The Bridge Troll

Last Saturday morning I took a walk which began and ended painlessly, but got snagged up in the middle. Upon my approach to the midpoint of the local walking bridge, a young man wearing a white oxford shirt and black dockers emerged from his hiding place to the side and began to speak to me, no heed paid to my obvious white iPod headphones. His lips moved with the sperrit and I made eye contact — well of course I did, he was addressing me! The cunning! There I was, laid prone to an impromptu public sermon at the hands of Johnny Mormon. Me, with my imposing black hoodie and sideburns, an obvious hooligan in need of some divine guidance from an Elder much younger than myself.

I didn’t stop walking, but he fell instep beside me. I sped up, maintaining approximately three feet between us.

The earbuds flew from my skull with a waxy pop, perspiration starting to flow from both the slightly quickened pace as well as the building dread of my immediate future.

“Excuse me sir, but I’m with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I was wondering if you believe in God?”

Talk about a loaded question.

Here I could have had a field day, but I held back. Bit my tongue. I figured if this young man was in the business of accosting people with nothing more than a postcard and the power of the lord or Joseph Smith or, uh, Harry Dean Stanton, then who was I to piss on his parade? If this poor sap has nothing better to do than appoach complete strangers in the rain, then who am I to pass judgement? I don’t swear at panhandlers and I don’t steal candy from babies.

“I don’t know… not really. Not at the moment anyways.”

He’s still all smiles.

“Well then, is there any one reason you lost the faith?”

The intro riff to Raining Blood is coming out of my fallen earbuds.

“Uh…no not really.”

The general state of the world perhaps?

He then begins to ramble on about salvation, forgiveness and faith — pretty much the same Christianity for Dummies spiel we’ve all heard at one point or another.

I listen to him. But I really need to get going and the end of the bridge is in sight.

“We believe that there is a prophet on the earth right now who can offer hope in the face of hopelessness and I can tell you about him if you’d be willing to listen.”

“I can respect that, man, but I need to get going.”

“At least take a card. There’s a website on it that you should really check out.”

I took the card and stashed it in my pocket for later use.

No! I threw it on the ground and ground my heel into it until it stopped moving. No! Just kidding. I’m still using it. It makes a great bookmark for my limited edition Oxford Standard Satanic Bible. No, not really! Jeepers.

It’s actually lodged between pages 52 and 53 of Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs.