MONDAY: The Local Titan

BY BENJAMIN LARNED

Copyright is held by the author.

I USED to be proud of our little town. From spring to Christmas we’d get all kinds of visitors, here to eat and shop, explore the mountain range, maybe see some wildlife up close. Now and then an elk ran someone through, but they were usually asking for it.

Without the crowds our town would have shriveled up long ago. My parents are both gone, and my brothers all moved to bigger cities, but I still call this place home. I do what my father did, landscaping for hotels and storefronts. Despite the inevitable comments — “funny job for a lady, ain’t it?” — I do it very well.

 It’s the wilderness that really keeps me here. Our town is surrounded by it, all but untouched for hundreds of miles. The land has its own consciousness, older and stranger than ours. I used to wander alone and try to sense it. Sometimes it felt like living in the presence of a god.

But most people came here for the Mountain Man.

There’s a ridge to the North that cuts a funny sort of figure. From the right perspective it looks like a person, fifty feet long and lying on its back. You can make out a bulging nose and lengthy beard, then slopes of arms, a torso and legs.

For whatever reason, the tourists loved the resemblance. They took pictures against the horizon, poking its belly and tickling its toes. Mr. and Mrs. Glory, who owned Glorious Books, sold pamphlets full of wild myths and speculation. The souvenir shops hawked T-shirts boasting “I Saw the Mountain Man.” Local artists made renditions in a hundred styles and priced them a hundred times more. The ladies from Quartz of the Heart sold common stones as “sacred gems, blessed by the Mountain Spirit herself.”

I never understood the Mountain Man’s appeal. The whole thing seemed cheap to me, disrespectful to the region’s honest beauty. But naysayers are bad for business, so I never shared this opinion.

I kept my mouth shut, too, when the rumors started. Wherever I went, the bar or the general store, there was talk of disturbances. Herds of elk were seen fleeing the nearby forests. Fish vanished from the rivers and lakes. One rancher’s cows gave birth early, and the calves came out all wrong. I didn’t pay these stories any mind. It was slow season, and we all needed something to pass the time.

On the first of February I woke to the ground shaking. The whole town felt it — an earthquake, the first recorded in our area. A few old-timers said it was an omen of doom. The rest of us didn’t think twice. It gave us a story to tell the tourists.

Two days later, the Mountain Man stood up.

Mr. Blackwood saw it first. A successful author, he lived just outside town, in a big cabin that my father landscaped years ago. That morning he stepped onto his balcony and saw the Man, torn from its roots, upright and facing him.

I heard the story at the hardware store, picking up winter mulch. It made me angry at first. I’d never liked Blackwood — his books were silly, and he looked down at us townies. But I walked outside and saw the proof for myself, a dark grey pillar against the white peaks.

Town council held an emergency meeting that afternoon. Some people were frightened,but most of us assumed it was a prank, an elaborate art installation. We agreed to stay calm and wait for news.

The next morning the Man was still there, slightly larger on the horizon. It had moved toward us in the night.

This realization threw our town into chaos. The council meetings devolved into jeers and threats. The Quartz ladies offered prayer sessions that fared no better. Old-timers prophesied the end of days; young folks used it as an excuse to party. One council member, a well-to-do retiree, stampeded down Main Street firing his gun at random. Luckily his aim was awful.

During this time I stayed inside and called a few vendors in nearby towns. None of them could see the Mountain Man. By some bluff of perspective, only we had a view of it.

After a week the frenzy slowed down. The Man loomed on the horizon, every morning a little closer, but still relatively distant. We all agreed that we had more urgent concerns. Tourist season was on its way, and there was money to be made.

In April business surged. The rumours brought visitors in droves, rabid for a glance at our anomaly. We collected double, triple our usual rates. Mr. and Mrs. Glory had lines down the block. Artists outsourced reproductions to meet demand. Hotels charged small fortunes for rooms with a view.

Some people stayed for weeks, tracking the Man’s approach through telescopes. A few jokers said they could see its genitals, long roots shedding dirt in the wind. One woman claimed to have seen its face. But no matter how much we asked, she wouldn’t tell us what it looked like.

My view on the Mountain Man had changed by then. I no longer saw it as a gimmick. It was a real mystery now, wondrous, undeniable. I took to watching it through my window, trying to catch when it moved at night. The watching felt sacred to me, like prayer.

Near the end of May a tourist ran screaming down Main Street. He told the police that he’d driven to the Man’s foot, at his wife’s insistence. They were chipping off a piece of its toe when a thunderous crack filled the air and knocked them to the ground. When the tourist got up, his wife was gone — and the Man, he swore, had ever so slightly opened its mouth.

I didn’t believe the story, and neither did most of the locals. But our visitors did. That afternoon they all tried to flee at once. The two-lane highway jammed at both ends. Crowds rioted on Main Street, wounding dozens.

Though the police regained control by evening, the damage was already done. By morning all our visitors had left, even the long-term devotees. Something unnatural was coming to our town, and they didn’t want to be here when it arrived.

No one has come to visit us since. In June and July the stores lay empty, the hotels deserted. The tourism board suggested drastic measures — calling the National Guard, driving to the Man’s feet with bombs and guns. One council member insisted on evacuation. But we didn’t listen. The profits from spring would keep us afloat until winter. This was our home, and we had no intention of leaving.

In the meantime we stayed quiet and watched. Some days I went out and tended the gardens, free of charge; I hated to see them neglected. On other days I was too afraid. I didn’t want to offend the Mountain Man.

The Quartz ladies said they knew this would happen. That we were never meant to live in such a holy, unspoiled region. But some of us were born here. We have nowhere else to go.

Today the Mountain Man blocked the sun. Its shadow covers Main Street, and most have laid themselves beneath it. I am staying inside. Now and then I peer out at the Man. The sight no longer fills me with reverence. Looking at its face, I feel nothing at all.

***

Benjamin Larned (he/they) is a creator of dark queer fables. Their fiction is featured in Vastarien, hex literary, and Seize the Press, among others. “What Scares a Ghost?”, their story in Coffin Bell, was nominated for the Best Small Fictions 2023. Their short film “Payment” is streaming on ALTER. To learn more, visit curiousafflictions.com.