Drabble 173 – Cyclopean

It’s always been easy for me to believe in things. Too easy, most of the time; I spent a not-insignificant portion of my life afraid of inhaling spirits in graveyards and fearing that thinking “Bloody Mary” in a mirror might cause a violent ghost to appear. I don’t really believe them anymore, but sometimes I do, because it’s easy to believe things when you’re afraid or alone or uncertain. I try not to let fear impact the things I do, but it’s much harder to stop it from impacting the things I think. I keep trying, hoping I’ll do better tomorrow.

Anyway, here’s a drabble.

CYCLOPEAN

(a.) from Greek kyklopes for the large creatures of myth

Referring to the large creatures of myth or masonry comprised of large blocks of stone.

They say the ancients were larger, stronger than people today, and that they moved the stones into place with their great hulking muscles. They were different from modern people, and different again from the people of the past. Humans, they said, weren’t capable of such feats, especially not in these forgotten places, especially not without modern technology.

Look closer and you’d find handprints, human-sized, in the masonry; signatures of those who came before. They’d been ingenuitive, moving heavy stone blocks with tools that seemed foreign now: teamwork, water, creativity. It wasn’t magic or beasts or extraterrestrials, it was humans, together.