Breezy Park

"Hey, dawg... Dawg, wake up, man!!"

Cedric felt a violent rocking of his body as he finally started to come to. As he opened his eyes, he was hit with a brief spell of blindness as his eyes adjusted to the light, but as his vision cleared, he was met with the sight of the blue sky littered with puffy white clouds. He could feel a slight breeze brushing against his cheeks, as well as the fact that he was laying on some very hard and large flat structure.

"Good, you finally up," said a familiar, concerned voice. Cedric moved his head downward, finding his afro-haired friend Curtis kneeling at his torso, his hand pressed upon it.

"Y-yeah..." Cedric pressed his palm against his head, as if to ease the slight headache he had, before sitting up. However, as he did so, he noticed something odd about his surroundings.

"Man, I was already freakin' out, and you bein' out cold whatn't helpin'," Curtis said as he withdrew his hand.

Cedric looked around himself. He and Curtis looked to be on the middle of a concrete trail. ...However, the trail was very wide, almost--dare he say it--gigantic. Even below him, he could very easily make out the fine details in the pavement that one would have to squint to see at normal eye level. On both sides of the trail were very tall blades of grass--wavering in the light early summer breeze--that stood over them more like small trees instead of the herbage that they actually were.

"What the hell...?" Cedric was astonished. "What- Where are we?"

"I dunno, man..." Curtis answered, his tone a mixture of confusion and fear.

"Ugh..." Cedric held his head in his hand again; the headache still pulsated in his head. The last thing he remembered was the two of them walking and talking in the nearby park. Then, nothing before waking up on the ground.

Thinking on it more, even in his current predicament, Cedric could still recognize the environment. He recognized the curvature of the large path they were on, he recognized the titanic-sized, graffiti-laden wooden bench some ways behind them, and among the other towering trees in the area, he recognized the triad of very tall elm trees in the far off distance, their leaves also swaying in the wind.

Right then, he knew where they were.

"We're still in the park," he plainly stated.

"What!?" Curtis was in complete disbelief. "Get outta here!! We can't still be there!!"

"Look around you," Cedric told his frenzied friend. "You know you recognized this place. We're still in the park, but... I think something happened and made us like this."

"Like what?"

Cedric sighed at having to spell their situation out to him. Curtis was never exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.

"Tiny. Small. Itty-bitty." Cedric gestured his thumb and index finger into a tight "C" shape, using the space between both tips to make his point. "We shrunk, basically."

"WHAT THE FUCK!?!?" Curtis had practically lost his mind. "We shrunk!? How!? Who did it!? No one was in the park except us!!"

"Calm down," Cedric chided.

"You expect me to be calm at a time like this!?" Curtis blurted. "How come you so calm, though!? Ain't you scared!?"

"Of course I am," Cedric calmly answered. "But getting worked up about it ain't gonna help us."

Curtis exhaled deeply. "Yeah, you right..."

Both young men stood up to their feet and examined their surroundings. Indeed, Cedric's conclusion that they had been severely cut down to size had been accurate. The sky seemed even higher than it normally was, and the tall grass around them was as far as at least two city blocks on both sides.

"So, wudda we do now?" Curtis asked. "Still ain't no one here."

Cedric reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. After unlocking its screen, he noticed that its signal strength was basically nonexistent.

"No bars," he stated. Perhaps they were too small to detect the signal.

Curtis checked his phone as well. "Same here. So we can't call no one."

"'Fraid not," Cedric said as he returned his phone into his pants. He then folded his arms, closed his eyes, and took in a large mouthful of air before blowing it back out. "What the hell happened to us?"

"You askin' the wrong guy!" Curtis exclaimed.

"That was a rhetorical question," Cedric stated. "But we need to find help. It's still early, so someone's gonna be coming to this park soon. ...Maybe they're already out there, but we can't see them past the grass."

"So, how're we gonna get to them?" Curtis asked. "I know you ain't sayin' we should go through tha grass, 'cuz there's bugs and shit in there!"

