LIVING WITH GIANTS

Revised version of an old story I wrote.

LIVING WITH GIANTS

By R. A. Merritt

 

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          It stunk in here, it always stunk in here and he had no compunction about letting the others know he felt this way.  And there were thousands of them which multiplied the loathsome odor tenfold.  

They got angry with him whenever he would intimate such.  At times they would be all over him and he thought the innumerable legs would one day crush him.  And then a light would intrude from somewhere and everyone would have to race for cover afraid that at any moment one of the giants would make an appearance and crush him or her underfoot if he had seen them. 

They never found the odor offensive, indeed if anything they all enjoyed it.  As long as the smell never rose to the point that the giants could easily discern it they were happy.  He supposed he was somehow not normal for he had never enjoyed the odor and had in fact hated it throughout his youth and now that he had reached adulthood still found it to be utterly repulsive.  The worse of it was that it was also part of his own makeup just as it was for all the others.  Maybe it was normal as the elders implied, but he just didn't comprehend why it had to be for they were constantly grooming themselves.  And when the females were feeling amorous it would get to the point that it seemed as if the smell might completely overwhelm him. 

Sometimes too it made scavenging difficult for the odor of the treasures they were forever questing for often could not compete with those he and his mates were responsible for.  But everybody else was enamored with it so

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he was expected to keep his opinions to himself. 

Oh the monsters knew they were there, but to what extent they could not determine.  If they ever did find out to what extent they were occupying this selfsame domicile they would likely take extreme action to drive them off or even kill them.  Why couldn't they co-exist in harmony?  That was the question that always plagued him. 

The others assured him he was a fool to ponder such things.  What was the point of contemplating such when he would never know the answer?  The giants were ruthless unforgiving beings and if they thought there were so many of them, that they would make their hulking existence any worse than it already was they would make every effort to be rid of them  They would even go so far as to try and poison them.  They would naturally try to disguise it as something they might want to scavenge.  But his kind weren't stupid and would eventually figure out what the giants were up to and would come to avoid the poison. 

The worse of it, the very worse thing these giants ever did that he was aware of was to sometimes broadcast some substance about that made them sterile.  That was the vilest thing that anyone could ever perpetrate on another's kind even if they were competitors of a sort.  

But these giants were stupid, really stupid because they never could come up with a way of thoroughly dispelling all of them.  They might suffer some inconvenience and perhaps the loss of some of the group, even a great number upon such times as these, but inevitably they would recover, replenish those lost, and continue on with their scavenging. 

And still the giants would continue to practice the same behavior that came to lure them here in the first place.  Sometimes he'd hear their communication, but being deaf to their way of speech he never knew if the topic they 

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were reflecting upon concerned their presence. 

He felt it must have been for upon the few occasions he had been confronted by any of them they would make such a commotion that it was impossible to think otherwise. 

He found such occurrences to be exhilarating as opposed to his peers who would be terrified beyond belief.  And so this was one more way he differed from his contemporaries and caused their disdain for him to increase.  And so he became somewhat a pariah within one of the most social of social orders, a paradox to be sure. 

He did however, have a cousin who would occasionally cast about with him whilst scavenging.  There really was no need in mentioning that he was his cousin for they were all related in some way just as mankind descended from Adam and Eve thus making them all brothers as many humans are fond of saying.  When not sleeping they were scavenging.  That's what they all did from birth to death, scavenge, scavenge, scavenge. 

These particular giants were somewhat careless with their commodities and so there always seemed plenty scattered about that they might choose from.  And that was good for though they were a social bunch there was little in the way of sharing.  It was every Periplaneta for himself by God!  Funny name that, it made them sound alien here when in fact they had spawned innumerable generations on this very ground before the giants ever existed.  

But giants being giants they possessed an enormous advantage and the more industrious of them could tame and even destroy if necessary all the other giants that also occupied this plane be they bigger or smaller than they were.  And so when these giants appeared they being of a normal size had to flee.  They were the majority and by virtue  

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of this dictated what the norm actually was.  And yet they had to dwell in the shadows and ruins of these giants by the millions because of the ascendancy of these contemptible beings. 

They could never scale the heights because of the oppression of these giants and so all they could content themselves with was the knowledge, that they were all an unending source of disheartenment for these miserable titans.  They practiced a sort of wholesale destruction of his kind and so he felt no pity for them in any situation that might confront them. 

And they were always witnesses to their upheavals, their squabbles, their infidelities, and their darkest secrets, which they no doubt thought only they and God were privy to.

