One week later, Cole stared out the window of his house and into the horizon: at two mile-high walls of darkened, patterned rubber, shifting against one another. They were the treads of two massive sneakers, containing the feet of one massive giant crisscrossing his ankles on a desk that seemed to span for even more miles. The shoes’ massive owner lay back with his arms crossed leisurely behind his head, unthinkingly displaying the bottom of his vast feet to thousands of terrified onlookers as he concentrated on something in his lap. Plant matter and boulder-sized pebbles held tightly in place between distorted rubber canyons were amid the flattened debris that could be seen compacted within the dark zig-zagging lineae. Other pieces of oversized lawn detritus were pressed throughout. The sneaker treads of this gargantuan being were like an alien landscape: a bizarrely complex system of white striated crevices, blue trapezoidal protrusions, and other geometric oddities, whose dark surfaces were in some places smoothed by weight and friction. Cole never felt smaller in his whole life, staring at these synthetic monstrosities. That he and his city were almost dwarfed by a pair of *one* guy’s running shoes defied comprehension.
Suddenly, the titan changed positions: Cole watched in awe as one massive sneaker lifted into the air then and then landed its heel down beside its neighbor with an earth-shaking *THOOM*, followed by the other titanic shoe lifting and crossing over that one. The edges of the white rubber soles squeaked and groaned as they shifted and scuffed against each other. Meanwhile, the uncaring giant continued to sit back with his arms crossed behind his head, appearing to be playing on a cell phone, oblivious that just this small act of recrisscrossing his feet on his desk was felt by all.
Cole swelled with hatred. The giant had brought on nothing less than an apocalypse to his town! First by abducting his city, then by threatening them. When the city’s military responded, their captor retaliated with an act of mass destruction. “The big shake,” as people called it, was just the beginning of the terror he inflicted. One afternoon later, the sky appeared to have opened into space suddenly, the clouds all dispersing. From the blurry, rumbling beyond, a monstrous hand appeared, gargantuan in size, with long and thick fingers outstretched. They descended and surrounded the largest tower, then slowly grasped the structure. The entire world seemed to shake as the structure was ripped from the earth, causing debris to rain down until it disappeared into the clouds with the huge alien hand. Seconds later the giant’s booming voice thundered from above, talking to himself reflectively. “Still intact, mostly. Cool. That’s one…” he stated, causing the ground to shake as he lumbered away with carrying hundreds. The people thought they were safe but a minute later, the ground shook once more, and then the hand descended again upon another random tower. The cruel snicker of a god echoed somewhere up in the atmosphere. Clouds reformed, and the tiny people saw the blurry, barely visible outline of the superior being who seemed to exist in outer space.
Today, however, the weather was clear. And worse, Cole shuddered to think what was going on underneath the far-off edge of the miles-long desk where he could not see. “The giant will spare us if we send him women,” the military leader stated coldly on the television several days ago. Afterward, there was no discussion, no vote. The leaders set up a lottery. And tonight, Cole’s beloved, innocent sister Claire was selected and made to board a helicopter where she would disembark upon the penis of a giant. The titanic being had done this every night: have Cole’s people deliver women to him and perform unspeakable acts to his penis. He treated them like sex slaves. With Cole being only 18 and relatively inexperienced, he could not quite imagine what the more sexually mature and experienced mid-20-something giant derived from this. How pathetic to be a giant who has to use tiny people to masturbate, Cole thought bitterly.
*****
Barry fell back in his office chair in the basement, having just gotten home from another run. Tired and sweaty, he propped his sneakered feet up on his desk, crisscrossed at the ankles and reclined with his arms crossed behind his head. On the desk, just inches in front of his dirtied soles, the troublesome glass-encased city sat. A week had passed. Looking over his outstretched feet, he scrutinized the battered metropolis and its population contemptuously. Fully aware that all eyes were upon him now, he wondered: did they hate him? Then again, he thought, what did it matter anymore? Even with the best of intentions, these ungrateful little punks attacked him. Given the opportunity, they would have probably killed him in his sleep, Barry thought. As good-natured a guy he was, Barry knew that this city was a population that needed to be brought to heel -- literally if need be. Distracted by the sudden vibration of his phone in his pocket, Barry ended this train of thought and pulled out his phone in order to read a text from his friend Keith.
