Barry's story begins several weeks ago at the beach, where he found a blue spherical gemstone in the sand.

He had lost a close race on the shoreline against Keith, a longtime friend and runner. After the two friends said their goodbyes, Barry grabbed his shoes and shirt and walked up the sandy beach to his car. As he marched upward, he felt something cold press against his bare foot. He looked down and saw a round, shiny blue stone approximately the size of a golf ball peeking halfway out of the sand, amid seashells and pebbles. Curiously, Barry gathered it from the sand and held it up to the sun for further study. When he spun the sparkling object in his hand, his eyes were instantly struck with rays of blinding white light that were so intense that he cried out in pain.

It took over a minute of kneeling down on the ground with his face buried in his hands for Barry to safely reopen his eyes without being overwhelmed by normal sunlight. When Barry’s senses were restored, a switch in his head had flipped on; he had developed a greater awareness of the universe and all within it. His mind expanded with knowledge of space, time, matter, the laws that governed them, and the power to manipulate all three. It was like nothing he ever experienced. However, Barry still had questions as to the nature of the blue gemstone: specifically, how it transmitted such power to him and why it was located on the beach of all places. He knew those questions would not be answered on their own. Therefore, he pocketed the stone and returned home, eager to explore the limits of what he had learned.

Although Barry gained a fantastic power, the stone - which he had set down on his desk for ornamental value - did not impart upon any specific guidance as to how that power should be used or for whose benefit. A lot of the information was abstract, some of it hard to make sense of, but it all related to the practice of transporting cities into containers – that he knew. Barry had the power to transport a city and its population, from any world apparently, directly to his immediate location and scale them down to a size of his choosing. The process would take only minutes. The snag was that where these other worlds originated, whether it be outer space, another dimension, or a parallel universe (if any of that were even possible) was unclear to Barry. It was as though the instructions in his head were missing a step. However, the basic idea of it was as so: Barry could project his mind outward, almost like a probe, until he sensed a concentration of knowledge, memory, emotion, and will: the makings of intelligent life. From whom and where he found a concentration of those things were the parts he could not control. What he did know was that once he sensed them, he could transport a physical piece of their world and “size it down” through sheer force of will. He could select their destination, but never their origin. The idea greatly appealed to Barry. He spent a single night at home pondering the matter, but deep down he already knew what he wanted to do. He was given a rare power that no other human may ever have again; it should be used, he concluded. He needed to explore what he was capable of. Therefore, he would use the power to accomplish what he believed it was designed for: to transport cities. He thought that perhaps using the power would help him to explore the origin of the spherical, blue gemstone and unlock other mysteries.

Within a week, Barry transported five cities into his basement, each from different worlds. All were reduced in size to fit within 12-inch-tall glass gallon jugs that Barry had prepared on shelves in his basement. Each miniature metropolis contained thousands of tiny beings who, compared to Barry who was over 6 ft tall, were barely perceptible specks: tinier even than fleas. The tallest skyscrapers were 10 or 11 inches tall. Each miniature world had its own character and architectural style: one had buildings that were all gold in color, with sharp pointy spires that pierced into the sky like needles. Another had buildings that were all round, like marbles but of all different sizes and colors. In its center was a large baseball sized sphere with advanced looking lights of many colors. Yet another city he brought forth had buildings that were tall, rectangular, and box-like in shape, no different than the buildings one might see in any major American city.

Fascinatingly, each city within its bottle maintained its own atmosphere, including even faint layers of clouds that swirled at the very top of their containers. Barry always left the glass bottles uncapped and even still, the ecosystems tied to each city sustained; they were inherent parts of their worlds. The large glass bottles he selected proved to be the perfect vessels to both contain and observe the collection of cities that he sized down. Through them, Barry could see much. He need only take a magnifying glass to a container's side to appreciate even the mundane comings-and-goings of those within, such as aircraft zipping about, tiny vehicles driving through streets, and even tinier people walking, working, and playing.

Barry's ordinary life seemed to matter less and less as he became increasingly immersed in his newest hobby over the weeks. Although Barry was doing reasonably well for a guy in his early-mid 20's who lived on his own, he had felt a lack of direction sometimes. Slim, tall, and athletic, he was genial, well-liked, and regarded as a good-natured guy with just the perfect touch of machismo -- a gentleman in the eyes of most. Prior to this new discovery, Barry had been only partially satisfied with that persona: he knew he was well-liked and good-looking, but he was still just an ordinary guy at the end of the day, often hungry for purpose.

