They Would Be Giants
by Gustav BenJava
I spent the first half of my life living among giants. Of course, I'm only 17, so that might not seem all too bad to you. Eight and a half years? "What's eight and a half years?" you ask.
Well, like I say, it's half my life. And it isn't much fun sometimes living among giants. Take Papa for instance. He's the Head Giant. Don't ask me how he got such a name, but the name itself is so much like him: Big, Robust, Gigantic, Papa. See what I mean? I look up at Papa through a fierce bushy beard. They tell me he's bald, but I almost never see the top of his head, so I couldn't tell you for sure. Everywhere Papa goes the earth shakes, the boards beneath him creak, the whole house trembles. Don't get me wrong, I like him alright, and he's never done anything to hurt me, but it just gets scary sometimes living around someone so Big.
Then there's Mum. Just Mum, that's what we call her. She's a giantess too, but not nearly as formidable as Papa. No bushy beard there, just gigantic footsteps (watch your toes) that make the floor rumble as she passes by.
As far as I'm concerned we Little Ones get too accustomed to living among giants. We take it for granted that we live in a gigantic world, and so all we want is to become a giant too some day. As if that was the goal of life: becoming a giant. Well, I've decided I'm not going to let that happen to me. I'm going to keep on being a Little One as long as I can, and there is no way you can stop me. Maybe I will be tall, but I'll always be a Little One inside - never truly a giant. No, giantism isn't for me.
The Reach
by Gustav BenJava
My poor, poor, baby girl! She had clung to me tight, one arm over my shoulder, around my neck. Snug, still after all these hours of bobbing up and down in frozen waters. Snug enough to hang on, but not choking me. It had taken time in the flailing chaos for her to calm down enough to do that. And then (oh, such a good little sport!) when she'd finally finished crying, and when she finally understood that there was nothing I could do to save her unless she helped: "O... o... okay daddy. I... I'm gonna hang on."
And so she clung to me even now, hours later, and I feared for the worst. Her lifeless arm seemed to be frozen around me. From time to time I thought I could feel her breath on the back of my neck, but in the end I decided that was my imagination. If only a cruise ship would come along! Or could they, by now, be searching for us? But in this fog, would they even see us?
I was pretty sure she had finally given out, and I wondered how long it would be until I no longer had the strength to stay afloat. I had managed to time my breaths so that they would no longer coincide with a splash of water in my face. But I was losing strength. Rapidly losing strength.
And then I heard it, a deep bellowing that resonated from the depths. Was it merely the last traces of consciousness as I groped for life: my mind rapidly ascending to the heavenly trumpets? Or, no, was it a ship's fog horn?
There came the ship plowing through the seas straight toward us, and I with my last drop of strength cried out, only to have my voice drown out by a thunderous bellow. I stretched out my arm, flung it up at the ship. Her wake crashed over my head, taking my final breaths from me. Would anyone see the hand there reaching out from the sea? Sinking into the depths?
