Xixón Lilliput

 

The town where I live, Gijón Lilliput (Xixón Lilliput in Asturian), is located on the extreme north of the Iberian Peninsula, at 0,00000000,000 metre over the level of the sea: the ocean, huge like the ass of a Russian matron, impregnates everything, this weather is stupid.

The air is salty and, when there is sun, it scorches the skin in a rude and irregular manner, everyone looks like a sailor in this town, even babies and old women.

The salty air fills the wardrobes with an absurd moho, the tape of the audio cassettes get covered with a strange patina that neutralizes the magnetophonic impressions, creating a really strange effect: when played, any tape sounds like Hitler speeches.

The average stature of the inhabitant of Xixón Lilliput is 1 meter for the male, and 88 centimeters for the female:

In the middle of the town there is an obese belfry, everybody walks and pullulates around the belfry during the day, like the bees around the queen bee in the honey comb.

At night, they all run in a hurry to sleep in small beds, carved in wood from the rotting forest (?)... the gnomes provide the wood, but the inhabitants of Xixón Lilliput have to give them gold, in exchange, because the gnomes are an extremely avaricious race and they are -secretly- enemies of the human.

The gnomes (locally known as enanos), they rarely come to town, afraid of the possible revenge of the inhabitants of Xixón Lilliput, who hate them for their greed, and the abusive price of the wood.

If a gnome is found at La Puerta de la Villa, or close to La Escalerona, or at Begoña Park, or Plaza Europa, they would be vandalized, viciously attacked and finally crucified.

It already happened, even during Easter, for example during the Easter of 1985, known as La Pascua Negra, in which 20 gnomes were crucified and burned by the enraged population, despite the efforts of the local bishop, who tried to reconcile and pacificate.

The inhabitants do this, taking advantage of their physical strength and stature, which is superior to that of the gnomes but, on the other hand, the panic gains the street during the raids of the Cuélebre, infernal winged beast that every now and then assaults the town, flying in rampant abandon over the defenceless population, victimizing and devouring.

This cruel, volant, serpent-like saurian is also very wise and tricky -besides brutal-, and speaks with ganglionary voice: when it flies after a victim, and cannot catch him (for example, because the victim could take refuge in his small house), then the Cuélebre starts talking with meek voice, seated on the chimney, trying to convince its prey to come out of the house, using disquieting phrases like "I'm the Cuélebre, I'm good", "Please come out, I'll give you some pepitas of gold", "I won't harm you, please come out my friend, I have delicious gochu and sidrines to give you".

Its discourse, which is very persuasive, has befuddled and fooled many ill-advised inhabitants of Xixón Lilliput who, gained by the greed and the lust for gold and food, believed in the monster, and came out of the house. The results were terrible: the poor dupe was devoured right away, alive and without salt.

The Cuélebre -that is immortal- has assaulted the villages of the province since immemorial times, not only Xixón Lilliput, but also Uviéu-Fum Fudge, or the near town of Rúmpeles-Tíjeles, great producer of cider, pork, clockwork, and apples as big as heads of gnome. The local police, in their small cars, try to fight the Cuélebre in its implacable raids, using flamethrowers, silver bullets and a huge crucifix, though all these efforts are in vain to placate the furores of the bloodthirsty beast: when the Cuélebre has devoured enough flesh, it returns flying heavily to its forests, and always promising to come back.

...Unlike this frequent menace, other mythological entities are more rarely seen in town, though they come to assault the city, say, every 20 or 30 years, for example the marine cyclopes Pataricus, who invade Xixón Lilliput from the shore, sailing on their inflatable island Eonavia. The Pataricus throw laser through their only eye, fulminate houses and people, and crush cars at every step, due to their huge stature, which easily reaches the 30 metres.

These inenarrable assaults are fought by police and population throwing magdalenas "Dulcesol" at the giants... this, incredibly soothes them, and they return crying to their inflatable island, and return to the middle of the ocean, where they live.

Other fairies, goblins, elves, spirits and unidentified monstrosities visit Xixón Lilliput more or less frequently, coming from their forests, mountains, valleys and even from the bottom of the ocean, always with bad intention, mostly attracted by the smell of human flesh and the advantages of modern life, like the ventilator or the radio cassette recorder.

Les Xanes are usually seen at the gates of the town, for example, they are blond young womenoids [sic] whose flesh, deep inside is black, and they are related to the Cuélebre and to the gold.

At nyght, when the streets are empty, they enter the town, walk around the houses, and if they find some open window, enter, steal the human babies, and leave one of their sons called Xaninos in his place.

In the morning, the human mother visits her baby in his room, and finds a strange baby sleeping in the cradle, with greenish skin, white hair and transparent eyes: this has been cause and matter of much horror here during centuries... the human baby raised by les Xanes in the forests will grow as a black outlaw wizard.

Sometimes a horrid carriage hauled by invisible horses comes to town flying, it's The Cart of Death, or Carru de la Muerte, which includes a company of spectres called Güestia. 

The apparitions walk by the streets of Xixón Lilliput taking everybody with them... then, the cart and the spectres fly in ascension to Heaven, and its wheels are made of tungsten, and it is tall and rectangular like a box.

In the place where it landed the terrain stays scorched with a triangular mark, and a strong smell of garlic, onion, and cheese remains for hours.

This smell drives the dogs of the town insane, and make them roll and turn on the scorched terrain, as if they had epilepsy.

But the limits between the rural and the urban are unclear in Xixón Lilliput, reason why many other creatures of any sort are seen on the streets of Xixón Lilliput and its outskirts, namely la Fiera Cuprecia, les Serenes, Xuán de la Borrina, el Nuberu, or the repugnant Busgosu, cursed horned man whose legs are like those of the goat, and who comes walking from his eastern lands in search of yoghurt and casadielles.

Not to mention the renegade human menaces, like l'Home Marín, a man who lives in caves of the shores and destroys ships from the distance by means of mental emissions, or les Bruxes, disgusting old witches whose life was devoted to Satan and the occultism. Les Bruxes never enter the town, but they usually cast damnations from the gates of the ville: whoever hears them, is turned into porcine, and returns home walking on all fours.

For this reason Xixón Lilliput has so many churches:

At night, they all run in a hurry to sleep in small beds, carved in wood of the rotting forest, in that moment, when the village is dormant, the obese belfry of Xixón Lilliput emits shortwaves of love that feed their sleep.

Toward the wheels of tomorrow.