Tiny Troubles and Giant Apologies

A story of hulking hazards and other domestic disturbances

Jurion started to tremble when he heard a low, angry gnarl behind the oversized door in front of him. Seconds later, it was followed by loud thuds, so intense, he couldn’t only hear but feel them.

Boom.

Boom!

BOOM!

Every time, the sound was followed by a tremor in the ground.

Clink!

Clank!

The jars on Jurion’s kitchen shelf rattled. Worriedly, he looked at the many sealed glasses containing pickled cucumbers, carrots, onions and other vegetables. Somewhere up there among his winter stock was a hidden treasure.

Clink!

Clank!

The jars rattled again when a tremor shook the ground.

“RAHHHRRRGHHH!!!”

Although his throat felt dry and hoarse, the little gnome swallowed audibly. He rubbed his soft, little hands before reluctantly stepping closer to the gigantic door. Stretching and tiptoeing, he tried to reach the doorknob, but it was impossible to reach without getting closer. Cursing his short arms and legs for once, the gnome cautiously neared the door.

“A small step for me,” he whispered, “a big step for ….”

BOOOOOMMMMM!

“GRRRAAAAARRRRRR!!!!”

Something angry slammed against the door from the inside. Jurion squealed like a panicked piglet and jumped backwards. The door shook so violently that he feared its hinges might come loose. He flinched, fearing the door would fall and crush his frail body. Without looking, Jurion scurried backwards and moved straight into the shelf with his precious jars.

Instead of the previous semi-rhythmic clinking and clanking, the jars rattled as loud and forcefully as if Baksti, the God of Earth, Agriculture and Tremors, was displeased by his carelessness. Jurion froze, trying not to upset the jars any further. Eventually, they settled, and he sighed in relief. The danger had passed.

“GRRRRLLLRRRRAAAAAARRRRR!!!”

BOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!

This time, the growl and thud were even louder than before, as was the accompanying tremor — a miniature earthquake. It rattled the jars on the shelf as well as the pots and china in his kitchen cabinets.

Clink!

Clank!

Smash!

Jurion cried out when a jar of pickled cucumbers crashed on the ground, dousing his shoes in vinegar. But there was no time for mourning, just barely enough to escape a glass of pickled onions joining the cucumbers.

Crash!

Smash!

Crash!

More and more jars dropped around him, and Jurion had to jump left and right, back and forth, trying to avoid being hit. Finally, he slipped on the wet and mushy mess on the kitchen floor. His feet shot upwards forcefully enough to send his tiny body into a looping.

Bash!

Pain shot down his spine from the back of his head when he crashed onto the hard kitchen floor. Jurion managed little beyond an agonised groan before he blacked out briefly. When his consciousness returned, he saw something at the top of the shelf. Unable to focus his eyes, the thing seemed to shift in and out of space. Finally, his fuzzy and foggy vision cleared, like someone had snipped their magic fingers. With that, a jar snapped into focus.

“Oh. Oooh, no, no.”

Jurion gasped and shook his head slowly in a wordless prayer to Amixari, Goddess of Luck, Mischief and Confusion. Why did she have to be such a strong force in his life? He held his breath, watching the rattling jar, and time slowed down. Finally, it stopped, and Jurion loudly drew breath.

“Oh cr….”

Before he could finish his sentence, the jar tipped over the shelf’s edge as if moved by an invisible hand. Its lid fell off mid-flight, spilling the jar’s contents. At the last moment, Jurion covered his face with his hands before an assortment of colourful, oddly shaped berries rained down on him.

Peng!

Boom!

Splash!

Peng!

When the berries hit Jurion and the ground around him, they exploded in a firework of sounds and colours. Finally, adding insult to injury, the jar dropped on his forehead, enriching his vision with shooting stars.

“I hate snapdragon berries!” he shouted, “I hate them. Hate them. Hate them!”

The house suddenly fell silent. Jurion bared his teeth and stared at the ceiling. He could feel a swelling grow on his head.

“Great …,” he said, “I’m going to be the Juricorn again.”

Then, he heard the muffled footsteps behind the door, sending more tremors through the ground. These were weaker, softer, almost like something very big tried to sneak up on him. Jurion turned his head — his face an angry grimace — toward the door when the doorknob rattled. It opened slowly but just a crack big enough to reveal an enormous nose and a huge, kind-looking eye with a green iris.

“Whaddyaduin?” Magatha, the hulking giant, asked cautiously from behind her hiding place, “Why yu make salad on da ground?”

Jurion stared at his friend, teeth pressed together to a joyless, frightening grin. Slowly, he lifted his right arm covered in colourful berry stains and pointed his right index finger at Magatha. Then, he pointed it at his chest, slowly poking it three times as if trying to stab himself.

“What … I’m … doing?”

The giant opened the door a little further, revealing her hulking figure hunched under the low living room ceiling. At least it was low for a giant but like a cathedral to a gnome. She smiled shyly and nodded in agreement.

“Hmmm. Yeah. Whaddyaaaaduuuiiiin?” she repeated.

Stab.

Stab.

Stab!

STAB!

“What … I … am … doing??!!”

Magatha’s mouth formed a circle that matched her wide eyes. Carefully, she looked left and right as if to make sure Jurion wasn’t addressing someone else in the room. The giant lifted a meaty finger, thick as a tree branch. She gulped loud enough to wake a corpse when she finally pointed it at herself.

