Gurn's Flower
Copyright © 1992
by R. Brian Curtis
To those who have had the patience to look closer.
Once upon a time there lived a troll named Gurn who lived near a human village in what is now northern Illinois. His home was a large hole in a huge, dead tree which was so old it had lost all of it's branches. Situated on a hill in a deep, dark forest, it was from here that he made his nightly raids on the nearby village, taking only the food he needed, and nothing more.
One particularly cold, rainy day, the villagers decided that they could no longer stand to live in fear of the troll. The men were concerned with their livestock and their fields of grain and other plants. The women were concerned that the troll might one day tire of taking only hanging meat and grain, and decide to take one of their children. The children, frightened by the stories they heard their parents tell each other of the "evil troll," as it was known, shook in fear at night as they lay in their beds, barely able to sleep.
So the villagers gathered together, men and women, bringing with them pitchforks, plowshares, butcher knives, bows and arrows, and anything else they could find that could be considered a weapon. The children came, too, their parents fearing to leave them behind, horrified by thoughts of what would happen if the troll came to the village while they were away and found the children unattended. So, setting out in search of the troll's lair, they readied themselves, to kill or be killed by the brutish monster.
As they left, it began to rain, and as they searched, it continued to downpour. It rained and rained to the point where people began to look around, and realize that they might be in danger, and that the area they were in could be flash-flooded at any moment. Seeing this, a highly charismatic fellow took charge, ordering everyone to take to a high hill nearby.
So, everyone turned foot, and ascended the hill, all, that is, except for a young girl, who had found a lovely flower that she found fascinating. It was as she contemplated the beauty of the petals that the waters came.
From his lair high in his tree, Gurn watched all of this. He watched the hunting party, and feared it. He didn't understand why they had come, he had hurt no one; he was hungry, that's all, and stole from them because he knew of no other way to provide for himself. Maybe it would have been better if he had asked for the food, he thought, but then he realized that, no, it wouldn't have been any better. They would have taken one look at him, and either run him out of town, or ran away themselves. He began to realize that maybe he was a monster, just as they seemed to think, and then he began to cry.
It was through his salty, watery eyes that he saw the little girl and what he thought at first was merely the flowing of his tears. But he quickly realized that what he was seeing through his bleary vision was actually fast moving water all around her, rising towards her from all around the temporary island she was standing on. And as he wiped his eyes, he saw just how quickly the water was rising, and thus, how quickly it would be before the island was no more. Seeing her in her peril, with no one to help her, he climbed out of his home in order to go get her.
From the shores of what was now a river, the girl's father began stripping his clothes off in preparation of swimming out to his daughter. How small she was, he thought, compared to the flood-water river. When the water reaches her, she'll drown in seconds.
It was as he thought this terrible thing that his wife screamed. Looking out to his child, he was prepared to see her being washed quickly away, but instead he saw, almost more to his horror, the troll, standing at the bottom of an enormous tree on the other side of the waters. "It just climbed out of that tree," his wife said, "it was up there all the time, watching us." He watched, panic stricken, as the beast looked at his daughter from where he stood on the other side, and then stared on in wonder as the troll went into action.
Gurn knew that even as big as he was, he would probably be swept down stream almost as easily as the child would be. So, climbing a nearby tree, he positioned himself just below the hole he had known as home, and then began to push on his tree with one leg, hoping that the live tree he was on was stronger than the ancient dead one containing his lair. His hopes became truth as he heard first one crack, then two, and then watched as his tree began to break in half, right where he had wanted it to.
Even as they saw the huge tree fall, they could also see that the troll was climbing down the other tree almost as fast, so that as the huge log hit the water with a splash, the monstrous creature was already setting foot to ground. As they continued to observe, he ran toward the log, which had been caught quickly in the current, seized it as it sped along, and then painstakingly pulled it to shore.
They then noticed that the tree had been hollow, and it was into this hollow that the creature now entered. Then, using a large wooden plank he had been using as a door to keep out rain and squirrels, he did as the people who used to live nearby (the Indians as these new people called them) had done to navigate rivers and lakes; he paddled his improvised canoe.
Now that the villagers understood what he was doing, the women screamed in horror, and the father prepared to dive in to go to attempt to save the child, not from the waters now but from the troll, but his wife held him back, saying "even if you survive the flood waters, John, you'll still have to fight that," pointing her finger towards the monstrosity she saw in the floating tree. Then, grabbing him by the shirt collar and looking into his eyes, she declared, "She's gone, husband, she's gone, and I don't want to lose you both."
Just then, as all the villagers watched, holding their breathes, the creature paddled up next to the Thomas's little girl.
Not realizing her danger, the little girl continued to stare at the flower she had found, and it was not until the approach of the monster that she looked away from the blossom and noticed that her parents were far away, separated from her by surrounding water. Still not understanding the danger, she looked at the approaching troll and, picking the beautiful bloom at her feet, she held it towards him, and uttered one single word, "Flower?"
The waters had begun to climb again at an even faster rate, now rising above where the little girl stood. She toppled from the water's force, and as her father watched on, he almost hoped she would get washed away, away from those horrible claws, and that huge, tooth-filled mouth.
But as she began to move with the current, the creature was on her, grabbing her firmly by the waist and dragging her into his makeshift boat. She didn't scream, but was quiet, allowing all who were on the shore to think the worst had happened.
Then the beast did the unexpected: He began to paddle, struggling against the current, towards them. Many got their weapons handy, ready for anything, but they watched as the huge humanoid paddled to shore, exited his impromptu canoe, and handed the girl to the outstretched arms of her mother. Hesitantly, she grabbed her child from him and ran to her husband.
Tired from paddling, Gurn stood where he was, inhaling and exhaling, barely having the strength to stand. It was then that the well aimed arrow came at him, taking him by surprise, and striking him directly in the heart. In his fright and pain, he stumbled back a step, falling backwards into the fast, swirling current of the river. Swiftly he was swept downstream, away from his home which he had destroyed, away from the little girl he had destroyed it to save, away from the land in which he had always lived. Tired, and unable to fight the river's current, Gurn stopped struggling, deciding that it was easier to let fate take it's course.
Unable to believe what had happened, the villagers waited until the flood waters lowered, and then silently, heads bowed to the ground, one by one, family by family, they wandered home. Nobody seemed to know who had fired the shot, and nobody was willing to admit to doing it. But it had happened, and they all had only themselves to blame, for they were the ones who had come hunting for the poor thing. They were the ones who had created the situation, ready to destroy the creatures life, without cause, to kill it for nothing more than stealing what now seemed to them like merely a few morsels of bread when in their minds they compared it to the punishment of death he had recieved in the end.
Gurn's body washed downstream, listlessly riding the temporary flow of water farther away from his home than he had ever travelled during his life. Even though it was now a lifeless husk, Gurn had died fulfilled, living his last moments knowing that it hadn't been he that had been the beast, but those who had viewed him as one.
Later when some boys, wondering what manner of creature he could have been, found his body where the slowly lowering waters had deposited it, they found, clutched gently in his hand, a single white flower.