J. G. Ballard - Drowned Giant.pdf - J. G. Ballard - margozap

With its cool, detached style and its disturbing images, this

story is as mysteriously compelling as Kafka's Metamorphosis,

and I think it may be remembered as long.

THE DROWNED GIANT

J.G.Ballard

On the morning after the storm the body of a drowned giant

was washed ashore on the beach five miles to the northwest of

the city. The first news of its arrival was brought by a nearby

farmer and subsequently confirmed by the local newspaper

reporters and the police. Despite this the majority of people,

myself among them, remained skeptical, but the return of more

and more eyewitnesses attesting to the vast size of the giant

was finally too much for our curiosity. The library where my

colleagues and I were carrying out our research was almost

deserted when we set off for the coast shortly after two o'clock,

and throughout the day people continued to leave their offices

and shops as accounts of the giant circulated around the city.

By the time we reached the dunes above the beach a

substantial crowd had gathered, and we could see the body

lying in the shallow water 200 yards away. At first the

estimates of its size seemed greatly exaggerated. It was then at

low tide, and almost all the giant's body was exposed, but he

appeared to be a little larger than a basking shark. He lay on his

back with his arms at his sides, in an attitude of repose, as if

asleep on the mirror of wet sand, the reflection of his blanched

skin fading as the water receded. In the clear sunlight his body

glistened like the white plumage of a sea bird.

Puzzled by this spectacle, and dissatisfied with the matter-

of-fact explanations of the crowd, my friends and I stepped

down from the dunes onto the shingle. Everyone seemed

reluctant to approach the giant, but half an hour later two

fishermen in wading boots walked out across the sand. As their

diminutive figures neared the recumbent body a sudden

hubbub of conversation broke out among the spectators. The

two men were completely dwarfed by the giant. Although his

heels were partly submerged in the sand, the feet rose to at least

twice the fishermen's height, and we immediately realized that

this drowned leviathan had the mass and dimensions of the

largest sperm whale.

Three fishing smacks had arrived on the scene and with keels

raised remained a quarter of a mile offshore, the crews

watching from the bows. Their discretion deterred the spec-

tators on the shore from wading out across the sand. Impa-

tiently everyone stepped down from the dunes and waited

on the shingle slopes, eager for a closer view. Around the

margins of the figure the sand had been washed away, forming

a hollow, as if the giant had fallen out of the sky. The two

fishermen were standing between the immense plinths of the

feet, waving to us like tourists among the columns of some

water-lapped temple on the Nile. For a moment I feared that

the giant was merely asleep and might suddenly stir and clap

his heels together, but his glazed eyes stared skyward, unaware

of the minuscule replicas of himself between his feet.

The fishermen then began a circuit of the corpse, strolling

past the long white flanks of the legs. After a pause to examine

the fingers of the supine hand, they disappeared from sight

between the arm and chest, then re-emerged to survey the

head, shielding their eyes as they gazed up at its Grecian

profile. The shallow forehead, straight high-bridged nose, and

curling lips reminded me of a Roman copy of Praxiteles, and

the elegantly formed cartouches of the nostrils emphasized the

resemblance to sculpture.

Abruptly there was a shout from the crowd, and a hundred

arms pointed toward the sea. With a start I saw that one of the

fishermen had climbed onto the giant's chest and was now

strolling about and signaling to the shore. There was a roar of

surprise and triumph from the crowd, lost in a rushing ava-

lanche of shingle as everyone surged forward across the sand.

As we approached the recumbent figure, which was lying in

a pool of water the size of a field, our excited 'chatter fell away

again, subdued by the huge physical dimensions of this dead

colossus. He was stretched out at a slight angle to the shore, his

legs carried nearer the beach, and this foreshortening had-

disguised his true length. Despite the two fishermen standing

on his abdomen, the crowd formed itself into a wide circle,

groups of people tentatively advancing toward the hands and

feet.

My companions and I walked around the seaward side of the

giant, whose hips and thorax towered above us like the hull of a

stranded ship. His pearl-colored skin, distended by immersion in

salt water, masked the contours of the enormous muscles and

tendons. We passed below the left knee, which was flexed

slightly, threads of damp seaweed clinging to its sides. Draped

loosely across the midriff, and preserving a tenuous propriety,

was a shawl of heavy open-weave material, bleached to a pale

yellow by the water. A strong odor of brine came from the

garment as it steamed in the sun, mingled with the sweet,

potent scent of the giant's skin.

We stopped by his shoulder and gazed up at the motionless

profile. The lips were parted slightly, the open eye cloudy and

occluded, as if injected with some blue milky liquid, but the

delicate arches of the nostrils and eyebrows invested the face

with an ornate charm that belied the brutish power of the chest

and shoulders.

The ear was suspended in mid-air over our heads like a

sculptured doorway. As I raised my hand to touch the

pendulous lobe, someone appeared over the edge of the

forehead and shouted down at me. Startled by this apparition, I

stepped back, and then saw that a group of youths had climbed

up onto the face and were jostling each other in and out of

the orbits.

