The giants set them in the trees to dry. What they were, the gatherers didn’t know. They couldn’t. The trees were too tall and they couldn’t see.
But when the giants left, stomping slowly into the distance, the little ones would race out of hiding, holding out their buckets and basins.
Drip drip, the drying things would sweat and bleed and wither in the sun. The strange juices would trickle and drip, massive droplets that would knock the bucket out of your hands if you weren’t careful or strong.
Drip drip the buckets and basins filled. The fluids mixed into an oily, watery soup. Sweet and sour and noxious. Sometimes hair and bits of bones would float to the top of the slurry.
All of it they took back to their network of dark tunnels and caves between the massive roots and deep in the hard, hard dirt. Together it was mixed and filtered and heated and thinned with rain water.
The ratio was never the same and the flavor and smell were never the same either. Sometimes the potion came out cloyingly sweet, or intensely bitter. It never tasted good. They drank it anyway.
Together in the largest hall in their underground network, they raised small wooden cups and cheered.
“To height!” they cried.
“To size!”
“To growth!”
Then they drank the potion as one, always best to swallow it in one go. They made their faces and tried not to retch. Then they lined up all along the western wall.
The Old Master held up his measuring rope. “Let’s see, let’s see,” he said. “That was an especially potent one, I think.”
They murmured excitedly, while patiently waiting their turn. One by one they came to the head of the line where the Old Master stood on a little stool. He let the measuring rope drop from his hand, running down their backs, down to the floor. With careful precision, he squeezed down on the rope with thumb and forefinger, and brought it up to his eyes.
“37 and three-eighths, I’d say.” The crowd would look with expectation at the one who’d just been measured, waiting. The next part was crucial. Now they called out what they’d measured last time.
“37 and…one-eighths!”
The crowd cheered. The excitement rose once more. A whole quarter of a mark? And it had only been what? Four months since the last time? Remarkable.
Of course, they didn’t all grow. Some sadly had even shrunk a bit. But that hardly managed to dampen their collective spirits. Once everyone had been measured the talk immediately went to the next time.
“What if we could have more?” asked a boy whose name was Born.
“More? How do you mean more?”
“More than just the blood,” said Born. “What about the flesh? Would we grow faster if we ate the flesh, too?”
“The giants eat the flesh,” said another knowingly. “And they’re so much bigger.”
“We may never match them,” said another. “Not in my life.”
“Not in any of our lives,” said a third.
“But they eat the flesh,” said Born. “We should try to eat the flesh, too.”
They could not come to a consensus. For some time, the tunnels were filled with debate and arguing. Patience was preached, then countered with boldness, which was then condemned. Finally it was decided: Born and whoever else could make a plan to eat of the flesh, but they would not be allowed to drink the potion if they didn’t help gather the juices.
Quickly Born and his followers went to work. When the giants were nowhere to be seen or heard, they scrambled into the daylight and scavenged for resources. Wood and weed, piece by piece. They built a long, long ladder and a long, long pole to help raise the ladder. They forged sharp knives, not knowing how tough the flesh might be.
Eventually, the giants hunted once more. And they hung the carcasses in the trees to dry.
The mood was mixed. There was sourness and resentment as Born and his fellows forsook the buckets and basins and rushed to attach their ladder to the tree. It was a struggle. The pole bowed and threatened to snap, but eventually they were successful. The ladder was raised and Born was the first to climb it.
Higher and higher he climbed. The air seemed thin, somehow. The smell was different, too. Fresher. More acidic, perhaps.
As he climbed, he began to hear a new sound. Something rising above the dripping and dropping. A buzzing.
Imperceptible from the ground, giant flies circled and swooped, landing on the carcasses, collecting, launching, circling, and landing again. The higher Born climbed, the louder the buzzing and the thicker the coverage of flies. Born began to worry. Would they notice him? Would they care?
Flies brushed past, shaking the already wobbly ladder. But they didn’t seem to notice Born. So he pressed on.
Nearer and nearer, he approached the lowest hanging corpse. It was so large. Born couldn’t contend with the shape of it. What was it? These massive creatures that the giants hunted, drained, dried, and consumed? His people only ever saw them like this, dead and hung from the trees. No sense of beginning or ending, just the viscera that dripped to the earth below.
Born made contact. The flesh was pale and pink, lighter than his own burnt brown skin. It was tough, though. Dry and scaly.
“A foot or a hoof, maybe?”
It was too tough to cut and likely too tough to eat. Born climbed higher. On the other side, the flesh was thinner. Born could make out the long ridge of a bone. His knife pierced the flesh, but quickly bit into bone. This was not good meat. He climbed higher.
Past a tangle of bone and joint, the flesh became softer. Long, black strands of hair punctured the flesh in unpredictable patterns. Born cut two strands and stuck them in his pocket. This flesh was yielding. More muscle than bone. The greater collective of flies was further up. What did the flies know that he didn’t? The better meat lay ahead, but the ladder had reached its end. To go any further, Born would have to scale the carcass with his bare hands.
He slipped his knife into the available flesh. Red blood crept out through the gash. The cutting was hard. Born managed to cut out a slab about the size of his torso, but already he was exhausted. He tossed the flesh down and watched it flutter. Working quickly he cut another slab and then another, letting each drop to the earth below. He worried about the fall. He would have yelled “Watch out below” if he thought anyone could hear him.
He was thinking about where the meat would fall when suddenly the ladder was wrenched out from beneath him. Terrified, he lashed out with his hands and managed to grab two tufts of hair. Dangling, he looked below. The ladder was gone.
Had they pulled it away? Had he struck someone or the ladder itself with a bit of falling flesh?
Born didn’t think, “I’m going to die.” He almost certainly would, but his mind wouldn’t even allow him to grapple with the idea. Instead, he wondered how they might get him the ladder. Surely they were working on that…perhaps everyone had given up on the harvest and had turned their whole attention to saving Born.
But the tree shook and the carcass shook and Born realized that he was alone. The footsteps drew closer. The shaking became more violent. Born was too high up to see, but he knew what his people were doing: hiding. Diving into dark caves and endless tunnels.
Born’s hands cramped and seized, but he kept his grip. He even managed to turn his body outward. He could see the giant approaching. Yet another carcass was slung over its shoulder.
The giant hummed, two deep, guttural notes:
Doo doo duu doo doo duu duu duu doo
The carcass over its shoulder had arms and legs. Head and hair. Born had never seen one from such a different vantage point.
The body was almost identical to Born and his people. Five fingers on each hand. Five toes on each foot. Thin lips covering two rows of yellow-white teeth. This one was even a male. Same genitalia as Born, too.
If Born hadn’t understood the massive size difference – wasn’t hanging from a pair of leg hairs himself – he would have thought, “We’re the same.”
But they weren’t the same. They were so much bigger. Or…Born’s people were all so much smaller.
The giant laid the carcass up in a nearby tree, limbs spread, body opened toward the setting sun.
Born studied the carcass for a long time. Every new discovery a marvel, and yet nothing he hadn’t already seen before. The carcass even reminded him of his own father in a way. Perhaps the chest hair. Or the way the jaw jutted low and long over a thick neck.
The giant left. The sun set. The buzzing of flies was all Born could hear. The darkness and the buzzing was comforting somehow. Not meaning to, not wanting to, he closed his eyes and fell.
Photo credit: rperucho
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