Troll: A Love Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

amazingly bright and who has white curly hair like a cloudlet on a sunny day. A fairy.
The troll and the fairy introduce themselves to each other: they are Pessi and Illusia—not difficult to work out, considering the title of the book. One is a pessimist, and the other lives in the land of illusion—clever old Kokko! And because both their names are diminutives, because of their small size, Illusia establishes that they’re fated to be companions in destiny . . .
I shut the book. Thoughts go whizzing through my head.
So what does the troll mean to me?
A protégé, somewhat like a pigeon with a broken wing? Or an exotic pet? Or maybe a stranger on a short visit, rather oddly behaved but altogether captivating, who’ll be leaving one day when the time’s right?
Or what?
I ask myself and give no reply.
I reach out and grasp the next book.

A.W. CHALMERS, THE HIDDEN TRAILS OF MANKIND , 1985
For the most part, the ancestors of man may well have adapted flexibly without the constant need for major mutations; but more drastic environmental changes called for more pronounced mutations. Since the close of the Miocene period there have been two such major evolutionary leaps.
The first occurred when Australopithecus experienced a restructuring of the pelvis and the foot, which allowed a brachiating forest ape to become a more or less upright walker. This four-limbed “southern ape” thus became two-legged, with hands free for manipulation, as did, convergently, Felipithecus, the so-called “cat-ape.” Both Australopithecus and Felipithecus probably carried loads. Upright walking and the development of the deltoid muscle would allow the bearing of weights, such as tools, food, and children, from one place to another.
Approximately four million years later the second important hominid mutation occurred. This was the rapid expansion of the brain, leading to the emergence of Cro-Magnon man, classified as the species Homo sapiens, the species we ourselves belong to.

ANGEL
    It stands in a museum display-cabinet on the ground floor of the library, looking like a streamlined thundercloud. Its coat has lost much of its shiny black during the years spent in the glass case. To suggest the beast’s environment, it’s been surrounded by a miscellany of foliage, lichen, and musty-looking plastic stones. The taxidermist has stuffed it in a slightly crouching position, and the long and supple fingers on the forelimbs stretch towards the glass, so that as you approach the cabinet you’re startled and take an instinctive step backward. Its muzzle is creased into a sneer, and the strikingly large teeth are dark yellow—perhaps from being conserved so long. I observe that the taxidermist was incorrectly informed about trolls’ eyes. To catch the fury and danger of the animal it has been given brown glass-button eyes, which give it a sad, lost look. These might be suitable for a bear, say, but are totally unlike the troll’s actual eyes, which are large, fiery slants with pupils that are vertical stripes. I press my hands and nose and lips to the glass. It mists over by my mouth as I whisper, “Help me.”

A.W. CHALMERS, THE HIDDEN TRAILS OF MANKIND , 1985
At the close of the Miocene period salt began to be concentrated in salt basins, and there was a global decrease in oceanic salinity. In consequence, the Antarctic seas began to ice over, doubling the size of the ice cap, and lowering sea levels worldwide. The trees began to diminish in size and the African rain forest shrank in extent, leaving only smaller areas where the arboreal apes are still to be found. The eastern side of the continent became a savannah of grass country, dotted with woodland. This savannah experienced alternating wet and dry seasons, times of abundance and times of dearth, seasons of flood and seasons of cracked mud. The upright two-limb carriage of the hominid Australopithecus allowed its adaptation to this new environment. No longer confined to trees, the