Day 25 - A new routine

M. Troll was, of course, a bit sad his salad had to go back home, but he was now looking at life with happiness and hope in the future. He now had a real future and projects to come. The first one, of course, was to buy a plane ticket to Paris to surprise his beloved salad.
He wondered if he should book a room in a hotel or not.
He casually asked (or thought he did it casually, at least) his salad through their favorite mean of communication, Hangout, when she would be available if he ever was to come, maybe maybe maybe, someday to Paris.

When the salad squeaked happily that he was welcome anytime, he understood his approach hadn't been stealthy at all.
Still, he asked his confused boss for vacations again and booked the tickets. He was to arrive the 23rd and to fly back the 31st of December.

When one of his colleagues asked his boss if that wasn't a lot of vacations at once and if M. Troll really had that many vacation days, the boss just shrugged. He said that this charming M. Troll had so much happiness in him, who could resist him?

"Trollet mitt!" squeaked the salad happily when M. Troll told her the good news. "I can't wait to have you here!"

With everything planned, M. Troll had the feeling it was one of his best Mondays. He also realized his luggage wasn't big enough for this duration and went to borrow their blue luggage to his parents.
They were stunned at learning their son liked someone and was ready to go to Paris to visit her. But more than that, they were super happy for him, because they knew he deserved the best in life.

All that happiness helped M. Troll to have nice dreams all night.

Will he eat smelly cheese? Will he book a hotel?
Stay tuned! :D

Days 20 to 24 - Love. With a big L. And balloons. And hearts. You know what I mean. And departure.

M. Troll learnt the salad was to go back home to France on the following Sunday.
That filled him with happiness, because he still had days to get to know her. And she reacted so happily when he told her he had taken days off for her, that he knew he had done the right thing for them.
They spent these days together nearly non-stop. And nearly all nights too (*wink*).

They giggled a lot together while watching series, videos and just enjoying each other presence.
M. Troll's shared his passion for video games' streaming, while she convinced him to watch several series she liked with her, cuddling on M. Troll's comfy couch. The toothless head especially enjoyed these moments, because the salad always brought it a lollipop.

They had long talks about everything, including life's big projects, and they realized they had the same. That's when the salad first said that, because she was divorced and had nothing keeping her in France, she had thought about moving in a foreign country. This little sentence sounded like the most delicious song to M. Troll's ears and a dream of them playing side to side started to form in his mind.

They ate curry and pizzas. They ate brown cheese, which the salad really liked on bread with some strawberry jam (while M. Troll like his on bread with margarine and strawberry jam). She enthusiastically talked about restaurants in Paris they would try when he would visit her. M. Troll hadn't known before then that France had that huge culinary history.

They took long walks in the forest near M. Troll's home. The salad made him smile, because she was acting like a eight year-old child on a sugar rush, jumping and running excitedly. He actually enjoyed this time spent away from his video games.

They created a TSW's account for the salad, so she could play with him once back home. He showed her how the game worked, but she seemed a bit confused at first.

M. Troll also started to teach the salad her first words in his country's language. She said it was really easy compared to French.

To sum things up, they enjoyed each other greatly.

"We're meant to be!" said M. Troll, surprising himself with these words.
"I think so too!" answered the giggling salad happily.

M. Troll felt like he was caught in a delicious and magic tornado. He smiled a lot and wanted to sigh happily all the time.

Finally, when Sunday arrived, they were the happiest people in the world. Of course, they were sad too, and they cried a lot at leaving each other, even for a few weeks only.
Even sad, they knew they were the happiest and luckiest persons in the world, because they had found each other.
Their love was new, and the distance was great, but they trusted each other and believed in the  "them" they were creating.

M. Troll promised he would look at the tickets to come visit her as soon as possible. Each of his heads kissed her goodbye, and he spent long minutes at the airport recollecting himself before going back home.
On the train, he kept looking at the pictures they had taken together. He especially like one with ice creams, and another one with lollipops.

M. Troll was ready to commit, now that he had found the perfect video games playing (and one who liked to havf fun fun fun!) girly salad.

When will he go to France? Will he eat a lot?
Stay tuned! :D

Day 17 - French Christmas market

M. Troll surprised himself by waking up eagerly. He wasn't hungry, just excited at the idea of going to the Frech Christmas market. Since he wasn't stupid, he had concluded the salad, who had an accent, must be French.
"A singing French salad," he thought. "How silly is that?"

