The Troll and the Gecko

Paint the White Roses Red

The caucus race resulted in the formation of a few friendships amongst the participants. One that we have already noticed was that between the author and the Phoenician tailor, Euripides. All of the others seemed a bit unlikely at first, but the strangest was definitely that between the largest member and the smallest. I speak, of course, of Grundlebletch, the troll, and the Gecko.

For some reason, these became inseparable and were never seen apart. And so it was not unusual to see them walking through the streets together or sharing a pint of bitter in a cozy pub or bar. As it happened, they were sitting on a park bench, enjoying the sunshine (Grundle was a bridge troll and had discovered long ago that the sun does not cause a troll to shrivel into a stick of jerky, as troll tradition would have it) when I saw them. I was waiting for a bus nearby and this is the conversation I overheard.

It was the gecko who spoke first, as I recall. “Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it Grundle?”

The troll gave a start, as if he’d just been awoken from a doze. He turned to look at the gecko. “I ‘ave noticed that often ‘appens when the sun is aht.”

“Too true, too true,” mused Gecko. He was silent for a while but then began again. “I was thinking the other day about mistakes. Well, one in particular and what I could do to make it better. Do you ever make mistakes, Grundle?”

“Orl the time,” replied the troll. “In fact, I b’lieve it is the normal lot o’ the ‘onest troll to lead a life guided by hinnocent mistakes, un’appy choices and ‘arf-witted decisions. It’s ‘ow I seem to hopperate, any’ow.”

“That must be very distressing for you,” commented the gecko. “How do you cope with it all?”

A serious expression came upon the troll’s homely face as he thought about this. His eventual answer seemed to me the height of wisdom, an unexpected thing to be proceeding from the mind of a troll.

“I do not see why it ‘as to be distressin’ at orl. Becos it is the way I runs me life, it seems quite natch’ral to me and I do not worry abaht it at orl. Mistakes is the way we gets from one moment to the next and that’s ‘ow it is fer a troll.” There was a slight pause before he continued. “An’ I’ll tell yer another thing. I ‘ave noticed that, even though it’s orl a mistake, everythin’ turns aht fer the best. Even the worst mistake gets sorted aht in the end and nothing is the disaster we expectid.”

Silence descended upon the pair when the troll had finished his speech. It was clear that the gecko was thinking hard about what his friend had said, and the troll was beginning to doze off again in the sun.

Eventually the gecko piped up again. “D’you know, Grundle, I think you’ve solved my problem for me.”

The troll turned to look at him. “Eh? Wot d’yer mean?”

“Well,” began the gecko, “I’ve been worrying about the way I ended a business partnership I had with a chameleon a while back. Nothing seemed to be going right and, in a moment of annoyance, we decided to go our separate ways. I’ve been thinking that maybe I was too hasty and we should have tried to keep the business going.”

“And wot diff’rence ‘ave I made?” asked Grundle.

“You made me think about how things are now,” said Gecko. “I know for a fact that my partner went off and founded a completely unrelated business that is doing quite well. And I am quite happy, being as I am and having a friend like you. So it looks as though it wasn’t a mistake at all. Maybe it was just how things turned out and life went on without even a hiccup.”

“Now yer gettin’ it,” said Grundle. “Mistakes is only mistakes if yer let ‘em be mistakes.”

My bus arrived at that moment and I was carried off to other places, all as different as one could imagine.


Word Count: 696
For Wonderland Challenge, 03.05.20
Prompt: Mistakes happen.