Jack heaved himself up a long strand of thread that hung from the giant’s tattered sweater. With each flex and pull, he muttered a simple prayer to a god he had never known. Please, he said.
Jack was a mere mortal, so he knew little of the great course of time. But he was a father and so there were many things he knew well. He knew, for example, that with time came change. And so he was a patient man. He knew that prayer was unreliable, hope could lead to naïveté, and wishing could make a person bitter. But all three were likely worthwhile, considering the situation. Finally, he knew that sometimes a baby needs her mother. Thus, his journey to see the giant, despite what he had heard about giants and jacks in days of yore.
Please, he gasped, pausing to breathe and to let the quivering in his muscles subside. He should have taken the ferry and spared his tired body the long walk to the giant’s shore. But he only took the ferry when he was in the mood to savor the beauty of being. This was not that sort of day. This was the sort of day when babies cried and lions roared.
He found the giant asleep at the edge of the sea, sitting hunched over his fishing pole, his feet tucked beneath the sand. His immense snore was a high tide crashing against a rocky ledge. Jack looked to the sky and saw the giant’s head resting on a cloud. He bowed down in supplication.
“Please sir, they say you are fishing for mothers. My child needs a mother,” he called. He watched as his words were swallowed by the sea. The giant took no notice of him. He would need to grow much bigger or he would need to be much louder to be heard by this immense being. That, or he could climb into the giant's ear. Yes, that seemed like the better idea.
The journey to the clouds would be long. Jack took hold of a loose thread hanging from the giant’s sweater. He climbed and prayed, prayed and climbed. The wind blew and he pulled himself into a fold of pilled wool to rest. He heard a screeching cry from somewhere far below. The baby? No, he had left her in the care of the lion. It was only a gull.
The baby. How long had she been crying? Days, maybe weeks? It started in the night. He woke to her fussing and listened with a sense of dread. Everyone had warned him that this would happen. They had said, “She will cry. She will cry and cry.” He went to the baby. He tried bouncing, singing, changing, bouncing again. He tried the milk of a cow, a goat, a sheep, a lion. She only turned her head away. “This was a long time coming,” she wailed.
All through the night the baby had cried. Loud, then louder. It paralyzed him. When morning came, he began to go about the day: turn on the water, do the dishes, rearrange the furniture. It was difficult to see past the crying to a time when she might giggle or play. Nearly impossible to imagine that she might one day walk off into the distance, arm in arm with a lover.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Jack climbed upon the giant’s shoulder, grabbed hold of the flesh of his earlobe and swung into the cavity of the ear. “My child needs a mother!” he called.
The giant snorted and sputtered as he woke. “Smells of jack here and I’m in no mood for tricks,” he said. He waved his arms about as if to clear the air of gnats. “Off with you.”
Jack reached his arms out wide and pressed his palms against the walls of the giant’s ear to maintain his balance. “I have no tricks for you, sir,” he pleaded.
“Go home to your ugly lion. You’ll be much safer there,” the giant grumbled.
“I cannot. My child needs a mother,” said Jack.
“Yours and all the rest,” replied the giant, dismissively.
Jack seemed to be getting smaller, or the ear bigger. “Yes, but mine means the world to me. I call her Terra.”
The giant tilted and shook his head, as if draining water from his ear. “Speak up, little jack. I can hardly hear you. You say she is the Earth?”
Jack lost his footing and went tumbling. “I say, she means the world to me!” His words somersaulted, belly flopping on the water below. He grabbed hold of the giant’s earlobe, his legs dangling beneath him. With all the energy of his faltering hope, he flexed his diaphragm and sang in a high operatic tone, “Please sir!”
It worked. The giant tuned in. The giant sighed. The giant closed his eyes. Jack summoned the choir of angels within him. He sang, “Please sir. My child needs a mother.”
The giant opened his eyes. “There are many motherless children,” the giant grumbled. “Yours is not the first to cry, but as you say she is the Earth, I will do what I can. You may have the next catch. Now, help me to forget you. Not a peep.”
“Thank you, sir. It will not be forgotten,” Jack called as he dropped down to the giant’s shoulder, laying down to rest.
The days were long and time unending. The giant fished and Jack waited. The baby cried, though Jack could no longer hear her. The lion’s roars were swallowed by the sea. He watched the sun pass and the moon, once and then many times over. He began to mend a small hole in the giant’s sweater with the loose strand of thread he had climbed up. When the hole was darned, he collected pieces of kelp and hair, lint, feathers and other soft things with which to weave a little nest on the giant's shoulder. In time, he had constructed a very comfortable home and he began to sleep. He dreamed vividly as he used to do, before the baby cried. When he woke he searched the horizon for whales. He searched until his eyes crossed and his vision blurred.
Once in that eternity the giant spoke, “Why do you grieve, jack?”
“For my used-to-be,” Jack called back.
“Your used-to-be is not lost, little jack. He’s only gone out for a walk.”
“Sometimes they don’t come back,” Jack said, “It has happened to me.”
“They always come back. You haven’t waited long enough or you haven’t looked hard enough. Sometimes they are old and wrinkled when they return and you hardly recognize them.”
“I have waited and I have looked,” said Jack.
“Don’t dwell,” the giant scolded. “Your used-to-be is only out for a walk. He is on his way home now. He’ll arrive in the old rags he left in. He’ll need a bath.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Jack.
“Stop your grieving,” the giant’s tone had grown harsh, “You’re fogging up the place. I’ll never catch a good mother in this fog.”
Jack looked at his own two feet dangling over the giant's shoulder. He thought about how small he was next to the giant, beside the sea. He made long lists of things larger than himself- the wind that shaped the cypress groves, the giant’s breath upon him, the possibility of a comet passing overhead. In time, his grief was overtaken. The fog cleared. Something tugged at the giant’s line and he reeled it in. A golden shimmering salmon writhed on the hook.
“This is a very good mother,” said the giant, gazing at his magnificent catch. “She has cared for many children. She will make an excellent mother to your child.”
“No,” said Jack. “That is not my child’s mother.”
“Of course not,” the giant scoffed. “Your child’s mother belongs to the lion now. He covets her as his own mother. He keeps her in his highest tower.”
“I must go to her,” Jack said.
“Little jack, you have stumbled into the wrong tale. I have nothing to offer in regards to maidens in tall towers, and it is time for my nap.”
With that the giant flicked Jack from his nest, sending him flying into the wild ocean air.
The ferryman found Jack floating on his back in the middle of the bay. He sunk his ores into the water and leaned out of the boat to get a closer look. Jack’s eyes were wide open. They were blue, a wide ocean, and there were whales breaching on the horizon.
Jack had been gazing up at the foggy sky, a view now obstructed by the ferryman’s bearded face.
“Climb in, Jack,” called the ferryman.
“No, thank you,” replied Jack.
“Climb in, you’ve got whales on your horizons.”
Jack looked back at the ferryman, “Excuse me?”
“I said, climb in. I’ll take you to your damsel.”
“It’s no use. I’m no knight,” Jack said, turning his gaze back to the foggy skies.
“No matter. She wouldn’t be rescued anyway.”
“But will she come home?”
“Hard to say. Climb into the boat, Jack.”
Jack climbed into the boat. It smelled of honey and lavender.
Alison Jean Kinney is a writer based in Arcata, CA. Her stories have appeared in The Wondrous Real Magazine and in fine art books shown in galleries such as the San Francisco Center for the Book and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. She has a MA in Folklore from the University of North Carolina.
Photo by Mathias Reding