100506- A joke

.....A long time ago there two islands in an ocean far away. One island was populated by trolls and the other by tridds. For as long as either people could remember they had always been engaged in some kind of conflict with each other. These conflicts spanned generations and ranged from shouted insults to full-blown warfare. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, these conflicts were seen for what they were: silly wastes of time and resources. There was always much more to be gained from trade and exchange of technology and culture. To this end they built an enormous suspension bridge connecting the islands at their nearest points, a mere hundred feet apart.

.....One day a little tridd set out to meet a friend on the troll island. Merchants from both sides generally used the bridge in the mornings to get in the most peddling time that they could before heading back at night. The little tridd knew that once they left the beach to head towards the villages that he would have the bridge to himself and could enjoy the view of the surf from a height you couldn't get from either side. He was perhaps a quarter of the way across, eyes to the side, when he bumped into something very large. It was a troll, and a big one even by troll standards. "Oh, excuse me," said the tridd, "I hadn't seen you..." which was even more surprising than the troll's size. The bridge was completely bare when the tridd got to it and as great as this troll's stride may be it must have been quite a feat of stealth for him to cover the remaining three quarters of the suspension bridge from the other side that quickly without being heard. "Where do you think you're going?" growled the troll. Uh-oh. "Ahhh... I'm going to visit a troll friend." said the tridd. "He's expecting me this afternoon." "No you're not." growled the troll. The tridd stepped back at first, then tried quickly running around the troll, who just as quickly snatched him up by the collar and swung him around to face the tridd island. The troll then drop-kicked the tridd in a trajectory that looked like the St. Louis Arch and the tridd landed with a whump on the sandy beach.

.....Stunned, and dizzy from having the wind knocked out of him, it was a few moments before the tridd could lift his head and look back to the bridge. By that time the troll had gone. After checking for broken bones he warily approached the bridge and called out for the troll. There was no response. Had the hostilities resurfaced, the tridd wondered? They had ended before he was born, but everyone knew of them. Then he remembered that the merchants from each island passed each other on this same bridge just that morning with no problem. He called out again; no response. Keeping his eyes straight ahead this time the tridd slowly began walking across the bridge. At ten feet he stopped, squinting to see the other beach. It was clearly empty and so he walked ten feet more. Once he had passed thirty feet he realized that he had gone further than he had made it the first time and relaxed a bit. At fifty feet, however, he felt a tug on his arm and was shocked to see the troll standing beside him. "Hey!" shouted the tridd, "what do you think you're doing?" "This," said the troll, who tossed the tridd straight up and on the way down kicked him twice the distance he had before, all the way back to the tridd island.

.....This time the tridd suspected he may have blacked out. He checked both his bones and his teeth. Everything hurt, but was there and in one piece. The troll was gone, the only thing that morning that wasn't surprising. Before getting anywhere near the bridge again, the tridd walked to one side and peered under the bridge. He knew it was an old stereotype of trolls, and he felt a little silly doing it, but he couldn't figure out how the troll could get close enough to grab him so quickly and without warning. There was nothing under the bridge, on the bridge or on the other end. The tridd then had an idea. He rubbed his muscles a bit, splashed some water on his face and otherwise braced himself. Then he dug into the sand inches from the ramp, favoring one side, and bolted as fast as he could across the bridge. At first glad just to know that he could still run so quickly after being so bruised, he soon became giddy with the suspicion that he might just cross the bridge by doing it in less time than it had previously took the troll to appear. He passed the quarter mark, the half mark and was nearing eighty feet in when he felt his feet fly out from under him and his shoulders slam onto the bridge. The troll picked him up by the shirt and once more drop kicked back to the tridd island.

.....When the troll regained consciousness it was only because he heard a voice. It was a rabbi standing over him with a worried look. "Thank God you're alive!" said the rabbi. "How did you come to be so hurt?" "I didn't come to be hurt," mumbled the tridd, "I came to cross the bridge." "Were you robbed?" asked the rabbi. "No," said the tridd, "if anything, I earned frequent flyer miles." He then proceeded to explain to the rabbi his three failed attempts to cross the bridge, each ending with the troll drop-kicking him back to the tridd island. Frustrated by reliving it, he burst into hysterical sobs. The rabbi looked up and shielded his eyes as he peered across the bridge. "I don't see any troll there now. In fact, I don't see anybody. It should be safe for you to cross now, if you're up to it." The tridd began waving his arms, frantic. "He's never there! He just appears out of nowhere! I never see him, and then he gets me!" screamed the tridd. "Okay, okay, calm down, I believe you," said the rabbi. "Should I talk to him for you? I find that many people tell a stranger things they won't say to each other. Couples, business partners... or maybe I just got that kind of face? Who knows? It's worth a shot." "Look out! Be careful!" shouted the tridd as the rabbi stepped onto the bridge, "He's really big... and really mean!" The rabbi smiled reassuringly to the tridd, but he was a little worried. He wasn't exactly sure what he was walking into; he wasn't exactly sure that the tridd wasn't crazy or lying. All he knew is that he was committed to answering questions and right now he had a few of his own.

.....When the rabbi got to the center of the bridge he stopped and looked around. He called out, "Yoo-hoo! Mr. Troll! Can you hear me?" There was no response, no noise or movement at all. "I'd really like to speak to you," continued the rabbi. "I could hear from you or hear about you, it's your choice." Still nothing.The rabbi kept walking and kept calling out until he found himself on the troll island. A passing troll fisherman waved to the rabbi, the rabbi waved back. It seemed like a normal day. The rabbi walked to the beach so that the tridd could see him, then shrugged his shoulders and threw up his arms. The tridd couldn't believe it. The rabbi then walked back to the tridd island, occasionally looking from side to side. When he stood before the tridd, he held his palms up. "Perhaps he's ashamed. Or perhaps he thought you were dead. You didn't look all that great when I found you. Whatever the reason, the troll seems to have left. You should be able to see your friend now; he may be worried about you." With the rabbi watching him from the beach the tridd gingerly began walking across the suspension bridge. He winced at shadows and stopped once or twice until he seemed to grow comfortable just walking as had first done that morning. But before he made it halfway across, the troll appeared from nowhere and grabbed him. The astonished rabbi watched as the troll drop-kicked the tridd back across the bridge just as the tridd had described to him earlier. The tridd landed in a spray of sand, alive but sniffling, crying and giggling maniacally. It looked as though his mind had snapped. "You there!" shouted the rabbi to the troll before he could disappear again, "What does this mean? Why would you do such a thing? Just moments ago I crossed that bridge myself, two times in fact! You didn't kick me or lay a hand on me or even show yourself at all! This poor tridd could have done nothing to earn such treatment. Why would you not treat him as you treated me?" The troll smiled dementedly. "Silly rabbi," he said, "kicks are for tridds."