Below are the first two chapters of the GIANT

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Long ago, when man still knew the author of his creation, there was magic in the world. Not the cheap sort that leaves everyone asking, “How did he do it?”, but real magic.

Man knew the beginning and the end. His end. There was no sickness because one could heal with a touch. People reveled in the beauty of nature – the white stars against the dark sky, the cascade of the sunset, the tall grass rustling in the wind.

To be alive, to think, to speak, just to breathe, to exist at all is the holiest of wonders.

The age of magic had a good run, but it did not last forever. Now, awe only lasts for a moment and the tranquility of nature is a picture we hang on the wall.

Who took man from this place? A devil, hobgoblin, or some vile trickster?

Perhaps it was man himself. It was He that came up with the roof to keep the rain out, but was then denied the perfection of the sky. Then the road, to get there quicker, but the discovery of the journey was lost. The pencil, the door, the camera, the telephone, the microwave, and on it goes.

Each new invention of man removed more of the magic until it was gone. Stripped of the harmony of nature man had to invent the painting, the play, and the novel. So, for a brief moment the viewer, the audience, or the reader might catch a glimpse of the grace that had once been commonplace.

Man found himself in a world where those who believed in true magic were regarded as non compos mentis and outcast from the rest of the sensible lot.

The rest?

The luckiest of the non-believers dealt with mortgages, lay offs, and nursing homes while the rest dealt with famine, epidemics, and oppression.

PRESERVATION

A boy cannot sleep and cries for his mother.

“Hush. I’ll tell you a story.”

Stories are one of the few things that have survived the past. Airplanes, vaccinations, even nations are gone. The boy’s mother does not worry about women’s voting rights because no one votes. There is nothing to vote upon. Representative governments are as ancient a concept as vacations. They belong to Before – the time when everything was still whole.

The boy lives Now in a wasted world destroyed during the Fall – the collapse of society and a nearly endless spasm of killing.

Generations have been born and died since the Fall, and while existence is no longer a desperate day to day affair, life is hard. The knowledge of medicine has been passed down like grandmother’s recipes so Now a doctor is often no better than luck. The old organized religions are no more, faith in the unseen was lost with the lives of billions.

The sleepless boy has never seen an electric light. Cures for tuberculosis, malaria, and polio no longer exist. So, for the boy, the story of the GIANT, who lived in a time of airplanes, television, and refrigeration, is quite a fantastic tale, much too fantastic to be believed possible.

Though, doesn’t that make it better? Who wants to hear the sad stories of truth when sugar-crusted tales of fiction are at hand?

This boy wants to close his eyes and pretend that there really is a dragon, a wizard, a knight. Something. Anything. Anything that will tell him there is more to life than dirt, toil, and funerals.

So his mother tells the tale that is the GIANT.

The story takes place in the new world, though names have been forgotten and replaced by a title, as if it all were a script for a play – The Deliverer or The Herald, and stage directions given in brackets [an unbearably hot day] or [a tension filled room].

The boy heard the story like this: Once there was a wonderful land of terrific wealth and ease, but man grew lazy and unappreciative, so one day the GIANT came full of anger and crushed the tiny men.

The boy heard it wrong.

This is the way it really happened, during the first unrehearsed, and only, live performance of the GIANT.

This is the truth:

BEFORE

ONE

Record months for heat were turned in that year for March and April, but record heat in March only means an early summer, and who doesn’t want to shake off the icy winter early? In April it was hot, no longer warm but hot, but still fine for picnics, walks in the park, and early sun tanning.

The weather melted from an early treat into an early burden. By the time May was gone not a day was spent where daily record highs weren’t surpassed. Suddenly no one was enjoying the unseasonably hot weather. The hum of the air conditioner was constant.

June was even hotter, and there was very little rain. There was no shade under trees because leaves were already withering under the unrelenting sun. The trees were literally a sick version of autumn. Instead of bright oranges, reds, and yellows, the leaves were shriveled grays and browns. The only relief from the heat was to be found indoors. It would be a summer to tell the grandkids about. Oh boy, would it!

The cause of the torridity was debated to the point of exhaustion, but as the heat only increased, it became clear the time for blame had passed. Survival was the only issue that mattered, if the temperature continued to rise the summer would kill by the tens of thousands.

