Twisted Dreams

Giant

You look up.

Beyond the sidewalk you stand on, clutching your bike; beyond the road at your side, devoid of cars; beyond the power lines and wooden poles and street lamps that flicker in the darkness; beyond the trees and bushes and brown nettle littering the soil; half-hidden in the depths of the thick swaths of fog in the night sky is a giant.

Its entire form is as black as the other side of the moon and as fuzzy as a scribble on a sheet of paper. Its massive shape slowly lumbers, sending shockwaves with every step of its pair of car-sized hooves. Its shoulders roll as its arms swing, and between the trees, you glimpse spindly fingers grazing the grass at its feet. A head with the silhouette of an enormous deer bobs on hunched shoulders. The winding, trailing maze of antlers sits regally between two flattened ears, vanishing into the stars like sharpened skyscrapers.

Your open-mouthed gaze snaps back up, suddenly, to the head of the monstrous beast. Red spotlights of eyes swivel, shining a blood red gaze upon the forest below. You take an involuntary step backwards and, of course, your sneaker crushes a twig with a snap! The sound is mountainous in your ears - and, so it seems, to the giant's, as well.

Its sudden, violent sights lock onto your figure, and you tremble with the fight to stay still. Your grip tightens on your bike's handlebars and you know that if you looked, your knuckles would be a ghostly white. The wind seems to hold its breath alongside you: the shockwaves have stopped, leaving only a deathly silence in which your heartbeat thunders like gods. Sweat slowly trickles down your spine, and it's all you can do to not shiver.

Then the gaze sweeps away, the footsteps resume, and you carefully, silently, let out your breath.