The Regretful Unrequited Lovelife of Lesbian Trolls

You see that corridor-looking gallery with little windows up there on the Art Deco arch? On the far side, 15 feet above the traffic, there's a ladder under it with a padlock on the hatch to get inside. Since 1934, when the Burrard Street Bridge was constructed, many rumors and legends have circulated over possible occupants living in this gallery.

When I was a little boy I had a crazy old woman of 60 for a babysitter named Rosie. She dressed like Mrs. Roper from Three's Company. During the interview for the babysitter job, she'd told my mother that she'd been in a car accident and lost all five of her children and her husband and to deal with the trauma had undergone a lobotomy procedure. Exactly why a woman like this sounded like a pleasant candidate to have around me for four hours a day I don't know. After my dad explained what a lobotomy entailed I was always fascinated trying to snoop around for enchanting indications of it during the time I spent with Rosie. No dice. I didn't know what she was like *before* so it was impossible to compare.

We played a lot of cards. She incessantly cheated. She went outside and smoked a lot of cigarettes while I watched her out my window. Occasionally she'd take me to the zoo or the aquarium. I always hated the zoo but I loved the aquarium, except for those terrifying Beluga whales swimming in Chemotherapy-blue lighting.

One time we walked over the Burrard Street Bridge and she pointed up at that gallery.

"Ooop! Didja see her? Look!"
"See what?"
"The troll in the window. There she is!"
"Trolls don't come in 'shes'."
"Where do they come from then?"
"I don't see anything."
"Ooop! There she was again. You missed her just so you could argue with me. You're gonna throw your life away and end up a lawyer just like your dad."
"Where? I don't see anything. Trolls live *under* bridges."
"Not this one."
"I don't see anything."
"She's camera shy."
"What kind of troll lives *above* a bridge?"
"A lesbian troll, Brinny."
"What???"

An embittered, folk-singer-fat, lesbian troll as it turned out, Rosie informed me. One who'd unfortunately fallen in love with a pretty heterosexual human girl.

"Rosie, are you serious?"
"Yes. This poor troll suffered from unrequited, inter-species love with a human girl."
"What's 'unrequited' mean?"
"It means loving somebody who doesn't love you."
"But she's a troll."
"So?"
"Okay. Maybe a troll can fall for a human but how can a girl fall for another girl?"
"How can a *boy* fall for a girl?"
"They just do."
"Maybe a girl can. For the same reasons."
"No they can't."
"Says who?"
"I dunno. Trolls don't fall in love with other trolls and start troll families."
"Oh no?"
"No."
"Then where do trolls come from, genius? Don't they need mommies and daddies?"
"I dunno."
"*This* troll didn't want a conventional family. She fell in love. You can't always control who you fall in love with."
"Rosie, I asked my dad about the operation you had."
"Did you now?"
"Yeah."
"And what did the lawyer who married the gypsy tarot-card-reading mother have to say about it?"
"Did they really take out a chunk of your brain?"
"Yes they did."
"Do you think the something they took out of your brain is what makes you think girls can fall for other girls?"
"Setting aside that a female troll could fall for a human female."
"That too, yeah."
"Maybe you can do me a favor and check. I'll lean over so you just dig around what's left of my hair till you find the flap and take a peek at my nuts and bolts."
"Ok, ok, ok. What happened to this troll."
"Well, she was so upset that she locked herself up in this gallery and took up gardening."
"Why gardening?"
"Because she wanted revenge and needed some exercise, that's why."
"How?"
"She wanted to convince the human girl that she loved her more than a human boy ever could."
"What does gardening on top of a bridge have to do with that?"
"Everything."
"I don't get it."
"While she was up there, the troll invented two magical species of dandelions. One black and one white."
"Why dandelions?"
"Why not?"
"What's magical about them?"
"One works with the ocean and the other with the sky."
"How?"
"You know how dandelion blossoms turn into spores at the end of summer and end up looking like old woman's hair? Like mine? Just when they're perfect to blow apart."
"Sure."
"This troll rigged these Magical Dandelions so that when the white-daytime ones hit the ocean and got carried off to the horizon by summer time they'd transform into sailboats by the hundreds."
"What about the black ones?"
"You know around dusk when all those thousands of crows fly east across the whole city to find a good spot to watch the sunset?"
"Yeah."
"That's where they come from."
"From a lesbian troll blowing apart a black dandelion that magically transforms when it touches the sky?"
"You betcha. If seeds can be planted in the ground why can't they be planted in the ocean or the sky?"
"I dunno."
"And now you do."
"But what about the girl she does all this for?"
"She got old."
"Does she know all this stuff about where crows and sailboats come from?"
"Yes."
"What happened to her?"
"She was so ashamed and sad over it she did hurtful things to herself. Then they put her in an institution. Then they gave her a lobotomy."
"Like you!"
"She is me."