Tom walked over to the bus stop. He meant to catch a ride to the city center where he would undoubtedly find MANY problems to fix! As he approached the bus stop, he saw a crowd of people waiting for the bus. Among them was a short redhaired young woman, probably not much over 24.
“I’m going to be late for my interview...” she was mumbling. Tom looked around, and there was still no bus in sight. He immediately willed it, and a second later, the bus finally turned around the street corner, approaching the stop. He looked at the girl, who was fidgeting from being late. He got an idea.
As the bus approached, it started shrinking, dwindling down smaller and smaller, obviously too tiny for the gathered people to get on. The other people in the stop started walking away, obviously not intending to catch this bus anymore, but the late girl stayed, watching it. When the bus rolled up in front of the stop, it was only a couple of centimeters long, if even that.
The girl raised her foot over the bus, casting it in her shadow, a few pebbles of dirt raining down on it from her cute work flat’s sole. Instead of stepping on it, however, she placed her feet to the side of it and looked down at the bus. She then bent down on her knees, covering the bus under the canopy of her sundress. “You are so late!” When I signed up to help carry tiny pebble-sized buses for ant-sized people, I thought you would all be on time! I have things to do!”. With that, she stood up again, and she pulled her foot out of her flat, revealing her feet, which were covered in a gray opaque pantyhose. She wiggled her toes over the bus. Tom grinned as he willed her feet to emit a powerful odor – so powerful he even smelled it from his watching distance. As the girl wiggled her toes, the atmosphere inside the bus must have been revolting! He made the tiny people hold on to their guts, no matter how hard they might have otherwise wanted to puke. They were innocent, it was the drivers’ fault the bus was late!
The girl set her foot down on the street and picked up the bus between her fingers. “I know my contract says I have to carry you with dignity to the city center, but...the contract says you have to show up on time, and you broke it, so I’ll break it too.” With that, she deposited the bus inside her flat, the once big machine resting on the lettering of the well-worn flat. “Here comes!” the late giant announced from above, as the tiny passengers screamed in terror at the shadow of her foot approaching. She carefully slid her toes in her shoe, and then lowered her heel to the ...heel section, nestling the bus under her arch. Tom made sure that the bus could stand the pressure as she walked. The girl started striding. He could only imagine the horror as the tiny passengers were taken along for the dark, sweaty, hot and violent ride, each crashing step being repeated after each gut-jerking take-off sensation of her mighty footsteps.
Wasn’t she late though? Tom thought about it for a moment. If she was late when she could take public transport, she would be even later if she had to walk to the center AND stop along the way to let ant-sized people on and off the bus. He smiled as he watched the girl grow taller and taller with each successive step. She ended up being a towering 100 foot giantess – and the bus grew alongside her, but it was still much tinier than a normal vehicle. Still, at her current size, the girl could easily stroll downtown. Every massive step, feet approximately 12 feet long by themselves, took her further and further in the city. As she walked, her feet caused small imprints in the asphalt. Every so often, she nudged people and cars out of her way as she walked. The girl did not have an interview to be late for anymore, as she was the official tiny-bus carrier around town – her job was to walk around the city all day carrying tinies to their destinations. Tom grinned as he saw a bunch of advertising posters appear on the side of her shoes. It made sense, shoes so big had a lot of space, and someone must have been paying her to display their slogans on her footwear.
As the rumbling sound of her gigantic steps disappeared, Tom realized that he was still stuck in the suburb instead of going to the city center! He thought of calling the girl back to carry him, but decided to just take the walk himself. He would just have to edit his tiredness out as he started the three mile trip to the center!
Tom passed what looked like a school. There was an overworked school crossing guard, stopping cars every so often, letting kids cross every few minutes, causing a lot of traffic. Some impatient drivers started honking their horns at her. She tried to do her best and urge the kids on, but it wasn’t her fault, and their safety should come first, after all!
Tom grinned and shrunk the cars in the front of the line to the size of model toy cars. They were still honking their horns, now smaller and higher in pitch, but still annoying! She Strode from her spot and picked up the three cars that were the noisiest. “Little toys, you know I’m here to protect you from the children, you can be a bit more grateful!” Tom smiled as he realized her new job was to protect the tiny traffic from pre-pubescent feet stepping on them instead of protecting the kids from getting run over. As the woman picked the cars up, the horns went even louder. She was trained for that, and with a quick poke of a mighty finger, she flipped the engine covers of the cars up, and crushed the horn apparatus. There, no more noise.