People were now clambering all over the giant, whose

reclining arms provided a double stairway. From the palms

they walked along the forearms to the elbows and then crawled

over the distended belly of the biceps to the flat promenade of

the pectoral muscles which covered the upper half of the

smooth hairless chest. From here they climbed up onto the face,

hand over hand along the lips and nose, or forayed down the

abdomen to meet others who had straddled the ankles and were

patrolling the twin columns of the thighs.

We continued our circuit through the crowd, and stopped to

examine the outstretched right hand. A small pool of water lay

in the palm, like the residue of another world, now being kicked

away by people ascending the arm. I tried to read the palmlines

that grooved the skin, searching for some clue to the giant's

character, but the distention of the tissues had almost

obliterated them, carrying away all trace of the giant's identity

and his last tragic predicament. The huge muscles and

wristbones of the hand seemed to deny any sensitivity to their

owner, but the delicate flexion of the fingers and the well-

tended nails, each cut symmetrically to within six inches of the

quick, argued refinement of temperament, illustrated in the

Grecian features of the face, on which the townsfolk were now

sitting like flies.

One youth was even standing, arms wavering at his side, on

the very tip of the nose, shouting down at his companions, but

the face of the giant still retained its massive composure.

Returning to the shore, we sat down on the shingle and

watched the continuous stream of people arriving from the city.

Some six or seven fishing boats had collected offshore, and their

crews waded in through the shallow water for a closer look at

this enormous storm catch. Later a party of police appeared

and made a halfhearted attempt to cordon off the beach, but

after walking up to the recumbent figure, any such thoughts

left their minds, and they went off together with bemused

backward glances.

An hour later there were a thousand people present on the

beach, at least two hundred of them standing or sitting on the

giant, crowded along the arms and legs or circulating in a

ceaseless melee across his chest and stomach. A large gang of

youths occupied the head, toppling each other off the cheeks

and sliding down the smooth planes of the jaw. Two or three

straddled the nose, and another crawled into one of the nostrils,

from which he emitted barking noises like a demented dog.

That afternoon the police returned and cleared a way

through the crowd for a party of scientific expertsauthorities

on gross anatomy and marine biologyfrom the university.

The gang of youths and most of the people on the giant

climbed down, leaving behind a few hardy spirits perched on

the tips of the toes and on the forehead. The experts strode

around the giant, heads nodding in vigorous consultation, pre-

ceded by the policemen who pushed back the press of specta-

tors. When they reached the outstretched hand the senior

officer offered to assist them up onto the palm, but the experts

hastily demurred.

After they returned to the shore, the crowd once more

climbed onto the giant, and was in full possession when we left

at five o'clock, covering the arms and legs like a dense flock of

gulls sitting on the corpse of a large fish.

I next visited the beach three days later. My friends at the

library had returned to their work, and delegated to me the task

of keeping the giant under observation and preparing a report.

Perhaps they sensed my particular interest in the case, and it

was certainly true that I was eager to return to the beach. There

was nothing necrophilic about this, for to all intents the giant

was still alive for me, indeed more alive than many of the

people watching him. What I found so fascinating was partly

his immense scale, the huge volumes of space occupied by his

arms and legs, which seemed to confirm the identity of my own

miniature limbs, but above all, the mere categorical fact of his

existence. Whatever else in our lives might be open to doubt,

the giant, dead or alive, existed in an absolute sense, providing

a glimpse into a world of similar absolutes of which we spec-

tators on the beach were such imperfect and puny copies.

When I arrived at the beach the crowd was considerably

smaller, and some two or three hundred people sat on the

shingle, picnicking and watching the groups of visitors who

walked out across the sand. The successive tides had carried

the giant nearer the shore, swinging his head and shoulders

toward the beach, so that he seemed doubly to gain in size, his

huge body dwarfing the fishing boats beached beside his feet.

The uneven contours of the beach had pushed his spine into a

slight arch, expanding his chest and tilling back the head,

forcing him into a more expressly heroic posture. The combined

effects of sea water and the tumefaction of the tissues had given

the face a sleeker and less youthful look. Although the vast

proportions of the features made it impossible to assess the age

and character of the giant, on my previous visit his classically

modeled mouth and nose suggested that he had been a young

man of discreet and modest temper. Now, however, he

appeared to be at least in early middle age. The puffy cheeks,

thicker nose and temples, and narrowing eyes gave him a look

of well-fed maturity that even now hinted at a growing corrup-

tion to come.

The accelerated post-mortem development of the giant's

character, as if the latent elements of his personality had gained

sufficient momentum during his life to discharge themselves in a

brief final resume, continued to fascinate me. It marked the

beginning of the giant's surrender to that all-demanding system

of time in which the rest of humanity finds itself, and of which,

like the million twisted ripples of a fragmented whirlpool, our

finite lives are the concluding products. I took up my position

on the shingle directly opposite the giant's head, from where I

could see the new arrivals and the children clambering over the

legs arid arms.

