The Giant Student

Once upon a time, there was a giant student at the University of Oklahoma who happened to be really smart, too. She would walk up and down the South Oval with long, lumbering strides, quietly minding her own business, careful not to step on any normal-sized passerby. Every day, the giant student attended her classes and sat in the back, taking copious, detailed notes and listening attentively to each of her professors. For a long time she lived this serene existence, being large and smart and unobtrusive despite the size of her body and intellect.

One day, a small, hairy student tried to sit in the back of the room, where the giant student always sat. Tiny, as he was called, plopped into the chair in the back despite the warnings of his classmates--he would be squashed! The giant student would never notice him! But Tiny ridiculed their warnings and belittled their fear for him. He'd show that freak who's boss! As he said this, many of the students turned away to hide their laughter, for if anyone were to be called a freak, it would be Tiny as much as the giant student. However, they soon regained their composure to again warn him: You will be squashed! Move before it's too late! The giant student will not see you there before it's too late!

But the giant student ducked through the doorway into class, saw Tiny in her chair, and calmly sat in the chair in front of him and took out her notebook and pen. Through all class, Tiny could not see the professor--not that he cared. He spent all of class poking and prodding the giant student, pulling tufts of hair from his body and throwing them into the air at the giant student, and worst of all, taking his pencils, fastening them together, and lobbing multi-pointed missiles at the giant student.

But the giant student would not budge. Instead, she continued to take careful notes and listen to the lecture.

At the end of class, after Tiny had left the room with a parting sneer at the giant student, the professor of that class approached the giant student and asked, "Why do you allow him to do that? You are so smart and large, you could crush him with a quick swing of your fist or a brainwave from your awesome brain."

The giant student replied, "I know this, but I pity Tiny. He has neither my brawn nor my brain, nor anything comparable, and he acts as though he is a monkey trapped in a classroom. Which, I suppose, he is. We all are. But I digress. Tiny is not worth my animosity; I should treat him fairly in accord with what little fortune he has been given in this life. Poor sap."

The professor, awed with this sage response, gave the giant student an A for life in everything she did and was ever to do. The giant student accepted it with humility, knowing that she would have always gotten an A in everything, anyways.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I really liked the Jataka Tale "The Patient Buffalo" in the collection Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat. "The Patient Buffalo" is a really cool commentary on power dynamics in ancient society. Though the monkey pesters the buffalo relentlessly, the powerful buffalo does not harm it. Though the fairy comes and tempts the buffalo to abuse its power, the buffalo sagely remarks that the monkey is weak both mentally and physically, and that it would not be right for a smarter and stronger animal, a superior being, to harm the monkey. This is a reflection of the intelligent and powerful, that they should not abuse their power on those people without their privilege or natural gifts. I thought that this tale was cool considering the ancient moral of patience in the face of insolence from someone 'lower' than the one being bothered. I adapted it to modern day but wanted to keep it fun, so I included some grotesque characters. I think that the giant student works for the buffalo, and Tiny works for the monkey. I liked writing the grotesque and the humor in this story. It's a pattern in my stories because these elements are fun to write.

Bibliography: Inayat, Noor. Twenty Jataka Tales. See it here.