Experts said blackouts would be necessary to protect the electrical grid. “To protect the nation, electrical rationing might be necessary.” The words sounded like they were pulled from a forgotten time of individual sacrifice for the greater good. Posters of giving families, fighting tyranny overseas, war bond drives, Uncle Same and apple pie – those things were from a bygone era. Talk of sacrifice, at least in America, was nonsensical speak.

The drought that had plagued half the country for years only spread. Video and images of parched land, empty wells, and dry irrigation ditches were becoming so commonplace that they lost their shock value. Water restrictions would continue. “For fear of large scale crop shortages”, people were told. ‘Large scale crop shortages?’ Forget your lawn, there might not be any corn this year. Phrases like “How did it get so bad that a country could run out of water?” and “Why did our government let us down?” were traded around like baseball cards.

Oil prices had risen thirty percent in less than four months, driving up the price of fuel and everything that oil was made into: fabric, plastic, ink, chewing gum, paint, heart valves, cosmetics, tires, deodorant and on and on.

Gas was expensive. Food was expensive. Electricity and water might not be available. The heat was inescapable. ‘Where will it end?’

Schools dismissed early. News reports showing eggs frying on car hoods were a joke brought to life. Streets filled with the poor seeking shade, water, ice – relief. Children wore the barest of clothing, their bodies covered in dirty sweat. Old ladies sat on porches continually fanning themselves. Charities begged for window unit air conditioners to give to the less fortunate. Like manna from heaven, the cool air kept tens of thousands of the poorest people alive.

As bad as it was for the poor, it was worse for others. By June the bodies of stray cats and dogs could be found throughout large cities. There had been so little rain, there simply wasn’t enough water for the overheated animals to drink.

June was the month that the much talked about electric rationing started. It was for no more than five or ten minutes at a time, but they were a terrifying few minutes. All at once everything would go quiet: the babble of the television, the hum of the refrigerator motor, and the rattle of the air conditioner. All you could do was sit there and hope that the man at the power station would throw your switch back on.

The country was baking, never before had so many prayed for rain.

It was also in June that the dreams started, millions of people all receiving the same visions.

You’re dying.

‘How long do I have to live?’

Only a few days, unless you can see the body.

‘What body?’

This same conversation twenty, thirty times a night, standing in a clearing, in the middle of a towering city, in an empty field, in blackness. The end of the world, and always the same. When a husband would mention his dream to his wife, she would reply that she had the same dream. But the talk stopped there. Two people having visions of the end of the world was bad enough, no one wanted further evidence of the end. Not just yet.

Like the heat, the dreams became worse and started filling with bodies, killing, death, and the GIANT. Not everyone had visions of the killing or the bodies, but no one was spared the GIANT, even if they forgot about the creature upon waking. For the dreaming, the GIANT was the morphine nurse in the hospice ward, the hammer blow to the mouse stuck in the glue trap. Bad news, but it was also relief, and who wouldn’t take a little relief?

No one knows the GIANT’s gender, what it ate, felt, or dreamed of. Only one person saw the GIANT alive, a man with a gun in California – the Hunter. The Hunter’s bullet struck the GIANT and the creature fell immediately, collapsing into an undignified heap.

For a time the two were alone, one dead, the other alive. The body of the GIANT and the Hunter were in a clearing of a thick, ancient forest. The surrounding forest stretched unbroken for miles and seemed as though the clearing had been placed there purposely for the world’s largest wake.

Some of the magic leftover from the creation resided in that place. From the familiar cloudless sky sunlight poured into the roughly circular, open ground. The tall grass shifted lazily in a faint breeze. There was the call of the birds, the rustle of the animals, and the lazy buzz of the insects. It was hot, blazing, everywhere else, but in that clearing it was just right. Don’t change a thing.

The Hunter pulled a satellite phone from his bag and his fingers dialed the same number he had called a hundred times in his dreams. The dreams had given him the number to call, but not told him whom he would speak to, and to his surprise, he was connected to a news station. The other end of the line told him a news helicopter would be there as soon as possible, but because the clearing was in California near the Oregon border, and nothing else, getting there took some time.

