In the middle of the vast corn field, the late afternoon air is warm. I hear a crow caw as if to say, “The sun will turn the sky orange soon!”
I’m certain Henry is on campus waiting for me, sitting on the grass alone. I’ll have to apologize to him later.
Right now, I need to prevent Timber from losing any more lucidity.
We’re both crouching as Timber holds a humiliated Superior vandal in his hand.
If Timber were in full control, I’d ask him to remove Connor’s chains. But for now, I don’t want to encourage any actions that will make Timber feel more enmity toward the captured vandal.
“Let me hold him,” I say.
“He’s dangerous,” Timber refuses.
I sigh. First try, failure. But I can’t give in yet.
I speak to the vandal with a friendly smile, “Hey, my name’s Lance. What’s yours?”
The shrunken giant turns his small head to the side. After a moment’s hesitation, Timber uses both his hands to turn the vandal around to face me.
The vandal laughs. “Lance? The Starving Saber married a human named Lance? That’s rich!”
With a slight squeeze, Timber knocks the air out the vandal. “Answer the question.”
“Timber, be gentle!” I say.
Timber gives no response.
When the vandal regains his breath, he answers my question without a hint of amusement. “My name is Axe.”
“Axe?” I say. “That’s a cool name! Don’t worry, I understand why you laughed. A lot of Superiors are named after weapons, right?”
Axe opens his mouth to speak, but says nothing.
“Don’t know what to say? I understand that too. Feeling the sizable energy of a tiny for the first time can leave a giant speechless. And there aren’t many tinies on Superior.”
Tears start to well in Axe’s eyes. Seeing them brings back memories.
“My sizable energy made Timber cry for a whole month after we started dating.”
Axe sputters. “I...I…”
“My energy heals giants. And you felt it from inside your stomach, so it’s hitting you like a tidal wave of love, isn’t it? Don’t try to speak. Just relax.”
Timber’s eyes narrow. “He doesn’t deserve your healing. He’d digest you if he could get away with it. I know what Superiors think of humans.”
“He’s not that bad!” I say. “There was no acid in his stomach when I ejected the workers. Right, Axe?”
“I...didn’t want to kill anyone. My friends dared me to make a crop circle, and—“
“And you decided to treat humans like toys on a sandcastle!” Timber barks.
“You would have done worse not too long ago, Timber," I say.
Timber looks at me, surprised. “Lance, I…”
I don’t like to make Timber relive the past, but if it helps him calm down...
“And since then, how many nights have you bawled in our bed? You regret your planet eating days more than anything. If you changed, so can Axe.”
Timber turns his head away in shame and lowers Axe to the ground.
Tears stream down Axe’s face.
Good. Things are cooling down.
I slowly reach my right hand toward Axe. “You said you’re 19-years-old, right? I’m 22, and I’m a Size Studies major in college.”
“Earthlings study size change?”
“We sure do! A really smart friend of mine has a theory about Superiors like you and Timber. He thinks every giant is born with a cruel side and a gentle side, but Superior culture smothers your gentleness.”
Axe flinches away from my hand. “There’s no such thing as gentleness!” he says. “Gentle is just a loan word from Earth, like love.”
“When I see the shame on my husband’s face, I can’t agree. If you heard the stories he’s told me, I bet you’d—“
Suddenly and unfortunately, Mr. Reed makes his entrance a few meters behind me. “Did you give him hell, Lance?”
Timber sets his gaze beyond me, watching Mr. Reed approach us.
I stand up and turn around. “Everything’s under control Mr. Reed! No cause for alarm!”
“That monster needs to get what's coming to him!"
I sense another lucidity drop in Timber and clench my fist.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Reed,” Timber says. “The monster won’t go unpunished.”
I see Timber’s shadow extend before me. He’s growing, and he’s...
I feel the familiar stomps of Timber’s giant footsteps reverberate through my body. Before I can say a word, he’s running back the way he came, following his corns stalk footsteps to the road.
But he’s growing larger this time. So large he reaches the road in record time, then crouches down to pick something up.
He returns as quickly as he left, then shrinks down until he’s standing three stories tall.
“Timber!” I shout up at his face. “Pay attention to your lucidity!”
Timer speaks to the shrunken vandal in a mocking tone. “Axe, you’re the size of a human’s toy doll, but I can see your facial features clear as day up here.”
Timber chuckles.
“A human giant couldn’t see you at this size difference,” Timber says. “But Superiors like us have sharper senses.”
Timbers voice grows colder as he leers at Axe.
“That’s why you think Superiors should treat humans like playthings, right Axe? Big, strong, corn crushing, chain wielding Axe...”