The power he obtained through the blue sphere changed that: he felt more purpose than he ever had before. Isolated in his basement and surrounded by shelves holding tens of thousands of tiny, intelligent beings who regarded his every move with awe and trepidation, Barry felt larger than life itself, symbolically and physically. On the outside world, he was a trim, lean guy of above average height who spent his free time running in the neighborhood or racing at the beach. That had been great, but in his subterranean domain, Barry was so much more: a lumbering giant who shook the earth with each step, so gargantuan in size that his body cast a shadow upon entire cities. He loomed over thousands like a god.

Barry embraced his role as an omnipotent titan with great enthusiasm. To the five populations he brought forth into their glass containers, he acted as a benevolent god-like figure. He afforded them respect, self-determination, and had even provided them with gifts such as thimbles full of fresh water which he set down using long, metal tweezers through the quarter-sized opening above each city. Knowing that dropping them or even accidentally shaking them could be catastrophic to those within, he took gentle care whenever he adjusted or relocated their bottle. Barry took pride in how his tiny adorants flourished under his influence, so much so that he would sometimes simply sit and stare at them closely through the glass, watching their comings and goings with fascination. Soon even they became used to their colossal caretaker. Although at first they would flee or tremble in terror at the distant crushing *THOOMs* that could be heard and felt whenever the giant's heavy footsteps approached, the tiny beings quickly began to regard Barry's unmistakable arrival and goings-on as routine. Even with his vast form, seen from the waist up, overtaking the sky, many had adapted to going on with their business like he was not there. And so, things went that way for several weeks until Barry became restless and eager to use his power again. Not only were his five cities doing well, but they were also self-sufficient. For Barry, the usual routine grew monotonous and he wished to explore what else he was capable of. He decided he would start by expanding his collection.

*****

Barry entered the back door of his house, out of breath. He had just run 6 miles, something he had done most days for years. "Home at last!" he said as he exhaled. Breathing heavily, he ran his hand across his perspiring brow and looked down at his feet, then sighed. Slightly muddy on the sides and heavily grass-stained from running through a few wet fields, he wiped the bottoms of his damp running shoes against the floormat and then squeaked across the kitchen floor. There had been light rain; he pulled off his shirt, damp from both perspiration and the weather, and tossed it into the laundry basket. His shorts were mostly dry, however. Deciding he would take a second shower later, he thundered downstairs to the basement bare-chested, wearing just his shorts and sneakers.

Safely within the quiet of his basement, Barry got to work. Like each occasion before, he placed the glass container on a clear space on the floor and stood far back against the wall. He brushed the perspiration from his forehead one more time, still cooling off from his early morning run. When he felt as relaxed as possible, Barry closed his eyes and used the power of his mind to bring forth another city from the beyond. Although he had never made a mistake in sizing down a city to fit precisely within its container, the process did require space to work with as he manipulated its slowly materializing form. While a city that was slightly too small provided them space for construction, transporting a city that exceeded the container’s circumference by any amount would be very problematic. If he were not careful, Barry risked causing many of the city's miniature buildings, along with any number of inhabitants to materialize outside the glass and right on his basement floor uncontained, where he was all too likely to accidentally step on them.

Fortunately, this transport went as smoothly as it had last time. The faint image of a city formed in the glass. It only took a couple minutes for Barry to adjust its size - expanding it a little, shrinking it a little, until the city's edges and its tallest structures were safely contained within the glass structure. Through his power, thoughts gave way to reality. When he was satisfied with his manipulation of its dimensions, Barry willed the city into physical form.

From a distance, everything looked good. Barry smiled. Eager to make sure the sizing-down process was successful, he proceeded toward the center of the room excitedly, his wet sneakers still squeaking along the way, and planted his feet just short of the city itself. Standing high above the glass structure in between his feet, Barry leaned forward and searched the floor on all sides of the bottle for any tiny, displaced structures. Instead of any structures, he saw only a small black spider crawling slowly in front of his foot, oblivious to the danger it was in. Barry casually moved his toe forward, followed its movement for a second, then quietly stepped on it. *crunch* After pressing it under his sneaker, he lifted his foot. All that remained of the spider was a gooey tangle of limbs compacted deep into the crisscrossing grooves of his sneaker tread. Satisfied, Barry brought his foot back down and crouched to the floor. He gently wrapped his hands around the glass, picked up the bottled city, and brought it in front of his face. Another successful transport! Taking care to keep the city level, he stood up to his full height. He held the glass close to his bare chest as he walked it across the room and placed it on its intended shelf, down by his waist.

Barry crouched to his knees in order to look through the glass one more time and smiled triumphantly at the new addition to his collection. "See you little guys later!" he said cheerfully. He looked around at his other cities, then stood up. As he spun around, Barry felt his elbow carelessly bump into his new glass city, pushing it back several inches. "Oops!" Fortunately, Barry's quick reflexes kicked in, and he steadied the bottle with his massive hands. Everything looked intact, but through the glass wall he faintly heard thousands of distant screams below. "Uh...sorry," he said to the panicked populace. Thinking it best he let these guys settle in, Barry decided he would check back on them in a couple hours or so after he got some work done around the house.

