“Of course I am alive,” he coughs, crawling toward me on all fours. “In fact, I’m a caterpillar. I may not have been born into a butterfly yet.”
My laugh splinters into tiny sighs when I see his face. What has the giant done to him? The Pillar is scarred on the cheeks and the forehead — the giant certainly pulled out that balding wig as well. There is a wild, thick slash underneath his neck, right about on his chest bone, which shows because his cloths are cut left and right, all but his white gloves on his hands.
I am speechless, feeling guilty, I should have helped him.
“I could use a Hookah right now,” he lays his head on my lap. “I’d smoke the pain away.”
“You killed the giant?” I brush my hand through his hair.
“Ever seen Fight Club, the movie? It was the same down there. But yes, I killed the giant.”
“You should have let me help?”
“You’re more important than me.” he coughs a trail of blood on the white snow. “I’m just a nutty professor; Indiana Jones at best.”
“Severus Snape, I’d say.” I want to laugh but can’t. “And what’s with you and the movies today? I bet the monks never went to New York. It was you who taught them the American slang.”
“You’re too smart, Alice. It may kill you,” he says with beady eyes. “Did you ever notice ignorant and stupid people live happier — longer?”
“I did,” I say. “Only they never live to have such adventures life like you and I. And hey, don’t buy into this future thing. I’m not going to kill you, ever!”
“That’s like saying I won’t let Jesus be crucified if I go back in time,” The Pillar says in his most morbidly sarcastic way. Who can blame a man so much in pain now? “I’m not afraid of dying.”
“I won’t kill you.” I shake his head in my hands. “Do you hear me?”
“If you keep shaking my fragile head like that, you’ll actually kill me now.”
“I’m sorry.” I pat him and stop it. “Why didn’t you fight the giant back, Pillar? Why did you let him hit you so many times, for God’s sake?”
“You mean ‘for Todd’s sake.’” he tries to wink but his eyebrows are stiffened by his wounds. “I had to let the giant hit me so I can win.”
“What kind of logic is that?”
“It’s a known None Fu technique. It’s called ‘He Who Laughs Last.’”
“Never heard of it. And it doesn’t make sense. He could have killed you before you had your last laugh.”
“True, but you see, the idea is that the big troll was too strong so I’d never had a chance to fight him like a man, not even choke him with my hookah if I had it with me,” he says. “The trick when fighting an unbeatable opponent is not to play their game.”
“I’m not sure I get it.” I use the edge of the coat’s sleeve and dry some of his blood.
“In every war, there is one person reacting to the other, Alice,” he says. “Like when a terrorist blows up a building. Suddenly he becomes the master of the game, because he sets the rules. Most people fall in that trap and play it his way.”
“Which is the normal turn of events.”
“No it’s not. He who makes the rules of the game always wins — like the Chessmaster. So when the enemy enforces their rules, the one way out is not to abide by them.”
“Are you saying you repeatedly told the giant to hit you so you’d become the one who makes the rules?”
“That’s right. Instead of playing his game, I was now playing mine with my rules.”
“But he could have killed you.”
“Common sense certainly endorses the idea, but no, not when he never knew why I asked him to hit me. Every time he hit me and I laughed at him and asked more, he was puzzled, wondering what was really going on?”
“And what was really going on, Pillar?”
“I was wearing him out.”
“You must be joking.”
“I’m not. Think of it. Giants like him kill with one stroke. It’s their norm. Like most ruthless villains in this world, they’re not used to a prolonged fight. All I had to do was to make sure I take minimal damage with each hit until he became frustrated with me. Bit by bit, his confidence in himself diminished, his perception of his giant self thinned, and he started to doubt himself just like any of us, because I didn’t die or collapse — and took it to the chin and laughed. I was just a boxing sack with thick skin — or will — hit over and over again and smiling back at him. I was like all of us, any of us, suffering each day to make it through, and he, being a giant, had never seen such strength.”
“But you could have been broken down any moment, before you’ve managed to execute your plan.”
“I have to admit the sudden storm helped a little. I think it’s called ‘faith.’ That moment when you count on the universe to lend you a helping hand,” he says. “Once I saw the look of doubt in his eyes, I hit back hard — and low. You know what really knocked him down? Not my physical power, but my factor of surprise and his factor of doubting himself. He couldn’t believe I was still alive.”