"You're right," Cedric said, before noticing and then focusing on something approaching from behind his friend. "Oh, shit..."

Cedric pointed past Curtis, who turned to see what he had spotted. Crawling towards their general direction was a black ant, as large as a German shepherd to them. Having seemingly emerged from the grass, it sullied about in a vague zigzag pattern, nipping at the hard concrete surface as it steadily drew closer to them.

"Oh shit, let's get the fuck outta here before it gets us!!" Curtis cried as he tugged on Cedric's shirt.

"Y-yeah," Cedric said, before both men took off running ahead, further down the concrete path.

Luckily for the two, the ant did not seem particularly interested in them, but Cedric knew that lurking in the grass were more than just ants. Spiders, praying mantises, centipedes; all of them posed a grave threat to the both of them. Not to mention other creatures such as the park's abundant supply of squirrels and birds, both of which would easily make a meal out of them if so desired.

The wind continued to blow as Cedric and Curtis made their way down the path. It seemed as if they were walking for over an hour, and so far, their long, mostly silent walk had been rather uneventful. No other bugs or other critters had tried to assault them, and perhaps even more oddly, no one--be it by foot or by bike--had travelled down the trail; Cedric was thankful for either, but at the same time, they still needed to find someone who may be of help.

Of in the distance to his side, beyond the tall grass, he could hear talking and even a child's laughter. Finally, a sign of activity, but there was no telling how far off they were, how long it would take the two men to reach them, and if they would still be there by the time they reached them. Not to mention the threat of being ambushed while trekking through the grass.

"Dawg, how's we gonna get back home?" Curtis was becoming more and more unnerved. "It's gon take forever walking like this."

"If no one sees us, then we won't really have a choice," Cedric replied.

"What if they see us but think we're bugs? And then step on us?"

"You worry too much," Cedric said. Nonetheless, he had a point. At their size, it was extremely easy for someone to crush them underfoot due to misconstruing them as lowly bugs, or even treading on them without knowing it.

Perhaps the path was not the safest place after all, but he wanted to stay as far from the grass as possible.

Just them, there was a rustling in the grass to their right. Both men stopped dead in their tracks and turned in the direction towards it, watching it anxiously. Cedric's heart began to race; was it just something simply passing through it, or had they been spotted, and whatever was awaiting in there was primed to rush out and attack?

"Daaawg...!" Curtis whined. "We gotta go-"

Just then, something flew out from the grass and in their general direction. Both men ducked in fear, and as Cedric looked upward, he saw that the source was a pair of small sparrows--small in the sense that they were small compared to other birds but still much bigger than they were--passing overhead. Paying the two young Black men no mind, the chirping avians flew on, journeying elsewhere in the park or even beyond it.

Cedric let out a sigh of relief as he stood up. "False alarm."

"Shit, them birds coulda ate us if they felt like it!" Curtis said, still rather agitated. "We need to get somewhere, fast!!"

"Yeah, we're working on that," Cedric said, in an attempt to calm his friend down. "Let's just keep going as far as we can. Once we get to the street, then we'll decide what to do there."

Both men started to walk down the path once more. Curtis, walking very close to Cedric, nervously shifted his attention from the road ahead and the tall waving grass to both sides of them.

"What's the plan when we get to the street?" Curtis asked.

"I dunno..." Cedric replied.

"Whaddoyoumean, 'you don't know'!?" Curtis shouted, loud enough that Cedric winced from the pain of his voice beating his ear drum.

"Man, chill!" Cedric chided.

"How can I be chill at a time like this!? We're small, and we don't know how it happened or how to fix it!!"

"That's why we need to get to the street ASAP. At the very least, we can hitch a ride on someone's foot."

Curtis sighed. "If we gotta do that, I hope it ain't a nigga."

"Would it really matter as long as we get where we need to go?" Cedric turned to face Curtis behind him, but as he did so, he noticed something from his peripheral vision.

