Small Comforts

“Father! Father!!!” I screamed as I burst into our house. “FATHER!!!”

Heavy footsteps descended the stairs. “What is it boy?”

“Violet,” I squeezed my twin sister’s name in between desperate attempts to suck air into my burning lungs. I had sprinted all the way here and my throat felt raw from the violent ferocity with which I was sucking in air and immediately regurgitating it. “Violet’s been-”

“Calm down boy,” he said, fully coming down the stairs and placing a firm hand on my shoulder. He guided me towards the kitchen table, and we sat. He waited patiently, watching me over steepled fingers as I forced my lungs to stop seizing so I could string more than three syllables together.

“Violet… Violet’s been…” My voice broke and I stopped. My whole world felt like it was shaking. I couldn’t stop the images from those last few moments from replaying over and over in my mind, the looming shadow, the horrible sound, the smell of iron, the sight of the nauseating leftovers as it continued on. Every time the sequence completed, I felt my body shake as my flesh tried to tear itself off my bones to get away from those horrible images.

“Slow down boy. Breathe.” I did as he said. It helped, somewhat. I realized that the world was not, in fact, shaking, my eyes were just blurry with tears. I wiped them away and focused on my Father’s face. He looked like he was carved from stone, like the gargoyles that ancient people put on castles to ward off the Giants. The cold, calculating veneer was oddly comforting, if only because of its familiarity. My Father had always been a dour man, ever since I can remember. The last time I saw him laugh was when my sister and I were still little kids. We had been playing Giant in the backyard, with us as the Giants and a small ant colony as Us. We were having a grand old time, the two of us stomping around drunk on power squashing ants left and right. We took a break at some point and were on the porch with Father, sucking on popsicles to cool off under the artificial heat of the underground sun lamps. While we ate, we watched the ants frantically trying to rebuild the hill that Vi had kicked over. Something in me must’ve felt a pang of sympathy for the poor creatures, because I asked her “is it wrong for us to be so cruel to the ants? Maybe they have feelings like us.” She shrugged and said “if it really bothers them, then they should get bigger and fight back.” She had looked perplexed though, like she didn’t quite believe what she’d just said either. That was when my Father, who’d been sitting behind us reading a book all this time, had laughed and slapped Vi on the back.

My breathing had calmed substantially now, and Father seemed to sense that I was ready. “Start from the beginning,” he directed.

“Violet… We were…” I took another deep breath to interrupt my accelerating panting and tried to push the horrible images out of my head before they could start again. “We above ground-“

“What were you doing up there?”

The edge in his tone made me wince. He was right of course. We shouldn’t have been up there.

“We’d started a garden. It’s in a clearing in the forest to the north. Vi was growing a blueberry bush. She said that fruit doesn’t grow as sweet down here in the artificial light.” My voice wavered. “She wanted to bake a pie with them when they grew in for our birthday. The best pie ever.” He just stared at me over his steepled hands, so I took a breath to steady myself and continued.

“We were in the garden when I saw one of Them coming. It wasn’t a very big one (the trees came all the way to its knees), but it was headed straight for us.” I shuddered in horror at the memory of the Giant; its humanlike face eerily devoid of expression as it stomped towards us. “We grabbed whatever tools we could and scrambled out of its way towards the tree line.”

“We squatted in the bushes. Vi had a hard time keeping her sunhat on as we crawled through the bush. Plus her overalls kept getting-” my voice quavered again and I bit my lip. I was stalling.

“Anyway, that’s where we were when it came. We were hoping it would just step over the garden completely.” I might’ve even been whispering a prayer as it drew closer; I didn’t remember, so I didn’t mention it to Father.

“But it didn’t. Its foot came down 10 yards away from us and flattened the whole meadow. I think we were too stunned to move at first. But then something came over Vi. She burst out from the bushes before I could grab her and ran out into its footprint. She lost her sunhat.” I said, remembering with some guilt that it was probably still up there in the bushes. “Then she…” I braced myself. “Then she looked up and shouted at it.”

It was the one thing we’d been trained from birth to never do. Our father’s approach to dealing with the Giants was that we should never let them notice us. “If they didn’t know we were there,” he had told us once, “then they don’t know they can step on us.” So, whenever we’d ever come across a Giant, Vi and I would hide out of its way and wait for it to pass.

