Creative Writing: The Cyclops And The Ostrich Egg

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Cyclops and the Ostrich Egg

I spent the night wrestling with the mummy wrap, which was bad, since the linen was itchy. But worse was the confined space. It made me nuts. “Aiden, stand still.” Mason grabbed the end of the gauze between my shoulder blades and spinning me around like a top. “Better?” “Yeah, thanks dude.” I pushed him out of the room. I was so looking forward to a real breakfast that I slip down the banister railing instead of using the stairs. By the time we arrived in the kitchen, Mom was already seated at the table cutting a grapefruit into quarters, her lips pursed with a razor like focus. She looked up and smiled as we sat down. “Feeling better, Aiden?” I nodded. She put a quarter of unsweetened

We followed a footpath that had been trodden out by a herd of slow chewing cows that were, let’s say a lot messy. It wandered along in turns and easy angles, twisting off and up to the top of a small knoll, rambled down again between fringes of bee-hung clover that gleamed in the morning dew, then it cut sidewise across a meadow. Here its edges blurred. It widened and seemed to pause, suggesting a scenic summit and then it went on again and came at last to the wood. But after reaching the shadow of the first pine, it veered sharply in a wide arc as if, for the first time, it knew where it was headed, and past around a creek which had been dammed up to form a swimming

The monster beckoned us back and boomed, “What are you doing here?” “Uh . . . err . . . um,” Mason forced a pathetic giggle. “Nothing.” I figured the only way to survive the Cyclops encounter was to make myself appear big. I raised my arms up above my head, spread my legs wide and yelled, “You want some of this Minster?” He cowered behind a tree and covered his eye. “Chill, Legend Greene’s grandson. The boy who wrestles with goblins.” That’s when I knew. Even before he said it. He was the Cyclops who had slid the two peaks apart so Grandpa could plant his apple orchard. “I am Argos. Son of Ouranus.” He pointed to a willowy fairy with gleaming wings attempting to hide behind spindly twigs poking up through the snow. Argos explained that he’d come across Cyrailia in the woods and they’d struck up a conversation. She had run away from the goblin’s castle and didn’t want to go back so he took her in and they have lived together ever since. “She’s sort of bashful, but she’s a magical