Jean and Leah waddled groggily to high school under the rising sun’s glow. Despite the early hour and both not getting much sleep last night, their tired bodies marched on with determination, fueled by sheer excitement. Today was their last as high schoolers, and after that, summer awaited… and the beginning of their adult lives, starting as college students in Brussels, far away from their little, godforsaken town. Soon the days of boredom and petty delinquency (like graffiting at night, Jean’s favorite hobby) would be behind them for good. The anticipation overshadowed even the incident that kept both (and everyone in town) awake last night, which didn’t come into their conversation until later.
“It was a woman.” said Leah nonchalantly, “I saw her. I looked through the window and saw her foot, crushing old François’ field right next to my house.”
“Putain” sighed Jean “Swedish?”
“The whole field. With one step. I think she was an American.”
American. The mere word made Jean tremble. At first they all thought it was an earthquake rattling them out of bed, but they soon found out it was something potentially more destructive. A giant. A giant giant. They were used to many of them, especially the French, walking buildings 18 times larger than an average Belgian. But Americans were… well, compare the size of the United States and Belgium. They towered 300 times bigger than them. They were living mountains. Forces of nature. Gods.
“I tried to look upwards to make sense of how tall she was.” Explained Leah “I just saw her leg. It went on and on towards the sky…”
“Legs for dayssss” Joked Jean “Was she hot?”
“I don’t know, man! It was dark and I wasn’t wearing my glasses. I could barely see beyond her knee, and she walked away immediately.”
Jean scratched his head. “What’s an American doing here?”
“My father told me there was some kind of technological congress in Brussels. He spotted some other giants there a few days ago, mostly European.”
“But Brussels is an hour and a half drive from here.”
“For her it must’ve been just a walk, dude. She’s probably staying at one of those macro-hotels in Gante.”
The thought of it, of their whole country being covered by those titans in a few steps, made Jean shudder.
“She walked erratically” continued Leah “Maybe she was drunk? She completely ruined old François’ field. It’s kind of impressive, the earth is the shape of her shoe print now. His tractor flattened like a sheet of paper. François was furious. He was yelling about suing her and shit.”
“She’ll probably be able to pay for the damages with her pocket money.” Jean gritted his teeth. “Fucking Americans. Can they stop acting like they own the world for a second?”
“Can you blame her, after how you acted during our trip to Monaco?”
“Hey, I crushed that parking lot by accident” rebuked Jean with a smirk “And you got your share of feeling big with that local football team…”
“Mon Dieu” recalled Leah, beaming and blushing “those little guys really knew how to play as a team, hehe…”
They finally noticed the noise. It was faint during the beginning of the conversation, but as they approached the central intersection, the car horns, angry yelling and swearing became impossible to ignore. A long traffic jam clogged the center of the town. Some of the drivers were already out of their vehicles. A woman talked frustratedly on the phone, letting her boss know that she didn’t know when she was coming to work. Another man was in a rage, swearing against “those fucking yanks, while his children cried and screamed inside his car. Leah and Jean hurried to the intersection, eager to discover what was all the ruckus about.
A shoe. Specifically, a Birkenstock sandal.
It was just right there, stranded in the middle of the intersection… and it was big as a stadium. The traffic of the whole town was being blocked by a fucking Birk, by the absolutely massive version of something Leah usually put on her feet during the heat of the summer. Both 18-year-olds stared in awe at the monumental shoe, only a mere fraction of its owner’s true size.
“Oui, she must’ve been so fucking drunk.” Said Leah in a sotto voice.
The beeping of a crane made the two youngsters look to their left. Apparently the giantess had left another “little” present for the townsfolk. Laying against the side of some buildings rested a massive ID badge, bigger than a billboard, its lanyard laid over the front part of the sandal and the street next to it. The huge crane would probably struggle to lift it, so there was no chance they could get the Birkenstock out of the road anytime soon. They were simply too small. Leah and Jean stared at the huge face printed on the ID badge: a beaming, short haired brunette young woman, with sharp features, dark eyes, freckles and uneven teeth. “CECILIA RHODES / AVALON SOFTWARE”. She was… just some girl, not much older than they were. But so big she could crush old François’ field accidentally. The thought made Leah sick. Jean, on the contrary…
“She does look hot.”
