Giants at the Edge

I wrote this vignette after taking the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway up into the San Jacinto Mountains. A stranger asked me to take his photo. The view did the rest.

A bright-eyed teenager was leaning toward an open window. The kid jolted forward when we rounded a bend, then looked back at me with sweaty cheeks and a grin.

“That’s the last big bump on this tram ride, folks!” came a tinny voice on the speaker.

Some celebratory tune began as we rose above 5,000 feet.

I’d packed sunscreen, a map, a charger with no adapter, a bag of “trail” nuts and a garage-sale hat emblazoned with the phrase “Bellow Like a Buffalo.”

At 6,000 feet, a condor drifted beneath the tram, gliding toward the needled green swell beyond.

Once the ride was over, I woke up my legs and followed a spindly man in a bucket hat out of the station and toward the trees.

A fat squirrel watched me fill out my waiver at the ranger’s box, then fled. I posted it, crossed the bridge, and stepped onto the trail. My plan wasn’t to be here long. I’d come for a breezy walk, not a real hike. That’s all.

The trail took me by a fallen tree. A sickly scent of vanilla and decay hung there. I leaned back against it and exhaled, grateful for a second’s peace. Then I turned my head.

The other side was open air. I was immediately lucid.

Below, a stream had cut the mountain away. The ground dropped out. Pines shrank to twigs beneath me. What had felt like a place to rest became the last thing between me and a swift departure.

This new perspective fried my brain.

For a moment, the desert valley below looked like a giant playpen. The windmills were light-up toys. I pictured drowsy eyes on a round face being carried off to a cot. Of course, there were no toddlers here.

“Do you want a picture?” said a voice.

“What?” I asked, breaking my tenuous train of thought and turning to the source.

“A picture. I can take it on your phone?” It was the spindly man from earlier, not Paul Bunyan. He pointed at the phone in my hand.

“No, that’s okay,” I said, and he looked deflated enough that I changed my mind.

“All right. Get a good angle if you can,” I said.

“Was that a tall joke?” He frowned and rolled his eyes.

I stood in a heroic pose. Elbows out, sucked my gut in.

“Took a few,” he said as he passed it back.

Then I understood the bargain. I’d made Jack’s mistake with the giant.

“Would you mind?” he said, holding out his phone.

I blinked up at him.

“No problem,” I replied. He walked over to a tree and put his hand on the cracked bark.

My finger hovered over the button, then began to tremble.

“Just say when.”

There wasn’t a peep.

“Are you ready?” I asked again.

When I looked up, tears were running down his cheeks.

“You okay?” I said.

He ruthlessly wiped them away.

“Yes. Go ahead. Take the photo.”

My eyes darted left to a small muddy footprint on the ground, then back at the figure in front of me.

I tapped the screen a few times.

“You can always delete the ones you don’t like,” I said.

When I was done, I closed the camera app. I noticed that the wallpaper was a picture of a young girl with short chestnut curls. I pushed the power button, put it to sleep, and said nothing.

The spindly man took back his phone.

“Sometimes you just have to get away for a while.”

He glanced at his phone, and I saw lines like ridges in his face, then I looked away.

“This place is good for that,” I agreed.

I fumbled a handshake and told him to take care.

I wasn’t keen to go any further that day, so I lingered on that threshold and thought for a while.

When I was ready, just before nightfall, I caught the last tram back down to the valley below. I hadn’t seen any real giants, only their absence. But my pack was heavy enough, and I’d carried enough weight for one day.