The Bridge Troll’s Retirement

Groth had been under the Millstone Bridge for six hundred and fourteen years when his left knee gave out.

Not gradually, the way knees are supposed to fail. All at once, mid-lunge, while charging a cyclist who’d tried to cross without paying the toll. Groth’s leg buckled, he pitched forward into the gravel, and the cyclist pedaled away without even looking back.

That was the indignity that broke him. Not the pain. The being ignored.

He limped back under the bridge and sat on the damp stone and assessed his situation. Six centuries of crouching in the dark had done things to his spine that no amount of stretching would fix. His right shoulder hadn’t rotated fully since the Reformation. Three of his teeth were gone, two were loose, and the remaining ones were better suited to gumming bread than terrorizing travelers. His eyes, once capable of seeing a merchant’s purse at two hundred yards, now struggled with anything past the far bank.

Groth was old. Even by troll standards, he was old.

He’d heard from a goblin in accounts receivable that the Mythical Creatures Bureau had a disability program. The goblin, who went by Gerald now and worked in the human financial sector, had emailed him the forms.

Groth didn’t have email. He didn’t have a computer. He had a smartphone that a teenager had dropped off the bridge in 2019 and that Groth had fished out of the river and somehow kept charged by plugging it into a municipal power junction that the city didn’t know existed.

He called the number on the form.

“Mythical Creatures Bureau, disability services. Your call is important to us. Current wait time is four hundred and seventy-three minutes.”

Groth waited. He was a troll. Waiting was the job.

Seven hours and fifty-three minutes later, a voice picked up. “MCB disability. This is Fiona.”

“I need to file a claim.”

“Species?”

“Bridge troll.”

“Bridge designation?”

“Millstone Bridge, North Yorkshire.”

“Duration of service?”

“Six hundred and fourteen years.”

A pause. Keyboard clicking. “Our records show that bridge was designated as a troll post in 1411. You’re the original occupant?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve been continuously employed at this location since then?”

“I took two weeks off in 1665. Plague. The humans weren’t crossing anyway.”

“Nature of disability?”

“Left knee. Total failure. Also degenerative spine, partial blindness, and I lost three teeth to a knight in 1523 that were never replaced.”

“Were the teeth lost in the line of duty?”

“He was crossing my bridge without paying.”

“I’ll mark that as occupational.” More typing. “Mr. Groth, I’m going to be honest with you. The disability fund hasn’t been solvent since 1847. We can offer you a partial payment of thirty-seven silver pieces, distributed quarterly, and a referral to our retraining program.”

“Retraining.”

“We have openings for haunted-house operatives, seasonal scaring at theme parks, and there’s a growing demand for authenticity consultants in the fantasy film industry.”

“I’m a bridge troll.”

“You were a bridge troll. The position is being reclassified. The county council is replacing Millstone Bridge with a concrete span next spring. No troll accommodation in the new design. You’ll need to vacate by March.”

Groth sat under his bridge and processed this. Six hundred years. Fourteen generations of humans. He’d watched the road go from dirt to cobblestone to asphalt. He’d seen horses replaced by carriages replaced by cars replaced by cyclists who didn’t even have the decency to scream when they saw him.

“The theme park thing,” he said. “Is that year-round?”

“October through November, with optional extension through the holiday season.”

“What do they pay?”

“Minimum wage. But you get dental.”

Groth looked at his remaining teeth. Thought about the knee. Thought about six centuries of cold stone and river damp and the slow erosion of everything he’d been built to do.

“Send me the forms,” he said.

“Email or post?”

“Just throw them off the bridge. I’ll catch them.”