Turning his head further to his left, he saw further back behind him were two young, college-aged women, the type one would see in a sorority. Both blond and rather buxom, the ladies donned athletic attire, headbands, and running shoes as they jogged down the concrete path.

They were jogging right in the two tiny men's direction, much of their attention focused dead ahead and not on the ground below them.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!!" Curtis began to panic again. "What if they don't see us!?"

Cedric's heard began to race as he watched the two lovely women ran towards their position. It was a very dangerous predicament, and Cedric was unsure how he and Curtis should act. If they remained in place and tried to call for their attention, they could get squashed; if they instead tried to make a run for it, they could still get squashed. Meanwhile, those two ladies would be none the wiser that they had trampled two living humans underfoot.

"Ced, whaddowe do!?" Curtis cried. "They gettin' closer!!"

Cedric was still weighing his options in his head, but the fact was that the two women were approaching fast, so much so that the ground already began to rumble as their feet hit the ground, a loud crash accompanying each time their shoes met with the pavement. The crashes and tremors only became more fierce as they drew closer and closer, and it was clear that they were moving much too fast for Cedric to be able to get their attention.

Soon, both ladies quite nearly loomed over them like skyscrapers, and while they conversed with each other, they were still completely oblivious to the bug-sized men below them.

"...Run!!" Cedric shouted suddenly.

Both men ran just as soon as they were engulfed by the giantess' combined shadows. As he looked up, he was met with the sight of the sole of one of their shoes--its treads a mixture of white and pink--coming down upon them.

"No!!" Curtis shouted as he ran faster, while Cedric followed in tow.

The white running shoe stomped down. ...Very, very close besides them and creating a vicious shockwave that rocked both their ears and their bodies to the point that they were knocked over. Just as soon as massive foot hit the ground, it just as quickly lifted off of the pavement. Lying on the ground, Cedric watched as the two women jogged on, running further down the curving park trail ahead.

His heart was still beating at a frantic pace as he stood up, his legs wobbly like gelatin. Had they been only a few inches further to their left, they would have been completely pulverized.

"I-I think that took like 20 years off my life..." Cedric muttered, before reaching down and helping the still-frightened Curtis to his feet.

"Fuck, shit...!" Curtis spat out. "That bitch almost smushed us!!"

"Yeah, well we're alive, so we should thank Jesus for that," Cedric said.

"Amen! Maybe Jesus could make us big again!"

Both men waited in place for almost half a minute, watching their surrounding and the blue sky in particular. The light breeze still brushed against their body, and they could still hear the sounds of people off in the distance. Nothing of note had occurred in that time.

"...Yeah, I didn't think so," Cedric commented on the lack of a divine intervention to their situation. "Guess we're on our own."

"Man..." Curtis moaned as both men resumed walking. "I just wanna get back to the crib and lay down."

"How're you gonna get up to your bed like that?" Cedric inquired.

"Shit, I dunno. But at least I'll be somewhere safe."

"I guess you have a point. Plus, it'll probably be easier for you to get help from your girl, and she could contact the proper authorities."

"But how's they gon get us big again?"

"...I don't know. We don't even know how we got small like this, so could anyone even fix us? We could be stuck like this for the rest of our lives. They might even take us and lock us in some super secret lab somewhere." Cedric shuddered at the thought of being reduced to a mere lab rat.

"Fuck, I ain't even think of that," Curtis said. "They gon do experiments on us and shit."

The idea of being locked away in some kind of facility was one that disturbed Cedric immensely. Not only would he be reduced to nothing more than a guinea pig for whatever scientist got their hands on him, but he would be torn away from his family and friends, his own dreams being dashed in favor of being a scientific oddity.

"...Let's just focus on getting somewhere safe and getting help first," Cedric stated, trying to get his mind off of the subject. "We'll worry about what comes next after that."

"Yeah, I guess you right..."

