The One-Hundredth Goliath: a short st
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Short Description
Note: This story contains a couple of graphic images of child rape and murder. And just for the record, I hate the bastard who did it, too.
What if Michelangelo carved Goliath instead of David? What would it look like?
The nephew of a modest sculptor awakens from a fifteen-year trance and begins to create a statue of Goliath worthy of Michelangelo.
When the international art world discovered his work, his reputation skyrocketed. He fed the frenzy by announcing he would create only one hundred Goliaths and no more.
Long Description
What if Michelangelo carved Goliath instead of David? What would it look like?
In the rundown squalor of old industrial Albuquerque, New Mexico, the nephew of a modest sculptor awakens from a fifteen-year trance. He had witnessed a David-and-Goliath battle, only Goliath had won. His own half-sister had been the innocent victim, destroyed by a Goliath of a man with the face of his uncle. But his uncle was innocent, and had spent his life mourning the murder of the little girl by carving nothing but replicas of Michelangelo’s Davids.
After the boy awakened, everything changed. He accused his uncle of the murder. Destroyed all his works of David in progress. Acquisitioned the biggest piece of pristine marble in his uncle’s shop and began to create a statue of Goliath worthy of Michelangelo.
When the international art world discovered his work, his reputation skyrocketed. He fed the frenzy by announcing he would create only one hundred Goliaths and no more.
One of the world’s richest men commissioned the final Goliath to scale of Michelangelo’s original David, using a piece of marble too large for his uncle’s studio, so they set it outside. The whole world watched as the boy, now a famous young man, carved the One-Hundredth Goliath.
Categories
Fiction>short stories; Art>sculpture; Fiction>Drama>American; Fiction>Literature>Coming of age; Fiction>General; Fiction>Literary
Search Terms
Michelangelo, David and Goliath, Michelangelo’s David, Albuquerque, Anasazi, Cowtown, Sculpture, Amnesia, Art
First Sentence
Cowtown knelt behind hay bales and watched. He pressed his cheek against the hard nubs and smelled the dry sweetness.
Yeah, okay, that’s two sentences. Sheesh.
Author’s Note
Since the first moment I became aware of Michelangelo’s David, I’ve wondered why he didn’t create a Goliath to match. Wouldn’t he have at least thought about it? Wanted to? He must have. A David without a Goliath is like a one-party political system, a see- without a –saw. The fulcrum lies between the two and they each rely on the other for their ultimate identities.
Likewise an artist who creates only Davids is like a one-armed sculptor, lopsided, out of balance. It would take an artist who creates Goliaths to complete the symmetry, connect the one-armed to the two-armed.
Cowtown’s mother is not alone in seeing Anasazi ghosts. Most of the native cultures in and around the area of the Anasazi stomping ground have stories of a powerful, often negative, energy that emanates from their ancient sites, particularly Chaco Canyon. Something bad happened there. Cowtown’s one-armed father would have fit right in.
Note that Cowtown’s son, Antone, plays a role in my next novel, which features Samuel Langhorne Serles (see The Pump Jack Potion) and Miss Annie (daughter of Tucker and Lydia Roth in Girl on a Rock), tentatively titled Annie and the Second Anasazi.
Characters/People
Cowtown: Nicknamed for the town his mother pined for before she died (Fort Worth, Texas), Cowtown lives with his uncle in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Leo: Cowtown’s uncle, a sculptor of high-quality replica’s of Michelangelo’s Davids — that’s all he does.
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis
A boy traumatized by a horrible crime becomes a world-famous sculptor of Goliaths on par with Michelangelo.
Quotations
“Why do you call me Cowtown?” he asked.
“I guess you got tired of Davids,” Leo said, with a hint of sardonic humor. “David was supposed to defeat the giant enemy, the thing bigger than himself. But not today. Not today.”
“My client can kiss my ass,” whispered Cowtown.
Settings & Locations
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Chaco Canyon: The protagonist’s mother is haunted by the Anasazi who lived in Chaco Canyon
Fort Worth: Called Cowtown, the source of the protagonist’s nickname, this is where his mother pined to go before she died.
Themes & Symbolism
David and Goliath: How the weak can overcome the strong, and vice versa.
Self-discovery: How a young man grapples with the dark past of his relatives, but overcomes them by discovering who he is and what he can do.
About the Author
Jeff Posey has a geology degree and worked as a petroleum geologist before he discovered the world of words. Since then, he’s been city editor of a metropolitan magazine, fiction editor for a national magazine, and then stumbled on his own ignorance: about business. So he earned an MBA, thinking that would solve everything. It didn’t. Now, after being laid off from corporate America too many times to be comfortable, he does project communications work (fancy way of saying freelance corporate work) and writes short stories and novels, most of them inspired by his nearly two decades of research and fascination with ancient Southwest cultures (mainly the good ol’ Anasazi).