The market was really pretty, he had never seen one like that. Small hytte full of colored things.

He was quickly caught in the magic of it. He even bought some candies for his toothless head, that squeaked happily.

M. Troll was curious to see what the salad was selling, but he took his time inspecting each hytte carefully, because he was a bit shy at seeing her again.
Finally, he got anxious to see her and wondered which little shop was hers. He heard a giggling sound and decided to follow it.

"Hei! You're here!" exclaimed the salad with a happy smile when she saw him.
"Hum. Yes. Hi," he answered.

The salad giggled at his shy reaction.
"In France, we pretty girls are mostly harassed by creeps! It's so cool to be able to just be myself happily!" She waited for his reaction. "Bah," she said, "I don't want to be the only one saying I'm pretty, that's weird."

While he tried to answer at the best of his capacity, M. Troll saw what she was selling.
"You wrote those?" said he, pointing at the books in front of the salad.
"Yes!"

And she became all red with what looked like shyness.
"I came here to promote them, but I'm not sure I'm writing things exactly how I have them in mind. I'm trying to romance what happened and to infuse it with all my emotions."
"What is it about?" he asked, curious.
"A troll, video games and a salad," she answered, giggling.

The earth opened under M. Troll.

"You said video games? Do you like those?" he asked, nearly trembling.
"I loooove them," she answered, giggling. "It's a torture to not be able to play when I'm away, like I am now."
"Do you like MMOs?"
"I 've only tried TSW, but I like it so much I don't want to try anything else. Except ESO maybe..."

And she like ESO's universe too. M. Troll could have cried. He heard angels singing in his ears. It was, in fact, too much emotions for him, but he fought to stay exactly where he was and not run away once again.
The giggling silly salad and him talked for a long time, until it was time for her to sign books at least.

M. Troll surprised everyone, including each of his three heads.

He invited the giggling salad to dinner the following day.
He was also surprised when she accepted.

This Sunday, he went home happier than he had been in a long time.

What will they eat? Hopefully no one will try to eat the salad!
Stay tuned! :D

Day 16 - Holy pizza

M. Troll had run to his house more frightened than he had ever been, on Friday afternoon.
He had to explain to his guildmates why he had not a headset, and he wasn't able to play as intended.
But he didn't blame anything or anyone but his curiosity. Why did he feel the need to get closer at all costs?

On Saturday, he went for a jog in the mountain near his apartment. A jog that was more some survival thing than a jog, to be honest.
He would have like to take his glittery pink rubber boots, but to run, it would have been foolish, so he had his orange sport shoes.

He decided to get a pizza later that day, after having taken a nice shower and played video games a lot.

On the way to his favorite pizzeria, someone gave him a flyer promoting a French Christmas market that was to happen the day after, on Sunday. M. Troll shrugged and put the flyer away in his pocket.
At the pizzeria, he took his pizza (he ordered online, as usual) and was to leave when he heard someone running behind him.
One of the heads took a look and he nearly ran away when he realized it was the salad. She looked very salady in a fancy colored dress.

"Hey!" she said. "Yesterday, you threw your headset at me! It hurt!"
She then obviously waited for an answer, without smiling.

All the three heads became as red as something can become red. The salad felt a bit guilty, because she could see this troll wasn't that used to talking to new people.

"OK! Don't worry about it!" she exclaimed, smiling happily again. "I'll forgive you if you come to the French Christmas market tomorrow!"

M. Troll remembered the flyer, weighted quickly his options, and was surprised to realize he was already nodding "yes" before the end of the weighting.

"Perfect! See you tomorrow then!" said the salad happily, before going back to her table.

The pizza M. Troll ate that day tasted like hope and happiness.

Will he buy smelly cheese at the French market? What is the salad selling?
Stay tuned! :D

Day 15 - Deception

M. Troll was devastated. He had put so much hope in this date. This Friday morning, when he woke up, he started to think love wasn't for him.
"Well, he thought, I've been alone forever after all, maybe I'm made to spend my life alone? Maybe if I wasn't alone, I would end up hurting the special person I would love and myself too."

It was a gloomy Friday. M. Troll was constantly on the verge of tears.

After work, to please his new guildmates, he went to the shop and chose a nice pink headset.
At the shop, he heard singing coming from the karaoke area (an area he looked at longingly, but with three heads...). The voice seemed vaguely familiar, even if he could not replace. He took a look and saw the singing salad.

