Chapter 1: Oddities and More Oddities

Skye Millar’s vision wasn’t what it used to be. He had started seeing spots, had blurred vision as objects swam before his eyes, then danced, then stood still again. It had happened first in the kitchen, when the bananas he had set out the night before were hitting an orange back and forth, and the orange was doing the backstroke. How strange. He even thought he was beginning to see little people out of the corners of his eyes, but when he’d look, they’d be gone. They were tricky buggers, always too fast for him to catch them, light and fluffy like little clouds.

Other strange things had started happening as well. Dogs had begun disappearing in his neighborhood, squirrels sat up when he walked by, chattering and making motions with their arms that reminded him of his former Professor Blakeley. Were those glasses he saw one of them wearing?

And when the giant fell from the sky and through the roof of his apartment on Tuesday night, no one else noticed. They should have, there were four other people in the room with him, but no one else did. Kevin Jamstrong kept talking about guitars and drumbeats, and E.L. Mathonik arrived late as usual, and casually stepped around the giant without saying a word. He was a big giant. He practically filled the whole room. Robert Kindgood and Ben Complex were quietly talking in a corner about taxes, oblivious to the loud thud the giant had made when he had crashed into the living room. So Skye Millar stood up, just so he could see over the giant’s tremendous belly to the other side of the living room where Jamstrong and Complex were sitting. The room got quiet.

“Do you have an announcement?” Jamstrong asked. But before Skye could respond Robert Kindgood spoke up, “I think we should keep meeting,” he said. “I like the music here and the TV, and it’s warmer inside than outside, though I’m having second thoughts.” About what, he never said. Still, no one had mentioned the giant.

“I think it’s okay,” Complex agreed. “We’re all busy, but okay. Let’s continue to meet.” Skye Millar worked his jaw muscles, like two rickety hinges, but nothing came out, so he sat back down.

“You’ll never get a word in edgewise that way,” said a soft, deep voice at his elbow. The voice was so close and so foreign that it made Skye jump. He looked to his left and his right, and over at the giant who seemed to be clearly dead, but there was no one. Captain Herman, the cat, lay stretched lazily across the arm of the couch, extending his white paws and releasing a tremendous yawn. Skye looked again at Herman. The cat was smiling.

“Were you talking to me?” Skye asked.
“Naturally,” Herman said.
“I didn’t say anything,” Mathonik said.
“Nor I,” said Complex.
“Sure didn’t,” said Jamstrong.
“It’s okay,” Skye apologized, “I was just talking to myself.”
“Oddities and more oddities,” demurred Herman.
“Hush,” Skye Millar hissed, but the cat simply licked his paw as if he hadn’t heard and began rubbing it behind his ears.