Step by tiny step, both men continued their long trek down the paved path. They could hear more voices off in the distance, including more children frolicking. More birds passed by overhead, paying no mind to the men below them. A large dragonfly briefly hovered overhead--though long enough to cause Curtis to cower again--before buzzing off. Far behind them, an older gentleman and his golden retriever on a leash walked over the path, heading off elsewhere in the park; part of Cedric was relieved that the man had not headed their way, as he doubted that either he or his dog would had spotted them. At worst, the dog would have licked them up from the ground, turning them both into a canine snack.

After some time, further up ahead they saw a red ball bounce from the field to their left, rolling through the path and settling in the grass on the other side. Following after it was a brunette woman perhaps in her late 20s or early 30s and wearing a tank top, capri pants, and sandals, who rushed past the path and onto the other side. Having quickly retrieved the ball, she happily announced to someone--more than likely her young child--that she had gotten the ball back, before running back to the other field and well out of the two men's sight. Needless to say, there was no way at all that they would have reached her in time.

It seemed like an hour had passed, as the tall blades of grass continued to waver in the breeze and the bright sun beat down on them from high above.

"Man, we ain't never gon make it," complained an audibly- and visibly-exhausted Curtis.

Cedric was rather fatigued as well. "Maybe we should stop somewhere and rest for a bit." The only issue with that was finding a safe place where they could recuperate; it seemed that no matter where they went, they would be in danger.

Regardless, both men stopped walking momentarily to catch a breather. Sweat poured down their brows, and their shirts were wet with perspiration. Even with the mid-80s temperature, walking for so long without rest would still take its toll on the body. Additionally, Cedric knew that walking for so long without any sort of fluids would do their bodies no good, and he hoped that they were able to get help before they collapsed from thirst.

"I really wish I had brought a bottle of pop or somethin'..." Cedric commented.

"Yeah, man." Curtis said while panting. "I was just thinkin' that I need somethin' to drink. It's hot as hell out here."

"At least it's not hotter," Cedric noted, a slight tinge of relief in his tone.

While still resting as best they could after several minutes had passed, Cedric looked ahead and saw yet another person approaching on the path from the curve ahead. This time, it was a very young, petite Asian woman, perhaps just fresh out of high school, if that. Her dark shoulder-length hair framed her pale face, its glasses covering her dark eyes. Donning a red shirt with very short sleeves and light blue denim shorts, her attention was primarily focused on the smartphone in her hand, in which ear phones were attached and plugged into her ears.

"Someone else's coming now," Cedric said, garnering Curtis' attention of the approaching teenager.

"Oh, that Chinese girl?" Curtis observed.

Both men watched her; she was still some distance away, but even with her casual stride and assuming that she did not veer off into the field, she would reach them in very little time. However, as she was looking downward--albeit at her phone--perhaps there was hope that she would spot them.

Curtis noticed the wheels spinning in Cedric's head. "Dawg, whatchu thinkin' about?"

"I'm thinking we can probably get her to see us if we try hard enough," Cedric replied.

"Dawg, you serious?" Curtis seemed rather apprehensive despite this. "You sure she ain't gone ignore us and step on us?"

"Let's not think about that," Cedric said, before turning back to the young woman now in full view.

She did not divert from the trail at all; she continued walking along its path, her red flip-flops slapping against the pavement and her heels with each step she took. She was straight ahead of them, and was headed right in their direction. If there was any hope that she would see them, they had to start trying for her attention that instant.

Cedric took a step forward, and began to wave both hands up in the air. "HEY!!" He shouted as loud as he could, despite her earphones. "HEY, GIRL!! LOOK DOWN HERE!!"

Curtis followed suit, also raising his arms in a ploy to get her attention. "HEY!!" He also shouted. "YOU SEE US!? WE ON THE GROUND DOWN HERE!!!"

Cedric and Curtis continued to call and shout at the gigantic teen, still blissfully unaware at the duo in front of her. She briefly looked ahead and at her surroundings, before her attention was recaptured by whatever was being displayed on her phone. Curtis yelled even louder and even started to hop in place while still waving at her. Cedric cupped his hands around his mouth in the hopes that his voice would be more focused towards the giant. There was no reaction from the teenager at all.