The same singing salad as the day before. She was with her friends again, trying of the karaoke machine. M. Troll watched for a few minutes, fascinated. How could someone sing like that in a public place that wasn't designed for it and not feel ashamed?
He took one step closer.
"Haha! I'll sing the Sugababes next if you keep trolling me!" squeaked the salad happily at something one of her friends said.

M. Troll had no idea what the Sugababes were, but he suddenly really wanted to know.
He took two steps closer.

The salad turned and looked directly at him.
"Hi! Do you want to join us?" she asked with a big happy smile.

M. Troll ran away from the shop, throwing the unpaid headset in the salad's direction in his haste.

Did the headset hit the salad? Did it hurt if yes?
Stay tuned! :D

Days 13 and 14 - Dating!

The girls M. Troll talked to on the Internet, the ones who didn't play video games, didn't really understand why he liked this activity so much.
Nonetheless, he invited one of them on a date on Thursday (day 14), just in case.

On Wednesday he went to see one of his colleagues, a guy who had a lot of success with the ladies.
"What should I give her on a first date?" he asked.
"Well, what does she like?" asked the colleague back.
"She doesn't like video games," answered M. Troll. "But I think she likes swimming."

The colleague was at a loss with this information, and didn't know what to answer to M. Troll. Worse, M. Troll's three heads were looking at him with such hope he felt compelled to jump through the window. But it was Winter and snow was everywhere.
He turned away from the window, sighing, and said with what he hoped was a wise face:
"Buy her flowers. Pretty colored flowers."

M. Troll ran from the office to find flowers (which made his colleague relieved, since he wouldn't have to see M. Troll again this day).

The seller was very surprised when a crazed M. Troll barged in her shop, but years of seeing strange customers kicked in, and she smiled automatically.
"Hei, can I help you?" she asked politely.

M. Troll waved in front of her nose flowers he had just taken on a shelf.
 "I want these for a date!" he exclaimed, proud at having found pretty flowers.

The seller sighed, wondering once again why she bothered learning the language of flowers if she only had customers like this one.

M. Troll, forgetting entirely about his work, went back home to play with his new guild, full of nice people, mostly guys (sic) though. The only active girl was married to another player already. But that story made him hopeful.

***

On Thursday, M. Troll was full of joy. The girl he was to meet wasn't hostile to video games.

His day at work seemed to go so slowly to him he was in a terrible mood.
His colleagues were happy to see things go back to normal with him sheltered in his office.

When the time came, he went to the date with confidence, whistling in the streets, flowers in hand. He heard singing from one of the streets he had to cross to arrive to the restaurant. Curious and in advance, he took a look and saw a strange salad singing and laughing with people who appeared to be friends of hers.
"How weird it is," he thought. "A singing salad. She must be foreign."

He then resumed in confident walk.

The girl arrived five minutes late. He didn't like late people and told her so. She didn't seem really happy about that, but she squeaked and claped excitedly when she saw the flowers.

It started well, but it didn't end so.

During the dinner, he talked about things he knew: video games, his experience in the North with the young video games player, his work and, of course, his glittery pink rubber boots. She talked about things she knew, and they were really different.
When they talked about what they wanted in life, they realized they could have lived on different planets.

They called it a night after the appetizers.

M. Troll ordered japanese on the way home.

Who was that salad?
Stay tuned! :D

Day 12 - Back to work!

M. Troll fell asleep on his desk, still happy to have started everything he could to meet the special person he was dreaming of.

When he awoke, full of hope for the day to come, he prepared some brown cheese toasts. These days were celebration days.

  

He arrived at work with a big smile plastered on each of his heads and said hello to everyone.

His colleagues started to wonder what had happened in this troll life to make him so happy. They organized lot of meetings to see if he would talk about his private life at some point, and they even all lunched together.

For his lunch, he has brought two brown cheese sandwiches. The toothless head had a lollipop. It squeaked happily when it saw the candy, since it really was addicted to sugar, something M. Troll knew, but was ignoring as well as he could.

M. Troll's boss gave him more work and projects than usual, but he was still full of hope and happy. He answered some messages from girls that seemed nice enough, but didn't really play video games. And he got accepted in the guild he wanted to join.

Life was full of opportunities!

When he got home, later that day, he went to meet all his new guildmates.

Will the perfect girl be in that guild? Will she be somewhere else? Will he settle for a non-playing girl?

