The Giant wore a T-shirt that said, Clarion Clothing, Est. 1980. I already felt somewhat small before speaking to the Giant but mustered up my courage and opened my mouth. After all, I’d climbed to the top of the hill beside the playground and now had a treasured one-on-one audience with him. The Giant glared at me, a wordless warning that whatever I had to say better be significant. I pointed at his shirt. “You’d think that they would know the exact year,” I said. The Giant furrowed his brow; I had successfully confused him—I felt proud.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“You know,” I said, “It is only 1993. 1980 is recent enough that you’d think they wouldn’t have to estimate it, that they’d know for certain.”

The creases in the Giant’s face turned from confusion to mirth, to ridicule. He bellowed forth a laugh that shook the very ground upon which I stood. His voice seemed to echo within the great cavern of his mouth, and I could feel the bass notes in my bones. “It means Established,” he said.

And with that, I tumbled down the hill, growing smaller and smaller, rolling faster and faster, finally stopping at the bottom, a heap of limbs tangled up in shame.

Victor McConnell grew up in a small town in Texas and graduated from Dartmouth’s creative writing program. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net, multiple Pushcarts, and has appeared in journals such as the Los Angeles Review, North American Review’s Short Story, Louisville Review, New Ohio Review, Mid-Atlantic Review, New Millennium, and others. His first poetry chapbook, If You Can Hear This, is available from Bottlecap Press. His first full-length book, a collection of short stories titled When Even the Bones Have Thinned, is forthcoming with Hidden River Press. He lives in Golden, Colorado. See his website, and follow the author here.