little giant
“Little one?”
he set his hands, lumped with the years of work, upon her smallest toe. from the base of his palm to the highest point of his middle finger managed to comfort barely even half of the nail of that toe, but still he hoped that he could offer that thin bone a bit of warmth.
the Little One couldn’t possibly have heard him, as their head was high into the atmosphere where many that were his size wouldn’t even imagine trying to breathe, but maybe? He had thought,
maybe still.
The world was beginning to flood. Little One had, for reasons unnatural to them and violent it seemed on their behalf had begun to weep day before. Tears the size of smaller worlds thrashing down upon them had begun just days before to the point that even the General Shermans were thinking maybe they should have worn their highwaters rather than Sunday’s best.
“Little one?”
she didn’t know where she was: a knee, the crease of the arm, maybe even a collar bone. She had climbed for months to get there. Calling the entire time.
A thought pushed her on that worried not for what had been lost for beneath her sat an unexplained sea of salt that was violent, that was large enough and deep enough to demand the entire restarting of all of them. They couldn’t swim such depth or murk and the creatures that could were hungry and happy enough to welcome them.
“Little one?”
Again the voice of warmth rang out and for whatever reason, in that moment the raining had stopped. Bridges were lost, sunken like whole cities.
“Little one, why?”
Equal parts confusion and concerned pleaded to the face unseen. a large, low wind suddenly blew across the planet. Moans that held tone but no clarity, just bass caused waves. So the warmth voice tried again, barely holding on.
“I am here, I am here, I am here and I want to know.”
Then came a rumbling unlike anything. The little one quake shook the sharks awake and shook the wood of the boats others had built in anger and detest against the violence they perceived to be upon them. Some Wrathful God, maybe even their Wrathful God- so others knelt down to appease.
The little one slowly Shrunk. Ask Alice, she will tell you, such things. Impossible things can happen this way. While still larger than the rising sea but small enough to not be mistaken for Hurricanes and Tsunamis, the Little one settled and searched for the warm calling.
“Mother? Father? are you home, are you here?”
The booms were still loud like fireworks, but if they wanted to make them out- and they did, they could.
“I did not mean for this to be this way. I loved the streets my feet could fit on, I loved the smells of warm bread and the voices of other. But One day I knew that your Little one and their Little one were. I began to fill up, and I filled and I filled and Suddenly I had filled so much that I started to cry to stop. I had tried anger, I had tried grief but ultimately what i had needed was to pour. And look at what i’ve done! Even this is wrong.”
The rain began again.
“Little one!” the meek voice pleaded. “What have you done besides become more visible? All light demands to be seen on some scale.”
and the rain stopped again.