To be honest it was terrifying. These massive creatures could kill me without a thought, without even noticing. Because… well because that’s just what they do. The Giants have always been here. There was nothing to be done about them, so we just had to figure out how to live with them.

At least, that’s what our dad and our teachers at school taught us. But had never really sat well with Vi. “But they look human!” I remember her protesting to our teacher once. “Have you ever seen their eyes?” She cast her eyes around the classroom, but most of our classmates were either staring blankly or shaking their heads. Not everyone was as brave as my sister. Not even me; I tried to avoid looking at their faces as much as possible. The resemblance to Us was too creepy for me. “They’re intelligent.” She said defiantly. “They just choose not to act like it.”

My teacher must’ve sent home a note, because I remember Father yelling at her down in the kitchen well into the night. To her credit, Violet did a lot of yelling back. Things were never quite the same between the two of them since that night. So, when I told Father that Violet had run out into the open and actually drawn attention to herself, I’d expected him to have some sort of reaction. But there was none, just that same stony gaze. The lack f response had started to become unsettling, and I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat.

“She told it it was an asshole.” I spoke more to fill the silence than anything else. I had been trying not to think about this part, because if I thought about this part, I’d have to think about everything that came after it too. But now that I’d spoken, it was like I’d opened the floodgates, and the rest of the story came pouring out.

“’You’re an asshole!’ she shouted up at it. And it had stopped. I don’t think she was actually expecting that. I certainly wasn’t. It didn’t throw her for long though. ‘How could you do that?’ She’d said. ‘Do you even know what you just crushed? There was something beautiful here, and now it’s just a fucking footprint!’ It turned its head to look at her. Even from my hiding place I could see the rage in its eyes as it stared down at her, like it was looking at a bug that had just spoken. I desperately wanted her to stop but she kept going. ‘That’s all that you things do, is you just walk around destroying everything beautiful we try to make! It doesn’t matter what it is, you crush everything, everything that we love and cherish, without even a thought! Our work, our friends, our family,” Her voice broke, and I thought she would cry, but she kept going. “Don’t you ever think about what that’s like for us? We’re not just bugs, we have feelings and hopes and dreams! And we’re afraid. So afraid, all the time, of you. You dumb, violet, monsters! Do you even understand me?’ And then silence. ‘Yeah, I see it in your eyes. You know what the fuck I’m saying. So why? Why do you have to destroy everything? Why the can’t you just leave us the fuck alone!?!?’”

She was breathing heavily now, although I couldn’t tell if it was from emotion or from all the shouting. The Giant, who’d just been looking over its shoulder at her, turned its body around fully then. And then it took a step towards her.

I knew what was about to happen. I think she did too, on some level. But even when I screamed for her to run, even when its foot rose to take that last step, even as she stood in its shadow as it came down towards her, she just stood there with this look on her face. Like she was saying ‘you wouldn’t dare.’” The tears sprung back into my eyes. “But of course it did. I... I think I screamed. Or maybe not, I don’t know. She was close enough that I was able to hear her bones crunch and pop, even over the thunder of its foot landing. I don't think I believed it at first,” I said, lip quivering and tears freely flowing now. “I thought she’d miraculously still be there when it moved its damn foot.” I made a sound halfway between sobbing and retching. “...she was stuck to the bottom of it like gum. Her sinews stretched between the smear on the ground and the stain on its foot until they snapped with this sickening pop. Little shards of bone shook loose and made little ripples as they dropped into the puddle that used to be her. And then the monster was gone. Back to walking... wherever. And Vi was... was...” I still couldn’t say it.

Just then, Father made an exasperated sound from across the table. The noise was so unexpected that I forgot about the tears rolling down my face for a split second and just stared at him dumbfounded.

“Dumb little brat,” he muttered. He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “It’s sad, boy, but I can’t even say I’m that upset. It’s her own fault for drawing attention to herself like that.”

I went from dumfounded to straight up shocked. “What the fuck?” There was a delay between the words leaving my mouth and me realizing I’d said them. “No really. What the fuck?” My sorrow quickly gave way to the overwhelming indignation I felt rising in my chest. “How could you say that about your daughter? She all she did was try to talk to it and it... it...”

“I can’t say I blame them either.” He said, cutting me off. “Just hearing that story pissed me off.” He shrugged. “Daughter or no, I probably would’ve done the same thing if she’d talked to me like that.”