Meanwhile, inside the bottled city hundreds of little people toiled in forced labor, constructing the stone statue of their wrathful god. Unbeknownst to Barry was the fact that most of the little people did not wish for conflict nor had any part in the attack on his eye. Helpless before a being of his immense size, all they could pray for now was the freedom to live within their city and not be crushed by him. Unfortunately, their tiny pleas were never heard: Barry was simply too big. Striding throughout the room, his lumbering form was always unreachable to the tiny population. Living in a world far above theirs, he had no need to converse with such tiny beings. Even if the masses could gain and (by some miracle) hold the attention of a being so much greater in scale, they were too insignificant individually.
Instead, he commanded the entire population as one, getting his way through the most natural means available to a being of his immense stature: threats, force, and grandiose edicts. “Time to take care of business,” he boomed. Barry had gotten used to giving the tiny people commands, expecting them to sort out the details of whatever he demanded from them – and promptly, or else. And they delivered: a gnat-sized helicopter flew out the top of the container’s opening and zipped through the gap between Barry’s two sneakers and past the lengthy expanse of his moderately hairy legs until it hovered directly in front of his lean, shirtless chest. Slowly, the helicopter descended the fleshy expanse of his muscled abdomen and toward his waiting crotch, where a smirking Barry had already pulled down the elastic waistband of his shorts to expose his now stiffening penis.
This new routine had begun days prior, when the city upon which Barry had unleashed his violent rage began the rebuilding process. One day after the big shake, Barry was napping with his head down on the desk when he woke up to a faint voice, electronically amplified through some technology, squeaking inside his right ear. The city had boldly sent a helicopter whizzing into the immense passageway of his ear canal while he slept. The gnat-sized aircraft had landed deep within the sticky interior, where it had transported two beings who claimed to be leaders. Barry recalled the intense itching their tiny movements caused, and how he reflexively tried to scrape his pinky finger inside in order to eliminate the invaders. But then the two tiny men announced that they wished to surrender and concede defeat in their so-called war against Barry.
That was when Barry contemplated: it was the perfect opportunity to subjugate and impose his will upon these unruly, aggressive microbes! Barry spoke aloud to the two intrepid men who dared wake a sleeping giant: “You tiny fools. You’re lucky that I don’t squash you right now.” Barry felt incredulous at their proposal. Being the kind of guy who stepped *on* bugs instead of around them, Barry never felt concerned if ants wanted to surrender. He didn't spare bugs: he stepped on them. And this was no different. “In case you puny microbes hadn’t noticed, your entire city is little more than an ant farm sitting on my shelf, and I’m the owner. Always remember: bad things tend to happen to ant farms eventually – especially when their owners get bored! You never know when they may get flooded, suffocated, or smashed on the ground. It’s a shame too: I could have given you guys anything you wanted: my other cities love me for the things I’ve done for them.” Indeed, to every city before, Barry had acted as nothing less than an angel, providing them with all sorts of gifts, resources, and building materials that he would gently lower into their bottles with a long pair of tweezers. Under his care, the tiny people flourished and even built statues within to honor him without him ever once asking.
But even so: as much as Barry wanted his little adorants to succeed, sometimes he entertained the idea of causing mischief as well. The truth was that he had wondered ever since the first city what it would feel like to play the terrifying, malevolent deity role instead of always the good kind. Barry was a guy after all, and at the end of the day, what guy didn’t fantasize about or even imagine themselves as being a god? The idea of having an entire population of people with which to toy, terrorize, and dominate over appealed to Barry on some dark level. And after all his good deeds, all the improvements he made, all the other tiny people whose lives he improved, Barry now wondered: why not? It was only one city, he deserved to get something out of it! With that thought in mind, Barry smiled and continued speaking to the microbes in his ear: “Here’s what’s going to happen now: I’m your new god, and you will do everything I tell you. First I want you to erect a huge statue, built in my image, in the center of your city. I want it to see it built twice as high as your tallest building: demolish other buildings to make room if you must. Oh, and I want that airfield you used to strike me to be demolished as well or I’m going to crush everybody in it! If you fail to do one thing I say, I’ll eat all of your women and children. How does that sound?” Normally quite mild-mannered, Barry truly delighted in exhibiting this crass, shameless macho persona. He was the mighty, cruel giant who bullied and crushed the tinies at will! Free from concern for social norms that would otherwise subdue his masculine desires, he could be anything he wanted to them.