"Dawg, she ain't seein' us..." Curtis moaned as he stopped jumping, and slumping his shoulders as if he had given up.

"Yeah..." Cedric anxiously agreed.

While she was looking downward, it was clear that everything beyond the screen of her phone might as well had not existed. Without heeding their calls at all, she drew ever closer, and before long, she loomed high above them, providing quite an imposing sight for the minuscule men on the ground below her.

Any hope that she would have spotted them had been quashed.

"Hey..." There was a crack of nervousness in Curtis's voice as they looked up at her, the incognizant young lady resembling more of a skyscraper in comparison than a fellow human.

With them unable to contact her, there was only one other option.

"Run, now!!" Cedric yelled to Curtis, and without another word, both men took off running.

Pushing their tiny bodies beyond their limit, they rushed as fast as they could as they tried to avoid the young woman's titanic feet as they stomped ever closer, each step creating an almost deafening boom despite their flimsy sandals. However, even with her steady stride, she moved far faster than they ever could trying to escape from her. In seconds, they were cloaked by a large shadow, and Cedric looked up only to be provided them with an all-too-clear view of the red sole of her flip-flop and its rugged, somewhat dirty treads. His heart sank as both he and Curtis let out very horrified screams and cries for help, but Cedric knew that it was beyond hopeless.

The shadow around them became darker and darker, and before they knew it, it had fell upon them, pushing them both off of their feet. Pressed against the hard pavement and unable to move at all, both men screamed in agony at the very sharp pain that they were both being dealt. In that very brief yet at the same time very long second, Cedric could feel his entire body excruciatingly compressing under the intense weight of the teenager's sandal. Images of his life up until that point, and images of his friends and family, all flashed before his eyes in rapid succession, before everything finally went dark and silent.

~~~

The sun beat down from the blue sky high above, typical of a mostly-clear summer day as Leiling walked through the nearby park. Traversing on a curving concrete trail, she brushed aside her hair blowing into her face as she listened to the pop music via her smartphone. She focused mostly on her phone, reading friends' posts on Facebook and "Liking" them if so inclined. Some posts were rather bittersweet to her, as they had all just graduated from high school only weeks prior, and they would all be leaving off and starting their own lives in college or in careers. It was likely that she would never see them in person ever again.

Taking a break from the phone momentarily, she looked around at her surroundings. On the field to her right was a young brunette mother playing ball with her toddler son. Sitting at a picnic table further away was a small family--from what she could tell, a Black man, an Asian woman, and their two children--enjoying a picnic together. On the grass to her left was a brown squirrel nibbling on something in its paws, before another squirrel rushed down from one of the nearby trees and started to chase it around the field. Sitting at another picnic table was an old man reading a book. Overall, the park had an air of tranquility, which made it great for weekend walks alone.

Focusing back onto her phone, she started to read more on her friends' posts and latest happenings. One of her friends had made a post asking if they could have some sort of get-together soon, as a sort of "going away" party for the sake of those who would be leaving the city or even the state as they embarked on the next steps of their lives.

Seeing as she too would be departing for an out-of-state University in less than two months, attending the party and seeing her friends for perhaps the last time seemed like a excellent idea.

Leiling felt something small crumple apart beneath her flip-flop as her foot met with the pavement. She paid it no mind; it was probably nothing more than a clump of dirt.

As she walked on, her thumbs went to work on the onscreen keyboard, typing in her response to her friend's plan for the farewell party: that she would love to attend and even help organize it. After Liking the original post, she switched over to her Music app to find something else to put on.

She brushed her hair aside as the wind blew it into her face again. It really was a nice, warm, pleasant breeze, and she loved how it felt caressing against her cheeks and her skin. Her bespectacled eyes broke away from her phone again as she took another look around. The overall park was very serene, and it was clear that everyone in the park, even the animals, were enjoying themselves on this nice summer day.

Leiling would cherish such quiet days as much as she could, before her life took a very big and busy turn towards its future.



[THE END]