“If she’d...” What the fuck was he talking about? “But you’re not a Giant!” I shrieked. “How...? How could you...?” I was shaking with rage at this point, but I didn’t even know what to say to him. “You... You’re an asshole!” I slammed my fists on the table as I leapt from my chair to scream down at him. “How could you take that, that thing’s side over your own daughter’s???” I shouted, flinging my arms out wildly. “They’re everything that’s wrong with this world and Violet just... she’s just...” I ran out of steam and deflated back down into my chair. “She was just small... like us.” I finished quietly.

My Father had endured my tirade with an impassivity that would’ve infuriated a boulder. I wanted to break that stoic face of his so badly, but I felt completely drained. After I was quiet for a few seconds, he rose and said, “Follow me son. There’s something you should see.”

I was too tired to resist, and besides, I had a morbid curiosity as to what secret knowledge my Father was holding onto that was keeping him so calm right now. He pulled out a key and unlocked the door to the basement. My sister and I had never been allowed down here, ever. We’d tried over the years, but it had always been locked, and our Father kept the key on him at all times. We descended a long flight of stairs, easily several stories, until we reached the bottom. What awaited us was a cavernous room, at the center of which stood...

“AHHHH!” I screamed and leapt back into the stairwell where the Giant couldn’t get to me. One of the monsters stood against the wall in the middle of the chamber. What was it doing here?

My Father didn’t even turn around as he snapped, “stop it and get out here.”

I took a cautious step forward into the space. The Giant was stock still, like it was frozen in place. It stood on a large metal disc, and behind it on the wall I could make out two rail tracks the ran up towards the ceiling. I followed them all the way up to a pair of huge hangar bay doors that were clamped tightly shut.

“What... how did...?”

“That,” my father said pointing up at the creature, “is mine. The one you and your sister encountered must’ve been from a neighboring community, the little ones don’t tend to patrol very far from their homes. Over there,” he said, pointing to two huge tanks of bubbling blue liquid on the far side of the room that I hadn’t noticed until now, “are the ones I’d been preparing for you and your sister. I was planning to show this to both of you someday soon. Maybe if I had shown your sister, she wouldn’t have acted like such a brat and gotten herself killed.”

I crossed the cavern and stood before the tanks. Inside, two infant Giants (I hadn’t even known there were infant Giants) floated, every so often twitching some part of their body. I didn’t understand. Why was my Father growing Giants? And what did he mean they were “ours?” I turned back to ask him, but something about the Giant at the center of the room caught my eye. I realized it bore a striking resemblance to my Father. My eyes widened with horror. I whirled back around to the monsters in the tank. That one on the left looked like Violet. And the one on the right looked like me.

I felt a hand land on my shoulder. “How...?” I stammered.

“There’s a control center in the neck.” He said that like he was explaining how to use a flashlight and not upending my entire worldview.

I stared at him in shock. “In all of them...?’

He nodded. “All of them.”

My head was spinning, and my mouth silently groped for words. “...Why?” I eventually managed to croak.

“Why what?”

Why do we cower underground, living in fear of them? I thought. Why did we grow up learning that they were monsters we had to hide from and hate? Why do they step on us, why do they trample anything we build above the ground? Why did they kill my sister?

My confusion must’ve shown, because my Father shrugged and said, “that’s the way it’s always been. I made mine to protect our family from the other Giants. My father did the same for his family, and his father before him. One day, you will do the same. Violet would have too. Everything I taught you was so that you could survive until that day came. That’s what it means to be a parent.”

 “But I don’t want one of those... those things!” I cried. “I just want them to leave us alone! Why can’t they just leave us alone!?”

“This is how you get them to leave you alone!” Father shouted, at long last showing some human emotion. He sighed and rubbed his temples. “You and your sister,” his voice sounded like it was coming from underwater, “seem to have this idea of how the world should be. But this is how the world is, and you need to accept that. You will get in your Giant when the time comes, because you must. You don’t get to have a choice.”

Something in me broke then. I ran. I don’t remember if he even called out to me. Maybe he thought I’d come back. Or maybe he didn’t care if I did. I don’t know. I ran up the stairs, out of the house, and into the street. I ran to the elevator and took it to the top floor, and then I ran through the old maintenance hatch Vi and I would sneak through to slip out of the bunker. And then I ran away, as far as I could.

I’m still running, by the way. Running from the Giants that aren’t really Giants as they try and squash me like an ant. It’s not fun. It’s not easy. But at least my sister wouldn’t hate me. And there’s some small comfort in that.