Paper Cuts
Created | Updated Mar 20, 2002
Dear viewers, and now readers too, I present for you here the first
in a series of illustrations for a book of lost fairy tales which I have
now, alas, lost. This first, The Giant Six Inch Man by Tinnitus
Zounds, concerns a perfectly ordinary six inch tall man who lives in a
well appointed writing bureau until he grows overnight to five foot
eight and a half, with the hair raising consequences that such a
freakish circumstance as suddenly being just under average height
entails. I'm afraid I've chosen to show you the end of his story but, as
you'll never find the original in print, I refuse to lavish any sympathy
upon you.
Outside, giggling no more, frozen in sunshine.
from The Giant Six Inch Man by Tinnitus Zounds
'But we can't.'
'Well I certainly shan't.'
Can't, shan't, can't, shan't.
Can't and shan't shuttled back and forth through the air but fluttered
more with each pass, sounding sillier and sillier the way words can do
when repeated too much. Eventually they rolled and lolled laughing all
over the settees in helpless joy as if they'd fiercely been batting a
ping pong ball at each other and it had suddenly turned into a
butterfly. And then, as if carried along in the butterfly's delicate
clumsy wake, they both fell over each other and the furniture, making
for the door, still laughing.
'You're right'
he gasped,
'I shan't cower inside waiting for night
either. If we're to be discovered, let it be in sunshine.'
Giddy and whirling, they wheeled down the staircase, which felt
suddenly spiral but was straight as a lie, and before they realised
they'd done it, they were outside, giggling no more, frozen in
sunshine.
The sun's glare blared silent trumpet blasts at them and the latch of
the door quietly, deafeningly, definitely clicked shut. They were
revealed to the public for the first time in each other's company. A
giant six inch man and a five foot five female colossus.
And, do you know, for the first time in their lives, no one gaped.
The fingers of passers by remained in their pockets or eyes or ears, or
other peoples' pockets, and not one digit pointed at them. No one looked
in their direction and so, cautiously, they stole a glance at each
other. Shortly, passers by did look in their direction, but only to
smile at the strange, gleeful couple whose helpless shoulders heaved
with mirth and the shrugs of those who could not, or chose not, to
cease their laughter. They were safe, you see. As long as they remained
in each others' company. Alone they were freaks, together they were
taken out of context as ordinary people. They had flown their pigeon
hole.
Presently they hid in each others' arms and left the city. She bade
him stop at the city's edge. Its rows of golden boxes bobbed up and down
as the last sun glinted off the buildings, but they didn't see. Instead,
they kissed: a kiss of titans.
