Lauren was walking home from her job as a corporate communications
specialist. Her job was essentially writing bullet points and feel
good articles for employees of a fortune 500 company. Didn’t really
matter what she wrote, yet somehow her deadlines meant that she had
to stay until 7pm today. Her Friday night was essentially ruined, not
that she had even made plans anyway. Today was hard, she had at least
earned some kind of reward. So she stopped by her favourite pastry
shop before heading home.
Tina also finished
work late that night. She worked for a credit union owned by the
agricultural syndicate. Her late night was from annual elections for
their board of directors, which she had just clinched the vote to
become treasurer. Her colleagues were going to throw her a party
later that night but she wanted to change before hand. Cutting
through the tiny part of town would save her quite a bit of time, so
she indulged herself.
The giant woman
carried herself with the pride of what had been a stellar for day
her. She had her long red hair still up from work, and ported a blue
blazer with a thin lapel and a nice pair of heels. Her shoes clacked
as she walked down the asphalt. She walked briskly through the
outskirts of the tiny town. Her footfalls rhythmic and causing little
destruction. This did not slow the heart rates of the late night
commuters in town. Eventually she missed a step and the spike of her
heel went right through the engine block of a Camry. Embarrassed,
Tina turned onto a less busy street.
“I didn’t mean
to do that.” Tina said looking at a smaller woman who was standing
paralyzed in fright. It took Lauren a moment to realize that the
giantess was talking to her. She needed to play it cool and say
something.
“Shit happens.”
Lauren said to the giantess. She had never actually seen a giant in
her life before. Up until she heard the enormous footfalls her mind
was still turning over the report she had just been writing. It felt
like she had suddenly been yanked out of real life. The scale of this
woman made no sense with the landscape behind her. The woman looked
just like her. Spoke just like her. Yet her scale as barely
comprehensible. Lauren clenched her hand into a fist to hide her
shaking.
“Yeah. It’s not
even my fault. If I hadn’t been late at work, I wouldn’t have
even taken this route home.”
“Ugh – me too. I
had to stay to finish writing a story that I am pretty sure no one is
ever going to read.”
Lauren’s pulse was
through the rough. If the giantess could make out her facial
features, then she could probably see that her face was bright red.
Lauren forced herself to take slow deliberate breaths so that her
voice wouldn’t shake. The giantess took a step towards her, then
squatted down.
“Sounds like a
bullshit job.” Tina said.
“100%. Everything
is always a crisis, nothing ever really matters.”
The conversation
continued like she was speaking to a normal person. Maybe giants were
just normal people. No big deal – well a big deal but not a big
deal. A funny anecdote to tell her friends at a party about
the time she bitched about work to a giantess, not the rampage of
godzilla through the streets. That was until the giant’s hand
rapidly approached her.
“Anyways, I should
be off.” The giantess snatched Lauren as she stood back up.
“What are you
doing?!” Lauren shrieked. Her world was spinning from both her
panic and the disorientation of shooting up several stories in almost
and instant.
“You said yourself
that you had a bullshit job. If I eat you then it probably doesn’t
disturb the local economy that much.” Tina said. “So are you
going to get yourself undressed or do I need to do it?”
“What! You can’t
eat me just because of my job!”
“Oh, I was going
to eat your regardless. I’m a giant and you’re a tiny – I’m
sure they taught you how to hide from predators in school. You should
have been more careful.” Tina said while giving an awkward laugh.
She was never sure what to say to someone she had just caught.
The laugh hung in
the air for a moment. Lauren couldn’t tell if she was joking but
then Tina’s fingers pulled down on her skirt. Her fingers worked
her way up Lauren’s body until she could slice open Lauren’s
shirt with her finger nail. This was real.
“You don’t have
to do this!” Lauren exclaimed.
“Yep.” Tina said
while flicking off the last bits of the Lauren’s clothes. She
watched the tiny girl struggle in her hands while she brought her up
to her lips.
“Then why are you
still eating me?”
“Doesn’t have
to, doesn’t mean doesn’t want to.” Tina said. She paused for a
second. “Guess I said that weird, whatever.”