*****

On an early Saturday morning in a quiet suburban neighborhood, a high school senior, having celebrated his 18th birthday the night before, slept soundly in his bed.

*Thoom*

Cole woke up from his sleep, turned over in his bed, and looked at his clock: he had no school and had wanted to sleep in, so why was he awake? Cole scratched his eyes, and then his bed shook up and down lightly as he heard a sound like thunder cracking in the distance.

*Thoom*

Cole immediately sat up in his bed: "What the...?" He looked around his room.

*THOOM*

The entire room shook this time with a louder thunderclap, and Cole sprang up out of bed and went for the door. "What the hell is--” *THOOM*

Seeing no one else, Cole ran for the stairs, but another crushing *THOOM* caused him to stagger in the hallway and a picture of his family to fall off its hook. He ran down the stairs as another quaking *THOOM* exploded, and he heard a dish break in the kitchen. He made it out the front door safely and saw his parents on the porch. "What's going on?! Is there an attack?!" The two adults said nothing. Their eyes and mouths were wide open, staring up and into the distance in confused fear. *THOOM* Cole looked up, barely maintaining his balance. Most of the sky was obscured; it was a broad expanse of blurry yellow lights, high above in the distance. On the horizon were distant brown objects and grey shadows. The entire sky was distorted in all directions by an unnatural, transparent wall that surrounded them. Cole looked down the street and saw all the neighbors pouring out of their houses. Suddenly, a massive white thing flew out of the dark sky with terrifying speed and violently landed in front of the town, just outside the transparent wall.

*THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

A near-deafening sound of earth cracking, crushing, and shaking overwhelmed Cole’s sense of hearing as the entire street shook up and down violently from the alien impact. Cole fell backward. He was about to push himself up but then he saw a second huge, alien-like object fly at him from the darkness like a meteor. He clenched his teeth and covered his ears as it landed on the other side of town.

*THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM* After the second quaking impact, Cole opened his eyes and carefully stood up. Then, his jaw dropped wide open. Beyond the artificial wall were two long, white alien objects, identical in size and appearance. They spanned the length of a countryside, both taller than mountains and extending past Cole's neighborhood on either side. Cole's heart almost stopped when he realized what they were: they were two titanic sneakers, containing two titanic feet to match. They were larger than anything he had seen in his life.

Cole could hardly believe his eyes: they were men's running shoes, made in a size that should not even exist. Yet there they loomed, containing the feet of a giant. The synthetic monstrosities were mostly white, silver and blue in color, but they were faded and worn. Various components of porous mesh and spongy white fabric housed the owner’s feet, glued at the bottom to a layer of thick, white blown rubber that extended from heel to toe. The sides of his scuffed rubber soles looked recently wet, Cole observed, with numerous thick grass stains and streaks of mud. The rubber material was rife with divets and other imperfections from frictional wear and tear. Cole could even appreciate details such as the long creases in the foam siding of the heel, collecting dirt as they slowly collapsed under the weight of its massive owner over time.

"My god...he's gigantic." Cole was both horrified and in awe by the enormity of this being. Just one of the gargantuan running shoes could have smothered Cole's neighborhood and countless others beneath it. Suddenly Cole heard a loud, sticky, squelching sound as one of the dirtied rubber soles peeled off the ground, like a wet sneaker in a school hallway. The massive, damp running shoe lifted into the air and slowly advanced forward like a flying aircraft carrier along the side of the glass wall, revealing underneath a vast, dark surface of maze-like, mud-impacted treads. The big shoe hovered forward slowly and precisely like a giant spaceship, as though it were locked on to a moving target that its owner intended to crush beneath it. Sure enough, the giant sneaker came to a near complete halt, then began its steady descent upon its unfortunate target. *THOOM*

Although the ground still shook, the giant's footstep was not nearly as loud as his earlier steps. Cole sighed in relief. For the few seconds, the titanic sneaker stayed there, groaning and squeaking under the owner's shifting weight. Above his white, low-cut sock that was only barely visible above the side of the shoe’s opening, Cole could see the giant's bare-skinned ankle and then his calf stretching ever higher, dotted with distinctly masculine hair. This was an adult male, Cole realized. "Jesus," he said aloud, "how is he so big?" The giant lifted his massive sneaker once more into the air, causing another squelching sound as it separated from the floor. The giant then tilted the sneaker to its side as though he were glancing at the bottom. Just under the toe area of the treads, amid mud-filled crevices and torn up grass blades, Cole saw a mass of ugly, black limbs and yellow goo pressed into the grooved tread design. "Ew..."; Cole would not have wanted to be whatever that was, he thought. After a couple seconds, the foot came back down. *THOOM*

By this point, no one seemed to know what was going on. Everyone was out of their houses and in the streets, confused, frightened, and fixated on the giant's every move just like Cole had been. Just when Cole was about to meet up with his parents, he heard: *SQUELCHHH* The same sticky, squelching sound rang out again as both giant’s sneaker soles peeled off the ground partially, at the heels, then stopped as the owner bent his knees and crouched down.

