It was turning out to be a real scorcher of a day. Roland stopped mopping for a moment and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. No matter how hard he scrubbed the rough old planks, the dirt and grime never quite seemed to lift. It didn’t help that the mop itself was dirtier than the deck. Roland sighed and got back to work. He wasn’t too keen on getting cussed out for idling by the second mate again.

Roland was short in stature, but sturdy, having spent his childhood tending to sheep on his father’s farm. He had joined the Sainte Maron as a deckhand less than six months ago. This was his first voyage to America, and he was excited to see the wonders of the savage New World he had heard about as a boy in France.

He was especially curious about Little Standish, their third stop on the mainland. The other men had told him of an “unbelievable woman” who lived there. Roland got the feeling this was some sort of hazing process for new recruits, because when he pressed them for more information they just sniggered and shook their heads. Ever since the Maron had laid anchor in the sleepy little colonial village Roland had been scanning the crowds of townsfolk for any unusual, or unusually beautiful, women - to no avail.

“Roland! Get over here!”

Joschua, the Maron’s red-faced, balding, second mate, hollered at Roland from across the deck. Roland dropped the mop into the bucket and scrambled over. It was no good to keep Joschua waiting; he was a stern man, quick to anger and even quicker to the thin braided-leather lash he carried on his hip. The knuckles of Roland’s left hand were still stinging from earlier that day, when he had tripped the old man by accidentally stepping on his heel. Roland went up the quarterdeck steps two at a time, and stood stiffly at attention in front of Joshua.

“Yessir! Is something the matter?”

“S’bout time we were unloading the cargo,” Joshua spit a wad of slimy black chew onto the deck and regarded him through milky blue eyes. Roland nodded.

“Well don’t just stand there boy, gimme a hand with the damn trapdoor.”

Roland winced as the whip grazed his buttocks. It was just a warning shot, but he knew there was more where that came from. Roland bent over and grabbed the massive iron padlock that kept the cargo bay door shut. Grunting, he managed to pry the rusty bolt mechanism open. He pulled the heavy oak doors open and coughed as a draft blew a cloud of dust flew in his face. The inside of the hold stank of seaweed and salt. Joschua peered over his shoulder.

“Looks like we got some leakage - wasn’t there this morning,” Joschua grumbled. “Open the drains and get mopping boy, don’t want the flour to spoil.”

Slightly confused, Roland returned to the midden-deck and retrieved the bucket and mop. He had expected Joschua to order him to start unloading the sacks of flour and bags of cotton from their crates so the dockmaster could appraise them - that’s how they’d done it the past two times. Surely it would be better to just move the cargo to safety? Why waste time draining the water from the hold first?

Roland knew better than to ask questions. He clambered down the ladder into the cargo hold. The leak wasn’t serious, just a few puddles on the floor. Roland opened the drains and got to work, pushing the water along as best he could with the raggedy old mop. He heard Joschua yelling at the other men topside. There was a clatter of footsteps on the ceiling above him and the sound of laughter as the deckhands made their way onto the main deck and lined up to receive their orders. Roland heard Joshua's muffled voice bark a short set of instructions, and the ceiling rumbled with footsteps once more. He was surprised when nobody came down into the hold, even after several minutes. Why hadn’t they begun to unload? Surely he wasn’t expected to do the entire job himself? There was a commotion from outside. He heard voices calling out excitedly. There was another great stamping of feet as all the men on deck moved starboard for some reason.

“She’s coming!”

The shout from the crow’s nest rang out loud and clear. She? Roland’s curiosity got the better of him. He propped the mop up against the wall and climbed back up the ladder. All the sailors had crowded the starboard side of the ship. Some were leaning on or even sitting on the balcony and side rail. They were all trying to get a look at something off in the distance.

Roland saw Joschua by the main mast, his attention drawn to the same focal point as his men. Roland snuck out of the hold and meekly made his way to the back of the crowd of sailors. He stood on his tiptoes to try and get a better look.

The face of a beautiful young woman, her dark hair buffeted by the wind, was floating above the church steeple a ways off in the distance. She was smiling sweetly, and looking down. Roland watched the face get bigger as it swept through the sky, bobbing over rows of red tiled roofs. For a moment he was unable to process exactly what he was seeing. He could see the woman’s face clearly, she seemed right up close, yet was so far away, how - but that couldn’t be right.

Then suddenly, the perspective clicked in his mind:

She’s gigantic!

Roland’s mouth went dry as he realized he was looking at a giantess. He immediately realized what the other sailors had meant by “unbelievable woman”. She was huge. Huge. From his perspective, Roland could only see her from the neck up. He watched her head bob as she took a step forward, her face steadily increasing in size and rising higher into the air. He could see her neck now, the tops of her shoulders, the collar of a navy blue dress, all coming into view as the titaness made her way towards the town. Her lips curled into another sweet smile as she seemed to spot something familiar on the ground. To Roland, the minor facial movement seemed strangely epic, its significance vastly magnified by the woman’s size - he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He could feel the floorboards of the ship trembling slightly now, shaking from the shockwaves of her footsteps. Up came her shoulders, the top of her chest, and then her bosom.

His jaw fell.

