“The giants,” the sacred speaker said, eyeing Mike curiously, “some of them survived it too. But they are not like they were before. There is no understanding in them. They have no civilization. They roam the world making mischief for all mans. They are cannibals. They seek not to befriend. They want only to eat us. We kill them if we can. We must, for they are monsters. And you look so much like them, though now that we see you up close — you are a man as we are, but a man of great size and wondrous frecks.”
“The world survived.” Mike nodded. “It survived, despite what they did to it.”
“The world always survives,” the sacred speaker said. “The world will survive despite what you do to it. But it is you who may not survive what you do to it. If you are used to living in a green forest and you chop down its trees and turn it into a desert, you will die because you cannot live in a desert. But the desert will become home to those of the great creator’s creatures that can live in a desert. We mans love the way the world is, so we are careful not to do things to make it change into a world that we do not love. Thus, man, who is at one with his environment, shall inherit the earth. The oaf, on the other hand, is selfish, thoughtless, and careless in his actions. Now his world is lost. He had no respect for the natural world and now the natural world has no respect for him. He is a vagabond on the face of the earth. His day is at an end.”
Mike, the man-oaf, nodded his head in understanding, and broke bread with the Deutschailai-speaking mans of the valley below the mountains.
And because he could not go back to the world of his birth where he was a freak, and because this world could not go back to the way it was before, Mike made a home with the mans of the valley below the mountains and lived with them for the rest of his days, which were long compared to the days of mans.
Mike lived to be an oaf of eighty-five, which is close to 255 in man years, and he was buried with the respect and love of all the mans of his village and the lands beyond, for he was great and wise in his deeds unto them.
There were those who believed him to be a god, and others who believed him to be an oaf, though Mike denied the oaf charge vehemently throughout his long life with them, for he loved them and did not want to be viewed as a monster. And so he would tell them that he came from the mountaintop, where he had hidden to escape the years of the great floods.
They knew the old stories and in good-natured jest they would refer to him as Oaf Man or Great Oaf Mike or Gerwargerulf.
Mike chafed at the nicknames, for oafs in those latter days had become monstrous indeed. They had resorted to a diet almost exclusively of meat (chicken, goat, hog, hoss, bovin, beo, dog, cat, rat, and man-meat whenever they could get it), and while they were becoming fewer and fewer in number, they were becoming larger in size.
The average height of these solitary hunters — who had lost the understanding of what it meant to be civilized people living in organized groups in villages and cities — the average height of these latter-day oafs was close to six hla-cubits (13’10"–14’), which was a full quazihla-cubits (about two feet) taller than what they had averaged in the days before the great flood.
It was not unusual for a skilled giant killer to discover and then bring down a behemoth of seven or even eight hla-cubits.
The record, however, was held by a pesky pinhead who measured over ten hla-cubits (23’9"–24’). This big oaf, an unrepentant goat thief and child snatcher, was active in his mischief for almost three years (oaf years) before being brought down by a young giant-killer from Mike’s village.
The demise of this great oaf was a bittersweet event for Mike, for the behemoth was one whom Mike had encountered on occasion and whose personality he had found to be agreeable. In fact, Mike had considered him something of a friend, and it was he of whom Mike had once asked: “Do you remember how it was before the flood?”
And the great oaf had knit up his brow in oafish thought and said, “I remember that I lived in a house. I remember that I had a wife and that I loved her, I think. I do not know if there were children. I remember living in a village, and that there were many of us. I had a respectable profession, I know, but I cannot remember what it was. I think I worked with numbers, though now I have forgotten how to count as well as to read. I remember water, year after year of water, water everywhere, and hunger, and water, and rain, and being wet. Floating on anything that could float. I do not like to think about the flood. I like to think about dry land. I like to think about song. Do you remember the songs of the oafs, little brother?”
Then he and Mike had sung the old songs, after which he said: “There aren’t too many of us left. The mans are wiping us out.”
“Yes they are. But that is because we were not wise stewards of the earth. And so the great creator has given the world over to them. One day we shall all be gone.”
And again the great pinhead knit up his brow. “Yes. It is too bad. But aren’t the mans making the same mistake by wiping us out? Are we not children of the great creator too? When we are gone, will not great nature miss us?”
Mike could find no answer for him, and thus they parted that day.
Mike would recall the big oaf fondly as a great singer of songs, for he knew all the old songs. Mike would also recall him as a great poser of questions, for he would pose questions that Mike had no answer to.
From time to time, Mike would encounter other oafs (or giants, as they were now called), and the oaf would say to him, “Little brother, why do you dwell here among these mans?” and he would angrily shout, “What does it look like I am doing? I own them! They are mine! Stay away from my mans, pinhead!”
Thus, Mike protected his village of mans from the occasional wandering oaf that was looking for an easy meal, for oafs in their feral form are territorial and do not encroach on another oaf’s land, even if he is a shorty who stands just under ten feet.
Mike was married three times and well outlived each wife each time, for the year of the oaf is three times the year of man. He fathered forty children, each of whom was tall, but not so tall as to be mistaken for an oaf.
Each of Mike’s children had red body hair and faces full of frecks.
Most of Mike’s 308 grandchildren had red body hair and frecks also, though not all of them. Many, but a little fewer than most, of Mike’s 3,402 great-grandchildren had red hair and frecks. Mike’s great-great-grandchildren numbered well over 60,000 and their descendents made up a large part of the village-states of Reddberg, Roseberg, and Mikelberg, and a sufficient number had red hair and frecks and lofty physical statures, but not all.
Ultimately, the world of mans grew and the world of oafs shrank. There came a day when mans began to hunt oafs for sport. Indeed, the head of an oaf became a trophy of great value and worth more than its weight in silver, for the mans did learn to love silver as their world grew.
And when the day of death came for Mike, who never did change his name to Tlotl, he was the last of the oafs, for the mans had hunted them into absolute extinction, man being an excellent and natural hunter.
Oafs, who were once thought to be gods, were never seen in the world again.
And the songs of the oafs were heard no more.
Apocrypha
I shall not be slave to silver, nor banner, nor king — be he king of the west or king of the east.