Giants and More

I'm back from my two (one)-week break! Man, that was hard. This last week it was easier, but the first week I kept constantly composing posts in my head when unusual thoughts occurred.
My mental outlook on life has changed a lot in a very short time. Let me say now that I can't wait to get back to PHC this fall! I have swooped down through fog and depression, reached my lowest point, and zoomed back up and out again. God is good, and I hope I don't find myself down there again any time soon. It is not a happy place. More about that later.

Meanwhile, I am posting excerpts from the new story that I am writing. Its working title is "Giants and More," and that may well end up as its final title too. I scarcely ever know about titles.

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Once there was a professor of philosophy named Scoffins. He was a tweedy sort of man, dry and very responsible. Every morning, he arrived at his campus office at precisely 9:00, glasses tucked neatly in his right jacket pocket and a handkerchief in his left. At 5:00 each evening, he closed and locked his office door and trudged down the wide brick path that led to the parking lot. Nobody knew what passed between the parking lot and 9:00 the next morning. Dr. Scoffins’s carefully ironed face did not inspire speculation. . . .

It was quite hot inside his tweedy coat. Dr. Scoffins pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his face. “What now?” he wondered out loud.
“You’re lost, aren’t you?” queried a little voice from Dr. Scoffins’s right shoulder. He turned and let out a sharp yip of surprise. The faerie was back. “I thought you weren’t real!” uttered Dr. Scoffins.
“Oh, I’m definitely real. You just decided not to believe in me. Those are two quite different concepts,” replied the faerie. “My name is Festus, and I suppose I should say I am pleased to meet you.”
Dr. Scoffins said nothing, so Festus continued.
“The giant’s name is Gregory. He’s really a good creature, but you annoyed him. Giants annoy easily, you know, because there aren’t very many of them, and they get lonely.”
Dr. Scoffins found his tongue. “He wouldn’t disappear like you did when I said I didn’t believe in you.”
“Of course not. You can only ignore things that are smaller than you.” Festus sighed and shook his head. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”
This was a bizarre hallucination. Freud would have had fascinating things to say about it, no doubt. . . .

Dr. Benson’s eyes narrowed and flicked up and down him, from his scuffed shoes to his perspiring face. “Oho, a Learned Man,” she said, so that Dr. Scoffins could clearly hear the capital letters. It was his turn to give her a close look, but she stared right back. He had to drop his gaze to the ground, where he scuffed the toe of his shoe like an awkward schoolboy instead of a fifty-seven-year-old professor. “At least I don’t waste time studying things that don’t exist,” he muttered.
Dr. Benson was speechless for a second, and then she leaned in. “If the paranormal doesn’t exist, what do you call this?” she hissed, gesturing at the world around them.
Dr. Scoffins became even stuffier. “A hallucination that includes many fundamental archetypes as well as certain images from my childhood.”
“But that’s impossible!” cried Dr. Benson. “This can’t be a hallucination, because I’m here as well.”
“Ah,” announced Dr. Scoffins. Now he felt himself on solid ground. “How do I know that? I could just be imagining you.”
“But—” began Dr. Benson. She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “I see your point,” she mused. Then she stepped forward and slapped Dr. Scoffins very hard on his left cheek.
“Ow!” he shouted, clutching his face. “Why did you do that?”
“Just testing,” she explained. “Did that seem like a hallucination to you?”
“I have no idea, since I have never had one before!” he shouted. He glared at her. Then he realized how ridiculous it was to glare at a hallucination. He smiled a hard little smile instead and forced himself to remove his hand from his throbbing cheek. “All right then, suppose you tell me your theory. What is this place?” . . .

“Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve believed that there is a glittering land far away in which there is no pain and no sorrow. Religious people all seem to have some idea of the place, don’t they? I think such concepts are echoes of an ancient memory dating from the first humans, who were a supernatural race much wiser and more advanced than us. Some of us Searchers have found prehistoric documents that speak sorrowfully of a lost land from which all humanity was expelled long ago for some terrible, unnamed act. Since then, we humans have descended through several planes of existence over an enormous age until we emerged where most of us live, on Earth. The Way is lost to us. But—” she paused for dramatic effect, “—not irretrievably. Through meditation and purification, we can ascend again!
“I believe that is what has happened to me. One day, in the middle of a sacred meditation, I was wandering the paths near my house with my eyes closed. I became lost in reverie and walked for I know not how long. When I opened my eyes, everything looked the same at first. But then a celestial being, a Faerie arrived at my left elbow and spoke. Then I knew that I had succeeded in some small measure. Although this new land was obviously not Paradise, still, I had climbed up to the next plane of existence!” She beamed a beatific smile.
Dr. Scoffins stared at her, not sure what to say. Almost, he believed her. She seemed sort of—ethereal—at that moment. But then he remembered the extremely corporeal slap and his still-stinging cheek, and he frowned. “That could explain you, if your theory is true,” he said, “but what about me? I wasn’t meditating when I arrived here. I was walking to my car.”
Dr. Benson frowned too, and scratched her head. “Yes, that does puzzle me,” she said. “You don’t seem the sort to find your way onto a higher plane—no offense,” she quickly added.
“And let’s face it, I couldn’t possibly imagine a far-fetched story like the one you just told, even in an extraordinarily vivid hallucination—no offense,” replied Dr. Scoffins dryly.
“None taken,” she enunciated, sitting up straight and looking down her nose. Dr. Scoffins pretended not to notice. “So, what now?” he asked.
Dr. Benson deflated. “I don’t know,” she sighed. “I’ve been living in a little house on the top of the hill back that way—” she pointed back toward where Dr. Scoffins had first arrived “—and meditating, mostly. To be honest, the Faerie turned out to be more of a pest than a Celestial Being. He keeps fluttering by and razzing me whenever I am deep in concentration. I think his name is Festus. And there’s also a giant named Gregory.”
“I’ve met them,” said Dr. Scoffins.  ¶ 6:15 AM