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The canyon echoed with hissing - like steam billowing from a dragon engine, or the blow of a whale - as the giant sucked its sore thumb. Every remaining passenger, including Honeydew and Mr. Grey, stared in jaw-slackened awe at the mountainous face. Mr. Grey had seen the word machines used in giant letter-composition back in the Change of Address Office. But it’s one thing to see the enlarged object designed for a larger creature’s use, and another to behold the creature in all its magnitude. The metal bars of a gorilla enclosure are impressive and girthy in their own right, but the gorilla’s the real crowd-pleaser.
The air whistled by the thumb and through the cavern mouth. Then the giant set its palm down flat, crushing the grass. It exhaled in a gale breath that smelled like a river.
“That won’t do little poker.” The giant’s voice crashed upon the passengers. Mr. Grey thought it carried all the sounds of a collapsing building: crushing stone, cracking timber, splintering glass.
Honeydew winced against the breath and the thunder words. She set balled fists against her ears. She was first to collect her senses. She yelled back at the giant, though the tremor in her voice and the inequality of volume took the legs from beneath her words. “Back off your hands then!”
A look of surprise landscaped across the giant’s broad face. Its eyebrows lifted like hills in a quake. Its jaw dropped open like a rockslide. It said, “You are making speech!” The words flattened the chicktails.
“Why shouldn’t we?” Honeydew set her fists on her hips and stood tall, as though facing a normal sized person.
Mr. Grey added, “It seems like you’d have noticed our shouting before now.”
The giant looked confusedly between the two. It brought one hand up and stroked its beard of trees. “Your accent is odd... I do not gather it all, but there is meaning.”
“What did you think of us then?” asked Mr. Grey.
The giant seemed to understand this question with ease. “I knew you had sound, but thought your species distinct. You have longer furs.” The giant took another bellows breath, then added, “And often just scream.”
“Who could conjure why!” Honeydew snapped angrily.
Mr. Grey said, “People probably scream because you’re so large. And keep throwing them.”
The giant seemed confused again. He bobbed his heavy head up and down with a rumbling motion, repeating Mr. Grey’s words with peculiar rhythm as he tried sensing the meaning. His expression suddenly soured. The giant said, “Now that is just rude.”
“Us, rude!” yelled Honeydew.
She tried to go on, but the giant drowned her voice in its bellow. “I have a one-hill diet. And no veins of ore.”
Mr. Grey said, “We weren’t alluding to your weight, sir. But I think you can see that we’re much smaller creatures than yourself.”
The giant’s face showed a gloomy country as it deciphered these words. Its bonfire eyes burned low and ruddy, and the mountainous skin of its cheeks took on a drooping, craggy texture. After figuring out what Mr. Grey meant, it said, “You called me ‘so large’. Those words mean the same as fat. But come, I’m busy.”
The mountain face withdrew, past the edge of the cliffs. The hands swooped in to grab Honeydew and Mr. Grey. Honeydew readied her shoulders for another jab. Mr. Grey called to the retreating face. “Just a moment, please,” The mountain rushed back in and glowered over him. It blocked out the sun and plunged half the field in cold shadow. Mr. Grey went on, “Please sir, we’d appreciate not getting thrown. Could you give us a pass?”
“A curse on accents,” mumbled the giant loudly, after deciphering the words. “And why should I not throw you? You’re disembarking.” Before Mr. Grey could respond, the giant added, “I have lunch waiting. A pleasant hill with fresh gorse.”
“You’re throwing us to non-existence. We don’t want to ‘disembark’ like that.”
“...Not existing how? I am only sorting you. You land where you must,” he paused. “You land in a lake. Of course I don’t splatter you.”
Mr. Grey scratched at his collar. “Why do you throw different passengers in different directions?”
“...Of course I sort you,” the giant said with a gusty, impatient huff. “You don’t travel in a herd.”
“We thought the marbles took us all to the same city.”
The other passengers - still crouching beneath the table or among the chicktails - nodded their agreement. Honeydew stood tall next to Mr. Grey. She said, “What are you sorting by?”
They’d evidently overwhelmed the giant with too many words too quickly. He looked at them for a long time, a blank stillness in the bonfires of his eyes. Finally he said, “There’s many factors.”
“And what about our luggage,” she shouted before he could continue.
“It flies where you will find it.”
Mr. Grey rubbed his hands. Honeydew whirled upon him. “What’s the odds on you holding still? Just for a moment?”
Mr. Grey dropped his hands. Instantly they itched worse than ever. “Sorry, I’m not sure what’s wrong…”
The giant said, “It’s probably allergies. I should sort you soon.”
The hands closed once more. Mr. Grey quickly said, “It’s not bad. Besides, I brought odor cologne.”
The giant looked confused, so Mr. Grey showed him the Odormoat cologne provided for the vacation. The giant said, “It’s a touching allergy. Scents won’t defend you. Are you ready now?” The giant tapped a finger on the ground. Massive tremors rippled through the earth, making the field grass shake and the canyon walls rumble.
“Another moment, please. If this is all regular, we’ll go the same way. Right?” Mr. Grey motioned to himself and Honeydew.
“...You are unlike each other. Of course you wouldn’t.”
Honeydew said, “Oh yes we will! I’m his guest on the visa.”
“If you don’t mind, sir,” added Mr. Grey, “We’d like to go the same way.”
Surprise altered the terrain of the giant’s face once he comprehended. He said, “I’ve never sorted wrongly,” After a pause of gale-force cave breathing, he added, “but if you wish it…”
“We insist on it,” said Honeydew.
“Will you go quietly now?”
The question echoed throughout the canyon box. Honeydew and Mr. Grey looked at each other. Mr. Grey said, “I’m not sure any amount of jabbing would stave him for long. He’ll grab us eventually. One way or another.”
Honeydew shuffled her shoulders. “I’ve a mind to chance it anyway.”
“We’d probably just anger him. He already seems impatient…”
“Fine. But this layover can’t be the norm.”
Mr. Grey craned his neck to address the giant. It had taken to breathing forcibly through its nose to show its displeasure at waiting. The heavy, river-scented breath blasted rhythmically over their bodies. Mr. Grey said, “Sir, I think we’re ready.”
The giant wasted no time. He swung his great hands, grabbed the two of them, and chucked them into the sky. Neither screamed. The grabs had knocked the breath from both.
Whether by having forgotten its promise while the two were debating, or whether by muscle memory, the giant did not send them to the same place. Mr. Grey and Honeydew flew from the canyon field, by different routes, to different places.
This has been In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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