The Sleeping Giant.

Once there was a humongous, smelly old giant who lived in a dark, rotten old cave in the middle of a dank, disgusting forest, where only the filthiest, dirtiest creatures lived.

The Giant’s name was Arnold and he loved to smell the stinky peat, where he rolled in it for ages. He loved to eat the putrid peppers of the Pickle Tree pears. He loved to dance near the messy mushrooms as well.

But more than anything else in the disgusting forest, Arnold loved nothing better than having a good, long, welcome nap.

In fact, most of the day you could find him sleeping, that is, if you dared venture into the smelly old forest alone.

He slept in the cave. He slept in the trees. When he wasn’t sleeping there, he slept in the lake. He even slept in the stinky, messy peat in the middle of the putrid forest.

One day, Arnold slept so long and so soundly, he didn’t hear some creatures approaching. Little creatures, thin creatures, with feathers in their hair and wings on their backs and bows and arrows in their tiny, spindly hands.

They crept so slowly, they crept so quietly as Arnold lay in the filthy mud with only his nose visible. It looked like a mushroom with warts, as it stuck up out of nowhere.

They weren’t hunting Arnold. In fact, they didn’t even know he was there. They thought the snoring was the sound of frogs, or the wind, or the gurgling mud.

But as they crept so closely, they disturbed the reeds, which stirred the mud, which sent ripples out towards Arnold. The ripples tickled the nose of the giant and Arnold started to stir.

Arnold flinched and jerked his body aboout as the ripples tickled his nose, then, still sound asleep, he took in a deep breath, like he was about to sneeze.

He breathed in heavy, he breathed in so much, that he breathed in some smelly mud, which woke the Giant as he readied to sneeze, for his nose was about to erupt.

The skinny creatures saw him too late as the muddy pool exploded and the smelly mess with the stinking mud was sent everywhere, in all directions.

They ran, they sprinted all over the place, some climbing trees to escape. But for these tiny hunters, it was already, for them, too late.

The mud erupted out of Arnold’s big nose and darkened all the sky, before it fell with a splat all over the creatures in the trees, on the ground, in fact, wherever they hid.

Now Arnold awakened and got out of the mess, having slept nearly all that day. He wiped his face with his clumsy hand and got out of the smelly pool of mud and without even noticing the creatures nearby, he left to return to his cave.

The creatures, these hunters, just watched, eyes blinking through the mud all over their faces, as the giant called Arnold stomped away from the forest to return again to his cave.

Where he slept some more, still smelly and wet, well into the night. And he dreamed, oh he dreamed of the mud and the mess and the sweet smell of the stinking bog.

But the hunters washed, near a running stream until all of them were cleaned and they left the foul forest and the smelly mud and the stinking peat behind, never to venture again in that place where lives Arnold the sleeping giant.