The tall grass of the clearing, driven by the blades of the helicopter, swayed unnaturally. The dead creature, unlike anything anyone had seen before, was laying face down and viewers at home could only guess at its expression. Shock, acceptance, pain?

The GIANT’s form was roughly human, but several times larger. It was bulbous and swollen, but not unnaturally so. The GIANT’s bulk was the same as a manatee or hippopotamus who seem to carry more weight than their frames can naturally support. Its skin was pale, the color of a creature that had never seen light. Its flesh was wet and slick, the body was literally melting in the oppressive sun. It looked sickly and weak, and not because of its death. The GIANT's body elicited the same reaction as a fly covered child too fatigued by hunger and disease to brush away the insects.

In a time when a woman could become famous by taking off her clothes, when celebrity pregnancies were followed as though the child could end hunger, when news was manufactured instead of being reported, real honest to goodness news was suddenly dropped into everyone’s laps. At the start, few knew what to make of the GIANT, but they all knew it was important. Like a thunderstorm bearing down on an arthritic, they felt it in their bones.

The video of the GIANT broke into local coverage and within fifteen minutes it was being simulcast on two cable-news stations. “You’ve got to see this.” Ten more minutes and the same live video was running on every cable news station. Afternoon soap operas were interrupted to carry the video of the GIANT, and very quickly the video was on nearly everywhere.

Those who remembered their dreams of the GIANT were taken aback by their visions brought to life on the television. It was unreal, the dreams over the past few nights had been haunting enough, but to see their dreams played live on national television? There was no word to describe the sinking pit of emotions in dreamer’s stomachs.

Those people who couldn’t remember their dreams fared no better as they were overtaken with a gnawing sense of déjà vu. “Where have I seen this?” They couldn’t pluck all the details from their minds, but the forgetful could gather up enough to know it wasn’t good. “Not good at all.”

People called friends and family to make sure they were watching. “Just turn on the tv, you can’t miss it.” As the helicopter circled the body, those watching found the moving images compelling for reasons they struggled to put into words. “Like nothing you’ve ever seen.” Or “It made me think of my grandfather.” Or my mother, brother, aunt – anyone dead. “I dreamed this same exact thing last night.” Last week. For the past month. “Yes, yes! Me too!” Quickly followed by, “What does this mean?”

Soon, everyone came to understand what the GIANT meant. The GIANT was every kind of bad news. A foreclosure notice, the police calling to say someone has died in a car accident, the loss of a child. Just like a diagnosis of terminal cancer. “How long do I have to live?” Just a few days.

Television stations scrambled to find any scientist, zoologist, astronaut, or religious official to comment on the GIANT. However, they need not have done so, that day viewers were content to just gaze at the body. Everyone was still in shock. “It happened so suddenly.”

Despite it's bulk, the GIANT looked fragile and spurned. It looked so exposed in the middle of the field, sick, dead, and oddly enough, cold. Cold! Imagine anything looking cold in that heat, but the GIANT lying there dead did look a little cold. “How did you get here?” How did we get here?

That first day only the brave admitted the GIANT was there because that is what it was supposed to do. The bee gathers pollen, the bear eats the fish, fire is touched to tinder and it burns. The GIANT was the angel of death, the final messenger, an appointed and approved representative of all humanity.

The GIANT was man’s notice – time’s up. You didn’t find the prize. Better luck next time – oh, sorry, there’s no next time.

People could only wonder at what else had died (would die) with the GIANT. “Why did you show yourself?” It was such a childish thing to say, as if it could have remained hidden. Fate can’t hide from death, how could the GIANT be expected to do so; and more to the point when would it be the viewer’s turn to take their place alongside the creature? Because as much as people wanted to deny it, their deaths were near. “How long do I have?” Just a few days. Time to make amends.

Too soon, it seemed, night came which showed the passage of time. Time had not stood still and now everyone wrangled with the situation in front of them. Grieving couldn’t go on forever and something would have to be done with the body. That poor thing would rot out there.

There wasn’t enough time for any civilian to find their way to the site, deep in the forest that had largely untouched since man had invented language. Late that first night government agencies came onto the scene. Civilian helicopters were turned away, perimeters on the ground were established, and roadblocks were set up on the few roads in the area. Access was strictly controlled.