“Magatha duin?”

The gnome glared at her, and his face took on a deep red that matched some of the stains on his formerly white tunic. However, any colour — sickened green, suffocating blue — would have matched his tunic at this point.

“What …,” he said between clenched teeth, “is … that?!”

Magatha held up a tiny bundle of colourful paper. It looked diminutive in her enormous hand, like nothing more than a few crumbled scrolls. Jurion looked back and forth between Magatha’s huge face and the bundle. Then, he realised she had tried to wind a string around what seemed to be a package. His eyes followed the string and widened considerably. With every inch his eyes wandered, his face turned redder and redder. Finally, his gaze arrived at the curved piece of wood half-hidden under Magatha’s massive left foot.

“What … have … you … done … to … MY BOW??!!”

With a shamed expression, Magatha seemed to try very hard to shrink where she stood, but there was no hiding for a giant of her size. After all, they lived in a human-sized house— too small for her, too big for Jurion.

“I … gulp … tis ya beerfdai … So I … gulp … Furyk said …,” Magatha stuttered, “… gotta present … eh … it's ya beerfdai … so Furyk say ….”

“Spit it out!!”

Magatha pushed her lower lip forward and looked at her oversized feet, one of them tiptoeing and nervously turning left and right on the spot.

“Furyk say … presant need da bowh!”

Jurion suddenly started wriggling on the ground, his arms and legs flailing like a madman’s. The giant watched him close to tears, fearing Jurion had been cursed with spasms by an evil warlock.

“Aaaaaaah!”

Magatha flinched and took a step back when she heard his animalistic scream. She tripped over her own feet, crashing Jurion’s favourite armchair under her huge buttocks. The gnome suddenly jumped to his feet. Pickled vegetables and colourful snapdragon berry juice flew in all directions. His hands formed into tiny fists, and he bared his teeth before he jumped up and down. Jurion’s eyes bulged so much it looked like they would pop out of his head.

“You … ruined … everything!” he shouted, marching up and down in front of Magatha, “Our stocks? … Gone! … My chair? … Gone! … My birthday? … Ruined!”

The giant’s mouth formed a downward-curved crescent, and she avoided looking at her friend. Cautiously, she lifted a finger.

“What did you think?!”

“I ….”

“Did you think at all?!”

“I ….”

“Do you ever think?!”

“I ….”

“All I hear is ‘I’! Not everything is about you!!

“I ….”

“AAAH! Do you know what you did?”

“I ….”

“Your thumping and thudding caused a lot of clinking and clanking, and now, we are robbed of all our munching and crunching!”

Slowly, Magatha lifted her right index finger again, her left pressed against her lower lip. Her forehead was wrinkled as if she was thinking hard about something.

“This isn’t a school! You don’t have to ask for permission to speak.”

Magatha smiled, and her expression was hopeful when she held her index finger high in the air.

“AAAARRRR! This isn’t funny!! Do you think it’s funny?!”

Magatha shook her head wildly to answer the question, accidentally knocking Jurion’s crystal chandelier, a heirloom from his grandmother, from the living room ceiling. The gnome grunted and stomped out of the kitchen and into the garden.

“Worst … birthday … ever!” he shouted over his shoulder, “And no! I don’t want to hear it right now!”

The giant slowly lowered her finger, which she had held up on last time, in the hope he’d turn around. She looked down at the dress she had made from old colourful linen, roughly and clumsily sewn together. Flowers of all colours covered her huge body, from her tree-trunk-thick legs to her beer-barrel-sized bosom.

Behind her hung an oversized banner with a stick figure drawing of a giant woman holding a tiny man in her outstretched right hand. They were surrounded by red splashes — little red hearts painted with too-tiny brushes in a too-big hand. Magatha looked at the little present in her hands and sighed.

“GRRRAAAARRRR! MAGATHA SO CLUMSY!”

She jumped up and down in frustration, as she had done when she was unable to manage the necessary dexterity to pack Jurion’s present with her chunky fingers. Shock waves went through the ground every time she landed on her feet.

One day, she would be able to prove her love for him. But first, Magatha would apologize by cleaning up. She grinned happily, having a plan to rescue the day. When she squeezed into the kitchen and bowed to pick up the spilt vegetables, her giant buttocks got dangerously close to a kitchen cabinet. Grandmother’s priceless china was already waiting.

This is a response to Jonathon Sawyer’s Monday Mash-Up №31. My gratitude goes to the Truth Potion of Full Potential, which allowed me to integrate all prompts and constraints into my story.

My gratitude goes to Bradan Writes Stories for helping me with the image and title.

I challenge Heather R. Parker and Rayne Sanning — two inspiring creatives — to take part in the mash-up or, alternatively, the upcoming Mash-up №32.

Promot #1: Your hero has just turned a year older! (2 points)
Prompt #2: Plan and execute a surprise party! (also covered but 0 points)
Constraint: fireworks (1 point)
Constraint: a delicious ingredient inside! (snapdragon berries) (1 point)
Constraint: a present wrapped with a bow (1 point)
Constraint: someone throws a temper tantrum! (1 point)
Hardcore Constraint: Rob everyone! (2 points)
Literary Device: include a theme of unrequited love (5 points)
Tally 1 point
Sum: 14 points

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