A Dream of the Giants (II)

In the concentration camp of giants, we wore identical coloured clothes, lined up in orderly rows, and carried out activities according to the giants’ demands. Those who disobeyed were publicly exposed, and the giants would wield long whips with steel spikes, brutally lashing their backs, buttocks, and limbs. Their intense screams and cries would erupt, while the rest of us, unpunished but breathless, silently celebrated the intactness of our skin and the absence of suffering inflicted upon ourselves.

In the concentration camp of giants, I made a serious mistake, desperately falling in love with her. Perhaps it was for her barely discernible smile, or the way she lightly bit her lip, or maybe her saying “thank you” during our brief moments of freedom. I could no longer recall, but anyway, every story has an absurd beginning. In this bleak world of red, grey, blue, and green uniforms – colours varying with different days and the giants’ moods; amidst all the plain, unadorned faces – the giants would never leave time for anyone to make up; in the midst of monotonous faces and unstyled short hair – hair was forbidden to grow long in the concentration camp; in such a world where everyone seemed identical, I fell in love with her, quietly and gently, like a tiny stone falling into a well on a quiet night, causing scarcely a ripple but sinking forever to the bottom, never able to overcome gravity and the resistance of water to resurface and see the sun again.

During nights filled with fervent thoughts, during those excess hours, I fantasied that the giants, with all their cruelty and bloodthirst, would crumble overnight, like Manchukuo did on one day after the invention of the atomic bomb. I envisioned all oppression, torment, and suffering melting away, like the iceberg that struck the Titanic, ultimately dissipating, evaporating into vapour and clouds, then raining down on a spring night when wildflowers begin to bloom. I imagined the outcome of my love for her, hoping it would carry enough weight to bear the label “eternal” – like an insect fortuitously trapped in amber, still welcoming countless unfamiliar gazes in a museum even millions of years later.

That was how I thought, but I never understood how she felt. In my dreams, I held her hand, evading the giants’ surveillance and patrols. According to the rules, everyone had to be back in their beds before nine o’clock at night, shutting their eyes. We were allowed only to lie down, not to rest on our sides; we had to clear our minds of all thoughts to prevent sleep talking and teeth grinding, and ensure our throats and nasal passages were unobstructed to prevent snoring. Yet, she and I were lovers and the night was our time to love, even if we risked being punished by the steel-spiked whips – it was a risk we were willing to take. After nine o’clock, we would sneak past all the surveillance cameras and guards, arriving at a secluded spot that no one knew. With only dim lights and a gentle breeze, I kissed her without reservation, our breaths quick and hot against each other’s flushed skin. I knew, at that moment, we were only a step away from death – if it happened to be a day of drone patrols, if they replaced the light bulbs, if the giants decided to inspect our beds… We would face nothing but cruel punishment, and its cruelty would be beyond what any spiked whip could deliver.

In my dream, during one of our passionate kisses, the surroundings suddenly brightened. Startled, we looked around, fearing it might be the last time we saw each other. However, we saw that the light came from torches held by fellow inmates dressed in coarse uniforms. They excitedly told us that the giants had vanished and would never return. She and I embraced each other tightly out of sheer excitement. On a rudimentary stage, in cheap tuxedos, we announced seriously the cliches to the world, the cliches that we held deep faith in; we would have two children, but three if one died prematurely; she would scold me for not ironing my wrinkled clothes before wearing them; and during a trip to the amusement park with her and the children, I would unseemly apologise for denting the bumper of another car while reversing in the parking lot. In a word, the giants would flee just like the tides would recede. The world would become beautiful again, and all we wanted was a tiny sip of that beauty to soothe the superfulous of time in our lives.

But that was just a dream. The reality was, she didn’t know me, and one day I would no longer find her among the dull uniforms, boring short hair and monotonous faces. At that moment, I hadn’t even spoken a single word to her. But why did it matter? My sleep talking, almost as loud as shouting, had already betrayed my lustful desires, and the giants, who were constantly monitoring us, knew it all too well. Her fate was predictable – if she appeared as the heroine in someone else’s lustful dreams, she, too, would face the giants’ brutal punishment. That was how they reasoned. They would slash her skin with a blade, cruelly mutilate her lips, ears, and beautiful eyes, excise her sacred womb, and finally, with a blazing fire, reduce her to a wisp of blue smoke, which would then be sucked into the giants’ gargantuan, dungeon-like lungs with no hopes of escaping. I would not witness this, but the giants, with a psychological weapon, would, when I least expected it, implant this scene in my memory, tormenting me in recurring nightmares for the rest of my fleeting existence. The giants didn’t execute me immediately; they wanted to witness how I would cope when unable to see her again, yet constantly dreaming of her tragic demise. They enjoyed observing my struggle and savoured my torment. This was their expertise, their duty, their entire raison d’être, just as it was ours to be their guinea pigs. When the giants deemed my performance too tedious, one day, that whip with steel spikes would eventually fall upon me, and my blood would seep from my flesh, the pain engulfing my entire being as I convulsed and writhed. My moans and cries would echo in the empty void where our tender kisses should have taken place. After a million tortures, my shattered body would be buried alive in a random pit, and after tens of millions of years, eventually turn into several litres of petroleum, serving as fuel for the giants’ sleek jets as they embarked on their honeymoon trips, well dressed and warmly smiling.

(Originally written on 27 July 2023 in Chinese; English translation based on ChatGPT results.)