A man of science, John Boynton
called it a humbug the instant he
saw it. But that night, on the road
out of Cardiff, he glimpsed the giant
bounding through the woods, its naked
stone-flesh pale and luminescent in
the autumn moonlight. Newly freed
from the farmer’s field, it had sprung
to life as if by magic, rising misshapen
and tall on two limestone feet, an
American Nephilim without sinew
or soul. Curious, Boynton tried to give
it chase, but his horse balked beneath
the blue shadows of the trees, and the giant
soon disappeared behind the brambled
crest of a knoll. In the morning, just
after sunrise, Boynton returned to Cardiff
to find the giant in a barn, an inert body
bound fast with rope, just as it had
been when the farmer first hoisted it out
of the earth. Even that early, a crowd
had formed around it, so Boynton pushed
his way ahead to get a look. The giant
was a still a humbug, but it was God’s
humbug: a cosmic joke with a solid
punchline. Boynton saw thorns between
the giant’s toes and grass stains on its
knees. But when he placed his ear against
its cool breast, he heard nothing like
the rhythmic pounding of a stony heart.
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Scott Hales is a writer for Saints and the creator of The Garden of Enid. “The Road out of Cardiff” is one of a series of poems and stories fictionalizing real lives from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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