End of the World and Coffee

       The troll was quite big, but soo slooow. Sigurd crushed both its sleazy heads with a ski pole, easy-peasy. The cat depuffed, stopped hissing at once, and went off to check all the nooks and crannies in the kinda shop. When a small house has one large room filled with racks, boxes, cans, rolls, and all sorts of strange thingies overgrown with dust, it is definitely an old-world shop. There were still some hours of sunlight left, and the sun shone through the broken crap wall. The troll must have had a shelter in some cellar to survive many winters here. Or maybe it used this sunny day to look for something yummy, just like the boys did. "Keep cool, I got it under control,” Sigurd nodded to Trond. Not that the youngster needed comforting, but Sigurd felt heroic and wanted badly to boast his feat right now. It was a pity Frida couldn’t escape with them; her parents took her to a family raid. Sigurd could have gone raiding a far town too, but he had pretended to be unwell to stay home and mount his own expedition, where he’d be the captain. Even if his squad was just one sulky ten-year-old. "I’m not scared,” Trond snorted as he veered the troll heap. “It’s just lame. We got here in less than half a day, means anyone could get here before us. And take anything cool away." "Naw," Sigurd condescended to explanation as an experienced fifteen-year-old warrior. "If anyone was here, they’d finish this creep." "Or the troll ate everything before becoming a troll." There you go. Frida would have admired the warrior duly, and this brat... Trond was grumpy like an old man and never happy with anything, but their families were friends and would often leave their kids together. And Trond would still follow Sigurd anywhere, with all the grumbling and grouching. To be less bored, he’d say. "You’ll see… Here! Look, just as I’ve told you! So many cans, intact. Now, we need the ones with letters reading ‘kaffe’. It’s, first letter like a broken door, the next one like a sleeping cat, then two letters like pole hooks—“ "I can read." Trond retorted and squatted to check the lower shelves, while Sigurd took up the upper ones. The mysteries of the Old World resisted deciphering; labels were discoloured, or would peel off together with the dust, or would stick together. Sure, he had learned letters; you need them to read maps and signs. And Trond’s parents were almost worshipping old-world books and other papers with letters for no reason at all. It was so much more useful to ski and shoot. Like Sigurd’s great-grandma, Berit Eide, she had been the most coolest, even if he remembered her very vaguely. Dad was telling, in the old world she had been a champion of, what’s its name again? Something starting with ‘bi-’, a game where people were skiing around with a rifle, competing in speed and aim. Still, it was Sigurd who gave a triumphant cry first and started to take down large tins from the shelf to the floor. "Yippie! And you doubted me! It’s a year-long stock for all Dalsnes! Just imagine how excited our parents will be! Mother still keeps an empty package of coffee, sniffs it from time to time, and sighs. I’ve smelled it too, but didn’t hear anything. And your parents say they miss coffee even more than gadgets. What does it taste, I wonder." Like the brat would share his joy. "But they’ll also understand that we’ve gone out alone and without permission. They’ll be sooo very excited. And,” the brat just wouldn’t stop wet-blanketing. Out of envy, probably, that it wasn’t him to spot the treasure, “what if it’s not coffee?" "It is. I’ve stared at mom’s package for a long time and remembered what the letters look like." "But there are other letters, too." Trond sat on the floor and turned one tin to the light. "See, F, a, r, g, e. It reads colour. Next to your ‘kaffe’. Sigurd didn’t reply; he was busy grabbing as many cans as could fit into his arms to bring them outside to the sledge. If only they could have borrowed a horse with a large cart unnoticed, they’d be able to take away the whole shop. But at least he’d take all the coffee. "And here it reads “acryl-”, and here, ‘pai-’. What can it mean?” Trond was still guessing the letters covered by a brownish crust instead of helping to load the sledge and wrap the trophy in tarpaulin. “Of course there will be other letters! Skip them, people used to give silly names called ‘trademarks’ to all sorts of things. Or, it may be ‘advertising’, it’s to be ignored.” Sigurd snatched the can from him as he came for the third and last run. They needed to hurry, dusk would fall quickly in the mountains.