Stick Boy and GG on Black Down
Sepia hoto of some conifers on a heathland deep in fog.
[This is the second instalment of the legend of Stick Boy.]
Stick Boy got lost here on Black Down on his way to Holmbury Hill. He didn’t know he was going to Holmbury Hill, you understand, it’s just that he wasn’t intending on stopping on Black Down. However, the heavy fog which sometimes sits on that hill was causing him to walk in confused circles. Stick Boy sat down at a cross-paths to think.
As he was admiring how the yellow of the gorse still popped in its own brightness amidst the fog, Stick Boy saw a shadow emerging from a distance down a path. A small shadow, wandering and weaving along the sandy trail, and holding a piece of bracken in her hand. Her name was GG, but Stick Boy didn’t know that then.
GG stands for Ghost Girl, but only meanies call her that. To those of us who love her, it is always and ever only GG. GG was trapped on Black Down by a Wicked Witch and she has been wandering in a sadness ever since. GG’s sorrow is the reason that the fogs of Black Down seem sad and regretful rather than peaceful and blankety like other fogs.
When GG was 4 years old, the Wicked Witch spied GG’s nascent, but entirely beneficent, power and realised that, were GG to grow up and into her power, then she would likely vanquish the Wicked Witch and cause the witch’s reign of terror to be over. She couldn’t have that! So the witch decided to do away with the beautiful and kind GG.
The Wicked Witch cast some old bones and fresh entrails onto the floor near her hideaway in Black Dog Copse. The demons of her heart revealed that the best way to deal with GG was to get a troll to eat her up. Being a Wicked Witch, she naturally had a good working relationship with several local trolls, so she asked one for the favour. He agreed only upon the promise of GG being baked into a doughnut. To be on the safe side, the Wicked Witch baked four jam doughnuts and a cinnamon bun, and then magicked GG inside one of the doughnuts along with the jam.
The troll, as was to be expected, gobbled the sweet treats down and GG along with them. However, because he was a troll and therefore ate entirely too quickly (and messily), he did a long burp full of gusto once he was finished. In that burp, which originated from deep within his hungry belly, was a variety of unpleasant odours and the ghost of our sweet GG. So GG was free, sort of, to live again, sort of, this time as a not at all hungry ghost amidst the fog and damp sand of Black Down.
If you remember, Stick Boy was sat at a cross-paths, admiring the gorse flowers, and feeling a little disoriented. GG was walking towards him with some bracken in her hand which she sometimes pretended was a broom and sometimes pretended was a fan. Even though she was a ghost, Stick Boy could see her because of his robot eyes which allowed him to see into the ghost realm with no bother.
As GG got closer to Stick Boy, they locked eyes and time entered one of its magical pauses so their spirits were able to assess each other’s intentions. As Stick Boy and GG were destined to become friends, by the time the present had restarted, Stick Boy had gotten up and the pair were walking together down a trail admiring the lizards and the snakes which occasionally scuttled and slithered out to greet them.
After some time wandering, and lizard foot and snake tail shaking, a robin also came to wish the pair a pleasant greeting. The robin flew right through GG’s heart and landed on Stick Boy’s robot head. The sweet friends giggled and so, when the robin flew up and away ticking and tweeting, they followed it until they arrived at the Temple of the Winds.
Stick Boy and GG clasped hands and sat down for some days and nights as they admired the view. Robin sometimes sat on Stick Boy’s head or shoulder snapping up any insect which dared to crawl on Stick Boy’s robot body. Occasionally, a Silver-studded Blue butterfly would, in its perfect lightness of being, alight upon GG’s ghostly hand. The friends sat in silence surveying the whole world before them until all their sorrows had abated.
One day, Stick Boy turned to GG and told her he must move on. As lovely as the view was, he knew he didn’t belong there. Loneliness rose up from under the ridge and wrapped itself around GG’s head and heart as three ghostly tears appeared on her cheeks. But Stick Boy, our magic Stick Boy, had the brain of an AI, and so was full of millions of simultaneous suggestions. He pointed out that since GG was a ghost, she could do and be anything she wanted, and that she was not limited to human things like being sad and wandering.
On hearing this, GG’s eyes and heart opened up as wide as the ridge, as the truth of his assertion struck her. The millions of possibilities passed between them in an instant. Then GG let out the biggest and most profound sigh through upturned lips and smiling eyes, and uttered a very simple ‘goodbye’.
GG expired again that day and turned into that magic wind which always pulls the weather away from the Temple ridge when a walker climbs to see the view. Stick Boy watched GG take her bracken and brush the fog clean from the sky, as she giggled and twirled above him.
Stick Boy knew that he could leave GG now, as she experimented with the millions of possibilities which lay out before her. Wind, rain, robins, stars, trees, alphabets – GG could be a part of everything. Stick Boy’s robot heart flashed her a multicoloured morse code ‘I love you’ and then he got up and carried on walking.