Among the morning's visitors were a number of men in

leather jackets and cloth caps, who peered up critically at the

giant with a professional eye, pacing out his dimensions and

making rough calculations in the sand with spars of driftwood.

I assumed them to be from the public works department and

other municipal bodies, no doubt wondering how to dispose of

this monster.

Several rather more smartly attired individuals, circus

proprietors and the like, also appeared on the scene, and

strolled slowly around the giant, hands in pockets of their long

overcoats, saying nothing to one another. Evidently its bulk

was too great even for their matchless enterprise. After they

had gone the children continued to run up and down the arms

and legs, and the youths wrestled with each other over the

supine face, the damp sand from their feet covering the white

skin.

The following day I deliberately postponed my visit until

the late afternoon, and when I arrived there were fewer than

50 or 60 people sitting on the shingle. The giant had been

carried still closer to the shore, and was now little more than 75

yards away, his feet crushing the palisade of a rotting break-

water. The slope of the firmer sand tilted his body toward

sea, the bruised swollen face averted in an almost conscious

gesture. I sat down on a large metal winch which had been

shackled to a concrete caisson above the shingle, and looked

down at the recumbent figure.

His blanched skin had now lost its pearly translucence and

was spattered with dirty sand which replaced that washed

away by the night tide. Clumps of seaweed filled the intervals

between the fingers and a collection of litter and cuttlebones

lay in the crevices below the hips and knees. But despite this,

and the continuous thickening of his features, the giant still

retained his magnificent Homeric stature. The enormous

breadth of the shoulders, and the huge columns of the arms and

legs, still carried the figure into another dimension, and the

giant seemed a more authentic image of one of the drowned

Argonauts or heroes of the Odyssey than the conventional

portrait previously in my mind.

I stepped down onto the sand, and walked between the pools

of water toward the giant. Two small boys were sitting in the

well of the ear, and at the far end a solitary youth stood perched

high on one of the toes, surveying me as I approached. As I

had hoped when delaying my visit, no one else paid any atten-

tion to me, and the people on the shore remained huddled

beneath their coats.

The giant's supine right hand was covered with broken shells

and sand, in which a score of footprints were visible. The

rounded bulk of the hip lowered above me, cutting off all sight

of the sea. The sweetly acrid odor I had noticed before was now

more pungent, and through the opaque skin I could see the

serpentine coils of congealed blood vessels. However repellent

it seemed, this ceaseless metamorphosis, a macabre life-in-

death, alone permitted me to set foot on the corpse.

Using the jutting thumb as a stair rail, I climbed up onto the

palm and began my ascent. The skin was harder than I

expected, barely yielding to my weight. Quickly I walked up

the sloping forearm and the bulging balloon of the biceps. The

face of the drowned giant loomed to my right, the cavernous

nostrils and huge flanks of the cheeks like the cone of some

freakish volcano.

Safely rounding the shoulder, I stepped out onto the broad

promenade of the chest, across which the bony ridges of the

rib cage lay like huge rafters. The white skin was dappled by

the darkening bruises of countless footprints, in which the

patterns of individual heel marks were clearly visible. Someone

had built a small sand castle on the center of the sternum, and

I climbed onto this partly demolished structure to get a better

view of the face.

The two children had now scaled the ear and were pulling

themselves into the right orbit, whose blue globe, completely

occluded by some milk-colored fluid, gazed sightlessly past

their miniature forms. Seen obliquely from below, the face was

devoid of all grace and repose, the drawn mouth and raised

chin propped up by gigantic slings of muscles resembling the

torn prow of a colossal wreck. For the first time I became aware

of the extremity of this last physical agony of the giant, no less

painful for his unawareness of the collapsing musculature and

tissues. The absolute isolation of the ruined figure, cast like an

abandoned ship upon the empty shore, almost out of sound of

the waves, transformed his face into a mask of exhaustion and

helplessness.

As I stepped forward, my foot sank into a trough of soft

tissue, and a gust of fetid gas blew through an aperture be-

tween the ribs. Retreating from the fouled air, which hung like

a cloud over my head, I turned toward the sea to clear my

lungs. To my surprise I saw the the giant's left hand had been

amputated.

I stared with shocked bewilderment at the blackening

stump, while the solitary youth reclining on his aerial perch a

hundred feet away surveyed me with a sanguinary eye.

This was only the first of a sequence of depredations. I spent

the following two days in the library, for some reason reluctant

to visit the shore, aware that I had probably witnessed the

approaching end of a magnificent illusion. When I next crossed

the dunes and set foot on the shingle, the giant was little more

than 20 yards away, and with this close proximity to the rough

pebbles all traces had vanished of the magic which once

surrounded his distant wave-washed form. Despite his immense

size, the bruises and dirt that covered his body made him

appear merely human in scale, his vast dimensions only increas-

J. G. Ballard - Drowned Giant.pdf

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