Timber stretches an arm to the side and drops something from his hand. When it crashes to the ground, I realize it was the portal bike Axe parked on the road.
“If I was the cruel giant you want me to be, I’d mock you for owning such a small portal bike.”
Timber is reveling in Axe’s humiliation. This is bad.
“You know what else I’d do?” Timber says.
With a sadistic grin, Timber stomps the portal bike with his shoe, and grinds it into the ground.
“Comet dust…” Mr. Reed says with fear in his voice.
I turn to Mr. Reed and say, “You should go, now!”
Needing no persuasion, Mr. Reed runs into the cornfield.
As a tiny, I’m able to sense the emotions of nearby giants. Timber is excited. Axe is in despair.
And then, when I think things can’t get worse, Axe utters three words that push Timber over the edge.
“Just kill me.”
***
My husband Timber is a natural bully. Everyone from Superior is. But that’s not the only thing he is.
Even when he didn’t know the word love, he was a lover at heart, a Superior oddball who found an incomprehensible satisfaction in protecting others. No matter how Superior culture tried to kill the love inside of him, it never died, though it did remain dormant for a time.
On the day we met, I saved the world by reawakening the love that slept in his zero-lucidity mind.
After we married, Timber warned me that if he loses control again, I might not be able to stop him as easily a second time.
He said if he ever becomes a danger to me, I should flee and allow him to regain control by himself.
And that brings us to today, in the corn field, with Timber at the lowest lucidity I’ve seen since the day he nearly swallowed the Earth.
Has he forgotten himself completely? His sizable energy doesn’t feel that off to me, but the foot he’s hanging above me and Axe would make anyone but me assume the worst.
“Just kill me.”
How could Axe say that? What sort of life has he lived?
Superior is a merciless planet where might makes right and the weak don’t survive. But we aren’t on Superior, and I won’t let Timber lose his peaceful life.
Timber speaks. “It’s been a long time since I crushed a bug. What a privilege to crush one that deserves it for a change.”
“Timber, your lucidity is dangerously low!” I shout up at his three-stories-high face. Don’t obey your instincts!”
Timber frowns. “Move, Lance.”
I kneel on the ground and hold Axe in my hands.
“Listen to me! You’ve exhausted yourself from overwork and lost your ability to reason!”
Timber is too relaxed for a person prepared to kill someone. “Reason? Lance, I would never hurt you.”
“Then lower your foot safely and shrink yourself!”
Timber grows to four stories tall.
“I want to crush the monster that terrorized this farm and insulted my human husband.”
“Then you’ll have to crush me too, because I won’t let him go!”
Timber crouches down with his hands on his knees. His giant black tie crashes against the flattened corn.
“What an obstinate little husband I have. Is this why marriage is taboo on Superior?”
“Timber, I love you. Please stop this.”
Timber stares at me, silent.
“I love you too,” he says.
Did that wake him up?
I look down at Axe and say to him, “Tell Timber you’re sorry! Tell him you don’t want to die!”
“I accept defeat,” Axe says.
Timber lowers his head and lets out a derisive snort. The gust blows me onto my back.
Timber’s laugh makes my body vibrate. If I were an ordinary human, my ears would be in pain.
“Lance,” Timber says, “have I told you you’re incredibly sexy when you’re small and vulnerable? I wasn’t even trying to knock you over!”
“Of course you have!” I say. “You say it every time you bully me, you idiot!”
“Since when does a pipsqueak like you get to call me an idiot?”
Timber’s experiencing the horny side of big space. I can take advantage of this.
“Timber, eat me!”
“Huh? Right here?”
“You’re obviously still horny from our interrupted size play session. So swallow me in one gulp!”
My giant husband blushes. “Well, if you insist.”
I hold onto Axe tightly as Timber gently picks us up.
“A small fry like you belongs in one place.”
I feel gravity slam me onto Timber’s palm as he sharply accelerates his growth rate, sending us soaring upward. When he stops, I’m proportionally the size of a pea.
Timber must be over 100 stories tall.
He’s looking down at me, holding me in the palm of his parking lot-sized hand.
I see clouds around us. The air is colder. His breath is warm, his teeth white, his tongue wet.
With my tiny powers, his stomach is the safest place for Axe. I glow light blue as I prepare myself for stomach stasis.
“Having a tiny human husband is a dream come true! I was alone for so long... Now, I can share what Earthlings call love in a way only size changers understand.”
Closing his eyes in bliss, he leans his head down licks me off his hand.
Axe is still in my hand. I hope he has a change of heart soon.
“Thank you for loving me, little guy,” Timber says.
With one gulp and a satisfied sigh, my nearly omnipotent husband eats me.
I plunge hundreds of feet into his cavernous depths.
