Rick's Free Write
Pierre was sweating bullets. It was 32 degrees centigrade, and he was ‘wearing’ about 50 pounds of fabric and wood, pretending to be a Catalan man ‘geant’ as part of the end-of-summer festival. He and Jacques, Emeline, and the Anglo woman, Raquel, who portrayed the queen, were spinning in half-circles in the square in front of the music school. Jacques was a sort of soldier with a metal helmet and axe weapon. Emeline, Pierre’s wife, was a rather plain peasant woman.
Finally the music stopped and they were able to set the wood scaffolding of the costume on the ground, and wiggle out of the framework for some fresh air.
“Whew!” Pierre exclaimed, wondering how he had ever let Emeline talk him into volunteering for this gig. He liked the anonymity of being wrapped in the ground-length fabric with only a mesh window to peek out to see where he was going. Or to watch the young women in their near-nakedness of summer. But he should have tried on the costume before foolishly agreeing.
There were only a handful of tourists on the square to ‘admire’ them. One old gray-beard, probably a Brit, was taking photos or video. Pierre thought about photobombing him with a middle finger but Emeline was watching, reading his mind, so he refrained.
The warrior geant signaled it was time to ‘mount up’ again, so Pierre reluctantly crawled back into the wood frame and hoisted it on his shoulders. Maybe when they got home the costume would ‘accidentally’ catch fire.
Julia's Free Write
It was a warm summer’s night, and everyone was gathered on the main square to watch an ongoing saga, whose origins are lost on me.
She was with friends, visiting in fact a village that she had never heard of, never mind known. They spent half a year here and half a year there, loving both places and not needing to decide: a perfect combination.
They, of course knew the origins and could entertain us with tales of long-gone figures.
In the growing dark, the figures took on mystical proportions, Alice in Wonderland would have found them fascinating.
Then came the night when two were to be found on a square in the Old Town, dancing, as tall as they were.
Little did anyone know that under the costumes were midgets and that they had just carried out a heist at the local post office. That wouldn’t become common knowledge until many years later – just adding to the mystery.
D-L's Free Write
Today! Twenty-five year old Rob was a Geant at last in the village Fête des Geants.
He had been four or five, the first time he'd seen them and they terrified him.
His mom comforted him saying, "It's only geants that say 'fe, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman that are dangerous." Rob wasn't English.
Uncle Bob was a geant. He took Rob to see the geants in storage. Rob was fascinated and wooden structure inside the costumes of the king, queen, baker, peasants and baker. Uncle Bob was the baker.
After the army, after uni, Rob moved back home and joined the Sociétè des Geants. After his accident, he could no longer be the baker. Rob took his place.
Amy would be there at La Place de la Republique where the geants would be marching and dancing. She thought them stupid from another time that should stay in the past.
The geants entered La Place. Through the eye hole in the fabric of his costume, he could see Amy at a table talking to a man. He took her hand and she did not pull away.
Instead of her sharing his joy at a life-long dream fulfilled, she proved to him she was not the one.
He turned and did a little dance to the music provided by the accordian marching with the geants.
Today, he learned something, and it was okay.
Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends. Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/
Rick is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com
D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at: https://dlnelsonwriter.com
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