He opened his eyes.... and he saw himself lying at the the feet of a giant. He could see upto to the giant's knees from where he had collapsed on the floor , the rest of the giant's body towered above the stonewalls into the sky beyond his vision. Around him ,all movements had ceased and the place quietened down .The silence and stillnes scared him, and embodied an imminence of further assault ."Mercy " he cried in pain and it thundered back from the lifeless walls in a thousand voices .Fear gripped him as the giant feet moved, retracting and flexing at the knees with studied deliberation that the bruising pain of earlier onslaught peaked and he blacked out.
Gnarled fingers clutched his heart , it's curved tallons sharper than knives,poised to plunge into his soft flesh .Two green wicked eyes floated above ,directing the hand as they dug and tugged the sinews that surrounded his heart and as they were about to squeeze out the juice of his life ,he cried in utter helplessness and woke up. Anguish and pain of a life not lived engulfed him. He looked around and except for a gnawing thirst,he was alright. There were no bruises or wounds or physical pain other than a new awareness ,a feeling of new way of being which he was not able to fathom and memory of the attack faded and lost it's intensity. Heavy liquids drained out of his skull making the inside much more brighter and lighter and he slipped into dreamless sleep.
Days passed and when he woke up,the silence unnerved him.He hid in the shadows and watched out for the giant . He was not so sure now whether he was dreaming or awake. And then one day early before day break,he saw the giant again nad he cringed. He sept no more but carefully tailed the giant, maintaining a distance asnot to attract the giant's attention t. He observed the giant ,who would wake up much before him and would be stacking and arranging the stones in some new order,an obssessive act of manual mortification the he found hard to understand. Sometimes , entire stacks of heavy stones that had just been hauled and arranged would be pulled down and the process would start elsewhere with another set of stones. What was the giant doing. He was not merely arranging the stones,the giant would first study the stones with concentration ,the markings and signs on the stones he seemed to understand.
