It hadn’t snowed this much in Meath for many years. The druids had spoken of ancient snowfalls such as this, but hardly anyone listened to them anymore: their place in the community had been taken by young pretenders, who would compete in front of whole villages to see who was the best singer, storyteller or caster of spells. The winner would then be lauded throughout the land for a week and have all the goats he could wish for, but subsequently be shunned and forgotten. This custom would come to be known as The Feis Factor, before being found to rot culture and be banished. Forever.
The last giant peered out at the snow covering Meath and rubbed his fuzzy eyes in disbelief. He was never sure if anything was real, or if it was the crack talking. It was discovery of – and addiction to – crack that had led to his being the last giant in the first place. But he still liked the odd smoke occasionally. He found the pipe comforting.
He wasn’t used to being up this early either, not since his faithful hound, Oscar, had bounded off to the Hill of Tara to live with the High King. The food was better there, and there was lots of craic, but no crack. Dogs, it seems, are intolerant of drugs and Oscar had had enough. So he’d sniffed his way (with what was left of his nose) to Tara, where he slept at the foot of the bed of Conchubhar Mac Neasa himself. King Conchubhar himself was the one to let Oscar out every morning at daybreak for the royal wee. Oscar hardly missed the giant at all.
Giants weren’t allowed at Tara – they were much too big and the mud they brought in was unmanageable. And now that all the other giants had succumbed to crack, the last giant found himself alone and finally fitting his ridiculous name. The snow-drifts had come thick and fast in the night and the day and the night he was cracked off his face. When he woke, for the first time in his life, even given his enormous height and the flatness of the plain, he was snowed in and unable to move from his house.
I say house, it was more of a cave. A cave made of coal, mind you – later to become Tara Mines – so he had no shortage of fuel. There was also a small crack seam. This was not discovered later because the giants exhausted it all (you should never underestimate quite how much crack a giant can consume). The last giant built a large fire; small ones were of little use to him. With no one to raise an admonishing paw, what was to stop him blazing up a nice little pipe? No one, was the answer. Not one other being in the world.
The giant, still groggy, blurred his way to the crack seam, and realised that was only enough for two more pipesful. Two tiny, shiny crystals of magic crack, which. of course, shouldn’t have been in Ireland at all. The giant rolled them for some time between grubby finger and thumb, before settling on what to do. He would smoke one, and cast the other on the fire. There’s not much difference between one and two, after all; not when you’re a giant alone in the world and the last of your kind. Besides, casting a crystal on the fire would most likely lead to visions. Smoking lead to visions, too, but obviously less reliable ones than casting.
So he smoked. And he cast. And he slept. And he saw.
Some say he invented the internet that day. Some say it never snowed at all.
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