A figurative curtain was dropped over the stage. What would the audience see when it was lifted?

TWO

Promptly the next morning, the White House press secretary read a statement saying, among other things, that the area had been secured so that proper scientific study could be conducted and the health and safety of local residents could be assured. Images, information, and findings would be released as they occurred and were deemed prudent. As soon as the area was made safe, the media would be allowed access. Until that time the government would establish a video feed and supply frequent updates. The statement closed with an assurance that everything was fine – there was no reason to be alarmed.

No questions were allowed.

The press conference was unsettling, but had a spark of hope within it. That morning most people were still in denial – they wanted the creature to be just another curious news story and not the messenger of their deaths. A big curiosity sure, but still something that would go away in a few days. All those billions grasped at straws and hoped that the government was right. Nothing to be alarmed of folks, we’re just being precocious. The thing could be poisonous. It could be carrying a disease that kills anyone near it. “Yeah, that sort of makes sense.”

If only for a little while, people began to feel better. “You were just upset yesterday. It’s silly to think the world is going to end. How could the world end?” “It was so hot yesterday, you didn’t know what you were thinking about that thing.” “Yes, everything’s fine, I was just taken off guard by it all. I mean, did you see the television? It was everywhere, how could you not get caught up in it?” But what about the dreams? “Did I really have the dreams? Probably just imagined them?” “Confused that’s all.”

Briefly then, people relaxed, almost hoping there was some super disease in the thing. Hoping that the big blob was an undiscovered species and by that time next year there would be a worldwide tour of its skeleton. “Step right up folks. See the skeleton of the GIANT! Only a nickel a person. And the wee ones get in free.”

The television also latched onto the same sick hope and ran with the disease theory. Screens were filled with images of the country covered with a menacing blanket of red. A terrible disease let loose because some silly person picked up a germ from the creature. Words like Pandemic, Syndrome, and Plague were everywhere. “That makes sense, I suppose.”

Like something from a book, the Andromeda Strain maybe, where a new disease grown on a satellite finds its way to earth and almost kills the world. One little germ spreads just like that. “Well, we don’t want that happening, maybe they should seal the area off.” If you worked hard enough, you could almost convince yourself.

Almost.

On second thought, “It’s not quite right, something smells fishy.” Like something out of a movie, perhaps Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where the government knows that aliens are coming to earth so they tell everyone about a big chemical spill. Everyone clears out and they have the landing site all to themselves. “The government lies.” Yes they do. The disease angle was wrong, tens of millions of home viewers were sure of it, and how can that many people be wrong?

The previous night had brought no cooling relief. Granted, the past few week’s worth of nights were all hot, but at least the thermometer dropped. Once the GIANT hit the scene, that line of mercury kept climbing. It was going to be a scorcher and there weren’t enough air conditioners for everyone. For those that were blessed with those magical devices (not true magic, but don’t you try and tell those people that cool air wasn’t some kind of magic), there was no longer enough electricity to make them all work. The nation was turning feverish and people were going to really start dying from the heat.

And what about the high price of gas, and the drought – there wouldn’t be food next year. It was real bad out there, too bad to cling onto hopes that the GIANT was anything but the final nail in the coffin. No hope left, it was only a matter of time.

But what was there to do until time was up? The television was as confused as any in determining the best course of action and so it pressed on with what it did best and lined up strings of people to talk about the GIANT.

Largely the conversations were a case of the proverbial elephant in the room. Everyone knew the GIANT was bad news, but few wanted to get to the point so quickly. So, dancing around the subject, the disease angle was explored ad nauseum, findings of other unknown life were rehashed for the unscientifically inclined public, and above all the man on the street interview reigned supreme.

The man on the street threw out all sorts of wild theories. Aliens, Bigfoot, genetic experiment gone awry, a hoax put on by some big business, even a man who had a severe reaction to bee stings. If someone watched the coverage long enough they were treated with one or two people who were honest. “The GIANT is the word and is here to tell us that our time is up. Our lives have been wasted for too long and it’s time to cleanse the earth of us.”

