Five Swords

The imagined origins of the Alexander Calder piece

Link to see image of the original “Five Swords” piece that inspired this story: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/alexander-calder-five-swords

The four giants lay down their red swords.

The first, oldest one spoke slowly (he was very out of breath). “Brothers..,” wheeze “I think it…is time…for us to…stop figh…,” cough “ing.”

The other four brothers watched passively as he coughed up phlegm and what sounded like two of his three lungs. (He was really out of shape too.) He grabbed a handful of grass and wiped his face clear of the mess, creating a huge hole in the ground that later became a Roman theatre.

His breath finally returned. He continued. “As I was saying, it is time for us to stop fighting. Look at the mess we have made!” He dramatically raised an arm and swept it across the trodden field. All the dirt and grass and trees and flowers were churned into an unattractive brown mess of mulch.

The youngest giant laughed. “Really, Eng-garenth, you don’t have to be so dramatic all the time.”

Eng-garenth dropped his arm stiffly. “At least I am saying something, Edeni, instead of trying to hack off Tasolia’s head like you were doing barely two gnats ago.”

The giants measured time in gnats because gnats were forever breeding and bothering everyone. No matter how fast a giant killed one, immediately more would appear. It was really tiresome.

Tasolia, the next youngest giant, looked down at the ground and mumbled something about his sword slipping out of his fingers at the wrong time. Edeni muttered, while talking to the sky of course, that Tasolia’s fingers always dropped the sword due to his unfortunate lack of fighting ability.

“I’m always trying to give him pointers but does he listen? No.” Tasolia stopped conversing with the ground and glared at Edeni.

Edeni sighed and nodded his head. “The youngest is always underapprecia-” In one gnat, Tasolia had Edeni pinned to the ground, sword raised over his neck.

“STOP!”

The next oldest giant, Rais surprised the struggling two with blows over each head, knocking them to the ground.

“Thanks a lot, Rais, now I’ll have a headache tomorrow,” Edeni complained.

“At least you’ll have a head tomorrow,” retorted Avaeda. She stood beside Rais. “Thanks, Rais, I see you were right about the trouble.”

“When did you get here?” Eng-garenth asked.

“Just a gnat ago, as soon as I got Rais’s bird’s message. I can’t believe you guys are fighting again!”

“It was his fault,” Edeni and Tasolia and Rais and Eng-garenth pointed sullenly at each other.

Avaeda doubted they even remembered why they were fighting, much less who started it. “It doesn’t matter who started it, you all were fighting so you all are to blame. Now, where are your swords?”

The four giants stared blankly at her.

“Nevermind, I see them over here.” She picked them up.

They continued staring, now with suspicion.

She easily bent them into small arches.

Now they stared in horror.

“AVAEDA!!” They screamed, in agreement for once.

She smiled, completely unconcerned. “Now you can’t fight with swords anymore. Problem solved for now.”

Edeni, always the quickest thinker, said “Wait a bag of gnats, what about your sword?”

She frowned. “What about i-hey!” He snatched it from her waist and quickly bent it. “I don’t have a problem with fighting!!” Edeni tossed the sword to the ground with the other four and smiled defiantly at her. She huffed. “You’re just jealous because I beat you all the time.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I am. At least it’s fair now. No more sword fighting for any of us.”

Avaeda couldn’t argue with that logic, so she didn’t try. The five giants left the area, peaceful for now.

And so the five red swords lay on the ground in a pile, abandoned.