Journeyman

Chapter One: Overpopulation Really Bites

                A thunderous stomp slammed the ground behind me causing the entire wooden plain to shake beneath me and my bones to rattle. I continued to run as fast as I could to escape the deafening noise but a city block for me was less than a step for her. A loud giggling could be heard from high above the crashing of the building size feet that were easily closing the distance of my head start I managed to achieve earlier. Tears poured from my eyes allowing sweat to sting them mercilessly, my lungs felt as though they were bleeding with every gasp of air I took. My head pounded because of the torrent of adrenaline that had been infused with my blood. All I could think of was that I had to run away from this girl…I didn’t know where or how but I knew I had to run.

                As I ran across the wooden floor, vaulting over every crack where the wood pieces separated, a huge, tan foot landed just ahead of me and the impact made me fall prone to the ground. Dust particles the size of gravel hit me in the face and some got in my eyes. I frantically attempted to rub them out and get up simultaneously, but each time I tried another ear-shattering impact threw me off my feet. The young giantess was tapping her foot in front of me, sending an oddly mixed smell of both must and bubble bath into the air with each tap. When I finally cleared my eyes I saw that her other foot was upon me now…hovering inches about four stories (to me) above me. I stood in horror…too shocked with fear to know what to do next. Her pink toenails glinted almost deviously in the lamp light…the biggest one was about as big as me.

                “Stupid men;” she said through her giggles above. “Who needs them! They can’t please us, they can’t work, ha they can’t even survive without us!”

                Her toe cam down on me…a gigantic big toe that could swallow my miniscule frame easily; before I knew it I was pinned between the wooden floor and an amazing amount of toe-flesh. My face was pressed into the soft pat of her toe and my back into the unyielding wood. I tried to take a breath but her flesh stifled my attempt and I slowly began to suffocate as she put more pressure on me little by little.

                I began to squirm helplessly underneath her toe causing the fourteen-year old titan to giggle loudly. I didn’t care anymore…I was through for sure…

                I’m not giving condolence to all the myths that state that when one is about to die their life flashes before their eyes; all I’m saying is at that point mine did. I had come close to death before but for some reason the feeling of my once prominent hope being crushed as my ribs threatened to give too her amazing weight made this time worse than all the others. It’s hard to understand how much I had been through…to her I was a speck, not more than ¾ of an inch tall; but in reality I had been through so much just to be this close to my goal. My story began to flash in front of me…forcing me to relive it before my time came…

                Do to the overpopulation of the world it was dictated that in 2201 that all men must be shrunk in order to give mankind ample sustenance to survive. Why men you may ask? Well women were essential to the birthing process…a process that would not work while shrunk. There was enough sperm in banks to last the next two thousand years without any threat of inbreeding so the need for the male sex was nil. When the law was going through the all female congress of the WOL (World Organization of Leaders) it originally was written that all men were shrunk at birth. This would work but the odds of a person developing correctly while shrunk was next to nothing; and despite how worthless men had proven to be in the past they still deserved at least a chance at life. So it was ruled that when a man hit ample development (age 15) that he would then be shrunk.

                Another law was written that gave men the “privilege” to request a female owner before they are shrunk…if the girl said yes than he was her property, if she said no than he would be auctioned off or sold at one of the “stables” that women casually bought men at. Sadly this became a rude thing to ask of a girl and it was only considered polite if she asked you to be her pet, not the other way around. Most boys had no problem finding a “protector” or owner. But I’m not most boys.

                Right from the get-go I was not considered a normal child. My mother, after learning she was going to give birth to a male, immediately wanted an abortion. But the fines were too hefty and her parents, being religious people in the name of Athena, would not help. So she went through with the birth regardless of how disgusted she was with the fact she was having a man as a baby. I was taught by the television set everything I knew…since my mother paid no attention to me whatsoever I usually found time to read and watch things that men were usually not expected to watch (educational/philosophical programming). This made me much smarter than the average male and made it so that I could even compete with the females in my high school classes. Girls were insulted at this turn out.

