Curtis
"This is most improbable," Dethcrusher said from behind his ramshackle drum kit. He always seemed to talk like this when he opened his mouth which was rare. People seemed to think that he was trying to act smart all the time, but he really wasn’t that bright. The remaining band members Doom and Maniacal looked at each other mouthing, “What the fuck...” as their latest song “Obsidian Frost” ground to a screeching, feedback drenched halt.
“Well, when are you guys going to start playing some real music?” the troll asked. “By the way, I’m Curtis. You summoned me.”
The troll having appeared right as they were about to finish practice was indeed most improbable. What was perhaps even more improbable was not just that there was a troll, but that his name was Curtis. Neither made any sense. So they just all sort of stood around looking at each other.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” answered Doom. Trolls could never be trusted he was pretty sure so he was immediately quite cagey. “This is totally real music.”
“Oh sure it is,” said Curtis, cocking his head to the left to emphasise his disbelief. “This black metal shit is over with man,” he said as he shifted his long, slouchy green hat back into place and stroked his scraggly, long red beard.
“What do you know troll?” demanded Doom, irate with the little beast’s impunity, “And aren’t you supposed to be way bigger?”
This was debatable, according to Norse lore. Curtis was rather short for a troll, meaning about shoulder height to an average adult human. Also, he just didn’t look that scary.
“And what do you know? You’re not even a real troll, look at you.”
“Oh now you’re going to say, oh look, you don’t look all wizened by the unforgiving Scandinavian millenia old forests and from a hard life of a thousand years making human’s lives miserable.”
“You don’t really look that evil.”
“That’s because I’m not.”
“So what are you doing here? You hate our music. You said so yourself.”
“Not quite sure man. You’re the ones who summoned me.”
“No, we didn’t,” Maniacal answered.
“Yes, you clearly did,” Curtis answered. “Look, I’m here. Summoned troll. That’s me. What are you stupid?”
“Then where are you from?”
“Everywhere.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“We’re everywhere, it’s just you idiots made the right noises and the right words at the right time.”
They looked around the suburban basement replete with old carpet, faded and stained couch and their instruments backed by their banner and the yellowed panelling with what they thought were runes made with masking tape. Doom looked intently at the runes.
“Oh that shit? Really? You think your little tape scribbles did it do you?”
“So how are you here?”
“No idea. I’m a fucking troll. We don’t do the summoning. We just show up.”
“Aren’t you supposed to live under a bridge?” asked Dethcrusher quite seriously. Doom and Maniacal turned to each and nodded in agreement. It was a very fair question.
“No, I don’t live under a bridge, but I might as well because this horrible racket you idiots are making and this depressing basement might as well be under a bridge. You clowns made me appear somehow. I have no fucking idea how because whatever this shit you guys are doing here, what is this art? Music? Who knows, whatever you did, you made this happen. Don’t look at me. This is on you.”
They looked around again. What could they have possibly done which they hadn’t done over the past years of Cold Forest to summon him that they didn’t do before? Trolls sort of lived in rock and mountains and nature and that according to Norse lore. That much they thought they knew.
“So you going to offer me something or what?”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Hell? Get your story straight. Not from there, wherever that might be.”
“What do we offer you? Some sacrifice?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Man, you people seriously watch too many movies. A drink. You offer me a drink. Did you offer tubby over there a beer when he walked in?”
“Yeah.”
“Wait, hey, who are you calling tubby?”
“Well then you should offer me one.”
“You’re an intruder.”
“You summoned me, therefor not intruding. We’ve been over this.”
“How?”
“No idea. I’ve told you a million times.”
Doom looked around and thought of the set list, the lyrics, the imagined cover and endlessly discussed tshirt art. All of it. They tried a summoning once with some book they found at the library but nothing happened.
“Was it this riff?” asked Maniacal as he played the first part of “Eternal is my Woe.”
“What the fuck is that? You kidding? You think this bullshit would make me show up?”
“Fuck you. That’s an amazing riff.”
“Yeah, right. You guys suck as bad as that guitar playing.”
“Fuck you troll.”
The questions and non-answers back and forth went on and on like this for what seemed like at least a half hour. Maniacal opened a beer. Curtis’s eyes bulged at him as he showed his now empty can, obliging Maniacal to give him another beer shaking his head.
“Fuck,” Doom said not being able to handle any it.
“You wish. You guys haven’t fucked anything except your right hands in ages, ha.”
This troll is such an asshole thought Doom. He had to be some sort of fiend or demon or something sent to torture them. Who else would be this big of an asshole to them? What did they do?
Doom and Maniacal exchanged pained looks of bewilderment and frustration. Dethcrusher just mainly sat silently. Maniacal could not even begin to think of a way of explaining this to his mom. Would this thing disappear? What do they do with him? He thought that he probably should be way more scared but this thing was not scary looking at all really, just sort of stupid, almost like a garden gnome, but with a bigger nose and a bigger gut and taller.
The two founders of Cold Forest again looked at each other, then at Dethcrusher who just stared into space like a troll didn’t just appear in their basement practice space, and then back at the troll who nonchalantly leaned against the couch and itched his ear. They both looked then again back at Dethcrusher who could afford no answers or anything in terms of visual cues and then back at the troll, who, just like that, was no longer there.