The Troll
When we were still in the call center, I used to push two chairs together, yet part of my vast person lapped over the sides, parts I couldn’t feel. Now in my dark bedroom, my bed caresses me as I type onto my laptop hour after hour, the way I used to play videogames as a teen. Lifetimes have passed since then: since my mother’s death, my father’s addiction to vodka and porn, my little sister running wild in the street before they shut us all in our crowded, blighted flats. If it weren’t for the figures on my screen, I’d be completely alone with the mouse who lives under the sink. The glow keeps me warm.
I watch for breaking news and when it arrives, warmth surges through me as I respond with outrage. I have no idea who these people are but when I get the alert, I spring into action and attack them. No matter what the subject, I vomit my seething rage in concise bursts, careful to misspell a word or two to make me sound like a proud American.
I do this for the pittance that enables my sister to buy us junk food at the market. My mother used to make crunchy potato snacks I would take to work in a metal box. I would pretend I was eating them on a beach with a blonde in a string bikini and that all she wanted was to snack on me, my glistening muscles, my tan lines showing from beneath a tight torso. In real life when I die there will not be a coffin large enough, but with my laptop, the blonde and I experience peaks you can only imagine.
By the glow of my screen I see my dreams in patterns on the sheets, the shadowy emptiness of my room, my part of the world, life in this apartment, emptiness so profound that I live to spew it out onto others to lessen its power over me. If I can just spread a little hate today, I think, the world will be a better place.
Abby Bardi is the author of the novels The Book of Fred (published in France as Le Livre de Fred), The Secret Letters, and Double Take. Her short fiction has appeared in journals and anthologies including Quarterly West and The Bellingham Review. She lives in Ellicott City, Maryland, the oldest train depot in the United States.