And it had writing on it so, I transcribed it.

Part III
Epilogue

I. Earl the troll king belched his spleen back under a bridge as the thaumaturge in judges robes banishes him to his face in the mirror and regular work rooted up his body like a wither.

Even the low crowd through Highland High was over. I had inhabited Runnel’s Hills for years like an animate ghost now I could go unmasked, fully anonymous with a student loan.

Viet Nam was moving toward its penultmate absurdity the tet offensive and I was moving toward the army M.D. who gleefully stamped yes on my forehead yes on my genitals, yes, yes, yes, my little sweetmeat.

Yes to numerology, yes to foreshadowing, yes to art, music and archeology stamping toward tenure or deferral or statistical oblivion yes, yes, yes. Ordinarily in a Grimm Fairy Tale this is where the poison apple appears.

John Phillips caught music in his hair a tall fair flint of English phlegm goateed sartorial a great man that never really thought he etherized on the blushing miasma of the well tempered heart.

Designing stage pettings for Menothis’ Old Maid and the thief, he assured me, I had no place in music, but was clever and should read philosophy, without talent, he opined one needs a clear mind.

It was certainly dear numerology’s complex math would not chisel its way between my yes and archaeological illustrator was all my temperament was fitted for art would have to save me. Yet most of the proof could only theorize not draw or purple prosify the dead axioms of western aesthetics color theory was optics, painting theory was chemistry and even those that emoted did so without inner necessity or attention.

To be heated up on the slow boilerplate of modernism. Stain painting my smock with obedience training genuflecting before the Washington School abstractonist fated to a feckless faculty fade out of academic funk.

All bunk as I sat in the mineral museum watching morning light still wash the crystals in eternity. The outer world seemed on the brink of collapse. Security guards prowled the halls looking for hippies.

II. It has been noted that from a distance evil when it can be recognized is tedious and comically absurd this is so because it is so jovially and roguishly uncomplex up close.

However, a troll is a creature of petty malice easily opiated and viral to lazy to be actually cruel, something in short to be primarily avoided, trolls were once human, part of them remembers.

An ogre on the other hand is a stew of short tempered violence with a long memory of creature that sweats pain and fear and chews symbolism like a kind of (not legible) drug.