Goliath Has A Near-Death Experience

In which we consider things from Goliath's point of view...

When the stone hit him square between the eyes, Goliath saw a universe of stars. They rushed at him, swallowing him up in a pure, surrounding light. He stood there, comforted and dumbfounded for just long enough that when the world faded back into view, he could watch with detachment as his body swayed and then toppled away in front of him.

Odd, though, that he couldn’t hear anything. Not the crash when the tower of Goliath-shaped muscle and armor landed face-first in the dirt. Not the jeers from the soldiers. Not even the sounds of the naked little Israelite boy, hopping triumphantly from foot to foot and yammering like a deranged maniac. He discovered he didn’t mind so much. In fact, he felt rather nice—wonderfully naked, like a freshly peeled grape.

People always want things from you when you’re nine feet tall. Mostly, they want to know how tall you are. “How tall are you?” they would ask. “Tall enough to do this,” he would reply, bringing his fist down like a mallet towards the tops of their heads. He smiled when they managed to duck in time. He shrugged when they didn’t.

“How’s the weather up there?” people would shout. Or, “Watch out for that flock of birds!” These were the ones who hadn’t heard about the mallet trick yet. He was forever retrieving items from the very top shelf, or being told about some second cousin who was even taller than he was. “I see,” he would say politely. But he didn’t. No one was taller than Goliath.

He had always secretly believed he wasn’t really a giant; it was the world that was the wrong size. This wasn’t simply because doorframes were a labyrinth and bathtubs an implement of torture, or even because dogs would bark for miles around whenever he went for a stroll, and children would lay out pennies for him to flatten. A person could get used to that. It was the smallness of everyday situations. He would bring up the latest news from Ashkelon or a new textile pattern he had observed earlier that day. People would stare at him, uncomprehending. “Gawd, you’re just so big,” they would say. “Thank you,” he would mumble. “I hadn’t noticed.”

When he was thirteen and already shaving twice a day, the captains of various ball-and-hoop games came to recruit him for their inter-village competitions. He declined them all, knowing instinctively what’s really being said when the plowman talks to the ox about teamwork. When he was fifteen, the captains had come from the army. He was inclined to say no like before, but the hundred and fifty additional men with spears made it difficult. Little people always wanted to fight, thought Goliath.

The army wasn’t all bad. Apart from everyone calling him “Tiny” and making bedroom humor about the size of his feet, they left him well enough alone. Over the years, a routine developed. The troops would assemble on the field of battle, grinning like bank robbers at a hold up, then send for Goliath. He would bluster and yell, and whoever it was would surrender before he could get to the second stanza of his prepared remarks—which was almost a shame, since he had racked his brain to come up with all that imagery about buzzards and entrails and disembodied limbs redeployed as weaponry. Goliath had decided to take a rather philosophical view of things. The real point of war, it seemed to him, was to make the other fellow stop fighting. He figured a little theatrics on his part would spare them having to kill each other to get there.

So Goliath was just as surprised as anyone when that stone had leapt up and struck him between the eyes. Perhaps he should have seen it coming, when forty days of bluster hadn’t worked. No sense in worrying about it now, anyway.

There was a creeping sensation, and he could feel himself being pulled down towards his body, like water swirling down a drain. He looked around, idly wondering if he had other options. Above his head, he could see a circle of light. It looked like a hole in a ceiling that had lost its ceiling. It was shimmering and twisting and folding over itself beautifully. For most people, it would have been far out of reach. But Goliath was not most people. He grabbed the rim of the sky with both hands and pulled.

Almost there, then yanked back. He was tethered—caught on a thread, tied down with a string. He looked below. The little Israelite boy was much closer to his body now; now he was kneeling down to see if it was breathing. “The sword,” Goliath heard himself say to the boy, and watched his lips move. “Use the sword.” Then he looked up once more, towards the bright hole in the sky. All at once, he felt the thread snap free. Goliath smiled, and pulled himself up into the light.

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