G/T Stories

🖌️

It was his another art lesson in the forest and Cormac knew it was a great idea to join the local art club. Forest was such inspirational place, it always helped him to wake his afflatus up. And the presence of other amateur artists boosted up his confidence - no one was being criticized here, as every single person had their own style.

Currently, they were painting herd consisting of four fawns, which didn't seem to be bothered by artists' presence.

Cormac felt like he was in a Disney movie. Animals were calm and he could've sworn that they did enjoy that artists were painting them.

The instructor was talking about basics: that they should start with the background, then paint fawns.

Suddenly, he felt that familiar, yet unnerving feeling of being watched.

Cormac wasn't the only one. When he talked with other artists about it, they admitted that whenever they had lessons in that forest, they felt like somebody was watching them too.

But since nothing had attacked them yet, they simply chose to ignore that feeling and enjoyed each lesson they had there.

***

Cooper looked at the piece of bark he was holding. It slowly started to look like those "paintings" humans were creating, it made him delighted.

He liked to watch humans, for him they were the most fascinating creatures in this world. He tried so many times to get to know them, but each attempt finished either with them running away or attacking him with whatever they could find.

Cooper didn't understand humans' behavior. Sure, he was several times larger than them and didn't know how to talk, but in other aspects he was just like them.

Having learned his lesson, he stopped approaching humans directly and simply began to just observe them. He watched over people who came to forest to camp, he followed trekking trips, he watched with amusement how people betted who will pick the largest amount of mushrooms.

But recently Cooper got interest in these particular humans. They kept coming to the forest every Friday and they were capturing the view in front of them on large piece of paper. Giant heard that it was called "painting".

He found it amazing, how different humans' paintings were, though they shown the same place. Nevertheless, each was unique and beautiful and giant wanted to create some of these paintings too.

So far, he created one. He followed humans to the small pond last week and listening to the human, who was leading others, he painted the pond.

He was so proud of his first painting! As soon as he got back to his home - old, abandoned and spacious magazine near decommissioned sawmill, he attached it to the wall with the help of resin. In his opinion, it glowed up his home and he desired to have more of these paintings.

This was his second one. Of course, he didn't have paint nor brush, but he managed to find some replacement.

He created red color from smashed redcurrant, green from ground grass, blue from ground blueberries, yellow from mixture of pollen and water, white from mixing water and limestone, brown from mud. Rectangular piece of light-colored bark was his paper and he was painting with his finger - he simply sank it in the paint and then smeared it on the bark.

He looked at his painting and then peeked at humans' paintings. His art was similar to theirs, which meant he was doing it good. He was so proud of himself.

***

- Teacher, can we have a break now? I need to... you know - man named Marcel asked.

- Okay. Everyone, we're having a five minute break! - instructor said.

Each person left their painting and went in different directions, cautious not to startle fawns.

Marcel walked into dense foliage, so that he could pee away from everyone, in peace.

Just as he was taking off his trousers, he heard a rustle coming from his right. He headed towards that direction, to ask whoever was there to give him some privacy.

He froze, seeing humongous person sitting cross-legged on the ground, holding a piece of bark, with several pots surrounding them.

Giant spotted Marcel and was just staring at him. Needless to say, man got scared and screamed loudly in terror.

Others heard Marcel's screaming and having abandoned whatever they were doing, they rushed to his rescue.

***

Cooper got bemused, when that human appeared out of nowhere and started to scream. He shown little guy that he should be quiet, doing the "shh" gesture. It didn't help, human was still screaming.

His noisiness drew other humans' attention and they also came. They were staring at giant in awe, some of them took out some black rectangles and let out lights.

It startled Cooper. That weird tools humans had, they were making strange, scary noises and their lights were blinding him.

He got to his feet, spilling his handmade paint and ran away to his safe refuge.

***

- We need to show this to police or army!

- Marcel is right! That monster should be taken down! What if he's going to hurt someone?!

- I think we should find another place for our lessons...

Cormac didn't listen to their conversation. He saw the horror on giant's face, when they were taking pictures of him. Besides, if the giant was evil, wouldn't he have hurt them the second he saw them?

According to the "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood" said by Maria Skłodowska-Curie, he walked up to the overturned pots and examined them. But it didn't lead him to anything, as whatever was in there, got spilled.

So he headed towards the bark and his jaw dropped, when he saw a painting of the fawns. He quickly put two and two together and understood.

Giant was responsible for that feeling of being watched they were experiencing for the few last lessons. It seemed that he also took part in them, the painting on the bark was a proof.

- Guys! Come here! - he called others.

Amateur artists appeared by his side.

- What is it? - instructor asked.

- Look! That giant didn't mean any harm, he just wanted to paint with us - Cormac said, pointing at the bark.

They were taken aback by this discovery, but everything indicated that man was right.

- But what should we do now? - someone asked.

- I still think that we should warn relevant authorities about that. We don't really know what are giant's true intentions - someone else replied.

- Wait! Let's abstain from it for a while, until we don't find out what that giant is and what does he want to do with us - Cormac suggested.

- No way Cormac! It's better to be safe than sorry, I'm cancelling the lessons in this forest until someone catches that monster! - teacher said and finished the lesson, since he had to go to police station to warn them.

But Cormac didn't want to give up. He decided to try and find the giant before police take action, to learn the truth about giant's motivation.