Progress the troll thunders across the countryside. He is angry. Confused. Progress has lost his way. Progress would, somewhere deep inside his troll body, his moss-carpeted birch limbs, prefer to be in a cave with his family. But this part of him, the rocky, lichen-bestrewn part, has fearfully burrowed deep; has crystalized in a tiny bedraggled pocket of tissue somewhere in his right hip bone. 

Progress is not aware of this sad sediment or the weathering process over centuries inside his hip and bones; all he knows is that as he walks around the countryside felling spruce and pine trees and dredging lakes to become towers of wood and steel, he has a slight limp, a hitch in his gait that makes his left foot stomp with slightly more stomping as he stomps endlessly through newly-constructed towers of wood and steel, felling these mausoleums to endless consumption, making room for even taller towers now made of glass and chrome.

Progress sighs. He really would prefer to be holding his troll children in his lap laying on moss-covered rocks watching clouds drift. But this wanting is frozen in his hip, occasionally sending electric signals up his leg trying to communicate, to be heard, but regrettably, remaining mostly ignored. 

Progress lumbers on. 

One day, as Progress progresses, casting shadows almost as tall as the tallest towers that blot out the sun in both the summer and the winter, something stirs somewhere deep inside the coldest depths of the longest shadow cast by the tallest building. This stirring starts with a soft eeegh, eeegh, eeegh, barely noticeable in the swirls of city sounds. The eeegh, eeegh, eeegh keeps expanding until it becomes a rolling bleeet, bleeet, bleeet. These strange sounds emerge from cracks and crevices in sidewalks, from under street sign poles, from divots in building facades, and from the steam hissing through building air vents. These strange sounds grow louder and louder and then become recognizable as the bleeting of thousands of grey goats. 

As this sonorous, grey goat bleating slides in between city sounds – the thuthuthu of tires on asphalt, electric humhumhums and beepbeepbeeps, leather shoes slapping, and plastic rain boots plunkplunnkplunking on pavement – people begin to notice. Something is happening. Tiny goats skitter out of the shadow shade, long scraggly beards braided with silver picks darting out at seemingly random intervals, poking holes in buildings as the herd of growing goats bleat and thunder by. The goats, growing in size and number yawn wide, mouths full of excavator molars biting and chewing, grinding and metastasizing concrete and steel as they gallop down streets, meteor hooves sparksparksparking. 

Progress pauses, listening, his troll ears twitching as steam and the sounds of grey goat bleating tickle his neck. He stands motionless inside the coldest depths of the longest shadow cast by the tallest building and watches. He is not afraid. He wonders if he should be. What he feels is tired. As he stands in the building’s shadow he feels quaking from galloping goat hooves under his feet, the sounds of buildings being torn apart by their excavator molars. He senses something else stirring in the air. He sniffs with his wooden troll nose. Steam. Cement dust. Grey goat breath. And something else he can’t quite name. The city air smells different. Feels different. Each of his troll limbs tingle. 

The bleating goats call out for those encased in numbed, eternal slumber to wake up, to un-numb, to rise. Their goat bellows adjurating an army of long-departed crows who begin to shake and peck and shutter themselves back to life. The murder of crows with concrete-crushing talons and chainsaw blades edging their beaks begin to flap their wings in a windstorm, then fly, a buzzing flapping tornado, carnivorous beaks tearing particle board, shredding tin siding, rebar and concrete, glass and plaster, spitting out screws and nails into the churned dirt, transforming them into a tumble of seeds as they crash into the soil. 

The cyclone of feathers and talons takes down and lays low everything, including Progress the troll. As he tumbles over, the flurry of feathers blocks the sun, swallows all the shadows, and goes on and on until abruptly the crows flap in unison up, up, up and then sideways into the clouds and are suddenly gone. What is left is dirt and rubble, screws and nails – now seeds – slowly sprouting into roots shoots and seedlings. 

Progress the troll lies motionless, after being blown over by the tornado of crows and trampled by the gale of bleating goats, his birch-tree carved heart is slowing. As he lies there surrounded by rubble, his troll body tired and immobile, tiny thuds echo from deep inside his chest. Peck peck pecking. He sighs. He is not afraid. He is curious about the pecking and his slowing heart feels full like a plump moon in a fall sky. 

If you sat and watched his troll chest you would see his full, plump heart slowly stop beating and you would hear Progress the troll offer a final, long, deep, sleepy sigh as tiny, black beaks break through his wood bones, splintering his ribs. Then, you would notice little black heads with messy crowns of feathers pop up in grouplets of three – pop, pop, pop – until they stand on the shards and sawdust of their pecking, blinking as they work tiny legs and test tiny black wings before finally taking small, hopping flights along Progress’s still troll body. One of the tiny birds pecks at Progress’s wooden hipbone furiously working one spot, drilling down it seems, until it yanks up a single grain of sand and, with a flourish of delight, swallows the grain then flaps and hops down Progress’s leg.

A grey wolf saunters over the rubble, agile, as she angles around clumps of cement, piles of ripped steel, and rebar already beginning to be wrapped by moss and young sprigs of mugwort. She sniffs the air, ears twitching forward and back. The tiny birds watch her from a distance, having fluttered off Progress to huddle safely on nearby spruce branches, saplings already pushing through piles of debris. The wolf sniffs the pile of sawdust and touches the holes in Progress’s chest with her nose. Then after a few moments of smelling and listening, she shakes her shoulders and trots away. 

People emerge from the debris, picking up nails and screws and planting them into the soil. They pile chunks of concrete into swirls for paths and stepping stones, work rebar into scaffolding for saplings, and sit and listen and laugh and sing together. 

Progress lies in the rubble, taking in the sky, as he slowly begins the final journey of his birch tree body. Bugs and insects scuttle over and through his limbs, burrowing holes, making homes deeper inside him until they scurry over the pebbles bestrewn with lichen and moss long ago buried in Progress’s right hip. The pebbles feel a morning breeze and sunlight, night stars, and evening wind songs as ant families tickle across their surface racing back and forth foraging for food. Progress composts, becoming layers of rich verdant soil. If you listen carefully, sit quietly, perhaps on a moss-covered chunk of concrete, itself composting ever so slowly, you might hear the happy sighs of Progress the troll and his troll children as they lay across fields of wild blueberry watching the clouds slowly drift.