Stay tuned! :D

Days 10 and 11 - Out of the cave

On Sunday, M. Troll was ready to leave the hytte of his new guide in life. The young gamer was kind of relieved to see this nice but really weird person go back to his own life. Plus, his girlfriend was freaked out by the three heads.

M. Troll, during his trip back to his small town, realized he lacked something important that made people better and happier and more positive and more energetic and just more more more. Something that made people sing, scream, act crazy, etc.
He wasn't in love.

He had never felt the need to be before he met the young gamer, but he didn't know girls could love video games. Now that he knew that truth, he saw how beautiful the world really was.

He pictured himself with the most perfect girl he could imagine. She had to be a bit crazy, but good crazy, so he had fun all the time; she also had to love pizza, because pizza was another perfection of the world. He also wanted to find her the prettiest girl in the world, but he had no doubt that once in love, he would be able to see only her. He shyly wished their kisses would taste like magic itself.

He imagined himself and his girlfriend going to the movie theater, playing video games together, meeting each other for a lunch or a dinner...

He wanted to share the best moments of his life with someone special. He wanted to take care of someone and to be taken care of in return.

M. Troll was out of his allegorical cave. He was discovering the world.

***

The following day (since he got lost a lot on his way back and it took longer to get home), he arrived in the parking lot he shared with his neighbour and parked automatically. Everything he did, he did as in a dream. He was already living the perfect life with the perfect girl.

He wasn't even tired, he just wanted to meet her.
That special person meant to be with him.

He created an account on some dating websites, just in case, and also looked at guilds in his new favorite game, TSW, just in case. There can't be too many "just in case" where the perfect girl is involved, he told himself.

He spent all his day looking at pictures and profiles on the dating websites, then looking for a guild.
He sent several messages that got no answer, some that got an answer he liked and some that got an answer he disliked. He was pretty happy.
He also found a nice guild and applied. That made him happy too.

After this day that got him closer to his new dream and to new content in TSW, he felt more enthusiastic than ever.

Will he find a girl on the Net? When will he sleep?
Stay tuned! :D

Days 8 and 9 - An encounter

M. Troll spent the worst night of his life in his car. His only joy was to see his lovely boots when he woke up. But even that couldn't compare to the sadness he felt at not witnessing the apparition of northern lights.
And the cold. The toothless head was shivering on its neck.
M. Troll spotted smoke far away, but close enough so he could reach it with his car.

The smoke was coming from an hytte, a chalet in his country.

He knocked on the door, and a one-headed young guy opened it.

"Yes? I'm not interested in anything you have to sell," said the guy before his eyes widened at the sight of the sparkling M. Troll.
He wasn't used to visitors, especially not to sparkling ones.
"What the...?" he continued.
"Hi! I'm M. Troll, I wanted to see northern lights, but there wasn't any," said one of the heads. "How old are you?"
"Ah. Oh. You're lost. I'm 28. Please, come in," answered the young guy, who was very polite.

M. Troll discovered with pleasure the inside of someone else's home. He was a bit isolated and didn't have that kind of occasion often.

He saw a big computer with several screens and gaming gear in a corner of the room. A game was on.
"Oooh! I love video games! What are you playing at?" he asked.
"I'm playing a MMORPG," answered the guy. "It's called The Secret World."
"What's a MMORPG?"

The young guy was so surprised at this question he nearly broke the glass of water he had filled for M. Troll.
He spent several hours and a good part of the night explaining to M. Troll and showing him all the benefits of MMORPG, especially for people like them who weren't party animals.
M. Troll was in awe. He had to play this game.

The young gamer lent him a computer, so he could create a character. Unfortunately, the nickname he used was already taken, so he had to invent a new one from it, with an Italian sonority.

They both played for hours.

***

And then it was already the middle of the following day.

"Oh, I won't be able to group with you anymore today," said the young guy.
"Why?" asked M. Troll sadly.
"My girlfriend just logged in."

M. Troll didn't really know what a girlfriend was, even if he understood the concept of it all. The young guy took time to explain to him one of life biggest, truest and best lesson:
"A girl playing video games is the greatest treasure the world can offer. A guy has to be his best to win the heart of a girl who plays video games, and if she falls for him, he can consider himself the luckiest person ever. If everything else goes smoothly in the couple, the guy has a right to think it's the universe itself that is giving him the most perfect life anybody could dream of."

M. Troll thought a lot about it.
"Where can I meet girls who likes video games?" he asked.
"You can meet them in game. I met my girlfriend while playing The Secret World. The day we said we had a crush on each other will always be a magic day in my mind. And she says it's the same for her."