The world was shaken once again when the sky was suddenly engulfed by large pink hands on both sides. Long massive fingers and palms pressed tightly against the glass walls. The hands were so massive in scale that Cole could see the grooved indentations of giant fingertips pressing against the glass. Cole lost his balance again and his stomach sank as though he were going up in an elevator. A second later, he saw beyond the glass the huge visage of an adult male, older than himself and maybe in his mid-20s. Cole gasped: He looked like any guy he would have seen on the street. He was bare-chested and had a big beaming smile on his face. Cole had a bad feeling about this. Suddenly, the giant lowered them to his lean, well-muscled chest, where they rocked up and down to the sound of the giant's thundering footsteps below. He was carrying their entire city in his hands, Cole realized. The ground shook again as the giant lowered them and placed them on some surface down at his waist, where Cole could see the top of a pair of mesh shorts with two elastic drawstrings.

The giant crouched down once more, smiling excitedly at them through the glass. Cole wondered how well he could even see anybody at his scale. Suddenly, a mighty voiced boomed: "See you little guys later!” The sound was deafening, and everyone on the street covered their ears as the thundering voice echoed through their glass enclosure. Then, without any warning, the back of a huge, fleshy arm rammed into the glass, and everyone on the street was flung back several feet as the earth shifted violently beneath them. Cole lay on his side curled up in pain; he had been thrown into a parked car, his shoulder scraped and bleeding. Gritting his teeth in pain, he saw several other people laying on the ground, injured as well. Sound filled the chamber again: "Uh... sorry." Cole's body hurt too much to cover his ears. He lay there, groaning. *THOOM* *THOOM* *THOOM* *Thoom* *Thoom* *thoom* *thoom* The giant had marched off, the ground shaking gently with each mighty step, until the noise faded into the distance. Cole knew his relief was going to be temporary. Life was never going to be the same.

After finishing his lunch and folding some clothes. Barry still needed to shower and put a shirt on, but it was almost 90 degrees outside, so he decided to wait. He was excited to study his new city.

Barry marched downstairs into the basement, picked up his city, and brought it to a worktable. He raised one eyebrow: things inside seemed to be chaotic. He took a magnifying glass to the side and saw masses of barely perceptible specks in the streets. Hundreds of tiny people crowded at the very edge of the glass wall waving their arms for his attention. Barry leaned in, tilted his ear to them, and heard a faint chorus of high-pitched squeaks. They must have been going through an adjustment period, he thought to himself as he watched them. In their arrogance, they likely had believed themselves to be the only intelligent lifeforms in the universe; Barry’s presence was probably an upheaval to their understanding of the natural order, he thought. He outsized all of them to the point where he could hardly even see them, much less discern them individually. Yet at the same time, he matched them in intelligence.

Unable to understand their distant little squeaks through the glass, Barry shrugged. He would have better luck communicating with microbes, he thought. Barry was a hulking titan to them: distant and unreachable, while they existed in a world far below him. For him to spend his time trying to even hear them was much to ask. Nevertheless, Barry was amused by their energy. Unlike the other populations he had collected, these little guys seemed feisty, and he was grateful for a change in pace. Thinking these guys needed some more “alone time,” he walked away from their container. He had intended to build a couple more shelves, but first he had to clear away some old boxes.

After a couple hours of going up and down stairs with boxes, with several water breaks in between, Barry was hot, out of breath, and eager to finish up and shower. He picked up the last box with two hands as he neared the stairs, heard a quick *bzzt* sound zip by his ear, then felt a slight sting. He jerked his head to the side, hoping to shake off what he assumed was a fly. He continued with the box and then heard another *bzzt* zip by the same ear and felt it sting again. “Get the hell away, damn it.” Barry quickly lowered his box to the floor and then felt his other ear sting. “Ow!” He swatted the air near his ear but missed whatever had stung him. Barry stood still and held his hands apart, ready to angrily squash the first thing that moved between them. However, he heard and felt nothing. After waiting a few seconds, he relaxed his hands. “Good decision if you want to live,” he thought to himself.