It was quiet now at this hour the giants having retired to their respective reposes.  There was some faint light of their creation that coursed through the plenitude, but it was not such that it would deter them of their chore.  And off in the distance it seemed the voice of the giants babbling some insipid dialogue that would only be welcomed upon this hour were at work.  But they heard no words merely sensed in their antediluvian way that they were being delivered. 

Suddenly they sensed something else, a rumbling that plummeted through the air like a boulder rolling down the face of a mountain.  He and his companion halted upon becoming aware of it.  They attuned themselves to an enormous structure that stood before them.  They were not astounded to be confronted with it for they were used to seeing it there.  What did astound them was that one of the giants had chosen to retire upon the structure for the evening. 

The rumbling was coming from the giant so they felt somewhat safe.  But some of these giants were easily 

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stirred from their repose and so they had to be quick.  They raced across the coarse surface before them and then  onto another surface that was rather white with dark grids that made square patterns as far as one might wish to go. 

And now to their left they saw many of their brethren gathered in a queue scaling the steep face of yet another familiar structure.  This was standard procedure should you make it this far.  It wasn't very difficult for them to achieve the highest point of this structure for they were one and all generation upon generation accomplished climbers, had to be for it meant their existence.

And so in due course each took his place in the order of the climb and moved steadily upward until at last they made it to the top.  There before them all set upon some white ewer was a mountain, a high plateau of brown swirls interspersed with the color of cornmeal.  There was the smell of cinnamon about it.  

And all along the top this delicious bouquet of succulence was covered a sugary white, an icy pureness that bade them forth like snow-covered peaks enticing those who are avid to climb them.  And so each of them sallied forth and began to take sustenance from this mellifluous treasure. 

They lingered there for the longest time each one gorging his self to the point that their movement would soon approach slothfulness.  They lost all sense of time as they continued to munch on that which was before them.  And within a period of time more and more of their fellows came over the edge of the structure moving along its likewise white surface until they too made it to the mountain of pleasure. 

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Suddenly there was light all around them revealing everything, revealing each one of them in his or her own guilt.  He was on the top of it now with some of the others their legs sticking to the sugary surface.  They were so busy eating that they had failed to sense the giant's presence and be alert to their approach. 

He burst forth demonstrating a speed not uncommon among his kind even when totally sated.  Another exciting encounter was at hand.  He had gone a short distance when a crevice was there before him as he raced onward freedom and safety now his only concern.  

His excitement had turned to terror.  He cared not that his companion or any of the others had not managed to attain a safe redoubt he was only concerned for himself.  

He halted briefly at the fissure hoping he might seek shelter down in the darkness that reined there.  But the edge of the structure where he presently stood and the rise that was the drop off of another structure and that made up the opposite side of the crevice was to narrow to accommodate his size.  And so he pushed upward and went over the rise.  

He did not travel long before he was at the edge of a silver ring that encircled yet more rings, slender flat black rings that spiraled around to the other side of the main circle and having an empty space below it all. 

He left the white surface of this newest structure over the ring and on down into the empty space below onto yet another silvery surface that was something of a bowl beneath the coil of black rings.  His intent was to make it to the other side.  

Once there he would scoot upward and continue on until he found some place where he could securely conceal himself.  He made it there and started up.  But suddenly the giant had put a hand there to block his escape.  He

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quickly reversed course and headed back from whence he had come.  And there was another hand.  

Wherever he went down there in that glittering empty space a hand would flash before him and deny him exit.  He was overcome with fear.  He became frantic and searched all about for an alternate route to flee.  But there was none to be had.  Momentarily one of the hands moved away if for only a second or two.  Moved away to twist some knob.  Yet before he could take advantage the hand was back.

They worked in consort with each other these giant hands each one taking up any space that might manifest itself and offer him a way to take flight.  He did not know what he would do.  Was this the end?  Had his luck finally run out?  But he could not indulge  himself long with this mode of thought for now the coils above him were each one glowing a reddish orange.  Moment by moment the glow grew more intense and with this rising  illumination so too did the heat that it was generating. 

He could see the giant somewhat through his agony.  It held the staple from the ewer in his hand now eating it with a lustiness that was not the least rare among his genus.  He was grinning down at him, as the coils grew even brighter and hotter.  And he could see within the menacing countenance of the giant that he would not make it this time that he was not going to escape the confines of this burner and would soon be seared alive much to the gratification of the wretched human.  And surely you can see that a cockroach's life is a tenuous thing indeed.