Tina put the tiny
woman into her mouth. She was quite warm from the panic she was in.
After catching her breath in the humid air of Tina’s maw, Lauren
ran for the giant’s lips. Stomping on Tina’s tongue trying to run
out of her mouth only to fall when the giant’s tongue undulated.
Tina chastised her meal with a grazing of her molars before
swallowing.
Lauren’s heart
felt like it was going to beat out of her chest as she felt the
giant’s teeth crash down on her. They didn’t slice through her
but the squeeze froze her in place. An instant later the tongue
upturned and she was forced into the contractions of swallowing. She
couldn’t breath with the compression of the oesophagus. Still she
hyperventilated pulling in almost no air until she reached the
stomach. Air filled her lungs but the air was hot and humid. She felt
the acidity creep into her lungs.
Tina looked over and
there was another man on the street. He was staring at her the whole
time. Feeling like she should say something to avoid being awkward
she spoke, “Some people, eh?”
“Yeah, it’s not
like giant attacks aren’t on the news all the time. Everyone knows
the danger.”
“Like yourself?”
Tina asked.
“Yep.” Grant
said while unbuttoning his shirt.
“Really? You guys
always put up a fight. I’m tempted to let you go now. If I eat
every willing little guy, then I’ll be using natural selection
against myself.” She said while picking him up. She brought him up
to her eye.
“Gal as pretty as
you doesn’t need to worry. Anyways, that other chick was hot and I
want to get some action before she’s too far gone.” Grant said.
Tina’s eyes narrowed at him.
“You what?” Tina
said.
“Don’t act all
high and mighty, you literally ate her.”
“I’m a giant we
hunt humans. I’m not interested in a little piggy.” Tina said
with disgust. She dropped Grant onto the ground.
“But I guess, I
can’t leave you to go harass other people. Hmm...” Tina tapped
her toes thinking about what to do with him. She kept tapping her
toes in rhythm but advanced forward towards the tiny man. Not even
looking down she heard the crack and shriek as she crushed his knees
and everything below with her shoe. She turned around and continued
her walk.
“You can’t leave
me like this! Please put me out of my misery.” Grant called out.
“Nah, I couldn’t
do that. What if someone else wants some action with you before
you’re too far gone?”
She could have just
eaten that guy, she thought. She could have chewed him to not give
him what he wants. The act of eating is about fulfilling your own
desires after all. Tina had never chewed someone up completely
before. It would have been gross for that other woman. As gross as
being digested alive, she thought, Probably but only like going from
a 9 to 10 on the grossness scale. Well, she had made her decision and
was still hungry as a result.
Tina approached a
highway that split through town. The highway was pretty wide and the
median in the middle was just a concrete barrier. She had to
half-jump to get across like it was a small stream. She skipped
across but realized she wasn’t going to make it cleanly. She tried
to propel herself forward a bit more but the effect was to drive her
foot harder into the right lane, followed by her heel crashing into
another lane. She heard the sound of the crash and instant later.
“Oh shit.” She
muttered. She looked down at the crash site, “Sorry.”
The crash had
disrupted two lanes of traffic. In real time she could watch as a
traffic snake elongated out from her. Thousands of commuters trapped
with nowhere to go. Possibly hundreds of hours of people’s time
wasted. She thought about the math of the situation. If a year is
8760 hours, say 10,000 hours and the average human lives 70 years
rounded down since I overestimated hours in a year, that’s 700,000
hours of life. Humans sleep for a third of that so maybe 500,000
waking hours. There’s probably 5,000 cars on this highway, so
that’d make causing this traffic about 1% as bad as eating someone.
But wait what about carbon emissions? Eating people is random –
wrong time, wrong place. Cars make emissions, maybe I’m doing good
by terrorizing them into taking the bus? Should I go step on the
other lanes of traffic for good measure?