Next, Barry felt something pinch the side of his ankle. “Ow! Damn it!” Reflexively, he lifted his foot and slapped his hand against his bare skin. However, when he lifted his hand off, he saw nothing except a tiny red spot where he was stung, though the skin was not broken. Then, he saw a gnat-sized insect flying just an inch above the floor. Like a man possessed, Barry quickly brought his foot down on it and was rewarded by a tiny crunch beneath his sneaker. “Hah!” he shouted, pushing his weight down on his tiny victim.

Having eliminated the pest, Barry stroked the slightly reddened area on his ankle with his finger and a tiny smudge of black powder rubbed off onto his fingertip. It almost looked like lead from a pencil. Barry’s eyes widened: “Wait a minute…” he muttered quietly. Having a realization, Barry quickly darted his eyes over to the bottled city he had transported earlier. Focusing his eyes, he saw two orange flickers of light escaping into the top of the glass bottle. “Are these guys serious?” Barry asked himself aloud as he looked back down at his fingertip. “What the hell is their problem?” They had sent gnat-sized attack aircraft at him, completely unprovoked. He wondered: how could they even think that was a good idea? From what Barry saw of their city, they were quite advanced, technologically. Certainly, they knew even before the attack that such tiny weapons would not pose a threat to such a gigantic being as he was.

Barry’s eyebrows rose when he suddenly appreciated that he stepped on one of the low flying aircraft. He looked down at the ground where he stepped, but there was just a tiny black burnt spot. He went to sit down at his desk and crossed one leg over the other to where he could easily look at the bottom of his running shoe. Sure enough, amid the crumbling dried dirt and other lawn detritus pressed into his maze-like sneaker treads, Barry could see the remains of the tiny mangled jet, no bigger than a small housefly, compacted deeply between the walls of a single narrow crevice. Barry could not help but fascinate at the size comparison: that a product of advanced engineering such as a military fighter jet was stuck to the sole of his worn running shoe as if it were nothing more than a smashed bug. The burnt steel parts were pushing against the rubber walls, deforming them and preventing Barry from using his fingernail to extract the craft for further study. Finally, he grabbed a pair of tweezers, pinned the wreck together, and removed it from its rubber prison in a single piece, then set his foot back down on the floor. With a magnifying glass in his other hand, Barry examined the craft for its occupant. Unable to find anyone amid the tangled metal wreck, Barry set it down on his desk in disappointment. He had hoped to see his flea-sized assailant up close.

“Well… sucks to be you, little guy, wherever you are,” Barry muttered. Either the tiny man was already a casualty, or he ejected somewhere onto the floor, where locating him would be next to impossible. To a being so small, Barry was an absolute titan, and it was all too likely that the little guy would be crushed under his deadly feet without Barry ever knowing. Fortunately, there were plenty more tiny people where he came from, and Barry fully intended to confront them for their little stunt, feeble though it was.

Barry was used to the inhabitants of the other cities who were grateful for his benevolent nature; they practically worshipped him as a god, without him ever one asking. One city had even erected a tall, skyscraper-sized statue in Barry’s own image, much to his delight. The figure was bare naked, like Michelangelo’s David, and the tiny folk were satisfyingly generous in estimating Barry’s proportions. By contrast these new guys were hostile little punks. In Barry’s eyes, their little stunt was an act of open war. There was no way he could allow them to think that he would easily tolerate or forgive such acts. The laziest (and sleaziest) way to get his point across, he thought, was to simply respond with a much greater show of force. With his creative mind, Barry could invent all sorts of disasters with which to terrorize the tiny beings, most of them requiring little effort. However, Barry wanted to expand his collection, not destroy it. At the end of the day, he wanted his collection to be successful. If he was not going to smite them, he thought, perhaps he could allow an aircraft containing their tiny leaders to fly into his ear, where they could disembark and agree to a truce. In less than a second, Barry rolled his eyes at the thought: even for a reasonable, good-natured guy like himself, that was just too much. Negotiating with these vicious little guys was ridiculous and he had no interest in getting sucked into a back and forth dialogue with beings who were smaller than ants.

The best way to get his point across, he concluded, was to find a middle ground. A way that was less boorish than just mindlessly smiting them, but more effective than asking politely. The best idea, Barry thought, was to simply threaten them into submission: tell them that if they refrained from any further attacks, then no harm would come to them. All would be excused, and the past would be the past. He would let them know that he was a good guy in that way. But he would also remind them if they ever did attack him again, he would flatten their city and enjoy every second of it. He had to be uncompromising in his terms. From where Barry stood, that seemed like a reasonable deal when he considered that they were the aggressors. If anything, they should have been kissing his feet for not retaliating in force. And in the back of his mind, he knew that if he wished to, he could force any terms on them that he wanted and there was nothing they could do about it.

