Dream: The Giant
February 28th, 2007
The world was gray. Trees didn’t grow, and buildings were a memory. Things had been this way for so long that we had forgotten that it had ever been otherwise.
And then I met the Giant. I didn’t know if it was a he or she. Maybe it was both; maybe neither. But She knew that there had been a time when things hadn’t been so desolate, so killed. When plants flourished, when animals roamed, when people made beautiful things and struggled towards the good. Not a paradise, not a land of milk and honey, just a time when there was motion, light and energy. Meeting the Giant changed everything.
The Giant taught us about the shards. These were small white fragments that weren’t hard to find — they were embedded in grass tufts, tucked away in tree boles, perched up on concrete sills, in the bottom of discarded tin cans, or just lying in plain sight on the buckled and broken sidewalks. They looked like little pills. Of those people still left walking around, most didn’t notice the shards — but those of us who had met with the Giant had been given the ability to see them. The shards were precious, they were like little babies to us, because when you reclaimed a shard, you helped the world re-grow. You helped bring it back to life.
So you’d go about, and discover these beautiful shining white shards, these tender half-moons. And, every so often, you’d look up and see others doing the same. And you’d exchange looks, and maybe become friends, bonding over the realization that both of you were working toward a common goal.
Not everyone wanted the world to grow back again. There were animals that fought us. In the middle of a forest, or a ruined city, or wherever they decided to attack us, we’d fight them: jackals, hounds. We didn’t know if they fought us specifically to prevent us from recovering the shards, or just out of some instinct for bloodshed. It didn’t matter: we had to fight. We didn’t question it just like we didn’t question the shards, their importance, and our duty to collect them. Anything that tried to stop us from finding the shards, we fought. The feeling of brotherhood among us was so powerful, so binding. I couldn’t believe how strengthening it was, to fight alongside people who believed as you did, to know you had help, to know you weren’t alone.
I remember one day being called to meet with the Giant. I was nervous. There were about four others there. Solemnly, after a few words, the Giant handed us all a long flat box. I looked at mine: it was heavy, wooden, old-looking. I carefully took off the lid: I saw many little compartments, like you would see in a box of chocolates. In each compartment was a pair of small, thick sticks. I lifted one out: it was a stick of color, like a crayon, but made of a material much subtler, much more brilliant.
I was so scared and humbled that I hardly gave a thought to how I’d be called upon to use them — I just replaced the blocks and covered the box back up while the others continued to explore and admire the colors.
Another time, I remember meeting with the Giant in the middle of the square. It had been hard on me that day, I don’t know why, but I was exhausted, strained to breaking. Probably it was the pressure of having to reclaim the shards — they were limitless, and there seemed so few of us entrusted with the task of recovering them. And just when I was feeling at my worst, the Giant walked to me, said nothing, just stood over me.
Simply seeing the Giant relieved me. And then She took me in her arms, and I felt so thankful. I wept, my body shook, I felt the sobs come up in spasms, I felt my insides twist. It hurt and felt necessary and good at the same time. The Giant stood still and just held me.
With each sob, I felt and saw a shard issue from my body, pop out of my skin like a bubble rising from the bottom of a pond. They fell to the floor without noise. The more shards I released, the more I wept. Gradually I sank to the floor, convulsing, almost like I was vomiting. Soon the floor was littered with shards, some alone, some clustered together, all radiant and beckoning, like the last patches of unmelted snow.