She smiled to
herself as a titanic ecoterrorist but was interrupted by the
voluminous blaring of klaxons. Driver’s shouted obscenities and
made rude gestures at her as they made it past the wreck. It was her
fault after all. Carefully she knelt down and pushed the damaged cars
over to the side of the road. With the block lifted, cars in the
right lane shot off at speed until three cars collided when a driver
from the jammed up left lanes tried to get into the newly cleared
right lane.
“What the fuck you
guys? You did this to yourselves?”
Tina was indignant.
She had actually done the nice thing for tinies. Giants almost never
clean up their messes when it comes to humans but here she had. And
the result? The humans screw it up for themselves. She couldn’t
believe that they subject themselves to this. It doesn’t even take
her to cause a problem.
She raised her foot
over the pile up and pressed down on the cars. She twisted her foot
through the metal frames like they were a cigarette butt. If she
wasn’t culpable then she might as well enjoy it. The give of cars
against her sole was so delightful. 5,000 hours of human life wasted
and she hadn’t even eaten anyone. Her stomach growled. She should
attend to that, though.
Tina made her way
into the central business district. It was pretty quiet at this point
in the night. Too late for work, too early for Friday night revelrie.
To think that her ancestors tracked humans for days to catch them and
she didn’t even have the sense of timing to come when they were
drunk on a Friday night. Her luck changed when she noticed lights on
in one of the office tours. She gave the windows of the board room a
playful knock.
Inside the board
room a biweeekly sales meeting was happening. The meeting goers tried
to stay calm. Conventional wisdom was that giants tend to be playful.
They are often just trying to have some fun. If they engage play
along and hopefully they will be on their way. A bored giant is where
the real destruction tends to come from.
“I’m going to
cut to the chase.” Tina said while she broke the glass window with
a series of flicks. “You guys are in a 7pm meeting on a Friday that
if I’m reading the agenda right is biweekly? Whoever set this up
should be punished and my stomach is a pretty punishing place. If you
undress whoever is responsible and feed them to me, I think we’ll
all be better off.”
Everyone in the
meeting room looked at their director and then at each other. The
director was shocked and exclaimed, “you can’t seriously be
considering this!” He stood up and made to leave but his secretary
forced him back into his seat. Realizing he’d just made a big
gamble on what his colleagues would think the secretary said they
should put it to a vote. To the secretary’s relief all but two
voted for feeding the director to the giantess.
Tina watched while
the director was forcefully undressed. Two men linked there arms
around his and a woman pushed the director from behind to the window.
The director dug his heels into the carpet but the woman behind him
kicked his feet out from under him. Tina stuck her tongue out
playfully them and said “ahh” while the three coworkers heaved
their director onto her tongue. He fell limp onto her tongue and she
swallowed with out much trouble. The only other person who had voted
to not feed the director to her bolted from the room, the rest
watched in shock.
“I hate to ask
y’all for another favour but he wasn’t very filling by himself.
Would you mind stripping down and joining him?” Tina said.
“No!” screamed
the woman who had been behind the director. “You can’t make us!”
“I never said I
was going to make you. If y’all bolt like that other fellow so be
it. But as I understand it, you don’t get food and shelter unless
you spend the better part of every day in this drab building. Some
idiot gets appointed shareholders to tell you what to do. Said idiot
makes you do pointless tasks, work longer hours, and cuts your
benefits for shareholder profit. Then you take your meagre pay
cheques and if you’re wise you invest them in mutual funds. The
mutual funds buy more shares and tell your idiot manager to make even
more profits at your expense.
“I know humans
talk about the bad old days when us giants were more pernicious and
malevolent in our hunting practices. But I got to hand it to you, you
guys made a real ouroboros of your own misery. So you can end the
cycle and have your life wrapped up in a meaningful fashion, burp,
or you can come back to this on Monday.”
The last part of Tina’s speech was quieted as she tried to hold
down a subsequent burp. Of course the guy in her stomach decided now
was the time to fight for his life. But that ship sailed as soon as
he was swallowed. She pressed her hand into her stomach hoping he’d
aspirate some acid and settle down.
“I’m
not going to lie down and take this from a giant. You seem to think
we’re just mice in a cage.” The woman who had pushed the director
said. Maybe she had point, she was definitely a killer who
might even have a backbone.