Satisfied, she carried the cars in her hands until she went back to her post. She spotted two young boys crossing the road. She smiled at them and gave them two of the tiny cars as gifts for being such good and careful boys. The boys took the cars and put them in their backpacks. The tiny passengers screamed as they realized they were sharing a bag with used gym clothes.
As for the third car, the smiling lady stuck it in her pocket. She would use it later for her own fun. With that, she resumed working.
Tom’s curiosity got the best of him, and he walked into the school grounds. Everything looked normal – except from some of the children being unnaturally large, or unnaturally small – at least to Tom, since he knew about it. As far as everyone else was concerned, humans were always that much variable in size. He tried to remember when did he resize so many people, and he realized that a lot of those must have been in the mall or the playground he played around yesterday.
He approached a corner, where he saw something bad – one of the ten foot girls had pinned a 5 ft tall teacher against a wall. The girl wasn’t older than 6, but she was absolutely terrifying, as she bullied her own teacher. “Don’t you tell my mom I didn’t do my homework again, or else!” she growled and pushed her oversized pudgy hand against the teacher’s chest, squeezing her heart and lungs. Tom shook his head, realizing he caused this, and immediately reversed their sizes. The girl was now 5 feet tall, still pretty huge for her size, but the teacher was now a towering 10 feet tall. The teacher was patting the girl on the head. “Now, Sizue, you know that being so big doesn’t make you above everyone else, you should do your homework, alright?” “Ok, I guess...” Suzie said. “If I want to.” Tsk. Tom shrunk delinquent Suzie down to one and a half foot tall. Now she was almost barbie-sized compared to her ten foot tall teacher, staring at her shins, trembling. “Are you sure you don’t want to do your homework NOW?” the teacher asked suggestively from above. “Yes miss, I’ll go do it right now, I’m sorry!” Suzie said, and she ran off, avoiding the legs of her peers as she went to do her homework like a good girl.
Tom walked about the school some more. There was a soccer game – boys vs girls. By the time he was done with it, the 3 foot tall boys were losing 10-0 to the 7 foot tall girls – and it was only 5 minutes in the game!
Before his presence could arouse any suspicion, he left the school and headed off. He walked into a bank, thinking there must be someone in need of his powers there. As he sat in one of the comfortable chairs, he overheard a discussion between a high ranking officer of the bank and a a client. The guy wore a pristine expensive suit, while the client was a working lady of about 30 years old, wearing her work uniform and sneakers. “Please, you can’t close my mortgage, sir, I beg you, I have no other place to stay, I’m sorry I missed a payment, see, I took time off work to come talk to you, please...” she begged. The man insisted that the bank had been very lenient, and that after they took her car, her house was next. “Next time don’t sign a contract you can’t keep”, he said. What a rude ass, Tom thought.
“Show some heart, sir, please!” the woman begged one more time, sobbing. That was enough for Tom. The desk immediately transformed into a platform, where the tiny half an inch tall banker would be able to talk face to face with the gigantic client. He still looked unphased, even if the giantess’ tears dropped on his desk, wetting his paperwork and causing his itty bitty computer to electrocute itself. “Show some heart, please..” the giant woman begged again, this time in a much softer voice, obviously afraid of breaking the tiny man’s eardrums. He shook his head as he fought to dry himself off a salty tear that splashed on him. “Banks are no place for “heart”, lady. You lose.” He planned to make a resort for tiny rich bankers out of her house! The woman stopped sobbing and looked at him with a defeated and stone cold expression. “You know, I always thought that you bug-sized people were humans, and treated you like that. But if you don’t treat me like a human, I won’t treat you like one either.” The banker quizzically shook his head. “No!” he yelled as the woman smashed her fist on his tiny desk. She plucked him from the remnants and pinned him under her finger. The tiny man was now squirming and begging for his life. The woman saw the security guards arriving, and immediately pressed her thumb down on the tiny person, eliminating him to a smear before they could stop her.
Tom made the guards look the other way, forgetting they saw the woman murder their boss. She walked out of the bank free, and his death was ruled an accident. For her troubles, Tom made a gold bar appear in front of her as she stepped out in the sidewalk. She picked it up and stuffed it in her purse before anyone could see. No more trouble for the overworked lady.
Tom went for lunch, choosing a burger place. There were a lot of people there, but nobody drew his interest. He lazily added or subtracted a couple of inches of height from random patrons.
