The Improbable Rescue

This first chapter exercise from the Novakovich book is supposed to be longer than what I've written, but it's also supposed to be based on the earliest childhood dream I could remember. I can't remember very much of it. Also, I'm supposed to write it as if it isn't a dream. I suppose I should have kept that from you, but it's pretty hard to pass off a six-year-old's imagination for anything resembling real life, even the "real life" of fantasy or science fiction. Oh, I don't have an older brother. I just made one up to embellish the story a bit. EDIT: One last thing, I was this young in the early 1960s.

His massive frame was a black silhouette against the gray dust swirling in the dim light as he effortlessly carried the little boy across his left shoulder. He could have been the model for the ancient golem or even the Fantastic Four's Thing or the Incredible Hulk. His basic shape was blocky, as if he had been assembled from bricks or stones, a rock for a forearm, another for his hand, thinner rocks for each finger, a small boulder for his featureless head.

He was as silent as a stone, impervious to the struggles and screaming of the child in his invincible grip.

In spite of his apparent weight, his footfalls were deathly silent. There was no vibration as he took each ponderous step. No dust exploded from under his soles as they collided with the ground.

They were in a city, monster and boy, but one without life and light. In spite of his panic, the boy could barely make out the shadows of tall buildings all around. It was like a post-apocalyptic scene from one of his older brother's science fiction or horror comic books. It was like a burned out city, ravaged in an atomic war where there were no winners...

...except the monster that had somehow stole into the boy's bedroom late at night and spirited the child away to this other world.

What is the answer to the proverbial question, "If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear, does it make a sound?"

If a little boy is crying and screaming for help and straining against unyielding stone sinews with all his tiny might, and his captor, the only thing living or at least moving under it's own power is the only one present, can the terrified child be heard?

No sound from the monolith on two legs tramping down the streets of a city of ash. The child didn't hear anything the stone monster did and he could barely hear even himself.

Then a rush of wind like a cyclone from above, and a brilliant bright streak of red and yellow light appeared in the sky. Abruptly, the little boy could now hear who he had been calling to for help all along. He remembered that at the end of one of his favorite cartoons, the main character had said if anyone watching needed him, just call for help and he'd come.

So the boy called, he called with all his might. And his hero came.

"Here I come to save the day!"

Six-year-old Jimmy Winters didn't need to see or hear anything else to know he was about to be rescued by Mighty Mouse. In a few minutes, the silent animated sculpture would be a pile of rubble and Jimmy would be back in his own bedroom at home safe and sound. He couldn't wait for his parents to wake up in the morning so he could tell them all about it. Now his older brother Billy would have to admit that Mighty Mouse was a lot more cool than those other dumb heroes in the comics.