Shimmering Giants

We took the wrong exit on the way home. We were supposed to get off at Harbor. I knew I should have driven the van. Now we’re in the middle of nowhere – it’s just dust and empty land as far as the eye can see. And the street is flooded, water at least a foot deep, before we try to turn around. At least we aren’t far from the freeway.

The driver stops as he’s turning the van around. There is a figure standing in the middle of the street, a giant. We just drove past this spot, and there was nothing here then. It’s nine or ten feet tall, shoulders bent and waist bent as if it were about to reach down to the ground. Its skin is translucent, but constantly moving, like there’s water flowing over its body. The face is a blank - it has no eyes or mouth. It stays as still as a statue, but it’s alive. We just know this somehow. It knows we’re there, and we stare out the windows, transfixed. I have a powerful compulsion to get out of the van, to investigate, to try to talk to it, but we all snap out of it and drive away.

The van is a schoolbus now, and the water-filled street is a wide river. The banks are crowded with people and vehicles, keeping their distance but watching the giants. There are more of them, grouped in the river, water up to their knees - a dozen, twenty, men and women, standing in a group, standing on each others’ shoulders, a mountain of shimmery faceless figures of ice or magic or crystal or whatever.

U-boats patrol up and down the river, and the side roads are cordoned off by soldiers with M-16’s, warily watching the motionless giants. We have to stop at a guard post on the way back to the freeway. The soldier gestures with one hand as he grips his gun tightly, eyes darting back and forth between our bus and the giants, glistening in the middle of the river.