Dreaming About The Ocean
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A ship on the water. She was moving swiftly along and as he watched her, a man in a blue uniform stepped out of her side hatchway and began walking around her decks. He seemed to be looking for something, but his search didn’t last long; soon he turned back towards his ship and disappeared from view again.
He must have been a seaman then because the captain had just ordered him to walk down and inspect his own vessel – the Blue Lady. As he looked at it from afar, he seemed to notice that all her masts were missing. But even so, she must be a magnificent sight!
Her sails were huge, each with four square yards of sail. They were full of wind and moved slowly across the waves; her mastheads creaked under their enormous loads, while her hull glowed bright white under the sun.
He watched until she passed into the distance; then he turned away himself, wondering what sort of sea creature could be so big as to fill up an entire ocean like this.
“What do you see?”
He jumped when his sister’s voice startled him from behind. He turned to face her and saw that she was standing right there beside him. She smiled at him, then took his hand gently into hers. He felt warm against his cheek, as though his hands were being held by a fire.
It felt strange but good. Then he realized who it was he’d been looking at – or perhaps dreaming about since they had only just come alive. His sister, and her blue-painted ship.
She nodded, smiling once more as if satisfied with his answer. “I see a beautiful ship, brother.” She squeezed his hand, pulling him along as she started making her way through the grass and rocks to get where they were going. He followed her willingly, not knowing why he should feel so happy to follow her anywhere. Perhaps it was simply because everything else in life was so uncertain.
They reached a small clearing in the forest, which had no end of a cliff facing them. In one corner, there stood a large cave opening, its entrance wide enough for two people to enter easily together. And as they came closer still, she stopped walking, tugging him along with her as well. When he stopped too, she put both arms around his waist and pulled him close to her body.
As her head rested on his shoulder, he found that her warmth helped chase away some of the colds that filled his heart. It wasn’t so bad here, now. The warmth of her arms felt good against his backside. There was also the softness of her breasts pressing against his chest.
For a moment he closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of her body against his. But the moment was brief, and soon he was pushed aside again by another sensation: a great roaring sound, filling his ears and forcing him back against the wall of the cave.
Then all he saw were flashes of light coming from outside – red, yellow, green. They lit the cavern in quick succession as if they were fighting amongst themselves to find an answer to their own question: What am I?
The flashes made it hard to look, let alone focus on any one thing. So he kept his eyes shut tight, holding his breath.
After a little while, the sounds became less intense. They were fading away, leaving him able to breathe more freely once again.
“Come,” she said softly, turning him around to face her.
“But what is it?” He asked, confused by the strange light that was now shining down on them both from above.
His sister smiled at him and took him back towards the mouth of the cave, where she stopped and motioned for him to sit down next to her on the ground.
He did as she wanted and sat beside her, resting against a stone pillar as she placed a gentle arm across his shoulders. The light from the cave entrance fell upon her pale skin, giving it an even brighter glow than before. He felt drawn to touch her cheek but knew better than to try. Instead, he turned his face to the side and stared out into the woods, trying to make sense of what he’d seen.
It took a while, but eventually, he realized that all the colors were coming from leaves scattered over the ground. Each one was different: reds, greens, yellows, oranges, blues. There were so many that he couldn’t count them all. He turned back to face his sister, hoping to share his discovery with her, but instead, she just smiled again, as though she already knew what he had thought.
And then he noticed something else, which made him smile too. A little further off, in between the trees, he could see more colors – purple, brown, black – mixed together into one patchy landscape, with a thin line of blue sky overhead.
He didn’t know where that came from, either. All he knew was that it looked beautiful and that it was much easier to stare at than the lights outside. He smiled once again, this time at himself.
“Why are we sitting here?” he asked, suddenly remembering why they had come in the first place.
His sister just smiled again.
A sudden flash of green caught his attention. It reminded him of how he had been watching the ships earlier. That meant he would have to turn away from his sister now; it wouldn’t be polite to watch her when he should be looking away.
As he turned, the green flashed again and he was forced to turn away. He tried to hold his gaze on his sister’s face, but his eye kept being drawn away from her.
Eventually, he gave up on looking at anything else, focusing his full attention on his sister once more. Her lips were slightly parted, and he could see her teeth glistening whitely behind them.
Her hair was pulled back tightly behind her head, and the wind seemed to blow gently across the top of her head, lifting a few strands and blowing them around her face. She must’ve heard it, because she reached forward and pushed it back against her head.
He liked the way it felt against his fingers, soft and smooth. He wondered what she might think if he touched it, if only for a moment. Then the image of the ship popped into his mind again, and he pulled his hand back quickly.
He glanced up and saw another flash of green light far above them. This one seemed closer this time. He looked around the cavern, but couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from. All he knew was that the light was getting closer.
A sudden gust of air blew through the cavern mouth and sent some of the green leaves swirling about the room. His sister looked up too, and they watched together as the leaf-strewn breeze began to push itself deeper inside, causing the whole cavern to sway beneath them.