As he walked along the street, he arrived at a car dealership. Cars for people all sizes!” the gaudy banner exclaimed, and indeed, they had cars made for 20 foot tall amazons all the way down to microscopic display cases with the models for people the size of ants. A wide variety of people walked back and forth, working hard. “Interest you in a car, sir?” a smiling salesperson asked Tom. “No, thanks, just browsing!” he said back. The man left with a sad expression in his face. Tom was curious about this – usually salespeople don’t quit after one quick no like that! He followed the man into the employee lounge. Thinking quick, he wished himself an employee’s badge so that he could appear in place, and sat on a couch, watching his “coworker”. The man sat on a chair and put his hands in his palms. Another employee walked in, and asked him what’s wrong. The sad man explained how his triplets were eating too much food and that he couldn’t keep up feeding them. “My kids are going to starve, man! And the less I can feed them, the less I can focus on the work, and the fewer cars I can sell...I’ll get fired” he sobbed. Tom nodded, and slowly but surely, the tears stopped and the sad expression vanished. “I feel good though. Even if I suck at selling cars, my kids are so small, I could just feed them crumbs and they’d be set for a week...” he smiled at his coworker. He now had much tinier mouths to feed, and hopefully he’d start getting a few more sales soon.
Tom didn’t stop there though. A rumble shook the whole dealership. “Honey? Honey?”, a powerful feminine voice echoed. “Oh, my wife!” the sad man announced, and trotted out. A thirty foot goddess was waiting outside, using the dealership as a stool to sit on, the metal frame of the building groaning under her weight. “Sweetie, my modeling makes enough money for all of us… she said, as she picked her baby-sized husband and wrapped him in her embrace. I know you want to be the man of the house and earn your keep and sustain us, but you don’t have to, really...” with that, she pulled a small capsule off her bra, and opened it up. “Daddy!” tiny voices of children barely half a foot tall could be heard. “Don’t be sad daddy, mom got to show us her photo studio today, it was so much fun!”. The salesman nodded and ripped his employee badge, allowing his enormous wife to carry him and his tiny kids off the lot. Tom followed them out until she walked too far too quickly and he lost track of them.
He visited a church – grinning at how people were praying to a god while he had godly powers himself. But today, there was a wedding happening. He thought of trying something a bit more extreme. As the service went on, he slowly shrunk everyone down to two inches tall. Almost everyone, that is. The flower girl, an adorable 4 year old girl, was the only one left normal...even boosted to 6 feet tall. She stepped very careful around the tiny congregation, making sure not to squish anyone under her unforgivingly enormous sparkly shoes. She reached into her basket and dropped flower petals, most of those falling on tiny people and covering them like large bedsheets. They had to fight the flower petals off of them, only to get covered with more as the girl thought it was such a funny game! Her parents were as tiny as the rest of the crowd at the moment holding on for dear life at her milky-white tights, next to her ankles. The girl eventually sat down and circled her giant legs around the area with the tiny people. The priest went to the altar. “Now, I present you all… the groom!” he announced. Everyone looked around, trying to find the man. A giggle resounded around them, as the girl reached into her hair and removed her flowery hair pin. In the middle of the giant fake flower stood a well-dressed man. She set the pin on the floor with a clatter, and helped the man off it, lifting him with soft fingertips. Her parents were so proud of her being able to perform her duties so carefully!
“And now”, the priest continued, “the bride!”. Once again, people started wondering where was the bride stashed. “Is she in her dress?” “Did she stuff the poor woman in her shoe?” someone else said. “Is she in the girl’s underwear?” “What about her purse?” But the girl shook her head, saying no to all of those. She bent her head as low as she could, her enormous face being visible to everyone, eyes that the tinies could swim in. “Shhhh...” she said, bathing them all in her warm breath. Everyone obeyed and fell quiet. The girl then pulled out a little ring box, and set it on the ground. She lifted the lid up, revealing the beautiful engagement ring. And in the middle of it, stood the bride-to-be, sitting on the gemstone as if she was part of it. Everyone “oohed” and “aaahed” at the marvelous presentation. The girl gently picked up the ring and set it in front of the priest. The bride hopped off the gemstone and the groom joined her inside the ring. As they exchanged their marital rings, everyone was happy, and the girl clapped her hands when it was over, deafening everyone with her resounding claps.
Tom left, making sure not to step on the tiny cars that were parked outside the church. He wished the couple a fun shrunken life, and moved on.