A Tale of Little Cities (Chapter 2) (Patreon)

Yet still, the exponential increase of that threat paled again in light of what came next. Or rather, in dark. The opened cloud cover, once merely shaded, went into pitch-black. Something was blocking the glow, or more specifically, five things were. Cracks of light streamed brighter than ever between the five circular, meteoric shapes, united by dense, nearly mile-long pathways that none below could identify in the confusion. A spaceship, maybe? Had the UFOs at last come down to put all the rumors to rest?

The five obelisk shapes remained in place, occasionally curling downward into themselves. No one below had an answer. Steadily, the prior flavors in the air of gentle BO and old citrus soap increased. Booming, musical noise flooded the streets and shattered windows across the city. The octave was so low by comparison, it took most people several minutes to even recognize it as a human voice at all. Still fewer were able to translate the parsed language into their mother tongue.

“DAD!” the voice said with immense resonance. “I’m going to Tara’s now. Good luck with your Paris stuff down there!”

There was no time for anyone to recommence panic for the cryptic message, nor the meaning of the word “Paris” inserted into the line from what most had to curiously admit was no extraterrestrial’s speech, but that of a young human woman.

A very, very large young human woman.

The five lengthy, dexterous shapes descended down into the mouth out of the storm cell above, and thus rendered every prior terror for Paris but an annoyance by comparison. Leading the charge were the planetoid-like bulbs on the ends, intricately detailed with crop circles etched concentrically in the peach-hued shine. They thinned on the pathways, which eventually gave way to a single, epic mass which easily matched the width of the multi-mile storm clouds.

What little light Paris had left was squelched as the shapes became invisible amongst the darkness, though they were unmistakably still dropping toward the city. The police worked in tandem during the ensuing disaster, blaring every available spotlight up to the heavens. When they did, and brought all the beams together, it became clear that they were not looking at a storm cell of any kind, nor a meteor, nor even alien aircraft coming in for landing.

It was a bare foot: with sloped arches the depth of oceans, five spongy toes which could cover skyscrapers, and a sole as expansive as it was moist, like the reverse equivalent of a desert, instead littered with pulsing pink crease-rivers. But despite all that, there was no denying it was a foot nonetheless. A woman’s foot, they judged. It was too elegant and svelte to belong to a man, despite its meaty toes and sheer scale. Probably belonging to the young woman who shouted something about fathers and Taras and things.

But in the end, none of these abrupt discoveries much mattered. Because Laura Weaver’s foot slid into her much-loved and well-worn Adidas athletic shoe, just as easily as ever. Her toes wedged themselves into the puffy tip, her sole arch settled comfortably down against the molded shape where she’d planted her ped countless times before until the very geometry of it was cooked into the fabric of the insole. All of her weight concentrated down on her youthful and plush bare foot, and that right upon the hapless old metropolis of Paris, France.

In the first step Laura took wearing Paris in her shoe, every single skyscraper in the city was smashed cleanly up into the heaving sky of her sole. Many were simply shattered; others were blown apart and scattered like dandelion seeds. Still others of the puny, needling buildings became lodged in Laura’s skin. They weren’t pointed enough to cause harm to her, of course, but maintained enough speed as her foot came crashing down that they were either lodged in her feminine pores or simply squeezed into the inverted valleys of her sole wrinkles.

The subsequent steps quickly dealt with the remaining skyline lofts and businesses which somehow survived the first squash.

“Hmm… now that’s kind of funny,” Laura murmured, rubbing her chin. She’d only taken about five steps since she’d put on her favorite hot-pink Adidas shoes and headed for the door. In that space, she’d become distinctly aware that she was feeling better arch support than normal. Which was strange, since these shoes were getting on in age, and she’d long ago melted down the special arch support via the heat and sweat consumption of her lovely peds. Yet today, she felt supported. Especially beneath her right bare foot.

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess,” she giggled, recalling one of her father’s favorite phrases. “I just hope my ankles don’t get lopsided from one side having support and not the other. Oh well. It’s just a couple blocks to Tara’s.”