                “Sexist!” that’s what they’d usually call me for answering a question first or helping out the men in class over the girls who really didn’t need any help.

                “Why do you even care about that shit if you’re going to end up the size of an ant anyway?” I would often be asked by my mother and peers.

 The truth is I didn’t know why and didn’t care why. I just loved to learn…and didn’t see why that was so bad. I knew that I was going to be shrunk when I hit 15 years of age but that didn’t stop me from enjoying my life while I had it to myself.

The realization that I’d be sold at a Stable Booth didn’t really hit me till it was less than a week before my fifteenth birthday; when I finally decided to open my eyes to the inevitable truth of my future.

“Class is over;” said Miss Isabella, our 10th grade English teacher, in the middle of my presentation of how the male brain and the female brain were remarkably similar.

“Miss Isabella; I’m not done yet;” I said calmly. Everyone began to collect their belongings and walk out of class.

She hit me in the head with the edge of a ruler…it hurt a lot to be honest.

“Don’t talk back to me ingrate!” she yelled, offended by my simple statement. Every boy shook as they saw me stand up to her like that…every girl just continued to leave.

“I still have ten minutes left to present;” I stated coldly, with a hint of anger in my voice.

“GET OUT OF MY CLASS!” she bellowed while tearing my research paper in half. I just stared at her coldly right in the eye. Anger shot through her knowing that a man would be willing to stand up to a lady like her.

I smirked and walked to lunch, knowing that even if I got there early the girls in my grade would cut in front of me anyways.

On my walk there I saw three freshmen girls standing by my locker in a circle all chattering. One of them was a skinny blonde with blue eyes, she was wearing denim jeans that were far too tight and hung far too low and a tie-die tank top that exposed her mid-drift. The one to her left was a tall Pilipino girl with matching features where all green; and the third was a larger girl with black hair and far too much make-up. The blonde was holding a little man in the palm of her hand and showing him off.

“Oh my gosh I’m so jealous of you!” squealed the larger girl.

“Me too!” chimed in the Philippino to her left. “He’s so cute! May I hold him?”

I rolled my eyes and walked around them to open my locker.

“Maybe later on girls; I just got him today so I want to play with him;” the blonde giggled. “Don’t worry I share!” she said with a wink.

There was a slight pause and the girls turned slightly to look at me. I ignored them as I always did and flung my locker open.

“So…what are you going to do with him?” asked the Phillipeno girl.

“Anything I want!” the blonde said loudly. “And everything I want.”

“I wish I had one;” said the dark haired girl with a sigh.

“Have you tasted him yet;” giggled the Phillipeno girl.

“What do you mean?” asked the blonde. “Taste him?”

“Well you can suck on him…like candy you know!” she said through a laugh. “It’s supposed to taste really good! Some people even eat them up!”

I was shaking with anger at that point and gave a glare back. The little man’s expression was impossible for me to see from here but I knew it was one of absolute fear. He stood quivering in the blonde’s palm as she eyed him curiously.

“Only when you can buy them yourself though;” added the dark haired girl. “You do still need to be sixteen to buy them…for some dumb reason.”

“I know!!” complained the Phillipeno girl with a whine. “I want one so bad but I don’t know a guy close enough to “the age” to ask.”

                “Well aren’t you going to try him?” asked the dark haired girl ignoring the other’s complaints.

                The blonde didn’t need any coaxing. I watched in horror as she tilted her hand forward and began to lick it. Her tongue was monstrous compared to him and he stuck to it easily as it rolled across him. She showed the other’s the tiny man on her tongue with a giggle. The other two laughed as the man screamed and begged for mercy from his tormenting goddess. She stuck her tongue in her mouth and swished it about while giggling at the man’s hell. I couldn’t take it anymore and I slammed the locker and went to lunch.

                “He is tasty!” squealed the blonde girl; I could hear her clear down the hall.

                I stomped away, enraged that in less than seven days that could be me stuck to that girl’s tongue.