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[theme music playing]
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[man on radio] ...is closed permanently.
We've known that for some time now.
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[seagulls squawking]
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[man narrating] There had been
a big storm the night before.
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And so, it was late morning
before the town heard the first news
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of the arrival after it had been spotted
by local fishermen.
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[indistinct chatter]
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Being scientists, my colleagues and I,
of course, discounted the first reports
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as exaggerations or a trick of the light.
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But as ever more eyewitnesses
returned from the beach,
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we finally decided to investigate
for ourselves.
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Come on, then, Steven.
No time to waste gawking.
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Right behind you.
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[indistinct chatter]
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[man] He must displace at least 60 tons.
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[woman] I'd say closer to 80.
The bones alone must weigh 30 tons.
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[Steven]
The vast proportions of his features
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made it impossible to assess
the age of the giant,
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but his classically modeled mouth and nose
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suggest he had been a young man
of discreet and modest temper.
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[waves crashing]
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It was a noble face,
possessed of an ornate charm
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that belied
the brutish power of the giant's physique.
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His magnificent Homeric stature
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offered a more authentic example
of a drownedArgonaut
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or a hero from The Odyssey
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than the conventional human-sized
portraitspreviously in my mind.
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What I found so fascinating
was partly his immense scale, of course,
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but above all, it was simply
the categorical fact of his existence.
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Whatever else in our lives
might be open to doubt,
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this giant existed in an absolute sense...
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providing us a glimpse
into a world of similar absolutes
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in which we spectators on the beach
were such imperfect and puny copies.
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Say, look over there.
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[cheering]
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Who is that? Come on.
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[woman 1] Oh, it's rubbery.
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- [woman 2] How is it up there?
- [laughing]
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[woman 2] Is it funny?
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Teddy, you bastard, I nearly fell.
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You looked so scared.
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From a distance,
it looked as if he was merely asleep
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and could, at any moment,
clap his heels together
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and crush the miniscule replicas
of himself that swarmed around him.
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But as time passed,
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the magical spell
cast by the giant began to dissipate.
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We'd best get back to town.
It'll be dark soon.
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Yeah. I suppose you're right.
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[crowd cheering]
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Three days passed
before my next visit to the beach.
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Sensing a particular interest
in the giant,
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my associates at the institute
delegated the task
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of keeping
the giant under observation to me.
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There was nothing morbid
about this because, for all intents,
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the giant was still alive for me.
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Indeed, more alive
than many of the people around me.
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[barks]
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[laughing]
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[screams]
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[worker 1]
No, it's not. This bastard's big.
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If the butchers start here,
we can soon get access to the thigh bone.
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And we can work our way up to the hip.
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[worker 2] Going to be some overtime,
getting this done.
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[Steven] The following day,
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I deliberately postponed my visit
until late afternoon,
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hoping that I'd find
fewer people on the beach.
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Prolonged immersion in seawater
and the tumefaction of his tissues
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had given the face a less youthful look.
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His features now had
an appearance of well-fed maturity,
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hinting at the growing corruption to come.
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[seagulls squawking]
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This was the beginning of his surrender
to that all-demanding system of time,
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in which
the rest of humanity found itself.
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However repellent it may seem,
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this ceaseless metamorphosis,
this visible life-in-death,
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is what gave me the courage
to finally set foot on his corpse.
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[dramatic music playing]
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This new perspective made me more aware
of the last physical agonies of the giant.
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No less painful
for his unawareness of them.
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In the end, his face had been transformed
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into a mask of exhaustion
and helplessness.
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Caught in that same twisting whirlpool
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for which
all our finite lives are destined.
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And his suffering was made
all the more tragic by the isolation
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in which he endured it.
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Cast like an abandoned ship
upon the empty shore.
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The amputation was but the first
of a series of depredations.
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Two days had passed,
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while I struggled to overcome
my reluctance
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to witness the end
of this magnificent illusion.
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Despite his immense size,
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these insults to the giant's body
made him appear more human to me.
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More vulnerable.
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But that weakness has released
a sudden flood of repressed spite,
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encouraging the mutilation of the colossus
by the tiny creatures around it.
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When I visited the beach
the following day,
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I found, almost with relief,
that the head had been removed.
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Some weeks had lapsed
before my next journey to the beach.
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And by then, any human likeness
held by the giant had vanished.
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Evening, mate.
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And with the loss of those
few remaining traces of personality
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that had clung tenuously to the figure,
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the interest of the spectators had,
at last, expired.
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Months later, after the giant's arrival
had been generally forgotten,
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various pieces of the body
began to reappear around town.
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Most of those remains were bones.
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These mighty yet disembodied fragments
seem to better convey the essence
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of the giant's magnificence
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than my last memories
of his bloated appendages.
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[engine revs]
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[dramatic music playing]
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I have no doubt
that if I search the town's pubs,
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hotels, and eateries, I'd also find
the mummified nose or ears of the giant
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hanging on walls and fireplaces.
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[male attendant] Tickets, get them here!
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Oi! Get out of here.
You wanna look, you pay for it.
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As for the immense pizzle,
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this ends its days
in the freak museum of a small circus,
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which travels up and down
the northwest coast.
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That monumental apparatus,
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stunning in its proportions
and once potency,
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occupies a complete tent to itself,
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though, sadly,
it is mislabeled as belonging to a whale.
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Even those who came and saw the giant
after the storm now remember him,
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if at all, as merely a large sea beast.
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But the giant is still alive for me.
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I often dream of his resurrection.
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A colossus
striding through the streets of town,
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picking up the fragments of himself
on his return journey to the sea.
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[dramatic music playing]