The boy didn’t love the windmills for their purpose, but for what they looked like against the otherwise boring and predictable midwestern horizon. The way they stood apart from the flatness of the landscape with such majesty and yet made no sound felt important in some way that the boy didn’t fully understand.
He gave the windmills names like “Frank,” and “Jeff,” and “Josephine.” The last one he named after his aunt —an imposing woman who wore striking dresses, and lots of jewelry. He had to stay with her for a couple of weeks one time. He didn’t like Josephine, which is why he gave her name to the windmill he liked least. It moved faster than the others.
“I want to talk to the windmills,” the boy asked his father as they were driving.
“They don’t like to talk,” his father said.
The boy smiled. He gazed at the closest windmill and felt a rush of love for it. He figured that it must be lonely out in the fields.
“Why don’t they like to talk?”
“I don’t know. They just don’t.”
“Is that okay?”
“Sure, it is. People talk too much these days.”
“Windmills aren’t people,” the boy said with a sense of authority. “Are they better than people?”
“Sometimes, I guess.”
“Because they protect the fields?”
“Sure.”
“Do people protect things?”
“Not often enough.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sometimes people don’t protect things like they should.”
“But the windmills do always?”
“Yep. Always.”
The boy smiled again as he looked out the window towards a line of windmills. The boy thought that if what his father said about the windmills protecting things was true, then nobody could get to the other side of them. He thought that he would like to live on the other side.
“Can we live by the windmills?”
“People can’t live by the windmills.”
“Why?”
“Because they are big and dangerous.”
“Like monsters?”
“Yes, like monsters.”
“But I thought they protect things."
“Monsters protect things, too.”
“I still want to live by them. They would protect me, I think.”
“That may be so, but sometimes…” he trailed off as he stopped the car. “Sometimes things pretend to be something they aren’t.”
“Like a game?”
“No,” the boy’s father said. “No, no. Like a lie.”
“Like a lie?” the boy repeated. “Do the windmills lie?”
“I don’t know.”
“I bet they don’t. Because they are protecting things.”
The boy’s father restarted the car.
“What do the windmills do when there’s nothing to protect?” the boy continued.
“They turn into giants,” the boy’s father said, “and go off to find another field.”
“Into giants?” the boy said with astonishment.
The boy’s father nodded.
The boy turned in his seat and watched as the windmills disappeared behind the hill. He thought that maybe they could be giants if he squinted at them hard enough. But they were protecting the field, he thought. And so long as he lived by them, they would be busy protecting him, and so they wouldn’t turn into giants and go off to another field.
“Maybe I can turn into a giant.”
“Most of us turn into giants someday.”
“Because we don’t have things to protect?”
“Sometimes. Other times we protect the wrong fields.”
The boy thought for a moment. “Do the windmills protect the wrong fields?”
“No.”
The boy smiled. He closed his eyes and imagined the windmills in the field again as he drifted off to sleep. They were spinning, slow and steady. Even Josephine.