“One, you wouldn’t stand a chance, Jean, you’d be smaller than an ant to her.” scoffed Leah “And two, you were bitching about the Americans less than a minute ago.”
“And I’ll keep bitching, but fair is fair, n'est-ce pas?” replied Jean, rummaging inside his schoolbag for some reason. “And speaking of bitches, someone should remind this huge hot idiot that people live here.”
Spray cans. Of course. Jean never left home without them. Leah sighed, reading his lifelong friend’s mind immediately.
“Jean...”
“We can climb on the lanyard before they lift it out of here. Leave a message or two on her shoe, and then climb down, like nothing happened…”
“It’s stupid, dangerous and very gross.” spat Leah. “Besides, we’re gonna be late at school.”
“Late? Putain, it’s our last day!” Whined Jean. “Come on, this giant cunt almost crushed your house, and ruined old François’ livelihood. And you know what consequences she’ll face for this: none. Nada. Que dalle! Let nobody inconvenience our tourist overlords!”
That was a fair point. Leah thought about her old neighbor. He wasn’t just furious, he was devastated. And that fucking bitch wouldn’t even give that a single thought.
“Merde, I just hate when you’re right. Let’s do it.”
The public workers were so busy rearranging traffic, arguing with angry drivers and figuring out how they would solve that crisis in general. No one noticed Jean and Leah sneaking past them and reaching the lanyard. For Belgians like them, the fibers that made it were thick enough for them to hold onto and climb. Fortunately both youngsters were used to stunts like that, after years graffiting in other high places they weren’t supposed to. The lanyard would let them drop into the shoe just right in the toe section, something that none of them had considered thoroughly.
“Mon Dieu” gasped Leah, holding her nose “Are you smelling that?”
“Putain. Is it getting warmer too?”
“Why did we just find an unsurveilled spot on the side of the sole and graffitied there, Jean?”
“Too late for that, we’re almost there. Are you letting some foot funk chicken you out?”
“Ugh… I guess not.”
The smell and the heat just got worse as they approached the inside of the sandal, and when they finally dropped on its leathery surface, they were both sweating profusely. How was it still warm? The foul, vinegary air hurt to breathe, and for a second Jean struggled keeping on his own two feet.
“I’m fine, I’m fine” he insisted, groggily “Merde. Those must be some huge toes.”
The brown plateau of the sandal sprawled before them, a whole field of soft leather, with its buckles casting shadows up above, like the arches of a huge cathedral. That shoe could harbor the town’s whole population. The surface blackened where that Cecilia Rhodes rested her feet upon. On that close inspection, they looked worn as shit. Both Belgians were standing just between the prints of her big toe and second toe. It was mind boggling. The big toe must have been bigger than their school. None of their houses would stand a chance against the second toe alone.
“Should we do this here and get the fuck out of this stinking sandal?” Begged Leah, wiping the sweat of her forehead.
“Let’s just walk a bit further, I think it’s a better spot.”
And so they did, trotting along the titanic toe prints while trying to get used to the thick, warm air. At one point, though, Leah tripped and fell onto the sickeningly moist surface. He got up quickly, gagging and wiping small flecks of leather or God-knows-what kind of grime from her face and body.
“Uuuugh! Jean, I can’t take this! We’re gonna reek like goddamn roquefort all day!”
“Okay, okay, let’s just do it here and get out.” Jean shook his spray can in anticipation “ what shall it be? Giant bitch? American cunt?
Leah spat some of the grime from her mouth. “Maybe something less sexist”.
“Okay, I’ve got it. Tourists go home. I’ve read it’s what protestors say in Barcelona…”
The ground shook faintly. They both lifted their heads at the same time. It could have been something else, but the rhythm of those tremors and their growing intensity were becoming an obvious sign of what was coming. Some car alarms went off below them. The vibrations were becoming exactly like the ones that woke them up last night. Frozen in fear, Leah and Jean looked at each other, pale as paper.