“Are you the union rep?” Tina asked.
“Uh no, we’re not unionized.” She replied.
“Well then, seems like your mice for corporate cats to play with.
See, I’m not so mean. I’ll let you go on your own terms and I
won’t keep you on the treadmill.”
To her delight a few men were already unbuttoning their shirts. They
stripped down to their underwear and formed a line. Of course they
all hesitated to actually jump in. But once they had a line-up
formed, Tina pushed them in with her hand in sequential bites.
The scene in her stomach grew increasingly chaotic. Lauren was still
hanging on but too weak to move from her position. The director when
he realized he was not alone was finally driven to panic. But his
panicked pacing was ended when he was hit by one of his employees
falling in. Face down in the acid pool he couldn’t get back up.
More employees fell in and space was cramped. Acid oozed in from
walls.
The last man looked
at Tina while he was half undressed but didn’t move. Eventually,
Tina closed her mouth and looked to see who was left.
“I don’t want to
be eaten anymore.” He said.
“But you already
started stripping down, why the change of heart?”
“Well, with
everyone else gone I’m pretty sure that I’ll be the next
director. It’s not a bad deal and hey maybe I can reform this
office with my new position of power.”
Tina laughed.
“I’m sure you
will. The first principle of leadership is to feed your competition
to the lions. The second principle is to stay in the very back until
everyone has faced the danger. A true reformer you will be.” Tina
said. She saw the man sit down looking despondent.
“I don’t want to
die but I don’t want to be here.” He said.
“I can accommodate
that. I think I have had enough tonight. Tell you what, I’ll take
you back with me. You can live in spa among my waterfalls and I’ll
only require a few minutes of work from you each day.”
Tina stuck out her
hand and the half dressed man walked on. She carried him through the
streets continuing her walk home.
“This isn’t some
kind of joke?” He asked.
“Well, if it is a
joke it would have gone on for too long. And besides, I have never
had anyone volunteer so eagerly to be my toilet paper and bathroom
attendant.” Tina said.
“What?! I never
agreed to that.”
“Oh, then maybe I
should eat you.” The man was shaking in her hand. “We giants
don’t keep humans around much. You’re much too enjoyable to eat.
But its become fashionable to have a bathroom attendant and you don’t
shit where you eat – which makes you pretty safe in this role. But
if that’s too demeaning then I could eat you right now.”
“No, no.” The
man said. “I can be your attendant.”
“Great! I knew a
leader of your calibre would be well suited to the task.”
Tina slid her hand
over the back of the shorts. The man tried to hold onto her hand but
the sweat and the tug of gravity guided him down. She felt his hands
glide down her crack to slow his descent. She flexed her butt cheeks
until he fell snugly into place.
She made it out to
the suburbs when she realized her mistake. She could have grabbed
some free tinies to share her girlies at the party but she had gotten
sidetracked and had nothing to show. She was deep into the suburbs
now, catching anywhere near a decent haul would be a pain the ass.
Tina looked back at
the city. She could always go back but by this time there would
surely be reporters trying to get an exciting shot. Stories like this
always made into the funnies of the evening news – though thinking
about it they were probably the top story on the original tiny news.
Of course no one but old people actually watched it but that meant
that she’d get a call from her Aunt Shirley. She knew exactly the
story from 1987 when Aunt Shirley and Uncle Ren demolished there way
through Madison. It saved their marriage, dont’ch’ya know? Her
Wisconsin accent made it all the more cringey. If Tina made it onto
the news, there would be jokes are her expense for days.
Tina had to make due
with what she had. That’s when she got a lucky. She spied a parade
of golf carts at the course just across the street. They were
probably going to some kind of shelter but they weren’t getting
there very fast. She nabbed them by smashing the carts together like
an accordion and gathering up the occupants into the front pouch of
her handbag.
She had expected
terrified shrieks but more so she was hearing indignant call outs.
Bemused by this she asked the loudest what was happening. He told her
that it had been a function of bank executives and that she had no
right to interrupt them like this.