Intending to emphasize his forceful machismo, Barry lumbered slowly toward the city, bringing his feet down on the floor with exaggerated force and purposeful heaviness. He needed to make these little runts know that they chose the wrong giant to pick a fight with. He knew from observation that each time his massive running shoes landed on the floor, they created distant, crushing *THOOMs* that could be heard and felt within the fragile cities. Barry put on a cold smile and approached them like a mighty deity with his chin held up and his chest pushed forward, until he finally towered over the waist-high city. He adopted a suitably intimidating stance with his sneakered feet spread apart in order to impress his dominance and masculine authority upon all those below.

For many seconds, Barry watched them from above like a looming god, knowing his mountainous approach would be enough to terrify all within the fragile structure. Then he put his arms on his knees and crouched down, bringing his face eye level with the city. Behind the glass, he could see tiny streets filled with panicked masses of barely discernable specks, their movement becoming more fluid-like as the crowds swelled. When they saw Barry's two building-sized, icy blue eyes right next to the glass scrutinizing them with cold judgment, many fled in the opposite direction. Satisfied, Barry stood up to his full height and then leaned forward, bringing one eye directly over the quarter-sized opening on top of the jug.

Adopting a deep tone of authority, he boomed down at them, "Congratulations on getting my attention." Hearing his voice reverberating through the glass, Barry could tell that his voice was as loud as thunder to them. He watched with satisfaction as the thousands of specks in the streets ceased their panicked movement. They all fixated upon his enormous eyeball, which squinted at them sternly from the circular opening in the clouds. Barry continued: "Listen up, punks. We have not known each other long, so I am going to explain things to you in terms that maybe you understand. I am Barry, and I am a giant who collects, maintains, and studies tiny cities such as yours; I brought you here and have kept you protected by the glass barrier that you see around you. All the cities in my collection, I protect from harm." Barry paused for about 10 seconds, letting his words sink in, then continued. "But what I protect, I can as easily destroy..." With that, Barry brought forth his right hand and held the tip of his index finger against his thumb, then let forth a powerful flick against the glass.

*Tink!*

To Barry the sound was nothing, but the impact and sound being magnified in scale sent the microbe-like beings into a desperate panic: running into buildings or scrambling in all directions. Barry could hear their panicked screams faintly below, and he resisted to urge to snicker at their reaction, instead maintaining his authoritative composure. "Stop." The tiny beings obeyed Barry's command unquestioningly, the crowds suddenly freezing in place. Barry could sense his own ego swell: these little guys were terrified of him! With sheer force, he could command absolute obedience from thousands. They would not dare strike at him again, knowing what he could do to them. Eager to toy with them a little, he continued his overly dramatic persona as a temperamental deity: "You have seen what I can do: I can hold your entire city in my hands, or I can drop you to your doom and crush your civilization into dust beneath my feet. Yet, even knowing this, you *attacked* me."

Barry paused and peered around at the different crowds, satisfied to see them cowering in fear at his stern eyeball high above them. Barry felt like a god about to cast judgment upon his unruly creations, and the idea appealed to him greatly. Deciding to make a show of force, Barry squinted angrily at his trembling subjects. "It would be so easy for me to destroy you all right now." he stated ominously. "If a single one of your people ever attacks, threatens, defies, or annoys me… if a single one of your people displeases me in any way whatsoever….” Barry leaned away from the bottled city and lifted one gargantuan foot into the air for a moment, paused, then continued, “…then you will be treated like the insects you are – and I *squash* insects that annoy me,” Barry violently slammed his running shoe down upon the floor, causing the bottle to rumble visibly on the shelf while the horrified thousands within let out a cacophony of faint, high-pitched squeaks. Barry leaned in again and placed his eye over the opening, and he was rewarded with the sight of sheer desperate panic as men, women, and children ran through the streets. He felt satisfied that this show of force was all that was needed.

Just as Barry finished delighting in the small bit of chaos he had caused, he saw an orange flicker down in the city below. Then, a tiny grey dot launched upward. Reflexively, Barry flinched sideways to protect himself, but he was not fast enough. The projectile impacted against his skin right at the very edge of his eye, and he was struck by a flash of red light and searing pain. Barry cried out. “God… DAMN IT.” He cupped his hand to the side of his face. Warmth radiated from the skin at the outer edge of his eye, where the firecracker-like explosion went off. Still shielding it with his hand, Barry opened his eye and blinked, then cried out again. “mother… FUCK.” It had felt like sandpaper was abrading his eye. Holding his hand to his eye, Barry looked down at the city and roared.