The wind grew louder and stronger as it pushed its way into the cave, sending leaves and branches falling everywhere like a dark gray curtain moving towards them. The leaves danced slowly, twisting in circles and forming patterns on the floor as they moved.
It was hypnotic, and he found himself lost in the dance. But after a minute or two of watching, he realized it wasn’t a dance at all, but a battle. The leaves were fighting each other, pushing against one another until there was enough of them all gathered together again, creating a new shape on the ground.
And once it had finished forming itself, the shape changed again. And again. As he watched, it formed itself into something that was recognizable at last, but not what he had expected. It was a boat – a small one, no larger than the one on the lake. A canoe, perhaps? But it was too small to contain anyone, let alone three people. Still, he found himself smiling.
He didn’t realize his sister was next to him until she spoke. “You can see it too?”
“Oh yes,” he replied happily, looking back up at the leaf-covered ceiling. “I always have done.”
She just stared at him a second longer, then said, “Well I’ve never seen anything like that before. Not since we lived at home anyway.”
He smiled back at her and looked at the canoe again. He still couldn’t see who or what was supposed to be inside it, but he thought perhaps that was part of the magic. Maybe whoever is in there will appear when we’re ready to leave.
“Come on,” said his sister after a few moments of watching the canoe, pulling herself up from the rock on which she’d been sitting. “Let’s go check on the others. We don’t want them to start worrying about us, do we?”
There was a sudden flicker of orange light from up ahead, and both he and his sister looked up to see that their father was lighting torches along the cavern walls. It lit the entire cavern up, casting long shadows over the walls and floor as the torchlight flickered wildly about. He watched the flickering flames for a few more seconds, then turned back to his sister.
“It looks so beautiful tonight,” he whispered to her.
***
They continued on down the tunnel for a while, stopping at each opening to peek out into the darkness beyond. They passed through many of these openings and eventually came to a large cavern much bigger than any of the others they had previously discovered.
It was circular with a flat roof, and there was a single tree growing straight out of the center. The trunk was huge and wide, and it stood tall beside the tunnel leading in from the main cavern. There was no other sign of life here; no trees or bushes nearby. Just the trunk, and a small pool of water at its base.
“Do you think this is where we’ll find him?” asked his sister.
“Perhaps,” replied his father. “But I’d like to get back first and make sure your mother is safe. It wouldn’t do for me to arrive late to her dinner party.”
His sister nodded and started walking forwards, but then stopped suddenly, pointing into the darkness beyond them. “Look!” she whispered.
There were lights now, coming in through several holes in the roof, and shining down onto the floor of the cave. Some of them moved across the ground in slow, steady patterns, but most just hung there in the air. The shapes they made weren’t as clear as before, but he could still recognize what they were.
“Are those people?” he asked.
“Looks like it.”
“How many of them are there?”
“I think there are hundreds of them,” answered his sister excitedly.
He followed her gaze and was amazed by the sight of thousands upon thousands of small people. They must be all around us right now, he realized, and it dawned on him how big this place actually was. But why haven’t they spoken? Why don’t they come to meet us?
“We should wait here,” he suggested. “If there are so many of them in the cave, they’ll probably be able to help us.”
His sister seemed to agree, and they walked further into the cavern until there was a hole high above their heads. From this vantage point, they saw that the room was filled with tiny figures, moving slowly through the darkness. They went from one hole in the roof to the next, and every time one of them disappeared, another would take its place.
“What do you think they’re doing?” asked his sister.
He watched the tiny people move and realized that they were all working hard to pull things back inside the holes on top of them. They pulled them in slowly at first, making a great deal of noise in the process. Then one by one they began taking everything back into themselves, and soon they were gone completely. In their place now was an empty hole.
“They’re taking stuff back inside,” he realized, “but I don’t see why. I guess we should have stayed outside after all.”
“No need to worry about it though,” his sister replied. “They don’t look like they’re going anywhere. I bet they’ll stay here until we go back out.”
“Then let’s do it,” he said.
As he reached up to climb out from the hole he noticed something strange about it – not its shape exactly, but the fact that it wasn’t round at all. It was rectangular instead, with two sides running parallel to each other.
“I wonder…” he started.
“What?” interrupted his sister.
“Nothing… Let’s go.”
She nodded, and they both stepped back away from the hole so that only their feet were visible. As they did so, however, they heard a noise behind them – a sound they hadn’t heard before, but one that instantly reminded them of another. A loud scraping sound. They turned around in surprise, but it wasn’t there.
“Did you hear that?” asked his sister.
“Yeah,” he said, looking around them nervously. “Let’s go.”
They started running towards the exit when suddenly the ground began shaking beneath their feet. They stopped dead in their tracks, feeling the vibrations run up through their legs and into their bones. It lasted for a few moments, then stopped abruptly.
“That didn’t feel good,” his sister commented after a moment.
“No it didn’t,” agreed his father, who was standing by her side. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
His sister nodded, and they all started walking back towards the entrance to the cave, leaving the hole empty behind them. The ground beneath their feet continued to shake gently, although now they couldn’t tell if it was just the normal sounds of nature reverberating through the rocks below them, or something else entirely.
