mnq

-Vocal exercise quote: "Lah beh dah meh nee poh too lah beh"-

Had another one of those "tricksy" dreams where I wrote down the dream in my dream, hence making me forget most of it when I actually woke up. I need to remember to reality check BEFORE recording dreams. ;P

It struck me today that there isn't a lot of fiction writing in blogs, that usually being relegated to fanfiction. Furthermore, that adults often do not get to savor more of the "kid style" stories. So I'll write a bloggy story for you. Gather round to hear the tale of...

The Corduroy Giant

A question has troubled me for some time, friends. It has made me loath to sleep, and even less inclined to work, and less again desirous to speak, but to pose a single question. Ah, but I overleap myself. Let me start at the beginning.

There is a large field nestled in the hills by my town, overtopped with windmills. Narrow roads twists in and out of those hills, so that a traveller on them sees at once one hill, then the blue sky, then a crop of spindly windmills atop a gold-black mound of brush, patchwork-charred by fire. In the cup of the hills is a field, wide and long, furrowed brown from wintertide to summer...

If this was any other field, in the wide world of man, I expect it would lie there quiet, but perhaps you know differently. Plows would plow it, farmers plant seeds on it, reapers reap from it. But my field, friends, is different. In day, as carriages careen along the trails, the field is the same unassuming sight their drivers expect to see. At night, one night only of the year, the paths fall silent.

When springtide's full moon first shines its light -- then, the giant awakes.

He is a great, broad creature. His brown corduroy trousers fill one field and nestle under the grassy hills on each side, his very own bolsters. His feet fall entirely under his dewy coverlet, save for the white, whirling spurs that tumble -- spike over spike -- when wind comes. Our giant's head rests warm under a tall silvern column of a hat, brimless from so many years over the sleeping face.

See! He is waking. That tar road rises, the one over which men so recently passed unheeding, and girds him as a belt. One hand reaches out, then another. His quilted coverlet of hills falls to this side and another as he rises and yawns: Ahhhhhhh. And he is up on his feet. For he hunts the glorious Tinggerbird, and his quarry is fleet.

He does not walk far, for he has learned to sleep near the Tinggerbird's once-roost. With a faint totter of sleep, he steps, steps, then squats down by the black lake, fixing his eye on the reflected moon. His hands turn on themselves impatiently, but silently, for he does not dare to make a sound when his prey is out of hand. The moon above rises, and its pale sister sweeps across the lake... hour by hour he waits. There. It settles in the center of the lake, a creamy orb. The giant strains his old eyes.

Then, oh, so slowly, the reflected moon becomes solid in the water. Then, yet again, the solid sphere fissures, once, twice! And it crumbles. Out of its shambles rises a magnificent bird, lucent as jade. Quick as a maid flicks her bright hair back behind her head, the giant reaches, grasps. Feeling the weight of time, his agile fingers work over the bird, stripping off each feather of its unparalleled plumage as the moon's passing marks the night hurriedly now. One ray of sun bursts through the giant's heap of quilts, and the Tinggerbird screams. Writhing, she snaps back over the lake, disgorges one enormous white egg, and dies. The feathers on her body fade as she drops into the blue-ink lake. But what of those held by the giant? They are woven through his trousers, pin by pin, coating his massive legs in their vast, warm down. These, these plumes will crumple and fall only when chilled by autumn cool. Until then, he will rest content under their magnificent spread.

He grunts, satisfied, as he collapses into sleep once more, to be disturbed only when next spring's full moon births the Tinggerbird's chick. The comfortable hills roll over his prone body, covering him in soft patchwork again. His hand moves his hat over his face, and all is calm. As dawn rises fully, merchants begin to speed over the streets, unaware -- or uncaring -- that they ride over a giant's belt.

At last, I think, I may come to my question, friends. Recall my tale from beginning to end, and not neglecting the middle, and tell me truly:

Is my giant alone? Or do your villages too hide his sleeping kin?


Reality check.