Experiencing quite the ego trip, Barry gave the flea-sized men one final command before he allowed them to whiz out of his ear in their miniscule helicopter: to provide a contingent of female laborers who would be devoted to serve him in any way he chose, in order to placate his wrath. Barry grinned mischievously at the idea: what could be better than a crowd of personal servants (or even more exciting – slaves) he could force to cater to his every whim and bodily urge? Barry felt thrilled. Having a population of tiny people fear him was even better than having them revere him. Why let these beings stand on their feet when he could instead have these little guys kissing *his* feet all day by the thousands? He was free to be an absolute tyrant now, terrorizing them for no other reason than to reinforce his dominance and machismo – or even more amusingly, for no reason at all! Barry smiled fiendishly, just thinking about it. With his gargantuan size, he could use the tiny city as a focus for his daily frustrations and whims, to stroke his ego and assuage his insecurities, and the opinions of these little people would be meaningless.
Indeed, being secluded in his basement left Barry with certain urges which had lately been neglected, and with his creative mind, Barry could imagine some very enticing ways for them to be satisfied. Whatever else he was, Barry was still – at the end of the day – a young, virile guy, and men like him had needs. His hobby of playing god over miniature civilizations had left him little time to leave the house in order to satisfy desires he once often indulged. As a confident and competent dater of women, he used to go out all the time. But besides his daily runs, Barry no longer enjoyed leaving the house much at all. How could he, anymore? In the so-called real world, Barry was just some guy. In his basement, he was a hulking titan. As a lumbering giant, he loomed over tens of thousands of microbe-like beings like a distant, undiscerning, and unreachable god. He could engineer entire civilizations in his own image through sheer force and force them to do whatever unspeakable tasks he dreamed.
This was demonstrated now more than ever: sitting in his chair with his feet propped up on the table, Barry watched the helicopter which he summoned descend his bare chest toward his crotch, where he eagerly yanked down the elastic waistband of his gym shorts. The helicopter tickled immensely as it landed atop the fleshy surface of his exposed penis, followed by several tiny choppers who had followed it out of the city. Moments later, over hundred flea-sized specks had disembarked and were walking directly atop the veiny flesh of his engorging penis shaft, causing Barry to have increasingly delightful sensations. He smiled excitedly at the little dots: “Get going.” The awestruck specks, practically indiscernible to Barry’s massive scale, immediately began to march along the top of his shaft in two columns, up to the head of his penis and then back down again several times. Others remained near the engorging tip, who Barry commanded to lie face down and lick unceasingly.
This was what Barry had his tiny personal slaves do every night for the last week – make them march up and down his shaft, causing increasingly intense stimulation, until he finally ejaculated. The routine was simple: they would be dropped off upon his penis by helicopters from the tiny city, and they would stay until he dismissed them. When he was stimulated to the extreme, thrusting forth his penis and ejecting in orgasm, the infinitesimal mites would all duck and cling desperately on to the spongy skin of his swollen fleshy appendage, desperate to avoid flying off to their doom. Barry had not lost any yet – at least he did not think. After ejaculating and catching his breath, he would command the helicopters to return and use whatever means necessary to clean the tip of his penis and up and down his shaft. It would have been a simple, almost effortless task for Barry to wash up himself, but he thought it was infinitely funnier to make the little people do it, delighting in the idea of how demeaning it must feel for them to be cleaning some other guy’s giant dick.
