And Elder Simeon shook his head, and smiled, and pointed beyond the house, and he said, “The story says that the manshonyagger, seeing that its young charge was well and sound—and being, as I said, so very tired, too—lay down on the ground, and closed its eyes, and slept. And, some say, is sleeping still.”
We looked where he pointed, and we saw the angled hills, and their curious contours; and if you squinted, and if you looked hard enough, you could just imagine that they took on a shape, as of a sleeping, buried giant.
“But…” I said.
“You don’t—” said Mowgai.
And Elder Simeon smiled again, and shook his head, and said, “But I told you, children. It’s just a story.”
The days grow short, and the shadows lengthen, and I find myself thinking more and more about the past. Mowgai is gone these many years, but I still miss him. That summer, long ago, we spent days upon days hiking through the curious hills, searching and digging, the way children do. We hoped to find a giant robot, and once, just once, we thought we saw a sudden spark of turquoise light, and the outline of a little girl, not much older than we were, looking down on us, and smiling; but it was, I think, just a trick of the light.
Some say the giant’s still there, lying asleep, and that one day it will wake, when it is needed. We spent all that summer, and much of the next, looking for the buried giant; but of course, we never found it.
Jump
Cadwell Turnbull
Mike and Jessie were walking in the park. The trees high above their heads stretched to touch each other, their leaves letting only the tiniest slivers of light through.
Mike watched the freckles of light spot Jessie’s brown face, her shirt, her arms. He tried to snub them out with his fingers.
It was a long day for them. They’d spent a few hours walking around the park, just talking. About old dreams and new ones, black riots and urban decay, the secrets of their hearts and the mysteries of the universe, the time Mike introduced himself through a mutual friend and his palms were so clammy that Jessie knew immediately how nervous he was.
They always talked a lot. Mike was amazed that they always found something to say. It was a little less than two years, but he thought once grad school was over, he would ask. He thought she’d say yes.
They made another lap around the park. By the time they decided they needed to walk back home—a full forty-five minutes away—they were way too tired to make the journey. They considered a cab, but Mike had a better idea.
“Why don’t we teleport?” he asked.
“What now?” She laughed. She was giving him that smile she gave when he was talking crazy, that would spread across her face, her eyes wide, her eye brows raised in steep arches.
“Hold my hand,” he said, and he didn’t wait. He grabbed her hand himself. “We can do it.”
“What makes you think we can teleport?” she asked.
“I believe,” he said simply.
She laughed at him again. “You’re crazy.”
Mike didn’t know how far he was going to take this. But it was Jessie and he didn’t worry about seeming silly. “Close your eyes and picture home,” he said. “On the count of three, we will jump forward and we will be there.”
He looked at Jessie, and sure enough, she closed her eyes. She was smiling and he wished he could read her thoughts, but that was another power entirely.
“One,” he said. He tightened his grip on her hand. “Two.” He felt a warmth in his stomach, his knees were bent, he was extra aware of the grass beneath his feet. “Three.” He leapt and he felt Jessie leap with him, their bodies synchronized. They were in the air for no more than two seconds and when they landed, their feet hitting the ground at the same time, there wasn’t the familiar soft crunch of grass. There was the hard thump of their feet against pavement. When they opened their eyes, they realized they were home.
Jessie looks back on the day often. She remembers how weak her knees felt once they had made the jump; he had to hold her up to keep her from toppling over. She remembers his face, the flashes of abject terror, shock, and then euphoria. And she remembers the warmth in her belly, like she was glowing from the inside.
She remembers her neighbor Greg from 34C, halfway up the stairs to their apartment building when they arrived out of nowhere.
“Oh, I didn’t see you two there,” he said, turning when he heard Mike’s joyous scream. “Everything okay?” He looked from Mike to her to Mike again.
“Holy shit,” Mike said, as if in answer. And then more screams.
Jessie’s sitting on the couch, reliving the moment, her legs pressed under her, an open book in her lap.
Mike walks into the room. “We should try again,” he says.
Jessie glares at him. If Jessie agrees, this will be the twentieth time they’ve tried. They have all been failures.
Mike keeps a calendar where he crosses off the days since it happened. Many markers are spent in the attempt to keep a record; the markers start out strong, with vibrant confident lines, and then they sputter and falter and only the blood-crawling squeak against the paper remains. Mike tries many colors. Blue. Red. Green. Magenta. The ink runs out of all of them. And still no jump.
The first dozen attempts are at the park, trying to find the right spot, wearing the right clothes. Jessie must always be on the right side. They try time of day. It must always be late afternoon. They try the weather. The day must be cool and clear.
Mike recites the exact words to himself. He writes it down. He puts the words next to the calendar on the wall. He remembers Jessie’s words, too. It must all be perfect. They go back to the park and relive the experience word for word. When they do this they sound like play actors reciting lines.
“Why don’t we teleport?” Mike asks.
Jessie rolls her eyes. “What now?” she asks and the laugh is hollow, mocking.
“You’re not trying. You have to really try—”
“Jesus, Mike.”
“—Now we have to start over.”
Soon after that, Jessie refuses to go back to the park. But Mike keeps asking to try in other places. At home. When they go out to restaurants. At the movies. Jessie obliges, but each time her shoulders slump a little lower. She hates it. She hates it so much.
“You’re killing me,” she says. “Why does this matter so much?”
“Why wouldn’t it matter?” Mike says. “What would matter more?”
A day later, he asks her again and she almost throws a book at him, pulling back at the last moment. “Leave it alone, Mike. Can’t you just leave it alone?”
Sometimes Mike wonders if he imagined it. But it can’t be. Jessie was there.
He gets so suspicious of the whole thing that he starts to wonder if even Jessie is a figment of his imagination.
When his friend Alex comes over for dinner, Mike tries to confirm his suspicions while Jessie is in the kitchen. “I’m married to a woman about this high, right? Light brown eyes? Dark skin? Can be a little judgy sometimes?” He says the last part a little softer than the rest.
Alex just looks at him.
Mike waits for an answer, the cold doubt creeping up his spine.
“That was a great dinner, J,” Alex says, looking past Mike. Then he looks back at Mike and points at him with his fork. “You fucked up.”
Mike turns and sees his wife. He has no idea how long she’s been standing there. But she makes a face he has come to know well and he knows that she knows that this is about the jump again.
“You’re welcome, Alex,” she says and then leaves the dining room.