M. Troll played on his own while the young guy grouped with his girlfriend. He had a lot to think about after these discussions.

Will he go back to his life or stay in the hytte? Will he meet a girl playing video games, one of the world greatest treasures?
Stay tuned! :D

Day 3 - Sunday morning... and afternoon... and evening

Day 2 - Did you say "trumpet"?

M. Troll, like a lot of trolls from his country, was a three-headed troll.
His cutest head was the toothless one. It ate a lot of ice cream.

His three-headed troll status made people ask him a lot of questions like: Do they each have a brain? Do you have one or three stomach? Are you three persons and not just one?
Each time, he sighted and tried to explain that of course, he was just one person with one stomach; that having three heads was as confusing as being divided on a question for a one-headed person, nothing more.
Said one-headed persons, being open-minded, always nodded when he answered that, all the while thinking: "Yeah, of course, it's the same, heh. But I, I only have one head, so I'm not really arguing with myself creepily."
Well, it was true M. Troll was arguing aloud, because he liked the sound of his heads' voices.

***

Every day, the heads took a turn drinking morning coffee or eating a yogurt as breakfast. Life was simple, life was nice.

Until one day, a dilemma on a subject brought the two toothful heads to "argue".

"Hey," said the head on the left, "did you see this orange trumpet wanting to be king of the world?"
"Haha!" laughed the head in the middle. "He wants to be President of another country, not king!"
The toothless head, on the far right, licked happily an ice cream.
"President, king, it's all the same! He's orange and I heard he's against abortion! Being against abortion is bad," insisted the head on the left.
"Do you even know what is an abortion?" asked the head in the middle.
The toothless head started to feel uneasy, because it did share a brain with the other two, even if it was physically separated, and it didn't like being confused. It was maybe more separated from the toothless head than from the other two, nobody was sure of that, a fact that made this head more gentle.
"Well, I know it's something I still want to be able to do one day, when I'll feel ready," answered the head on the left while making a face that was supposed to mak it look intelligent.
The head in the middle snorted, and even the toothless head glanced at the head on the left at that sentence.

For once, the toothless head thought that maybe the other two didn't get a biggest share on the brain, as it had always thought. It smiled happily and resumed licking the ice cream.

M. Troll concentrated hard on the pleasure felt by the toothless head to chase the political argument away. He had never known he could have conflicting opinions on politics.
To change his mind, he signed up for a kungfu course that was to take place a few days later, and he logged in his favorite video game, where he dedicated himself to kill a monster that brought to his mind a movie happening in Manhattan. (Big monsters either pop up in Tokyo or New York, easy, heh?)

The sad part of this story is that he realized that maybe it was a bad idea to start trumpet courses or to cross path again with this instrument...

Will he like kungfu? Will he start playing trumpet?
Stay tuned! :)

Day 1 - Dead leaves

M. Troll awoke early in the morning, as every day. He got ready for work and left, as every day.
(We'll get to know him better day after day, no point in introducing him right away! Be patient.)

He liked his work very much, because he had a lot of stuff to keep him busy, but he didn't really like being disturbed by his colleagues all day long. His office door was made of super clear glass and people could always see if he was in his office or not, so he had to answer their questions everytime they chose to disturb him.
"Maybe I should take some nice kungfu courses," he thought, "so I'll be able to ninja jump under my desk as soon as I hear someone coming my way."

He spent all his day thinking about it while working. He even looked at kungfu courses near his home. (Did he find some? Will he take kungfu courses in the days to come? :D) Apart from that, his day went on as usual.

When he got home, in the afternoon, he took a look at the news, because he liked to know what was happening in the world. He saw that, as usual, there were problems with the French train network. "What now?" he thought. When he saw what was causing the problems this time, his mouth formed a perfect "o" before he started laughing so much he finished crying with laughter on the floor: the trains were cancelled because of dead leaves on the tracks. Just dead leaves.

He remembered the strike that took place in Spring, causing problems, once again, with the French train network and causing poor people to get home later than usual.

Shaking his head, he logged in his favorite video game while drinking coffee, his drug of choice.
Before going to bed, though, he had one last thought for the French train network and the poor French.

"Dead leaves! Of all things! As if it's the first time in history trees lose their leaves... Bah, what will they do if snow comes?" (A good question, heh?)

Stay tuned for another day in M. Troll everyday life... coming back tomorrow! :D