Harrison was a big man. A really big man. He wasn’t overweight or rotund, not that kind of big. He was just…big. Almost seven feet tall, strong as an elephant, blue eyes that knew the tops of everyone’s head. And he loved it.

He worked in a grocery store stocking shelves during the day, but had been there so long that he knew every role in the store. If a cashier needed a shift covered, he was their guy. Hell, he even ran deposits to the bank from time to time for management. They had to special order his uniform as they had never needed one so large before.

And Harrison loved his job, but not because of the pay or his coworkers. There were no benefits. His boss was a bit of an ass. He got no real fulfillment from it. It was just a job. No, the reason Harrison had stuck around at this dead end job where he had to duck to get into the bathroom everyday was because of what lived behind the grocery store.

You see, the building sat on an old plot of land in an old town. And behind the old building ran an old creek which carved its way through an old wood. Old trees which had known the old men who had first plowed the old fields before the farmlands had become a town. Old birds which knew the old songs that had been passed down by their old ancestors. Old stones, older than the seas, buried, dug in, deep and alive and whispering.

The creek ran north to south, heading toward the Mississippi and onward to the coast, as all creeks tend to do, and it carried with it pebbles and silt and ancient stories. Stories of the first kind, the old peoples. Children’s stories. The people of the town all told stories, as all towns tend to do, that passed from the mountains and hills of the past down to the present. Fairy rings and ghosts in the treetops, and Harrison knew they were true.

There are certain people who look at a sunset and see the sun. See the color and the fade of it, the dying heat glory of oncoming starlight as it rolls down below the ground. They can tell you why it happens, how it happens, when it happens, and will even wax philosophically about who causes it if asked. And then there are certain people who look at a sunset and don’t need to know. Harrison was unequivocally the latter.

Harrison knew that creek well. He had walked it as a big child, prodding its murky depths and learning its mysteries. And he knew the peoples that lived therein, tucked away between the creek bed and the stars. They talked with him, laughed with him, made fun of him for being so big, and his parents would chuckle and tell their church friends all about Harrison’s imaginary friends down at the creek.

But Big Harrison was too dumb to know better and finally, when he turned 15, he got himself a job at the grocery store which stood in front of the creek. Every day on his lunch break, Harrison would head through the back doors and down the small grassy hill to the creek. He had found a large rock, some would call it a boulder, and had dug it out of the ground and rolled it end over end, positioning it perfectly along the creek, and there he would sit eating his sandwiches and talking with his imaginary friends.

The first kind loved Harrison. They had told him when he was a child that he was one of them, leftovers of the mighty giants that once roamed the lands plucking trees out like dandelions, scattering their leaves like paper scrapes in the breeze. Harrison loved the stories because he was too dumb to not believe them. And since he was too dumb not to believe them, he was very sad on the day they told him they were leaving. The towns had crept too far in. The creek magic had long since dried up, moved further south toward the sea. That’s where they were heading. And they wanted him to come.

Harrison was a big man, and big men have big hearts that must pump blood harder than most hearts. Harrison’s heart pumped giant blood which had a tendency to boil inside its owner until there was nothing left to do but pluck an old oak out of the ground.

And on a Tuesday in spring, Harrison came to work. He stocked shelves and ducked under the doorframe into the bathroom. He ran the cash register while Becky smoked a cigarette. When nobody was looking he ate a Snickers from the shelf in two bites. And at twelve o’clock, Harrison went out the back doors. He walked down the grassy hill carrying his paper bag of sandwiches. He found his rock and sat down on it, gazing down at the creek bed. And slowly, nervously, Harrison ate his sandwiches, chewing each bite purposefully and with a certain pomp and circumstance unknown to him before.

The creek waters ran silver that day, sparkles dancing from the high sun above. And it was quiet save for the sing-song whistle of water over old rocks.

And as the last bite was swallowed, his friends appeared, peeking from between the creek bed and the stars. He stood, never looking back at the grocery store sitting on top of the hill behind him, and shrugged his shoulders. And finally, without any further deliberation, Harrison trudged into the creek, turned left and proceeded to follow his friends south toward the sea.

Becky watched, leaning against the back of the building with a lit cigarette between her lips. She watched as Harrison marched off around the bend, alone, the creek waters splashing against his worn black slacks. And when she could no longer see him, she rubbed her cigarette out against the stone building and walked back inside.