He's breathing. At least, his enormous chest is slowly moving up and down. Rain is pouring across his gigantic body and pooling beneath him. I don't have long.
It was in his right hand. I carefully make my way around his enormous fallen head. His eyes are closed but his eyelids are flickering. I don't have long. His breath rattles through his beard and steam twirls from his mouth.
Thunder still rumbles above.
His right hand is a fist, thumped into the mud where he landed. I move around it. It's like a cage of fingers, locked by a huge, hairy thumb. But there, white and tiny between those massive fingers is the corner of something I recognise.
---
The sunlight flickers through the French windows. She looks up from a canvas and smiles. An old-fashioned telephone rings. She carefully sets down her paint brush and moves to the writing desk. She picks up the receiver and holds it to her ear.
---
The giant's fingers are slippery with rainwater. I pull at the corner of the photograph but it's still wedged tightly in his fist. I'm conscious that I could easily rip the corner if I pull too hard. Meanwhile, the rain continues to tumble through the leaves and trickle across his enormous knuckles. I am soaked. And Hopelessness is stirring.
---
The telephone clicks neatly as she replaces the shiny black receiver. She knows what she has to do next, but how? She raps her fingers on the writing desk. How will she make it happen? She pulls back the wooden chair and picks up a quill. There may be a way. There must be a way to help him, otherwise... She looks up to the window. Something is catching the light.
---
Thunder. Breathing. Hopelessness moves. His body shudders noisily and his eyes flick open. I freeze. The fingers move. I grab the photograph again. It slips between his fingers, easily this time! But he is awake. His head moves. His knee rises into the air and his boots scrape the earth. Quickly I slip the photograph into my bag. He flattens his palms into the soil with a squelch and for the first time since being struck by lightning, the giant sits up and looks around him.
I'm already into the trees.
---
It's a phonograph, a gramophone if you will! It has been in the corner of the room for a long time, but she hasn't ever really paid it any attention. Now she does. She knows what it means when a thing catches the light.
A curling golden tube spirals from the wooden box, expanding into an open-mouthed trumpet. On top of the ornate box, a circular turntable gathers dust beneath a single bronze-coloured arm and needle.
She looks at it thoughtfully.
---
Hopelessness roars with anger. I watch from the tree. Rain patters from the leaves. He shouts into the sky. My heart pulses and I breathe long and heavy with relief. The giant stomps noisily into the forest in the opposite direction.
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