Grinning evilly, Barry watched intensely as a couple dozen tiny men in hazmat suits struggled to trudge through his sticky, white seminal fluid near the tip of his penis, sometimes getting stuck and falling face forward, fully covered in his spermatozoa. Meanwhile, a dozen helicopters whizzed by, with men suspended on lines, who cleaned the underside of Barry’s penis with water hoses. Finally, after many minutes of further stimulation caused by this (and sometimes another ejaculation and cleanup) the toiling laborers would return to the city until the next night. Barry was fascinated at the extent to which they bent to his every whim, no matter how pointless or vile the task. Just how much hardship and distress could he make them endure before they go crazy, he wondered? His ego swelled at the thought. Like a true god he had to demand unfailing compliance, and secretly Barry hoped that the tiny people would try and resist or perhaps launch another laughable attack, just so he could unleash his wrath upon them. But they had not resisted, and Barry knew why: he was simply too huge for them to do anything about it!
Although Barry savored the opportunity to mete out his own style of justice upon the tiny people, he eventually realized that gratuitous punishment was just as rewarding. Barry was a god to them, so concepts such as ethics or morality no longer applied. Indulging his highly analytical and curious nature was cause enough for him to be as destructive as he wanted. Therefore, he had recently taken to toying with and abducting from his ill-favored slaves as he pleased. Indeed, several days ago Barry had successfully transported the city to a new glass bottle, one whose top was wide open instead of narrowed, which provided him open access to their buildings. By gently wrapping his finger and thumb around one skyscraper at a time, wiggling them until he could feel them snap at the foundation, he plucked three of their structures right from the city. Although significantly damaged and crumbling a little from his extraction of them, the towers were mostly intact, containing hundreds of occupants combined. Barry laid the broken little towers on their sides in petri dishes, where he could study them at his leisure. Bringing his chair over and looming over entire buildings like a huge, uncaring scientist: his cold curiosity was almost insatiable.
Barry wasted no time toying with the tiny buildings, slowly pressing his gargantuan fingertip down on the crumbling structures, testing their durability, while watching its screaming occupants flee in panic. He slowed his study for no one, and he was fascinated to see how quickly they could avoid being pressed flat beneath the unstoppable grooved flesh before he finally reduced the buildings to powder. Then, maintaining the composure of curious but unfeeling researcher, he would take a magnifying glass in his hand and slowly hover it above the tiny crowds like a giant spaceship, causing the hot light of the basement window to amplify until a narrow, hot beam of light shone through. With boyish fascination and a devilish grin, he leaned in and followed the screaming little specks with his beam of judgment, smiting one after another as they scrambled like all hell to avoid being instantly disintegrated. Unfortunately for them, their faint high-pitched squeaks fell upon huge, deaf, uncaring ears. No longer a benevolent deity to these tiny beings, Barry was a detached old testament god. With cruel precision he intently chased each fleeing speck with his deadly light beam. No amount of pleading or begging touched him. Man, woman, or child made no difference. At their scale, Barry did not discern them anymore than would the ants in his driveway, whose busy little mounds he often bulldozed with the toe of his sneaker just because he could.
All told, the week had been productive. Besides these other ventures during this period of time, Barry had also taken to developing his power to manipulate size. After minutes and minutes of concentrating on some unnecessary boxes in his basement, Barry had succeeded in altering their state of matter to where they temporarily faded from the material universe, just as the cities he transported into his collection. In that phase, he could alter their size through sheer thought. It was not long before Barry was able to shrink the boxes down to a size of a thimble and just flatten them in between his fingertips. Barry was eager to experiment with this power on something more substantial, perhaps even living beings. The possibilities were endless.
Having finished using the little people to masturbate, Barry decided it would be interesting to share his discovery with Keith: his longtime friend and occasional competitor in running who had just texted him. Barry had lost to Keith during their last friendly race. The two had not seen each other since, and Barry missed his company. Barry felt excited to see the look on Keith’s face after he showed him the cities he had collected. He thought he might even summon a few cities for him as a demonstration and let Keith keep one for himself, opening the idea to yet another friendly competition wherein they compared the progress of one another’s cities.
******
Keith had been waiting at the door for five minutes. Growing impatient, he pulled his phone from his shorts and sent Barry another text: "I'm here." Moments later, his long-time buddy opened the door and ushered him inside. Keith folllowed Barry down to the basement as he excitedly explained what he had been doing over the last few weeks. The story was beyond incredible, and Keith laughed at what he thought was a ridiculous prank -- until he was led over to the shelves holding what looked like model cities contained in their glass bottles.