This was the absolute truth being beamed to billions of televisions around the world. This same television that declared the winner of the Kennedy/Nixon debate to be Kennedy. The same box that showed the world the images of man setting foot on the moon, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tieneman Square. Just the day before it had shown the world the GIANT. The television was powerful, and maybe it lied sometimes, but now – now it was telling the truth. Everyone is going to die.

There was no denying that everyone had thought the same thing over the past day. Even if they didn’t want to admit it, the people knew it, knew it the moment they saw the body of the GIANT. Death for you and all that you know.

“Our time is up.” Anyone could look out the window and see that. Heat was rippling off the ground in waves of life ending radiation. Again the sky was cloudless, but the sun looked bigger than usual, looked angry, hot and raging mad. The sun had to be getting closer, it was just too big, and too hot outside. It was as though the earth had stopped circling the sun and was instead heading towards it. Mother earth a mother no longer – like fleas on a dog’s back it would get rid of the people even if it meant killing itself in the process. Suicide by nuclear fission.

In the play that is the GIANT, all parts except for one were given to unknowns. One role was given to someone who had achieved notoriety previously. He was a competent leader, a true statesman in all the positive meaning of the word. He was strong, passionate, and honest – people believed what he said because it was the truth. While the character’s name could have been the Ender, the Destroyer of Worlds, or the Button Pusher, out of respect for his past service he is called the President.

The President spoke early that evening about more than the GIANT, announcing that oil from the Federal Reserve would be released in an effort to alleviate abnormally high gas prices. He asked for energy conservation wherever possible, to lessen the nearly breaking strain on the nation's electric grid. He urged everyone to stay out of the heat. Save water, let your grass and flowers die for the sake of our food. Everyone watching grew impatient. “No! None of that matters now.” They wanted to hear only two words.

“The GIANT,” finally he said them, “is the subject that most interests people at the moment.”

A chorus of voices watching on television answered him. “Someone has answers. Someone is going to tell me this isn't what I think it is.” “He'll give us answers, he has to.” “He's the President.”

“There are a great many people working on the situation but unfortunately there have been some mechanical and equipment problems unrelated to the video feed that have none-the-less delayed the signal. Please accept our apologies for this.” He looked sincere and apologetic. “I know how important this is for everyone, please be patient, this is a very unique situation.” The President continued to say he had been assured, and passed on his assurance, that a feed would be established by the morning.

“The morning!” the chorus responded, but that was all the President had to say. He introduced a group of scientists that would answer more specific questions. People were deflated. The President didn't know why the GIANT had appeared, why it was killed, and what it meant for everyone. All loved the GIANT and like a young lover wanted to crawl inside the creature, know everything about it, but they could not so much as see a picture of the body. “Why?” Don’t know.

The President walked off stage feeling oddly rushed even though he said everything in his notes. Weren’t more qualified people on stage to answer questions? They were, but it didn't quite fit. He would walk back on, speak some more – give the people answers. He turned to do so, then stopped. 'No, those people up there know more than you anyway. Don't be foolish. Keep your composure. That's how you'll get everyone through this.' He shook his head all the way back to the office. It wasn't right.

The President had been having dreams too, but he dreamt of more than the GIANT. He had never believed in premonitions or visions, but it seems that belief is not a requirement of participation. The past day he felt that everything he was doing had been done before, live events felt old – even his words seemed to be coming from somewhere other than inside him.

His dreams were filled with tumultuous storms, fire, and nuclear explosions. ‘Surely, dear God, I will not do it. I won’t do it.’ But there’s a voice deep inside that disagrees, a voice so strong that it can wave a finger at him. You’re being naughty. The voice tells him, “you think you know better, but you couldn’t be more wrong.”

The one thing that had never abandoned him, confidence, had suddenly vanished. Like grandpa who tried to drive the car one last time and ended up wetting himself in traffic. ‘You’re getting too old.’ Soon his children would send him to a nursing home. He was scared.

Dear God, the man with the power to end the world is scared.

There was nothing else new that evening. Televisions were left on, but fewer people were watching them, the masses were becoming restless. Pacing around their living rooms, fear was setting in. “How long do I have?” Just a few days. I’m sorry.