“Bankers? I guess
I’m a banker too.” Tina replied to the tiny man.
“Good, I was
worried I might have been captured by someone that I couldn’t
reason with but a banker can always understand interests. What sort
of accounts do you work with?”
“I work for a
co-op owned by the agricultural syndicate. I manage our investments
in improving our human farms.”
Greg Weston, the
director of his branch, was shocked by this. For one he didn’t know
that they had human farms. But more importantly, she worked at a
credit union? It was worse than he feared. She was either to timid
minded to work at a real bank or some kind of leftist hippie. Maybe
that could work for him the discussion.
“I didn’t know
those existed.” Greg said.
“Oh yea, it’s
why there’s been peace between us and the tiny folk.”
“That and because
after the Enlightenment you grew to respect our human rights,
correct?” Greg figured he should pull on her liberal heart strings
a bit more. “It was a hard fight for human rights. We suffered for
hundreds of years before our rights became laws.”
“No – I think it
was mostly the farming thing. I guess, once we had them it became
easier to care about our image.” Tina replied.
“Well, branding is
important too.” Greg thought about which tact to take next. She
didn’t seem to care about his human rights comment. Maybe she was
just a low calibre saleswoman. He tacked into branding. “So what
kind of promotional event are you running with us?”
“Oh, no promotion.
Well, I guess I did just get elected to treasurer of my credit union
so a promotion of a sort. I needed to get some snacks for the party.
As much as I hate to admit, farmed just isn’t as good as free
range. Free range humans are so anxious, it’s delightful.”
Tina paused to feel
the man trapped between her butt cheeks. He felt like he was trying
to crawl his way out but making very slow progress.
“Surely, that
hurts your image? Talk is one thing but actions are another.”
“That’s why it’s
called image. Image isn’t reality. Hurting my image would be going
back where there are probably of dozens of journalists. But I already
have you. Which makes you food for my party.”
“But you can’t-”
a large thumb covered half of Greg’s face.
“Listen, I’m
just winding you up. What sort of banker are you?”
“I run an REIT. We
invest mostly in apartments.” Greg realized he was in a bad spot.
But she kept talking to him so maybe there could still be a way out.
“So those houses
that I smashed through probably helped your valuation. Less supply,
more demand.”
“Uh no, umm that’s
not how...” Greg stammered. This giant actually was a commie. This
was a very bad development.
“Oh, I understand
now. Single family housing doesn’t change much for you. You
probably want me to knock down this old apartment building. Get rid
of some low-income people and you can speed up the gentrification.”
Tina lifted her foot
and rested the ball of her foot on a four storey concrete apartment
building. Greg looked out in alarm.
“No! Don’t!”
“Are you sure?”
Tina ran her foot further along the roof knocking over a satellite
dish. “Guess, it’s easier to put the consequences of your actions
down on a spreadsheet than it is to watch them in real time.”
Greg tried to argue
this point but by this time Tina was bored hearing what he had to
say. The struggles in her belly had died down fast, probably from how
stuffed her stomach was. So with the loss of that as entertainment,
she put Greg into her mouth. She wasn’t hungry but she could chew
him like gum on the way back.
Greg knew he had
lost once she opened her mouth. Rather than a quick ending, she kept
swirling him around and chewing lightly upon him. Her spit went from
a cool wash against his skin to stinging as the enzymes began to work
on his skin. Each encounter with her teeth left more of his skin
broken, more of his skin burning. She kept at this game for what felt
like hours to Greg before losing interest. Her chews became less
gentle cutting further into him. A more aggressive chew got his foot
caught between her molars. He tried to free his foot by pushing on
her molars with his hands. But her tongue was pushing him the wrong
way. When her tongue couldn’t push him, she bent him back over his
molars. The next strike caught pressed through his vertebrae. Greg
lost feeling below his shoulders. The next bite took his foot clean
off but he couldn’t feel a thing. He eventually lost consciousness
from the blood loss.
Tina taste the
metallic flavour of blood. She swallowed reflexively then realized
what she had done. She was satisfied with her dinner and know just
had to wait from the games they were going to play with the bankers.