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[theme music playing]

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[man on radio] ...is closed permanently.
We've known that for some time now.

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[seagulls squawking]

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[man narrating] There had been
a big storm the night before.

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And so, it was late morning
before the town heard the first news

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of the arrival after it had been spotted
by local fishermen.

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[indistinct chatter]

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Being scientists, my colleagues and I,
of course, discounted the first reports

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as exaggerations or a trick of the light.

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But as ever more eyewitnesses
returned from the beach,

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we finally decided to investigate
for ourselves.

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Come on, then, Steven.
No time to waste gawking.

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Right behind you.

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[indistinct chatter]

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[man] He must displace at least 60 tons.

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[woman] I'd say closer to 80.
The bones alone must weigh 30 tons.

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[Steven]
The vast proportions of his features

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made it impossible to assess
the age of the giant,

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but his classically modeled mouth and nose

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suggest he had been a young man
of discreet and modest temper.

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[waves crashing]

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It was a noble face,
possessed of an ornate charm

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that belied
the brutish power of the giant's physique.

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His magnificent Homeric stature

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offered a more authentic example
of a drownedArgonaut

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or a hero from The Odyssey

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than the conventional human-sized
portraitspreviously in my mind.

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What I found so fascinating
was partly his immense scale, of course,

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but above all, it was simply
the categorical fact of his existence.

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Whatever else in our lives
might be open to doubt,

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this giant existed in an absolute sense...

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providing us a glimpse
into a world of similar absolutes

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in which we spectators on the beach
were such imperfect and puny copies.

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Say, look over there.

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[cheering]

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Who is that? Come on.

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[woman 1] Oh, it's rubbery.

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-[woman 2] How is it up there?
-[laughing]

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[woman 2] Is it funny?

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Teddy, you bastard, I nearly fell.

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You looked so scared.

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From a distance,
it looked as if he was merely asleep

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and could, at any moment,
clap his heels together

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and crush the miniscule replicas
of himself that swarmed around him.

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But as time passed,

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the magical spell
cast by the giant began to dissipate.

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We'd best get back to town.
It'll be dark soon.

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Yeah. I suppose you're right.

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[crowd cheering]

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Three days passed
before my next visit to the beach.

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Sensing a particular interest
in the giant,

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my associates at the institute
delegated the task

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of keeping
the giant under observation to me.

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There was nothing morbid
about this because, for all intents,

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the giant was still alive for me.

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Indeed, more alive
than many of the people around me.

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[barks]

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[laughing]

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[screams]

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[worker 1]
No, it's not. This bastard's big.

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If the butchers start here,
we can soon get access to the thigh bone.

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And we can work our way up to the hip.

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[worker 2] Going to be some overtime,
getting this done.

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[Steven] The following day,

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I deliberately postponed my visit
until late afternoon,

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hoping that I'd find
fewer people on the beach.

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Prolonged immersion in seawater
and the tumefaction of his tissues

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had given the face a less youthful look.

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His features now had
an appearance of well-fed maturity,

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hinting at the growing corruption to come.

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[seagulls squawking]

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This was the beginning of his surrender
to that all-demanding system of time,

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in which
the rest of humanity found itself.

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However repellent it may seem,

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this ceaseless metamorphosis,
this visible life-in-death,

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is what gave me the courage
to finally set foot on his corpse.

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[dramatic music playing]

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This new perspective made me more aware
of the last physical agonies of the giant.

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No less painful
for his unawareness of them.

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In the end, his face had been transformed

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into a mask of exhaustion
and helplessness.

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Caught in that same twisting whirlpool

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for which
all our finite lives are destined.

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And his suffering was made
all the more tragic by the isolation

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in which he endured it.

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Cast like an abandoned ship
upon the empty shore.

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The amputation was but the first
of a series of depredations.

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Two days had passed,

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while I struggled to overcome
my reluctance

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to witness the end
of this magnificent illusion.

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Despite his immense size,

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these insults to the giant's body
made him appear more human to me.

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More vulnerable.

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But that weakness has released
a sudden flood of repressed spite,

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encouraging the mutilation of the colossus
by the tiny creatures around it.

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When I visited the beach
the following day,

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I found, almost with relief,
that the head had been removed.

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Some weeks had lapsed
before my next journey to the beach.

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And by then, any human likeness
held by the giant had vanished.

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Evening, mate.

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And with the loss of those
few remaining traces of personality

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that had clung tenuously to the figure,

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the interest of the spectators had,
at last, expired.

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Months later, after the giant's arrival
had been generally forgotten,

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various pieces of the body
began to reappear around town.

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Most of those remains were bones.

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These mighty yet disembodied fragments
seem to better convey the essence

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of the giant's magnificence

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than my last memories
of his bloated appendages.

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[engine revs]

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[dramatic music playing]

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I have no doubt
that if I search the town's pubs,

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hotels, and eateries, I'd also find
the mummified nose or ears of the giant

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hanging on walls and fireplaces.

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[male attendant] Tickets, get them here!

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Oi! Get out of here.
You wanna look, you pay for it.

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As for the immense pizzle,

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this ends its days
in the freak museum of a small circus,

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which travels up and down
the northwest coast.

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That monumental apparatus,

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stunning in its proportions
and once potency,

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occupies a complete tent to itself,

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though, sadly,
it is mislabeled as belonging to a whale.

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Even those who came and saw the giant
after the storm now remember him,

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if at all, as merely a large sea beast.

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But the giant is still alive for me.

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I often dream of his resurrection.

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A colossus
striding through the streets of town,

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picking up the fragments of himself
on his return journey to the sea.

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[dramatic music playing]