The Rise of the Trolls

A Story by Aaron McEmrys

Coffee doesn’t come from where we think. Neither does hot chocolate. The best coffee, the best of pretty much everything as a matter of fact, is made by trolls.

That’s right, trolls.

Don’t worry if you’ve never seen one; most of us haven’t. You have to know how to look and they don’t exactly teach that in school, do they?

So take my word for it. The best cup of coffee or hot chocolate you’ve ever tasted? Well there’s a good chance Petey made it, or Jasper or Wilberforce. They’re coffee trolls.

Standing only about as high as your average dandelion and weighing in at just a smidge over two sparrows, Coffee Trolls are among the smallest members of troll society.

They begin work every evening, just after sunset, expertly breaking coffee and coco beans one by one with their tiny troll hammers until the grind is perfect, neither too coarse nor too fine.

Petey, Jasper and Wilberforce worked at a neighborhood coffeehouse called the Red and Black, where they made the best coffee and hot chocolate in the world. Every morning, lines of pale chilly Portlanders stretched down the block, happy to wait for the only thing in the world that could make them forget how unrelentingly damp everything was.

One day a stranger came to the coffee shop. He didn’t particularly care for chocolate or coffee, but he cared a great deal about making money, and when he saw the long line of customers patiently waiting for their drinks, he saw an opportunity.

He waited with mounting impatience, cutting in line whenever someone looked the other way. But he did eventually get a cup of hot chocolate and when he did it was the best thing he’d ever tasted!

How did they do it, he wondered. So rich, so sweet, so creamy and was that a hint of vanilla?

Day after day, night after night, the Stranger watched and waited and watched some more, desperate to know the secret behind those wonderful drinks. And one night, as he peered through the coffeehouse windows – he saw them – three tiny trolls swinging their little hammers to the oompa-oompa beat of polka music, beloved by trolls everywhere.

The stranger bought the Red and Black the very next day on behalf of his employer, Drink This, Inc., a subsidiary of We Say So Industries.

“You there!” the stranger growled as the last of the sun went down. “Everybody else is fired, but you – you stay on. But there’re going to be some changes around here. You’re going to keep right on making hot drinks, except you’re going to do it much, much faster – and believe you me they’d better be good.”

“But we can’t go any faster. It takes the time it takes!”

“I think not. My employers have certain…expectations…regarding your performance and your productivity. You don’t want to disappoint them, I assure you.”

And so the little trolls got back to work, but they couldn’t make enough coffee to satisfy the Stranger, who timed them with a stopwatch, shouting, “More, more, more!”

They were miserable. And things were only about to get worse.

One night as they were furiously breaking coffee beans there was a terrible noise above their heads and the building began to shake when suddenly the whole roof was lifted away like a toy.

There, holding the roof in her mighty hands, was a mountain troll!

“Urg.” She said with a voice like grinding stone. “Ugh?”

“Yes, this is the place,” answered the Stranger, who stood imperiously on her shoulder. “H-e-r-e y-o-u ma-k-e c-o-of-f-e-e, dummy.”

Petey, Jasper and Wilberforce scattered as the giant troll stepped into the building like a falling hillside.

“The hat, remember, camoflage?” shouted the Stranger, and the giant troll put the torn roof on her head like a party hat.

“What’s going on here?” cried Jasper.

“You’re fired. That’s what’s going on here. Clear out, scram.”

“But we’re coffee trolls. This is our home!”

“You shoulda thought of that before you missed your last three production goals. Trolls make great coffee right? Little trolls, little coffee, little money. BIG troll = lots of coffee, piles of money!”

The trolls went outside, but they had nowhere to go. So there they sat down in the parking lot and when the sun came up the next morning they turned into three small rocks, which is what happens to trolls during the day.

That day the line of customers was as long as ever, but something seemed to be wrong with the coffee. You see, mountain trolls are not exactly known for their intelligence, so while the huge troll could grind thousands of beans at a time, her attention often drifted and then she’d thoughtlessly grind whatever happened to be below her, whether they were beans or not!

That night, Jasper, Petey and Wilberforce stood outside the coffee shop holding signs that read, “Unfair!” And very soon, word had spread throughout the whole troll community.

More and more outraged trolls of all shapes and sizes converged on the coffee shop. By night they marched, chanting, “No Justice, No Coffee, No Justice, No Coffee!” and by day, they all turned into rocks where they stood until the parking lot was covered, occupied, you might say, by boulders.

So although the mountain troll had hundreds of pounds of ground coffee ready to go, nobody could get in. The Stranger hired a bulldozer to push the rocks out of the way, but when night fell they turned back into trolls and started right up where they’d left off the night before.

“Grind them up, Troll! I command you!”

“Urg?” asked the big mountain troll.

“You heard me. Take your hammer and grind up all those rocks cluttering up my parking lot!”

“Grind….rocks? Me no grind…trolls! Trolls good. You bad.”

“I order you,” squeaked the Stranger, “I command it.”

“Grind?” asked the mountainous troll again, as she fingered her massive hammer and smiled a dangerous smile down at the purple-faced tyrant. “Grind?”

“N-N-No…no grind…no grind! You know what – forget it – this place isn’t making any money anyway – I think I’ll just be going.”

And the Stranger ran away as fast as his feet could carry him.

The big troll went back to her home on the rocky slopes of Mt. Hood, but not before carefully putting the roof back on – and Petey, Jasper and Wilberforce re-opened their coffee house, which they proudly renamed, “Three Trolls Coffee.”

The lines are as long as ever, but nobody minds waiting.