A Tale of Little Cities (Chapter 6) (Patreon)

Anyone not yet convinced it was necessary to take cover now burrowed inside their homes, nailing the way shut and huddling in basements with radios cranked to the highest volume. Only static came through. No citizens occupied the barren streets. Military rolled through the thoroughfares, doing their best to set up a perimeter via barked orders through walkie talkies, but it was clear to every person, whether they were inside a tank or not, that this was a futile gesture. Whatever was coming toward them would not be stopped with even the cruelest artillery. Certainly not those “feet.” Most had trouble referring to them by that label, even when their shape became clearer by the second as well as their femininity, because it required such a violent leap in logic to imagine a pair of bare female feet could give every occupant of the German capital cause to believe their doom approached.

Down in the trenches of the parliament building and other safehouses, officials attempted every trick in the book to make communicative contact with any other cities. Still nothing would push through. They were marooned, cowering in their rabbit holes, with no way to defend themselves except the now-useless military with vehicles the size of baby termites compared to those feet. By now, most people at the end of their rational ropes began theorizing that aliens had attacked and transported them to a hostile world. There was simply no longer an explanation.

As if by miracle, the feet diverted in their path away from Berlin, still underneath its tan storm cloud. Most breathed a temporary sigh of relief, but also knew the nightmare wasn’t over yet. The feet disappeared from view, and left the city holding its breath. From somewhere in the heavens, noises too low-pitched and slow to read as anything other than the churning of weather patterns reached the streets; none thought it conceivable to attempt interpreting the lowly grumbles as human voices, albeit ones spoken by girlish beings thousands of times their correct size.

Abruptly, there was another shift below the ground. This time was different. No giant feet approached from miles away to send reverberations into the German capital. Instead, the rumble originated from directly below. Berlin was the origin of the tremor. Most braced themselves for some variety of impact in whatever way they could, yet not a single precaution taken was even remotely sufficient for what was coming.

The entire city flung forward upon the island of brown leather-eroded stone which served as the bedrock below. Parked cars hurtled into the middle distance and crashed into the buildings, blowing out many storefronts or just outright tumbling out of the city limits. Several hardy skyscrapers wobbled from the sheer force of the thrust. However, the rise lasted only a half second, with no more of an effort than it would take for someone to exhale, or lift their foot to take a step. Berlin thought themselves to have fleetingly dodged another bullet.

Then the sky descended. The entire flesh-toned, wrinkle-logged, summer-dew-caked mass of the alleged storm cloud came down upon Berlin in one merciless plunge. In the blink of an eye, those cars previously tossed like marbles and the shuddering buildings became the smallest of problems among the pressing concerns. The most pressing of which, coincidentally, was that the tanned death-bringer of an island mass above Berlin was literally pressing the city into oblivion.

Some ground zero sites were spared the initial brunt of the giant foot coming down and mushing the German capital down into the base of the strappy leather sandal. The luckiest buildings were geographically placed that their spires rose high into the deep, canyon-like wrinkles of the feminine sole’s rubbery terrain, and avoided destruction. Other locations were not treated so gently. On that first drop, as the foot pressed back down on the shoe insole to take a single step, half of all of Berlin was turned to rubble. The ball of the foot was particularly harsh, molding an ovular crater into the city across its entire eastern border. A frosting of sticky moisture was dabbed down over the wreckage, soaking everything in its direct path, redolent of salt and dairy product coalesced in the manner of fruit-tinged body odor.

What wasn’t either crushed by the falling foot or narrowly evaded by fitting into a sole wrinkle, was instead adhered to the fleshy sky. Houses collected like lint into the sole creases, tumbling end-over-end before sticking to the inner curve. As easily as wet blades of grass, the tallest skyscrapers were glued on impact to the mashing might of the skin. Those inside got the most detailed look at their unknowing attacker through the windows, smeared up against the ceiling. Skin cells the size of parachutes etched in a kaleidoscopic vision across the pink-orange expanse. None would’ve guessed they were looking at a foot, if they hadn’t seen it approach from above, because this view was better than one they could’ve gotten through any classroom microscope.

Panic had long ago overtaken conscientious thought, but those citizens who had the time to consider the circumstances before they perished beneath the giant foot realized that they must be occupying a space under a being similar in scale to the one they’d watched walk toward them through that white door. All along, they’d been worried about one set of gargantuan bare feet bearing near, when in fact the pair they should’ve feared was lingering above them in wait like a patient predator, somehow invisible to them despite replacing the blue sky with a balmy, tender infinity of foot flesh.

The untold mania of that first step passed in less than a second. A distinct sole arch shape had been molded like clay into the little silver and stone culture. Time crawled to a near standstill for the hapless victims of the crushing plummet. However, those who survived the first pounce didn’t even have time to send up gratitude to any spiritual figures, as they were launching again. All too briefly, Berlin hovered on the ascent. For just a second, nothing was stepping on them. Cars, and this time crushed buildings, scattered about; many of their hurtled forward by centrifugal force toward the five deadly, bobbing planetary bodies of the toes.