Looking inside the glass walls of one of the first cities with a magnifying glass that Barry handed to him, Keith’s eyes widened with fascination as the reality of the situation set in. He then froze for several seconds and spoke, awestruck: “There are tiny people inside.” Still leaning down, he turned his head toward a smiling Barry who stood proudly with his arms crossed. Keith looked through the glass again, continuing: “Where do they come from? What do you do with them?”
Barry explained about his new power and about the first set of cities – the way he kindly tended to them, offering them gifts, and how the tiny people grew to adore him. Keith nodded interestedly, smiling with fascination at the thousands of flea-sized people who stared in trepidation at his colossal visage that took up their entire sky. They were terrified of Keith, but he had no idea. His gigantic blue eye rapidly darted in different directions in front of them, enhanced in size through the lens of the magnifying glass. The mere act of blinking sent them all flinching. Meanwhile, Barry continued his story, mentioning that the little people had come to practically worship him, even building statues in his image. Slowly, Keith’s smile dissolved. “You mean they think you are what… their god?”
Barry replied, grinning: “If you were that size, wouldn’t you? Compared to them, I may as well be – both of us, actually! From their perspective, the two of us are giants.” Barry went on: “But god or not, most of the little people love me -- except for those punks you’re staring at now. They attacked me right after I bottled them. Right after I brought them here, they sent a squadron of fighter planes to kill me while I was cleaning. I was swatting at them, thinking they were goddamn flies. One of them shot me in the ankle, and I stepped on him before it could get away! I had to pry his little plane out of my sneaker treads. Picture that Keith! A whole goddamn metal airplane -- stuck to the bottom of my running shoe! Let me show you!” Barry led Keith over to the crumpled wreckage, which Barry had decided to keep around in a tiny glass dish.
Keith then stated, “Wait, what happened to the pilot?”
“Don’t know; never found him. I figure he ejected the second he looked up and saw a giant foot. He’d be tiny enough that he could have survived even underneath my sneaker, if he landed under a gap.” Barry frowned, putting one hand under his chin and he looked down at the floor pensively. “But at his size, it would have taken him literally hours just to have made it across the floor to the nearest wall, and I’ve been walking around down here for days. He’d be way too tiny and way too slow to avoid my feet, even if he saw me coming.” Barry looked back at Keith, smiling playfully. “Whatever the case may be, it’s unlikely he’s ever finding his way home, and chances are that his home is already the bottom of my shoe. Sucks for him, I guess. When I went to give the rest of the little punks a stern warning for their attack, they blasted me in the eye. After that, well…”
“Well, what?” Keith asked concernedly, somewhat disturbed by the likely fate of the pilot. He shuttered to imagine the horror of being so tiny and forgotten, only to be unceremoniously crushed into bloody entrails beneath Barry's giant sneaker.
“Let’s just say I decided to 'shake things up' a bit. They’re good builders.” Barry added, “and even better worshippers. They do anything I command.” Barry then gave a devilish smile. “*Anything,* Keith.”
“Barry. Have you been forcing them to do stuff? Have you killed any of them on purpose? These are people, remember? They aren’t ants. These are tiny people down there… with children, babies. Guys just like you and me are down there in those cities!”
Barry frowned: “Except they attacked me, not the other way around. They got the worst end of it, and that’s on them. Besides, it worked: they see me as a god. As far as gods go, I think I’m pretty mild.”
“You’re not a god… you are being a tyrant. There are probably hundreds of versions of guys just like you and me in those bottles who you are torturing. Don’t you see how messed up that is?”
Keith had no way of knowing that the idea of there being tiny men in those bottles, equivalent to guys like Barry and himself, greatly appealed to Barry. If anything, the comparison made him feel even more superior, knowing thousands of guys just like himself lived in those bottles which he loomed over, each of them terrified by his gigantic size, petrified by the quaking sound of his approaching feet each time he stepped toward them. Whatever importance they thought they had was surely up-ended by Barry’s very existence as an earth-shaking giant. To them, he was a god, and with all their tiny male insecurities, they surely resented him for being so huge. The notion made Barry want to be even more fiendish and cruel just for the fun of it. “That’s… pretty awesome, actually.” Barry smiled at Keith: “Who wouldn’t want to be a god?”