Fuming, and without thinking, Barry placed his hands around the sides of the bottle and gripped it tightly, causing the frightened yet defiant crowds to freeze in terror. Then, Barry used his hands to rapidly jerk the bottled city once to the left, then once to the right, along the surface of his desk. He sneered contemptuously as countless specks were violently yanked into the air and collided with various objects within, screaming for their lives. The faint screaming intensified as one of their tallest skyscrapers – an ornate spear-like structure of approximately 9 inches in height – slowly tilted sideways, unable to withstand the sudden shift of the earth caused by Barry’s unthinking destructive act. “Oh shit…” Barry clenched his teeth as the structure broke off its foundation, then toppled over and crashed against the glass wall. Upon impact, the top portion of the tower snapped off and fell to the ground, demolishing several smaller suburban buildings and sending up a (to them) huge plume of dust and smoke. The bottom half of the tower remained leaning against the glass. Barry cursed quietly; that had not been the plan. However, it was a done deal. At least maybe these guys finally learned the error of their ways, he thought. Refusing to show any weakness, Barry crouched down and scowled through the glass at the hellish scene. “Looks like you guys have some work to do,” he said coldly, then thundered away.

Barry doubted these guys would be launching any other attacks again him any time soon. He was disappointed about how things went down, but most of the city was intact. His concern with the destruction he caused was overshadowed by the glaring fact that they attacked him first. If anyone should feel guilty, they should. Maybe threatening to squash them like bugs was not the best idea, Barry thought, but he was just being dramatic. Their response was to try to blind him. Keeping his eye shut to avoid the painful act of blinking, Barry went upstairs to find a mirror. This city was becoming more trouble than it was worth, he thought, as he climbed up the steps.

*****

Cole’s sister and parents sat in the living room, staring intensely at the television, while he leaned against the doorway watching from the back. The last couple hours were consumed with breaking news headlines from local stations about the abnormal events that had transpired. They had been cut off from all national news outlets. The local news anchors had no official name for the monstrous being that had somehow plucked their city out of the earth and held them inside a massive, impenetrable, glass container. They simply referred to him as “the giant.”

Questions were endless: what his intentions were, where he was from, and speculation about his appearance. He looked like a tall (in proportion to his size anyway) lean, athletic male human in his early-to-mid 20’s. He was also handsome – or so his sister kept saying. Cole’s idiotic twin sister Claire would not shut up about how handsome and sexy she thought the giant looked, which was insane to him.

“You know he could crush us in a second, right?” he responded to her. “Did you see what he did to whatever that…thing was when he stood right next to us? He liquefied it! That could be us next!”

“I don’t think he’s that type of a guy. Hey, what if God is real and that’s him? Hey, maybe he’s God! Speaking of that, you’ve missed a lot of church, haven’t you Cole? You may want to watch what you say: he could be listening to every word!”

Cole momentarily entertained her levity: “Why would God be wearing a pair of muddy grass-stained running shoes and elastic gym shorts?”

“I don’t know, but he’s hot.”

Cole ignored her. In truth, he was terrified; they all should have been. Cole knew that this guy, as titanic as he was, was not a god. If it were just God, he would have felt less scared. This guy seemed like just some random asshole who had too much power; and that was scarier to Cole. He could not shake the look on the giant’s face when he studied them behind their glass wall. The giant smiled, but it was not a friendly smile. It was the satisfied smile of greed being fulfilled, as though the giant had just come into possession of something he had long wished for: maybe power or control… or an entire city of tiny people who looked up to him like a god.

Cole watched the television then gasped. The city’s police force and a lightly manned military air base were its only line of defense, the reporter stated. In an unorthodox decision, the few military forces on base, having no communication or instruction on a national level, had decided to collaborate with the city’s police force. They had established emergency channels of communication in order to decide on a plan of action to combat the new threat. Scouting expeditions, consisting of high-speed surveillance drones, had been sent out through the opening high above their artificial enclosure. They had taken photographs of at least five different cities just like theirs, contained within artificial enclosures identical to their own, “My god…” Cole said. “He’s… collected us.” The reporter continued to explain that the environment outside of the glass enclosure appeared to be part of an even greater enclosure, which intelligence officials had said, “looked like a giant room.”

To Cole’s horror, the news reporter then stated that an aerial strike team had been deployed in order to stage an attack on the giant, using only three fighter planes from the airfield. The giant’s blow against the glass wall during their first encounter was being treated as an attack. Although there were no fatalities, countless were injured. Many buildings had sustained structural damage, water pipes had burst underground, and power was lost in many parts of the city. “Here is the police chief to tell us more,” the reporter stated.

