Troll Island #WritePhoto

February 2, 2017 — #writephoto, boats, coast, fleet, peanut butter, smuggler

low-tide #writephoto

The dark clouds linger over the sprawling river delta as the sun sets over the water. During the night a fleet of smugglers will carry stolen treasures across the straights to land on the shores of the island nation ruled by trolls.  The long shoreline and rocky jagged coast gave plenty of cover for small dories to remain hidden until the moon was dark and the deal had been done.  The troll king had forbidden the population to sing and dance, which lead to a mass depression in the troll population.  They were required to spend the entire workday grumbling and making false accusations.  The opportunities for advancement were few, and depended on nepotism and corruption.  Most of the nation was enslaved for the sole purpose of making the world a darker place.  After years of this oppression they found ways to slip away across the water into the land of big industry.  Over there, singing and dancing were not outlawed, and neither was heavy drug use by employers on their slaves.  They gave them meth every day to make them more productive in the factories and on the job sites.  At night they took sleeping pills to get some rest after a day all jazzed up at the factory.  Most of them took 5 or 6 other drugs, but they did not know why they had been prescribed.   They were all addicted to pills, and were all desperately unhappy.

When the adventuresome trolls first encountered the miserable industrial workers they thought there was nothing to gain by visiting there.  The workers did not sing or dance, even though they had the chance.  They worked their fingers to the bone and had little personal space or time.  This factory life looked much worse than the mandatory idle grumpiness at home.   The effort made to cross the water seemed like a waste until they stumbled into a rebel teen from industry land.  This teen rebel had been crossing the straights to sneak into troll land since she was knee high to a grasshopper.  The girl had a troll father and an industrial strength mother.  She had a hard time with the other industrial kids because she did not fit in with the repressive regime.  She hated the meth and refused to ingest it, hiding it in her hoodie until she could dispose of it.   She was bullied in school for being too grumpy and lazy, qualities inherited from her father.  She made the crossing first with her mom, who showed her the way.  Since then she has been visiting her father on the island on her own.  As far as she knows she is the only one of her kind, a product of both cultures.  Her parents can’t tell her how they met because there is danger in knowing.

She discovered the constant large demand for peanut butter and chocolate, both of which the troll king had outlawed for the trolls, but kept for himself.  There was a long list of banned substances and activities.  No smiling, no laughing, no peanut butter cups..what kind of a life was that?  She took it upon herself to procure peanut butter and chocolate at wholesale prices then rowed it over to the trolls each month on the new moon.  Stealth was of the utmost importance.  Much was at risk. If caught she would spend the rest of her life on the island, forced to grump and grumble.  Her capture would also mean the end of the only pleasure the trolls still had, the smuggling of peanut butter and chocolate past the authorities guarding the coast.  The trade continues to this day, still undercover.

Please visit Sue Vincent’s blog each Thursday for a new photo prompt. You can read the stories and poems inspired by the picture, and add your own submission.  It is fun to see the variety.

#writephoto