The Troll

I’ve lived under this bridge long enough to know what people mean when they say light.

They mean my side is correct. They come here with their polished speeches and their soft faces, begging for unity as if unity is something you can demand without paying for. They call themselves healers. They call themselves good. They step onto the wood like they’re crossing into righteousness. And I ask them the only question worth asking:

Name your purpose.

Most of them flinch. Some lie. A few perform humility as if it’s a passport. They want to be believed more than they want to be true. Then the Fool arrived. Barefoot. Empty-handed. Carrying a notebook so blank it looked like arrogance.

“Name your purpose,” I said.

“I don’t have one,” he said, and there it was. The lie dressed up as innocence.

“Then you’re lying,” I told him. “Everyone has a purpose. Even if it’s hidden. Especially if it’s hidden.”

“I’m not lying,” he said. “I’m listening.”

Listening. The oldest trick. The most attractive excuse. Listening is how people avoid responsibility while calling it spirituality. Listening is how cages win.

“Proof,” I said. “A plan. A system. An explanation that holds up when it rains.”

He laughed, because the rain began right then. Soft at first, like the world clearing its throat. I watched him on the railing, eyes on the dark water, looking like a person trying to remember how to be small. I felt something I hate feeling: recognition. Not of him. Of the posture. I’ve seen it. That posture people take when they want to do good but don’t want to look at the parts of themselves that can still do harm. I told him what I tell them all, only cleaner because the rain makes me honest:

I’ve watched a thousand Fools cross this bridge. They speak in light. They say “unity” and mean “agree with me.” They say “love” and refuse to look at their cruelty. They want the world healed, but only if it heals in their image.

He winced. A tiny, involuntary thing. Like a thorn finding skin.

“I’m trying,” he said. “I want to do something that matters.”

“And you should,” I said. “But your wanting doesn’t make you harmless.”

He opened his notebook. The pages were empty, yes, but emptiness can be a dare. It can be a weapon. It can be an altar. Depends who’s holding it.

“A blank book,” I said. “Classic Fool.”

“It’s not blank,” he said. “It’s unclaimed.”

Same thing, I thought. But then he turned it over. A second cover. Dark where the first was light. Marked where the first was bare. I felt my chest do something small and stupid: soften.

“What is that?” I asked, as if I didn’t want to know.

“A way of reading,” he said. “A way of admitting that how you enter a story changes what you think it means.”

I stepped onto the bridge. Not to attack. To test. He held the notebook between us, exactly in the middle. That detail mattered. He didn’t try to convert me from his side. He offered me the door I would actually use.

“Start from my side,” he said. “You’ll get wonder and risk and that stupid hope I can’t quite kill.”

“And if I start from mine?”

“Then you’ll get suspicion. Pattern-recognition. The part of you that refuses cheap comfort.”

I touched the dark cover before I could stop myself.

“People use hope to avoid responsibility,” I said.

“And people use skepticism to avoid vulnerability,” he said.

I looked up sharply. He shrugged. “I can do it too.”

Rain stitched the air between us. The bridge creaked like an old truth.

“Fine,” I said. “We read.”

We sat down like fools ourselves, wet and in the way. We opened the book from his side first. The words weren’t instructions. They were mirrors. They didn’t say “choose light.” They said “notice what you call light.” They didn’t say “fight darkness.” They said “bring it closer until it can be seen.”

We reached the middle and the pages went still, like the book was holding its breath. Then we flipped it and began again from my side. The second half didn’t destroy the first. It sharpened it. It named its blind spots. It refused to let beauty become hiding. It refused to let anger become religion.

Halfway through he whispered, “This part hurts.”

“Good,” I said quietly, because pain is sometimes the only proof I trust.

When we finished, the rain stopped. The river kept moving. The world wasn’t fixed.

But something adjusted , subtle as a compass correcting itself.

I stood. “So. What now?”

He closed the notebook like it was alive.

“Now we walk,” he said. “But not alone. Not on only one side of the bridge.”

I considered it like an equation with an uncomfortable solution.

Finally: “Alright. But if you turn unity into a costume, I will tear it.”

“And if you turn truth into a weapon,” he said, “I will take it from your hand.”

We crossed together.

And for once, the bridge did what bridges are meant to do.

It held.

✶ What pattern do you keep calling fate?

✶ Where do you outsource your agency?

✶ What “truth” are you using to avoid vulnerability?