Balloons as a base

This story is as true as I can make it. It’s probably not true that David fought Goliath. It’s probable that something like it happened to someone. All I know is that is how it’s fondly recalled from the way back. Ten thousand stories collapsing into one every time it happens again and as sure as stories get told, they get told again like something mythic from the past that is the exact story we are living.

We put names to them just so we can remember the name of the story which can have no other title than the story of David and Goliath and those two words do such a good job, with just a few letters, to show that David was well-rounded but unproven and Goliath was large but broken somehow.

Most extremely tall men are short lived. It’s one of nature’s ironies that sometimes small is better. A nine foot man is just a bad idea physiologically. In a class of his own at certain endeavors: keeping things from smaller men and throwing things real far. That’s simple physics. It’s not that being tall lacks advantage. But reproduction is a problem unless they find a woman similarly equipped. Even then it is unclear how it can be arranged to make taller men. It’s even taller men who raise the bar high enough to make everyone a little larger as well. It is a narrative of evolution.

A thing comes into being by telling its story over and over again into the ear of a lover and giving birth to that reflection of itself. I am less certain everyday that the story is true and so it collapses into the folds of just my own retelling, reaffirmed whether its true or not.

I think Goliath couldn’t find a woman. He was a warrior of that most sincere variety, a master of the sport of bashing skulls who could only greet the day with greater fire. What is wrong with the giant’s body is that it is fragile. Until the day when we are all tall enough, we will repeat our claim: we will fight the giant and defeat him, because the real key is to be whole, like a fruit unblemished.

It is best to stay pure of intention, because that fast ride to new ambition only burns us down the quicker. It is best to be normal height and live long. It is best to be noble in your pursuits. It is best to do needful things. It is best to take nothing in return. It is best to leave the labor unannounced unless success bring ruinous pride. All imbalance is corrected. Normal is the true goal. To be as perfectly neutral as you can.

As freakish men arise now and again, as well some men have freakish personalities. Such monstrosities bring peace and plenty or atrocities and universal hunger. Great men have the power to make us horribly miserable. Goliath made those troops miserable with his rage. The cruelty of his play, the vast swaths of ruin left in his wake. He was an evil Paul Bunyon. He was a very bad man and he knew it and he liked it. He sought destruction for every lesser form. He was no novice.

He had a great appetite. He must have eaten the meat of six men and so had to earn the respect worthy of six heroes. This was easily done, but only deepened his hunger. A seemingly endless train of eating and then bold, brave, bestial acts and then sleep among the dead and then more eating. Eventually there is just one battle a day, one challenge issued. Other demands dreamt up on the spot to suit his needs. And afterwards, only greater hunger.

Addicted to the flare of rage burning the life from him. An addict. He must have wept beneath such rage. He must have secretly pleaded for mercy.

And the wise, whole David takes one look and knows precisely what he needs and how to deliver it. David was the answer to Goliath’s prayers. Not that he knew it. Surely he was unaware of how he was dying, how easily he might be felled. This was his best kept secret.

He wore a great helmet to protect his head. Surely his own troop knew that he was still recovering from a great wound that had nearly felled him not so long before. How his hands had quaked as he lay unconscious on the ground. How they stood about him in doubt. His rage never diminished, in fact, it launched from the hole in his skull. Some governor was severed in his brain. Something like story that keeps us doing the right thing generally. If we can only remember all the stories.

In fact, he had lost his memory. They had to tell him his own name before each battlefield pronouncement. His rage was intact. He was a very angry amnesiac. He didn’t know why he was angry, but he worshiped spite and beat everyone. He was the greatest man who had ever lived. That much he was sure of.

Send one of your men across to fight me and should I defeat him in open combat, then your city is forfeit. And Israel sends a boy? Why not a doe? Why not send a squadron of bunny rabbits to cut him down? How is it they let him risk the city?

David had gone to Saul and told him:

“Listen, I know a thing or two about medicine. I squire for my brothers and must patch wounds of all sorts. I can see Goliath has a severe head wound and has gone mad. I’ll take my sling. I have no intention of getting near him. I will knock away his helmet with a stone and then I will find the wound with another and the man will be paralyzed. While he lies on the ground, frothing and spasming, I’ll take up this sword and chop at his head till it comes from his body and we will all be happy once more.”

He had his sins before him yet.

Wise? Maybe. As yet, just precocious. What pragmatism let him do it? Why not send an abler man in with his strategy? The best soldiers were swordsmen proven at close quarters against other swordsmen. Goliath was best at bashing things at close quarters. You couldn’t send an archer. As soon as he entered the arena, he was done for. What was needed was a medium ranged weapon and the pistol was a long way off yet.

A sling was a child’s toy fit for killing rabbits. It was not a weapon for battle among men. Yet here David proved so accurate and convincing that they swallowed his story about the lion he had slain tending sheep and the bear he had killed just the night before. His whole promise rested on his shoulders and either he was God’s secret messenger or they were all fools.

Either way, they were left with an army to fight with.

Send the boy, but reserve the right to disavow him should he fail. Time was all they needed and all the heavens would be made clear. I’m tired of wondering at their endless hedging.

He went and they claimed him after it was done. That is history enough. Whether God waved his hand and felled Goliath before his favorite, it amounted to the same. The rocks flew. Bouncing from his chest which he threw out to receive them, his bulging thighs, his weighty codpiece, glancing from his helmet, enough to startle a fresh jolt of rage, tipping as he lunged and unsettling to tumble among the rock littered field. Jagged lava flow from ancient volcanoes, things that had once flowed like rivers. Angry things cutting the air among an angry field, striking an angry man loose of his wits to race like a blind bull at the flames cutting rivulets of blood like hot lava from his legs, unleashing the full rage of man like a new sun.

Goliath is whole and actual at last, burning on the field in perfect abandon. That last blow gives birth to the greatness of David, possessed now with faith in providence. Hot lava flooded the plain once more and David washed his hair in the blood of the slain giant and labored to raise the severed head like a new sun to glory and God.

Do you believe me?

Nestled within each story is the story of how it was told and upwards to now and beyond me into your life and whatever you might do with it and on into some mythic future where everything is refined down to certainty and it is just like the stories have always promised.

David will slay Goliath now and again. Each freakish advantage is conquered by another until we are just as we should be. If the story is true enough, if our interpretation is satisfactory to save us, the rest is history. The names, the faces, even they are just the dominant versions of other, older stories and it all just keeps recurring like Joseph Campbell says.

Certain story forms are too essential to tolerate much variance. We are glad the tyrant falls. We recognize our own rage in him. That so many lay slain before David’s arrival is easily forgotten. Whose arrival do we fear the most?