Berila was sitting silently on the truss, his beer glass in his hand. The glass was actually filled with fake beer; he only held it to remember the enjoyment of a cold beer on a hot day.
Most weekdays, he would be by himself, patiently waiting for his friends to come over on the weekend. On Fridays, the cabin would come back to life. The fire would be lit on cold winter nights, and the curtains would be pulled aside in the morning, letting the sunshine in. It was so joyful to see the steam from the hot coffee mixing with the rays of sunlight. It was so joyful to see how his friends loved sipping their coffee while the fire crackled in the little stove.
On Sunday night, the cabin would become quiet and dark again for a whole week, and Berila would return to his place on the truss, holding his beer glass steadily. He had plenty of time to meditate on things, and he did not hate the solitude. He was alone with his thoughts for most of the week.
One night, he awoke in the cold of winter. He could hear the wind whispering through the bare branches and singing softly through the pines and spruces. That night, he came to the realization that he and the cabin sat upon the back of a dormant Giant.
The thought worried him. What if the Giant were to wake up?
But then he reflected further. How was it that the Giant had not risen from his sleep when men came with great machinery to build the road and clear the brush? Surely the Giant would not have tolerated another giant taming the land. Yet he had remained asleep while Grant the Great did his work.
On a Wednesday night, Berila decided to wake the Giant himself, for he had become very curious to meet him.
The previous weekend, he had secretly set aside a few cartridges from his friends and hidden the lock from the shotgun. The night was calm and clear, and the sky was filled with stars.
He pointed the gun toward the sky and fired once.
Then a second time.
Then a third.
He saw the lights come on in a neighboring house, then go dark again. He knew the neighbors would stay inside and wait for the noise to pass.
He loaded three more cartridges and fired again.
Only then did he feel the trembling beneath him. The ground shook gently, and Berila knew that the Giant had awakened.
Gathering his courage, he called out:
“Wake up, Giant! I need to talk to you!”
The silence returned for a few moments, as if the night itself were waiting for the echoes to fade. Then the ground trembled once more, and a deep, coarse voice answered:
“What is all this banging about? Is it the Fourth of July already? It feels much too cold for that.”
Berila was delighted.
“I do apologize, sir. My name is Berila, and I would very much like to speak with you.”
“Talk about what?” asked the Giant.
“About who you are, and why you are so passive toward everything.”
And so they became friends.
The Giant explained his way of life. He told Berila how he had stood there for ages, watching people, animals, and forests come and go. He told him about the time when the earth was restless, when volcanoes erupted and earthquakes shook the land. He spoke of rocks rising from great depths to form mountains.
Then he told him about the age when the sea covered the land and marine creatures swam where forests now stood. He remembered how the waters retreated, leaving the ground bare, only to return again later as clear, fresh water that carved valleys into the earth.
The Giant spoke fondly of the first green plants, and of the animals that followed. He watched some of those creatures become more intelligent, until eventually humans appeared.
He saw them discover fire.
He saw them learn.
He saw them grow.
The Giant remembered the Indians who once lived upon his back. They burned the forests from time to time, yet the trees always returned. Then came the white settlers. They drove the Indians away, cut and burned the forests again, brought cattle onto the land, built stone walls, houses, and farms. They fought one another for reasons known only to themselves.
Berila was fascinated by these lessons.
His friends had left a few books on a shelf in the cabin. He had read about Lewis and Clark, about guns on the early frontier, and he had entertained himself with stories by J. F. Cooper. Yet the Giant spoke of a history on a far grander scale.
One day, Grant the Great returned with a huge excavator. He pulled trees from the ground as if they were weeds and scraped away the soil, leveling the land. He dug trenches and holes and filled the air with noise for days.
When Grant left for the weekend, Berila asked the Giant if he was bothered by all the disturbance.
The Giant replied that he was not.
Not long afterward, some men arrived with a drilling rig and bored a very deep hole into the earth in search of water.
Berila became worried. Such a hole surely must hurt the Giant, perhaps even kill him.
That night he called upon the Giant again.
The old Giant seemed perfectly fine.
“It does not bother me,” he said. “Your friends need water. I have kept it stored deep within me, pure and cold, and now it will be theirs to quench their thirst.”
Berila was deeply impressed by such generosity.
The Giant explained that he loved seeing creatures come and live upon his back. They arrived, lived their lives, and departed again. Every chapter felt short to him, for he lived almost forever, yet he cherished each one.
“I am here to offer them a home,” said the Giant. “I ask nothing in return. Every generation comes and goes, and I love them all the same.”
Then he added:
“As for your friends, they have shown great care for my old back. They treat me with respect, and I am happy to share with them all that I have.”
Berila returned to the cabin. He carefully placed the shotgun back on its rack so that his friends would never know it had been moved.
Then he climbed back to his place on the truss.
“It is getting hot up here under the roof,” he thought, “but my friends will be back soon, and they will share a cold beer with me.”
With that comforting thought, Berila settled himself and happily went to sleep.
words-of-mine 