Her breasts, which would have been considered huge even had she been normal size, were the size of hills. Enormous, round, and heavy, they jiggled ponderously with every step she took, their monstrous tonnage swaying slowly from side to side. Her nipples were obviously hard, jutting out like pyramids from beneath the white fabric of her massive apron. Roland naively wondered how many dairy cows it would take to match just one of her humongous udders - a dozen at least. Ponderous waves of motion rippled across her breasts as she took another step. Her breasts bounced freely against each other, straining beneath the fabric of her dress, which was clearly too small. The rest of her figure was coming into view. She had hitched up her dress a bit, holding it tightly against her shins with her left hand. He caught a glimpse of her ankles and feet through a gap in the houses. Her ankles were Roman columns, as thick as sequoias, and each dainty foot looked to be longer and wider than the Maron itself. A man crossed the street in front of her, and Roland could clearly see that her big toe stood taller than the top of his head.

Now that she had made it to town, Roland could finally get a clear handle on just how big she was. He had a straight on view of her as she made her way down the main street. The unusually wide cobblestone road afforded her just enough space to walk carefully down the middle, putting one foot in front of the other, while still leaving enough room on either side for carriages and pedestrians. The homes and storefronts lining the road were two stories tall, mid-shin on the young giantess. The tallest structure in town, the church steeple, could have barely scraped her knee. She towered over everything around her, dominating the landscape, a landmark unto herself.

Roland watched in awe as the goddess made her ponderous approach towards the docks. His voice, which had completely evacuated his body for the past minute and a half, finally found him - albeit weaker than usual.

“M - m - merde!”

One of the sailors closest to him heard the stuttering exclamation and turned his head. His face blossomed into an amused grin upon seeing the fresh recruit’s stupefied expression.

“That’s Anna!”

Anna. Some of the terror he had initially felt upon spotting the woman-mountain began to fade. He managed to tear his gaze away from her for a moment. The Sainte Maron’s crew members were clapping and cheering as they watched the giantess approach. She must be friendly. Emboldened, he made his way to a better vantage point by the guardrail. She was the most wondrous thing he had ever seen, and he was desperate to get a closer look.

Roland noticed how carefully Anna placed her steps. She moved slowly, keeping her massive soles low to the ground, constantly scanning the path ahead. Despite this, the mighty impact of each step still kicked up clouds of dust and resonated with an audible thud. Roland could see her bare feet left prints even on the cobblestones, her colossal weight flattened the dust and dirt to such an extent that the outline of her petite footprint was clearly visible as a lighter shade. A mob of children was trailing at her heels. Some of them looked to be playing hopscotch, jumping between her toe prints. He saw one little boy throw a stone, which bounced harmlessly off her tremendous round heel. Roland doubted she would have felt the blow even had the stone been the size of a cannonball. She was just so big!

Like the beating of a gargantuan drum, the thunder of Anna’s footsteps grew stronger and stronger. Now Roland had to crane his neck upwards to even see her face. In a moment even that became impossible as the bottom of her jaw was eclipsed by the twin moons of her wobbling bosom. In five steps she had crossed the entirety of Little Standish. Now she stood, like a living monument, at the center of the dockyard.

Roland watched Anna stoop and lift something off the ground - a tiny man. Or rather, it was not the man who was tiny, but she who was big! The young woman’s dimensions were so mind blowing that Roland found his perception unconsciously switching between the two perspectives, trying and failing to make some sense of her impossible size. Her mere presence was baffling - and immensely captivating. Roland was finding it hard to tear his eyes away, even for a moment. It was partly instinctual: she was so humongous his brain couldn't help but intently track her every little motion out of simple survival instinct; after all, she was the biggest thing around by far. But there was more to it. Monstrous as she was, the young woman was nonetheless a beauty, a trait only magnified by her size. Standing in the square, daintily holding up her dress and smiling shyly, she even seemed delicate. Ironic, Roland thought, given she could have squished any man-jack among them underfoot like an ant.

He heard her address the man in her palm. Her voice was feminine thunder. She spoke softly, but Roland still easily picked up every word. There was no such thing as a private conversation for a woman two-hundred and fifty feet tall. He was somewhat amused to hear her apologize to the miniscule figure - what was he going to do, hit her? Roland chuckled to himself at the image of a speck-sized Joshua, red faced and squeaking like a mouse, feebly lashing at the giantess’s carriage-sized toes with his whip. A gnat would be more bothersome.

Anna put the man down, and carefully maneuvered herself onto the beach by stepping over the dock. He watched her gigantic bare feet hit the sand on the other side, first the right, then its massive twin, creating a pair of deep footprints surrounded by waist high dunes. As they impacted the sand, her toes spread naturally to bear her monumental weight. Far above in the sky, her magnificent breasts wobbled ponderously, their balance upset by her long step onto the beach. Roland couldn’t imagine the damage she would cause if she were to lose her balance and fall. Her breasts alone would have flattened several blocks of houses.

She was close to them now. She turned to face the ship. Roland was confronted with two rows of mammoth toes. Her bare feet would have been quite dainty, had they not been the size of farmhouses. Even her little pinky toe was nearly as tall as he was. Rooted to her feet were the huge white pillars of her ankles. Her shin muscles twitched as she steadied herself on the sand. The movement, which to her was just a momentary automatic adjustment, was stunning to Roland. It was like watching a mountain move. She had the hem of her dress wrapped around her knees with one hand, with the other resting on her hip. Roland craned his neck upwards, struggling to take her all in. All he could see was the vast expanse of her white apron, and further up, the humongous horizon of her massive bosom.