The Pygmy Giant

by Rob Walton

On that road, the winding one, the A689, or some other configuration of letter and numbers which isn’t all that important, at night, a Saturday night no less, the Saturday night of a Bank Holiday weekend in fact, we were driving, Russ and I, I being the driver, though not the named driver, known only as I, driving on the A689, I knew all along, but it’s still not important, up near a place named Edmunbyers, a place and not a person, or possibly Rookhope, certainly not far from old lead mining country, we were driving home from a talk about spar boxes, you don’t need to know any more than that, a talk at the North of England Lead Mining Museum, and I’m not sure if it’s in direct competition with the East of England Lead Mining Museum, or the Midlands Lead Mining Museum, but I do know it’s the highest museum in England, though thinking about it that’s not actually factually verified, but it’s a hell of a hunch, and I only mention it because later friends would claim I dreamed the next bit, or if not actually dreamed, was affected by some sort of altitude-induced hallucinations, but I know what I saw because I saw it with my own eyes, and Russ saw it with his own eyes though, to tell something like the truth, his have changed over the years and he recently had that metal splinter in his eye when he was grinding the metal love heart for his heart’s love on that day in February, so maybe we should ignore his testimony, but we really need to get back to that high village, and that high road, which you now all know was and is the A689, and I say is because I realise I may have whetted your appetite and you may wish to visit yourselves, and if you do you may see what I saw, which was, and thank you for waiting, a sheep on the left hand side of my lane which I needed to avoid by going right, but there right in the middle of the road, that is the right side of my lane, were two white lambs with black faces, and I wasn’t in the mood for driving over sheep and lambs so I very carefully passed between them and no harm was done and I was mightily relieved that I could continue the drive in the dark, but the dark with that big bright moon, which I later found out was a special moon which only happens on Saturday nights on the A689 and seems to be about a third bigger and so much brighter than usual, I saw that moon to my right as I drove back to Russ’s place in the city and I thought, or it crossed my mind, if that is or isn’t the same thing, I thought perhaps this lamb funnel or sheep funnel or ovine funnel is to replace sleeping policemen, which thought or illusion was shattered because as I neared the next bend PC Forbes woke from his slumbers and pulled me over, gave me a caution under oath and said he would have to revoke my licence because of my passenger’s disability or prospective disability (blinded or prospectively blinded with love) under an amendment to Section 93. 1 (a) of the 1988 Road Traffic Act.

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Rob Walton‘s short stories and flash fictions have been published in various places, and you can tweet him @anicelad or contact him on facebook.