G’narsh

The Troll, The Myth, The Legend

by

Kevin Stillwater

chapter 3
# # # And Here Now Our Story - G’narsh’s Ray’s # # #
page 4

    Nothing has changed in G’narsh’s mind, when moments later he is holding another gold coin up between his fingers. He is pretending that the coin is the dial on a plasma rifle’s laser sight. And as he watches the cobalts sweep, sing, and dance, he starts to pick them off one by one as if he were a sniper from afar... and/or of old. As he does this, he swings his other head around to regard Nadia, the gutter fairy -- close cousin to a grunge fairy -- and her sisters. They are all sleeping piled one on top of the other next to the auxiliary oven that G’narsh -- once again -- had built by hand up here behind him in his elevated office.

    (((The main purpose of the oven was so G’narsh could have ready and immediate access to that most luxurious of foodstuffs -- fresh hot pizza -- whenever he desired, but the heat the oven gives off is certainly welcomed on a night such as this.)))

    At the moment, the gutter fairies, themselves, are fast asleep. And next to the warmth of the fire, they have not a care in the world. But for some reason Nadia stirs, perhaps sensing G’narsh’s stare -- or glare as would be more appropriate to call it at this moment -- and extracts herself clumsily from the pile. After falling to the floor, and waltzing dizzily the short distance across the wooden planks -- never once thinking to use her battered wings -- she climbs up G’narsh’s leg and settles in his lap where, content as a baby, she goes back to sleep oblivious to G’narsh’s growing inner turmoil.