“Jean. Let’s fuck off out of here.”
Both students ran towards the lanyard as fast as the slick surface beneath their feet let them. Large shadows grew everywhere as shape emerged from the horizon and covered the sun. It was her. The American. Covering the whole sky above them, so high up she was blurry and covered in a bluish haze. Like a goddamn mountain. They had no time to gawk at her, but a quick glance upwards revealed an even bigger version of the face they saw on the ID badge. This time she wasn’t smiling brightly, instead she grimaced in a hungover expression. A gust of wind blew on them as air was displaced by her bending down, her colossal face approaching them like a falling moon.
“SORRY.”
That word alone made Leah and Jean lose their footing, their ears ringing and their whole bodies rattled by that explosion of sound. They were used to the loud and deep voices of the French, but this was almost like a sudden thunderclap up above. If she hadn’t spoke, maybe they would have made it to the lanyard just in time. Instead, in that crucial moment, their blood froze in their veins as they gawked at the giantess’ building sized fingers (with chipped, bitten nails) descending from the heavens and snatching the lanyard. The lifted the whole ID Badge like the mundane object it was for her, oblivious of how much of a feat it seemed to the tiny Belgians below.
“Fuck.” Gasped Jean. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. What do we do…?”
They fell again on the foul leather floor as the titantic fingers clung onto the buckles of the shoe. The two youths screamed as G forces pinned them down to the grime of her toe prints, her shoe moving at mind-boggling speed far away from the town. Caked in foot dirt, Leah had just a moment to notice the clouds were really closer to them now, and some birds flying away from the colossal American.
“Leah! LEAH!” Screamed Jean, panicking. He rolled deep inside her big toe print, while Leah lied around the second digit area.
“Jean! Jean, calm down! It’s gonna be okay!”
“UUUGH. WHAT A MESS.” Thundered the giant.
Complete oblivious to their predicament, the American lowered the sandal. Both terrified students saw a colossal shape approaching the end of the shoe’s expanse: her foot. An unstoppable mountain of flesh, long thick toes wiggling while the darkened, meaty sole buried the leather plateau like an avalanche. Smushed under her foot and between her toes there were tons of dirt, pavement and even some trees.
“Oh putain, Leah, what do we do?! WHAT DO WE DO?!”
“Jean, listen, JEAN…!”
It was just too quick to process. The American’s toes slid heavily towards the front of the sandal, like hungry, warm monsters looming above them. Jean barely had a split second to scream before Leah witnessed how he was buried hard under the tons of flesh of the giant’s big toe. Sitting between it and the huge arch of her second toe, Leah could not even comprehend what happened before the shoe tilted and she slid just right on her toe gap, crashing pretty hard on the wall of flesh and its mounds of dirt, grime and rests of plants and trees. She was lucky to be stuck in there, because suddenly the foot descended, the free fall making Leah’s stomach churn.
BOOM! Her world shook hard. Then, the G forces again, lifting her towards the sky. Another free fall. Another thunderous crash. BOOM! The American was walking, covering insane amounts of land with each step. Dazed and confused, Leah got glimpses of the infinite leg that shot skywards to the rest of that being she could barely comprehend, talking over a phone bigger than a football field.
“YEAH, I’M HEADING TO THE HOTEL TO PACK. THE PARTY WAS SOOO CRAZY. I EVEN MADE UP WITH THIS CANADIAN GUY FOR A BIT. THEY’RE SO TALL, I BARELY MADE IT TO HIS CHEST. HE HAD THAT LUMBERJACK LOOK…”
Even while trying to hold on to her dear life, the reality of what happened started simmering on her mind. Today was supposed to be the beginning of their lives, and instead Jean was… he was…
Stuck between the American’s toes, Leah cried, screamed, kicked, threw up and ended up passing out, while the godly voice of her friend’s murderer just talked about getting railed by Canadian wood.