Keith shook his head incredulously. To Barry it was all a game or a hobby, but he was impacting real lives. “You’ve lost it man. Spending all this time down here with your little microbes… picking on them, bullying them, terrorizing them? You’re a god to microbes, dude. Don’t you see how pathetic that is?” Barry simply crossed his arms in front of his chest, unamused – as if to admit to Keith that he was right on the nose. On the outside Barry was good natured and affable, but he knew Keith was right. The truth was that Barry was very at ease with his status as an oppressive and destructive god: it made him feel like one of the deities from ancient Greek mythology who were known for being pettily cruel and temperamental. Perhaps in time he could shrink entire worlds or lightyears worth of space and contain it all in a bottle small enough to stick in his pocket. He would have a literal pocket universe! Then he would be a cosmic giant to the billions within, almost unknowable but all-powerful.
Almost as if he could see Barry fantasizing instead of listening, Keith shook his head in disgust to leave Barry to continue playing god for now. As he turned to leave, Keith gave a last look at the miniature city down by his waist and sighed. He decided to step toward it before exiting and knelt. In that moment he could appreciate what he had not earlier: how battered it was. Parts of the city were smoking and rubble. There were dime-sized indentations where a dozen houses and lawns were crunched flat, the result of their gigantic abuser pressing his fingertip down on them just to terrorize them. Even more disturbing were a few city blocks that seemed to be coated in a suspicious dried, crusty white substance. Meanwhile, thousands of specks were crowded in the streets, and unnoticed by Keith, they were trembling at the sight of his own huge visage through the glass, wishing that this second earth-shaking giant were their savior but fearing that he was just another tormentor. Suddenly Keith’s vast fleshy palm descended upon the dome, causing the ground to shift. “Sorry little guys… I hope things get better for you,” Keith boomed through the glass, unaware that his voice was practically deafening to the populace within who immediately covered their ears in pain.
Keith lifted his hand off of the glass bottle and stood up. Looking at his friend with disappointment, Keith stated “God or not, I would hate to live in one of *your* bottles Barry," then turned to leave.
His fantasy interrupted and on even more of a power trip than ever, Barry processed Keith’s words and then smiled even more slyly. “That’s an idea, Keith.”
Keith spun around, alarmed: “Wait, what?” He could read mischief all over Barry’s face.
“What’s wrong, Keith? If you think these guys have it so bad – that they’re suffering – maybe you can do some good and help them. I think to really help people though, you have to see things from their perspective.” With that, Barry gave him a playful wink.
Keith stammered: “You don’t really want to –“
“Don’t I? Think of it as a humanitarian mission Keith. Be careful though: I hear those guys get lots of earthquakes, heat waves, and other crazy events! You can tell me about the trip afterward: assuming you survive!” Barry grinned at Keith.
“Barry, wait… don’t!” Then, suddenly everything flashed white and Keith was blinded. His ears ringing, he covered his eyes with one hand and dizzily stumbled around with the other arm outstretched hoping to grab a hold of something. Suddenly, Keith was flung backward in the air as the hard ground beneath seemed to lift up under him. *THOOOOOOOM.* Landing on his back, Keith quick got to his knees, his vision now returning. Then, the ground shook up and down once more, causing Keith to again topple over. *THOOOOOOOM.*
Pushing himself up with his arms, Keith’s stomach fluttered as he saw that he was now surrounded by a pair of white, mountain-sized, alien monoliths on either side of him, stretching off into the beyond. Keith felt paralyzed. They were two titanic running shoes, housing two titanic feet to match. The creased and collapsing white rubber soles groaned and squeaked under the idly shifting weight of Barry’s vast and heavy feet. It seemed impossible to believe that Barry, once a regular sized, slim guy compared to Keith, could ever be so huge. So tall was his stature that his shirtless chest and distant, downward-peering face was slightly blurred by the thin “atmosphere” of what was just ordinary dust particles in the room. With no warning, the two giant sneakers peeled off the floor at the heel, causing a loud *squelching* sound, as their own bent his knees and crouched down. Keith looked back up and screamed, while a grinning Barry quickly closed the gap with his enormous fingers. “Barry… Noooooooooo!”