The Middle Stories Read Online Free PDF

small town can get a little oppressive at times. Why don’t you take your bag and hat and go. Your mother and I have money. Don’t worry about us.”
    The giant looked at his mother and saw her nodding, and he wept and wept at the kindness of his parents.
    Three days later he was ready and the day after that he left, his mother and father waving him good-bye at the train station.
    Since he was a giant, accommodations were a little difficult. In the train he had to sit with the feed, and on the boat he had to stay on the deck, but when he got to Paris he was free, walking around in the bright sunny air with all the other people, tourists and natives alike. He couldn’t stop smiling. He had no idea that such a world lay beyond his small town, a world where people spoke differently and looked at him without cruelty. And his first night there he met up with some rowdy young men and went with them to a bar where they all got quite drunk. It was the first time the giant had ever been drunk and he was quite pleased with the sensation. He told them he loved them, that they were the first friends he had ever had, and the one who spoke English translated for the rest, and they all let out a great cheer and clanked their mugs together, and the giant felt right at home.
    The next day the giant wandered through the streets, and he was surprised to find a demure young woman in a light-blue dress bending over a balcony, watching him as he passed. She called to him, “Please come!”
    The giant, who knew a little French, crossed the street and laid his head on the railing and looked softly into her eyes. She touched his nose and laughed out loud, then pet his eyes and pet his hair, then covered his face with kisses and ran inside squealing.
    Well, the giant had never been kissed by a woman before, and whether or not he’d ever see her again was a worry for another time. He just strolled into a park and lay down on the grass and relived the sensation over and over.
    Suddenly he realized it was two o’clock.
    “Oh no!” he gasped. “If I don’t catch the boat I’ll be ruined!”
    He ran down to the docks and caught it just as it was about to leave the harbor, then settled in on the deck and watched Paris recede.
    The next day he was home again.
    His mother and father sat him down in the living room.
    “And how was your trip?” his father said.
    The giant smiled. “I said I was never coming home again, and I’m not,” he thought.

THE GIRL WHO WAS BLIND ALL THE TIME
     
    SHE LIVED IN the hollow of her mouth and ears. She lived in the two deep hollows of her nose, and when and if someone touched her, she lived in her skin as well.
    She made her way to and from school each day. She had no dog. She didn’t want to be led by a beast, she said, and people laughed. That’s all they really did around her. Laugh. Because you can’t just smile, and you have to be nice to a blind girl.
    She got dizzy when she thought of sex, which she had never had, and she got dizzy when she thought of boys, so she didn’t think of them very often.
    She once held her own one-woman parade down the long winding road that circled her university campus, and she carried a flag with the word “See,” and marched on by, and she had no idea for weeks afterward what the response was, if any. Only when Julie phoned and read to her some little news item in the University Bulletin that said, “Blind Girl Leads Revolution Single-Handedly,” did she grimace and go, “Oh God,” and go, “Nobody has any fucking sense of humor.” And Julie, over the phone, laughed.
    The blind girl went to parties but always with a girlfriend, and always her girlfriend would return to her, and the blind girl would say, “Go away, have your fun.” Sometimes her friend caught her talking to a guy, sometimes her friend caught her standing all alone.
    The blind girl never once thought about suicide and was surprised when a boy brought it up. “Don’t you ever think of killing