A aged male police officer in uniform appeared on the other side of the screen, introduced himself, then spoke about the air strike that was taking place: “I believe even your viewers will agree that if we do not respond to this unprovoked attack in some way that will get this giant’s attention and force him to take us seriously, then he will remain an existential threat to the survival of this city and the safety of all who live in it.” Cole shook his head. This was stupid, he thought. If the giant wished to demolish the city outright, he could have. Why provoke him?

Next, a spokesperson from the military base was invited on. Cole stifled a laugh as some fat, old, bald guy in camouflage appeared on screen and began to speak with a stupid-sounding hick accent. “Thank you for having me. It is imperative that we demonstrate to this so-called ‘giant’ as your fake news media refer to him, as well as to the people of this city, that we will not be bullied.” The reporter then asked the hapless, uncultured military spokesperson if the goal was to injure or disable the giant, to which he replied with the obvious assistance of a teleprompter that he could barely read: “The police chief and our base leader recognize that our weaponry is unlikely to harm a target of such tremendous size, which is why they have sent only three aircraft. But we have the best planes in the world. We have the best pilots in the world. The mission’s success is not based on whether we injure or disable the enemy, but on how effectively we make a statement that our city will stand up for itself.” Cole lifted his palm to his forehead. The spokesman continued: “The police force agrees with us that a tremendous show of force will convince this so-called ‘giant’ that if he wants anything, then he will need to address us on an equal playing field, because we will not bow down to his demands. We have nothing to fear, and after we have weathered this storm, we will make this city great again.” With his palm still to his face, Cole shook his head.

Continued the reporter: “But do you have any evidence that the giant will respect our- “

The fat old guy cut in: “You are fake news. Goodbye.” Then he stormed off to the side, almost tripping several times on the mild ramp that led down from the podium. Thankful that the embarrassing event was over and paying no heed to what that morbidly obese idiot had said, Cole brought his hand down from his face and continued to watch the television.

Pretending as though nothing had happened, the reporter said: “And now, we have live video of the attack, seen from one of our aircraft’s external camera.” Next to the reporter appeared a square display showing a grainy video without sound. Cole saw that the plane was flying over a vast grey desert. On the blurry horizon were brown box-shaped objects, big as skyscrapers, that cast dark shadows behind them. It *was* a room, Cole realized. The plane was flying over a floor of concrete! The plane pulled its nose up, shifting the camera up from the concrete floor to reveal the side of a gigantic running shoe, closing in fast. The white, silver, and blue object composed of dirtied rubber and spongy mesh fabric was just as huge as he remembered. Cole tensed up; scared that if the giant did not move his big foot that the plane would crash into the patterned mesh siding. However, instead the pilot pulled up sharply and flew up along the side of the oblivious giant’s leg, past his shorts and bare chest, until it was behind his head. Then at the bottom of the camera, a large projectile shot forward and flew toward the giant’s ear, leaving a trail of engine smoke behind. Just as it impacted with a flash, the plane zoomed forward past the ear to safety. Next, it looped around, making a second pass on the other side of the giant’s head as it deployed another projectile. The plane again quickly pulled away to the side as it impacted. But just as it looked like the pilot was in the clear, a huge fleshy palm with five long fingers emerged from underneath the camera, clearly intending to annihilate its attacker. Cole clenched his teeth as the huge hand approached but just as the bare-chested giant was about to swat down the plane like a fly, the camera turned sideways, and the pilot successfully slipped his plane in between two of the massive fingers. This guy was an awesome pilot, Cole thought.

The plane then nosedived. Cole watched as the craft flew nearly straight down in front of the giant’s chest and waist then expertly pulled up before hitting the concrete floor. The fighter flew at low altitude above the vast concrete floor for a few seconds, then suddenly, did a 180 and headed toward a giant sneakered foot. Several missiles shot out from the plane then it veered off to the side.

“NO!! Don’t hurt him!!” Claire shouted at the screen.

“Shut up, will you?” Cole said, eager to see the aftermath. Unfortunately, there was none. The fighter continued to fly along the grey concrete expanse for a few seconds, until suddenly a vast shadow fell upon the landscape. The screen then went black right after the edge of something vast and dark descended from above.

The reporter began once again: “We’re hearing that the mission was successful, but we are awaiting confirmation on the status of our brave pilots. Officials state that we have only to wait until the giant decides to open a line of communication with us, so that diplomacy can begin.”

Cole was not so confident that they would get the result they wished for. He walked to the kitchen and nervously drank from a glass of water. He looked out the window at his neighborhood for many minutes. Then, the ground shook once, *thoom*, then a second time, *thoom* and so on with increasingly greater sound and force. *THOOM* *THOOM* *THOOM* until the entire house was shaking. Then, silence. Cole trembled in suspense.

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!”