When they finally emerged back into the main cavern, they found a very different world from the one they left behind. There were no more tunnels leading off into the distance, no more holes in the walls to peer into, and no more little people to look at.
In their place was a massive stone platform on which stood a single, enormous figure. He was dressed all in white, with no shoes or anything similar to protect him from the rocky terrain. His skin was smooth and pale, and his clothes were simple yet elegant; his hair was short and neatly trimmed, his eyes bright and piercing.
All around him was a mass of people, all of whom were staring straight ahead at him. And as they gazed up at the giant, he stared down at them.
“Who is he?” whispered his father quietly.
“Just a statue,” his sister answered. “It looks pretty weird though – the way he’s sitting there with his arms crossed. Like he doesn’t want anyone to approach him.”
“Maybe he’s not allowed to leave his position,” his father suggested, pointing up at the sky behind the giant’s head. “Perhaps he’s supposed to watch over us from here. That might explain why there’s a giant up there too.”
They looked up to find another giant standing right beside the first. He was also dressed in white, but his clothes were covered in dust and grime and there was a large gash across one side of his face. He had been leaning against the wall, watching the first giant intently.
When he saw that they were looking back at him, he quickly made his way down from his perch and approached them. As they got closer, they could see that his eyes were dull and lifeless, much like the second giant’s. Their gaze wandered downward to their clothing, which consisted of old rags that had obviously been torn from other outfits.
“Who are these people?” his mother whispered.
The first giant spoke quietly, his voice carrying far more authority than it needed to. “I’m called the Keeper of the Cave. These are my people.”
“Your people?” his mother repeated.
“Yes,” the giant replied. “They came to me many years ago and showed me this land, and I decided to help them build their homes here. They work hard to take care of the caves and make sure that the wildlife can live here without being disturbed.”
“Well, thank you,” his mother said respectfully, although she still didn’t quite believe what she was hearing. She was always a little skeptical when it came to giants. “But where are all the other people?”
The giant looked at her sadly. “You mean the ones who built this city? They died a long time ago. But I remember them, of course.”
He paused. “And what about you lot?” he asked, glancing back at his own people. “How did you end up here?”
“We just arrived,” his mother explained. “We were on our way home when we were attacked by something and forced to spend the night here in your cave.”
The giant raised an eyebrow. “Do you think that creature will be coming back? I don’t know why it would come here, but maybe it knows of somewhere else to stay that it prefers. I’d have thought that it would have gone back to wherever it came from, but I suppose things are never quite that simple.”
“We just need to find some food so we can get on our way again,” his father said.
The first giant smiled warmly at his parents. “Don’t worry, I’ll see that you’re fed. You may sleep at my home tonight if you wish. But I must warn you that there aren’t many beds for everyone – perhaps a dozen at the most.”
His mother looked at him questioningly, and he shrugged. “There isn’t enough room for everyone to sleep inside the cave, but there is a lot of open space outside. Perhaps you should all sleep out under the stars.”
“Sounds good to me,” his father agreed enthusiastically.
“Well then,” the giant declared, “you should begin searching for firewood and food. I’ll have someone bring some extra blankets for those of you who don’t already have any.”
As soon as his parents walked away with his sister, the giant turned his attention back to his first visitor. The man in the chair had remained silent throughout their entire conversation, and he continued to sit there now, his eyes fixed intently upon the giant. After a while, the giant spoke once more.
“Why do you keep staring at me?”
The man shook his head. “Sorry – it’s just… Well, you seem rather different from everyone else in your village.”
The giant smiled. “That’s because we’re not a part of your village. We belong here, among the rocks and trees.”
“But why haven’t you come to visit your own tribe or even any of the other villages nearby? Why have you spent all these years living all alone?”
The giant frowned. “I’m sorry, but I’ve never been able to visit any other place. If I try to leave our cave, I become very weak, almost to the point of death, and no matter how hard I struggle, I cannot move. It happened to all of us.
Even your people – the ones who lived in the caves – found themselves trapped here in our land; they couldn’t leave, either. All of the people of our village have been unable to go anywhere since that day. But we’re still alive, and we have learned to take care of ourselves and our home, and I guess that’s why we haven’t bothered moving.”
“But surely, over time, you’ve run out of food?” the man pressed. “What about water?”
The giant frowned. “I’m afraid not. Our land produces its own crops, and we have plenty of rivers close by where we can collect fresh drinking water whenever we want.” He pointed up. “See that mountain over there? That’s our home. In fact, I think I’ll go and check on the crop that’s growing up there today. Would you like to join me?”
The man stared at him blankly. “Where do you think we’d get the strength to climb up there?” he asked.
The giant laughed loudly, but before the sound faded completely into the distance, he was standing up from the floor and running to the entrance of his cave. “Follow me!” he shouted back. “This way,” he added, as he headed deeper down the corridor of rock that led into the mountain.
The man watched him go, then shook his head. His first impression had clearly been wrong. For one thing, this giant obviously wasn’t deaf at least, for he hadn’t heard the man approaching. And even though he seemed to be slightly different from every other person in the world, that hardly meant anything: after all, everyone was different!
The End