For as long as we can remember, the Troll lived under the bridge. Every day he’d just relax and take it easy. When he was hungry, he’d just sit by the river and catch fish. Fish for breakfast, for lunch, for supper, it was all so easy. It was a pretty pleasant life for the Troll.

“Sweet,” the Troll would sometimes say to himself on pleasant summer evenings.

But these wonderful times came to an end when a human built a farm just upstream. The Troll didn’t mind the smell, and the sound only bugged him a bit, but after a couple of weeks he noticed that it was getting unusually hard to catch fish. He was starting to get hungry.

“This sucks,” he said. “Guess I better do something.”

The Troll was annoyed to have to leave his comfortable bridge, but with no other choice, he made his way up to the goat farm.

The Troll knocked on the door and a farmer answer.

“What ya want?” he said.

“Hi,” said the Troll. “I live down under the bridge over there, so I guess we’re neighbors.”

The farmer didn’t respond.

“Yeah, so…” the Troll said, “Sorry to bug ya. It’s just that I used to catch fish in the river there and, well, your goats are scarin’ them away and crappin’ in the water.”

“So?” said the farmer.

“Well, it’s just that, I was hoping you could move,” the Troll said. “I mean, I was here first.”

“Bullshit, you weren’t here first,” said the farmer.

“I was. I’ve lived here my entire life.”

“If you were here first, why didn’t I see you?”

“I was under the bridge.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“Well, did you look under the bridge?”

“No. I ain’t got time to be lookin’ under bridges! I’m a busy man!”

“Well, I was under there. And now I can’t catch any fish.”

“Piss off.” The farmer slammed the door.

The disappointed Troll went back home and tried to sleep on it. Maybe he’d think of something in the morning. He couldn’t sleep, though, with his stomach rumbling. As the sun was starting to come up, the Troll was still awake and he heard the clopping sound of goats wandering over aimless across the bridge.

From then on, he caught his his food going over the bridge, rather than under it.

Patrick D Ryall, the D is for Schism