course they are not, what a stupid question.”
“You think that security against the threat of terrorism is stupid?”
“No, but asking someone if they are a terrorist is. Who would actually say yes? Certainly not a terrorist anyway.” Fiengus felt very proud of himself, for his display of irrefutable logic. This feeling lasted a very short time and was replaced by a feeling that he had said the wrong thing. This was doubly emphasised by the sudden sounding of a siren and a very large red light flashing overhead. Fiengus stood completely overwhelmed and was quickly surrounded by several, very large, trolls who grabbed a hold of him. As he began to protest, the troll to whom he had been speaking came out and said, in the same high pitched voice, “Take him, he’s a self confessed terrorist.”
“No I’m not!” pleaded Fiengus, who was now being led away.
“That’s just what a terrorist would say,” said the troll, smugly. Fiengus remembered how paranoid trolls were. This was not going to be easy to get out of. It took several calls to the Mayor’s office to get Fiengus released and gain entry to the troll quarter. The covert mission was not going well.
He gazed for the first time at the interior of the troll quarter. What struck him immediately were the houses. They looked like ordinary houses; windows; doors; a roof and so on. However, what these houses had in abundance were security precautions, rivalling the devices of defence found in military bases. There were bars across everyone’s windows, steel doors with intercom systems, signs that warned of death to trespassers and that large ferocious dogs lived in these houses, trained with the sole purpose of ripping apart anyone mad enough to venture too close to their owners or their property. The roofs were slick with a substance similar to Vaseline, and were topped with cutlery, pointing out at all angles as though attack could come from anywhere and needed defending against. There was a definite feeling of hostility towards anything that could be deemed hostile and as far as Fiengus gathered everything seemed to fit this category, including Fiengus, who was being eyed with suspicion by some trolls, from behind chainmail curtains.
Out in his garden, Fiengus noticed a troll, who had not noticed him, checking that his window bars were secure. Recalling his initial dealings with the trolls, he decided to try a different, softer tact. Speak less, be to the point and leave nothing to misinterpretation.
“Hello there,” greeted Fiengus. The troll turned around peered at him suspiciously. “I’m looking for a friend, but can’t find his house, it’s this address,” he said as he showed the troll the address on the piece of paper. The troll gazed at it briefly, and then shot back into his house. “I’ve scared him away, I must have been too abrupt with him,” thought Fiengus to himself. He was just turning away when the troll returned, but this time was brandishing a gun. Fiengus panicked and ran. As he ran up the road he heard the troll cry out, what sounded like, “Trespasser!” He stopped once he was out of sight and came to the realisation that this was going to be very difficult indeed.
Determined not to dally in the street and perhaps provoke some other unprovoked attack on his person he moved swiftly on. He eventually reached the address, keeping as low a profile as he could, which was difficult being the only human there who also happened to have an enormous finger. He knocked on the door and then taking a step a back, he looked up at the house. It was much the same as the other houses, adorned in the most outlandish security precautions he had ever seen. He thought about how absolutely terrified of the outside world these trolls must be and suddenly imagined them as being like hermit crabs, but only on dry land and without pincers and an ability to walk forwards and back and not just sideways… His train of thought was derailed by a voice that said, “I’m not in, I’m not expecting visitors and I’m not answering this door to a stranger with an even stranger finger!” The voice came through the intercom system, which Fiengus noticed had a camera that was pointing directly at him.
“I’m sorry, I’m looking for a package of mine that has been misdirected and posted here instead. It’s from the Mayor’s office to me you see,” pleaded Fiengus, who was a little taken aback by the inhospitable nature of the troll’s greeting.
“A package?” mused the troll, “I’m sorry but there’s no package here, and even if there were why deliver it here rather than wherever you are from?”
“It was an accident, the Mayor… someone in the Mayor’s office made a clerical error and sent it here,” said Fiengus.
“What’s in this package?” asked the troll.
“I’m not sure, but it’s for me and it is very important,” replied Fiengus.
“Why’s it so important?” asked the troll.
“It contains top secret documentation about something I cannot tell you about.”
“If it’s so important why was it sent to the wrong address?” inquired the troll.
“As I said it was an accident. Look I really need this package, if you look on the package you will see that it has my name at the top,” said Fiengus, who was now growing slightly impatient.
“Your name is at the top of the label on the package? So they got that right and the rest wrong?” asked the troll.
“Yes my name is on the top and this address is underneath it. My name is Fiengus Long…” said Fiengus, who was cut short by the troll.
“If the package were here as you seem to claim then why do you feel it necessary to tell me your name? Surely had it been written on there and if it were in my possession I would know what the name was. Now you are claiming to be the person whose name is written on the top, so telling me your name would be unnecessary as I should already know it,” philosophised the troll.
“What? No, that doesn’t follow. If you do have the package then yes you would know the name that was written on the label and yes if I were to claim to be the person to whom this package was originally destined then it would in fact need to be my name written on the package, but this does not imply that you should know that I know what the name is on the package, therefore me telling you my name and you then verifying this by reading what is written on the package, would thus prove that I am in fact the person to whom the package is rightfully destined,” replied Fiengus, who felt very out of breath after such a long sentence.
“Ok, I accept that what you say is true, but that you would need to prove that you are in fact the said person,” responded the troll after a short pause.
“Look at my library card, that’s my photo and my name there is Fiengus Longfinger.”
“It could be a fake.”
“I have a letter from the Mayor’s office.”
“They make mistakes, you said so yourself.”
“Look I’m telling the truth, I am no liar.”
“How do I know you are not a liar and you’re making this whole thing up?” Fiengus noticed how quickly the troll had latched onto the word liar. He needed to be more careful with what he said.
“You are a pain in the… wait. If what I said about the Mayor’s office was true then yes it could be a mistake and I’m not who this letter says I am, but if I were a liar then who’s to say that I didn’t lie about the Mayor’s office, which would imply that the Mayor’s office don’t make mistakes and I would be who the letter said I was, but this would mean that there had been no original mistake and there would be no reason for me to be at your door, which is paradoxical; therefore I cannot be a liar and I’m telling the truth,” said Fiengus, feeling that this must settle it.
“Maybe you’re just inconsistent.”
“Right, I’ve had enough, even if I was not Fiengus Longfinger, you certainly are not and as the name on top of the package is not your name you have no right to it,” replied Fiengus.
“You’re right, I have no right to the package,” replied the troll. Fiengus felt that he was getting somewhere finally.
“So can I please have it then?” he asked sounding relieved.
“No,” replied the troll.
“What?” Fiengus sounded somewhat taken aback.
“What you said was true and I realised this earlier, that I had no right to the package, so I took it back.”
“Took it back, but where?”
“Where you return all mail, the Sorting Office,” said the troll.
“Where is that? Oh god, this is too much,” said Fiengus, who was feeling very down. He had to sit on the doorstep, he was feeling very sick. At this he actually began to sob. He felt terrible about it and very embarrassed. Through his high spec surveillance camera, the troll watched Fiengus and felt a pang of sadness at what he saw, which momentarily shifted his regular overriding feeling of fear. It was just enough for him to have a change of heart.
“Look, I’ll show you, if it will get rid of you,” replied the troll. Fiengus stood up from the doorstep, wiped his eyes and awaited the troll. He heard several bolts, chains, number punching and keys turning. The door finally opened and Fiengus looked at the troll for the first time.
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