“The Great Lumbering Thing”

Saltered States

by Bruce Salter

EN ROUTE TO, CA—(Weekly Hubris)—5/10/10—The Great Lumbering Thing moved across the sand like a swollen cloud; shuffling, ungainly, as it shed bits of itself to the wind. Its maddened grunts sent the Thrush and Killdeer winging for cover, and terrified ground squirrels cringed in their burrows, trembling as the soil above their heads crumbled into powder beneath its prodigious mass.

Despite its appearance, its moaning, gasping roar, the pungency of its fetid odor and the weight of its listing bulk, The Great Lumbering Thing had no physical substance. It was simply the distillation of all of the dreams, fears, sighs, and whispers of the world and, as such, it moved across the landscape without desire or pity, the gray heart within its cavernous chest pumping only fading memories and evaporated tears through its transparent veins.

A lost child, abandoned in the wilderness for longer than she knew, saw The Great Lumbering Thing lurching along the horizon and ran to embrace it, her yellow curls dancing in the breeze as she sought some solace, or salvation, in the magic of its touch. She had been alone in that desert almost forever and the hope of finding something, anything, to befriend overcame her natural dread. That clot of darkness smudging the sunset might be her deliverance.

She flitted over the sand, her eyes wide and her delicate arms extended, gulping up the hot air in heaving gasps until she thought her legs would snap, but still she drew no closer to The Great Lumbering Thing. At last, she fell to her knees, threw back her head and cried out, “Wait! Oh, please wait!”

The Great Lumbering Thing, its nebulous body shifting with every twinkling of a star, paused in its lumbering, groaned a groan that startled even the sky, and turned its attention to the tiny child shimmering in the distance. Slowly, methodically, it shifted itself around and, with a dismissive sigh, trudged toward the waiting girl like an elemental steamroller, pulverizing every rock, twig and spike of cactus in its path.

The girl, who just seconds before had wanted to reach The Great Lumbering Thing with all of her heart, grew suddenly apprehensive as it closed the distance between them. Its massive bulk filled the sky, devouring the stars as it drew ever closer, but the child swallowed her fear and awaited its arrival with a steady eye. She had been alone for too long without the touch of love, kindness, or even hope and, if she had any tears left, they would not be shed now. She would welcome this being with a smile and rejoice in its presence; alone to fend for herself no longer.

With her heart pounding in her throat, she got to her feet, brushed away the dust clinging to her eyelids and smiled meekly. The Great Lumbering Thing was close now, no more than 20 meters away, and it seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon, its black mass a restless cacophony of coiling smoky movement.

The child’s curls fell limply about her neck as its stale breath enveloped her and its deep bellowing moans which, even from a distance had been so unsettling, now tore at her ears remorselessly, eroding her youthful sanity with every caustic echo. The hot steam cascading down its sides soaked her skin as it paused not more than a trembling arm’s length away, bellowing at the red scimitar of a moon caught in the stars above her head.

“Hello,” she said, hardly recognizing her voice. “I . . . I am very pleased to meet you.”

The Great Lumbering Thing panted before her in silence.

She shot a nervous glance from side to side, looked down at her feet, now scratched and swollen from her long run, and cast her eyes back up to the blackness looming above her. “I have been alone forever, it seems, lost in this desert with no one. Would you, could you, perhaps, be my friend?”

The Great Lumbering Thing remained mute and even the wind, which had been blustering and braying as long as memory, held its breath in that awful stillness.

“I have a bit of water in my little canteen and a few bits of bread I found beneath the far mountain, if you would care for a taste,” she continued. “Oh, please be my friend. I cannot continue on my own. Please, I beg you. My name is . . .”

But before her name could pass through her ageless lips, The Great Lumbering Thing pitched forward with a howl and engulfed her, hungrily flooding her soul and rending her tiny body with such ferocity that, when it moved away at last, a damp, golden stain in the sand where she had stood was all that remained of the poor girl.

The Great Lumbering Thing thundered and wailed, its deafening roar pounding at the night in sorrow and exultation. Gathering up its swirling mists, it turned once more and plodded off in restless indifference, its grunts and gurgles fading with each wheezing sigh.

As The Great Lumbering Thing slowly moved away, something wondrous happened to the golden stain that had been the lost child. It began to grow and spread through the sand, slowly at first but quickening its pace as dawn approached, gilding the red sand in yellow brilliance until the entire desert, from the towering black mountains in the south to the azure seas far to the north, glowed with a radiance that rivaled the sun.

A tiny white flower then pushed its head up through the golden earth, spreading its moist petals towards the dawn. It was followed by another and yet another and, in less time than it takes to tell, the once barren desert became a sea of swaying lilies, blown by the breeze in waves of scented delight.

The Great Lumbering Thing took no notice of this. These, after all, were phenomena beneath its concern. It simply proceeded on its interminable way, groaning under its ever-increasing weight and crushing every newly-born lily in its path.