Unfortunately for the remains of Paris, that couple blocks translated to a great many steps. Every single arc and smash of Laura’s foot was catastrophic for the “lucky” survivors. The number of intact buildings and citizens dwindled each time her foot launched itself toward the stratosphere, pulverized everything in the dark against her sole by centrifugal force, then came plummeting back to earth for another smarting trample. Those landings of her foot were louder than any single quake or screeched call the remaining citizens had ever experienced: like the whole world was caving in on itself.

Those residences and structures beneath the girl’s toes were among the least preserved. It only took about ten steps total for Laura’s long finger-toes to completely demolish that segment of the city so thoroughly that she’d winnowed fresh beaded craters into the wreckage with the ball-tips of her silky digits. Petrol stations, uplifted earth, and human body crowds all painted different colors in a macabre collage on the girl’s gritty skin. In response to these ticklish events, Laura would curl her toes deeply down against the ball of her foot every dozen steps or so. This would smear a fresh line in the city between the tips, scrunching a few more hapless city blocks into ruin amongst the grid of Laura’s flesh.

As she reached the halfway point on her walk over to Tara’s house, Laura cupped a hand over her eyes and looked to the sky. It was brighter and muggier out than she anticipated. With some irritation, she stopped briefly in her tracks and shifted her weight from one damp heel to the other.

“Dang it,” she huffed. “I just showered, too. Oh well… Tara will understand. It’s summer, for crying out loud!”

Down below, the once-proud city of Paris was juggling a variety of apocalyptic weather events such as earthquakes, storm cells, and eternal night. Now they had another: flash flooding. The polluted stench tripled again. Upon each reunion with the ground of her makeshift insole, Laura’s newly summer-sticky foot would dispense a fresh helping of salty liquid down into the streets. Unlike the comparative trickle of a rainstorm, these droplets came completely formed, like tidal waves plunked directly from the sky. Whole trails of the warm, vinegary liquid rolled throughout the alleys and thoroughfares, chasing cars and fleeing citizens hopelessly down until they were drowned in the girl’s high-sun excretions. Anyone who had the idea to take shelter in the still-standing buildings found themselves both surrounded by rising sweat levels in the flooded streets and facing the ever-present threat of Laura’s foot skin simply stamping them into oblivion every time it descended again.

In the home stretch of the walk, Laura practically felt like she was walking in shoes she’d dipped through a puddle. And it wasn’t even rainy season. Her recently showered feet squelched in the moist padding of the insole. How disgusting. She sincerely hoped Tara wouldn’t notice any wet footprints she left on the hardwood floors, nor indeed any accompanying scents in the air. The screen door to her friend’s house was already open, so Laura let herself in and whistled up at the bannister.

“Hey, girl!” Tara waved from the top of the stairs. “C’mon up. Go ahead and take your shoes off before you come up, though. You know how my parents are.”

“Sure thing,” Laura agreed. She pried a thumb into the lip of her first shoe and yanked it off, then the other. Her toes grazed lazily along the unusually speckled basin, gathering along her skin a few flecks of what she assumed to be sock fluff leftover from her last jog in the shoes.

“Did you see the insane stuff in the news?” Tara called out. “All over social media and stuff, about Paris? It’s like something from science fiction or something!”

“No, I didn’t hear anything,” Laura said absent-mindedly, barely registering her friend’s words. Instead, just before she trounced up the stairs in her bare feet, a fleeting memory caught Laura’s attention. What was that oddball sensation, contributing to her arch and granting her a well-supported stroll through the neighborhood, despite the degradation of the insole and the searing heat of the sun?

She stooped and peered into the mouth of the Adidas shoe. Her thumb parted the fabric tongue as she squinted through the opening. At first her assumption was that she’d had a crushed leaf inside her shoe, but upon closer inspection, it occurred to Laura she was absolutely not looking at a leaf, nor indeed anything created by nature. In fact, she couldn’t even say it was something created on Earth at all.

“What the…”