Stana and the Revolving-Door

A NYC working-girl finds a strange adventure involving a revolving-door and lots of evil trolls!

Stana knew she wanted to make a splash as a professional working-girl in NYC after graduating with-honors from NYU with a degree in business. Stana landed a nice job at a business consulting firm in Manhattan, the prosperous Sterns Financial. She'd be earning a handsome $50K salary her first year with the firm, since her education and experience laurels got her a high-level position with Sterns.

Stana was a big hit with her firm, and her superiors remarked they couldn't be happier with her stellar performance, having offered advice and ideas leading to key financial decisions for major clients, including a wealthy European stock market investor and a major American oil company trying to branch out across the country. Stana was only 24 and was considered one of Sterns' greatest assets, so her superiors decided to spike up her salary to $95K.

Stana purchased a modern and much more lavish Manhattan apartment than the one she first moved into and shared with a SoHo artist. Yes, Stana had made it as a prospering NYC working-girl. She had everything she wanted and enjoyed weekend evenings out at nightclubs and pubs, meeting a few interesting and attractive men before starting to look more seriously for someone to settle down with and share her lavish Manhattan apartment. Meanwhile, her consulting firm installed a new shiny gold-plated revolving-door.

Stana now went to work in the mornings and sauntered in through that new Sterns gold revolving-door. She incidentally loved revolving-doors and got a real euphoric feeling entering her office skyscraper through the gold revolving-door. In fact, she started playing a mental game with herself, seeing how fast or how slow she could enter Sterns through that gold revolving-door. On some days, she'd zoom in extra-fast, hoping the entranceway guard didn't think she was 'fooling around' and on other days, she'd enter in super-slow, hoping the entranceway guard didn't think she was some kind of lethargic lunatic.

One such morning of fun revolving-door entries, when Stana decided to saunter in through the revolving-door at extra-fast pace, the entranceway guard ominously warned her, "You know, miss, I've noticed you entertaining yourself rather as a child walking in through that gold revolving-door ever since it was installed, and I worry you're unfamiliar with the urban curse-legend of being followed by dark shadowy trolls if one plays foolishly with revolving-doors!" Stana didn't know what to make of this strange superstitious warning. The entranceway guard was an elderly African-American man who seemed rather superstitious by nature.

Stana decided not to heed the strange warning given by the elderly entranceway guard and blithely continued to saunter into her office-building through its gold revolving-door, playing games with herself by persistently walking in extra-fast on some days and super-slow on others! Meanwhile, her work continued to be of superior performance, and she continued to make money for Sterns. She'd even met a handsome young man at a pub named Eric and begun dating him and was contemplating a happy marriage. Eric had already moved into Stana's apartment. So besides this daily revolving-door game she played with herself, everything else in Stana's life was perfectly normal, which is why she chose not to heed the entranceway guard's strange warning about being 'stalked' by trolls.

Two weeks later, when Stana arrived home to her Manhattan apartment after work, she found her boyfriend strangled to death next to a written note left for her to see: "You played too much with that fancy revolving-door, so we Rotund Trolls (appointed guardians of this city!) are choosing to darken your life, Stana!" Stana was horrified and called the cops but didn't show them the note placed next to Eric's dead body. Stana wondered if the entranceway guard gave an omen warning that was becoming true and if her boyfriend really was murdered by real trolls who, according to the note left next to Eric, referred to themselves eerily as the Rotund Trolls!

The next working day, Stana decided to ask the Sterns office entranceway guard if he knew anything about the Rotund Trolls, and the elderly guard slapped his knee and explained that the Rotund Trolls were precisely the deadly guardians who punished anyone who played mischievously with revolving doors in NYC! Stana now felt very uneasy. Two days later, while walking to her car parked in the office lot when there was no one else around, Stana swore she could hear soft and unrhythmic footsteps behind her. She turned to see what was making that jilted sound, but there was no one visible, so she decided to duck down by the cars around her, to see if the footsteps were being made by playing children idling while their tending parents were somewhere else but nearby, perhaps in the lot elevator or cigarette room.

When Stana ducked down, she saw three cubby hideous trolls who creepily wagged their finger she at her, letting her know she'd discovered their appearance. Stana screamed but there was no human around to help her! The trolls jumped in front of her and announced themselves as the Rotund Trolls. They demanded she show up the next day in that office car parking lot at the same time to challenge them to a lasso throwing capture game. She'd have to purchase a lasso and bring it to the lit and attempt to catch one of the trolls with it, and if she failed, the ugly Rotund Trolls explained, they'd strangle her to death! She had no choice but to accept this terrible challenge.

The next night, Stana showed up to her office car parking lot, armed with her purchased lasso, ready to face the Rotund Trolls. Once again, at that relatively late hour of the working day, there were no humans around to assist Stana. She began twirling the lasso and walked towards the same three Rotund Trolls who showed up to engage their capture challenge. Stana carefully eyed the middle troll and hurled her lasso with incredible care, and miraculously managed to tie up the feet of the retreating middle troll. The troll fell to the ground humiliated, and the other two Rotund Trolls congratulated Stana for evading death by their hands!

The Rotund Trolls told Stana she'd avoided a certain death curse by accepting their lasso challenge and managing to tie up and capture one of the trolls with her lasso. They did, however, still admonish the now relieved NYC girl Stana for mischievously playing her childish revolving door game at her office and advised her never to play the game again. The Rotund Trolls also explained that Stana would now become a NYC legend for avoiding the death curse and would be marked forever as the Urban Lasso Girl! Stana hurried home and guzzled down a bottle of Sutter Home red wine in great relief. She wondered that since she was now the legendary Urban Lasso Girl, if she'd have to face or challenge the Rotund Trolls again or perhaps help someone else, maybe another New Yorker, do so with success.


TO BE CONTINUED...