Even on his haunches, Derek, the now adult school bully, towered some twelve times your full, current and disastrously reduced height. Leaning directly overhead, he gazed down upon the abject vulnerability of your inexplicable predicament. ‘Do you think,’ he seemed to gloat, ‘if two people both wish hard enough for the same thing, it can happen?’ Too terrified to answer, you didn’t. Not that Derek seemed at all interested in dialogue, continuing as if your silence somehow affirmed the narrative, guiding it regardless, in exactly direction he required. ‘You must have wanted to be this small as badly as I wanted you to come back, this small. And, you did come back, didn’t you? Did you come back and get a job here just to make sure I’d find you backstage and tiny, where I could get you by yourself and do whatever I liked to you without anybody getting in the way and telling us it’s a horrible way to end up?’
Reference to endings, in close succession to ‘horrible’ didn’t strike you as ‘happy-ever-after’ so much as, ‘not-very-much-longer’. And, imagination or not, Derek’s mouth seemed wetter, slacker and rather too ready for whatever horror might lie in immediate store.
Covetous of his backstage discovery, reduced and under his total control, from a past he’d completely replaced with a fictional account, originating within the depths of his malevolent subconscious, the look on the face of this unpredictable tower of contradictions offered every assurance he wouldn’t think twice before utilizing your plight to facilitate any outcome he deemed gratifying.
‘Yeah, he whispered to himself, licking some of the drool off his bottom lip. As his hand reached down, your blood ran cold, only for him to tug his turn up over his sock, then quickly tie his shoelace. With his sights still locked upon you, his eyebrows furrowed in grim fixation, the tip of his tongue brushing his upper lip as he pondered aloud. ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do to you.’
‘Oh, God,’ you thought, attempting to avoid gruesome supposition but failing. ‘He’s decided to eat me.’
‘I’m going,’ he leered, ‘to call you Jon from now on. How’d you like that? I bet you’re chuffed, aren’t you? In your state of shock, his mouth retained its suggestion of ravenous mischief despite the rest of his face adopting as much fondness as a giant reprobate might, when winning a pet which, admittedly, might not complete the homeward journey in one piece.
‘Do you always get your own way?’ Derek laughed, not totally devoid of unorthodox affection. ‘No. Joe’s a shit name. Come on, Jon.’ And, without further consultation, you found yourself clumsily swept up into the padded vice of a sweaty fist, with no indication of whether name allocation might suggest security or simply act as hors d’oeuvres to some new terror whose final course you were never intended to survive.
‘That’s better,’ Derek beamed, unclenching his fist and tipping you onto a desk. As you reeled, disorientated from being squeezed within a bear-hug of purée, he pushed his over-attentive face into the air with which you attempted to refill your aching lungs. ‘Oh, it’s great to see you, mate,’ he enthused, his hearty warmth all the more terrifying for its sincerity. ‘I’m dead made up you’re like you are now and not like you were.’ Visibly shaking, fatigued and fearing unpredictable developments, you fixed your features in a grin. Having survived thus far, the notion that unchecked distress might upend his humour and cast your reprieve underfoot wasn’t an honesty you felt willing to risk. ‘But I do have to say,’ he frowned, leaning ominously close, ‘if you don’t stop pulling faces at me, I’ll get really fucked off.’
The room was barely a cupboard, largely filled by a desk. Leaning back in a chair, Derek propped one foot on the desk, followed by the other. Looking down the length of his leg at you, he waggled his toes and chuckled. ‘Just look at you. Small as a mouse but not dirty like one of them fuckers. They piss everywhere! But, I bet you knew that. No, mate. Nobody’s getting you in a trap with a lump of cheese.’ Roaring with laughter, he uncrossed and recrossed his feet, banging down on the table so heavily, you left the surface. ‘Oh man! You bounce!’ Raising his heel, he banged on the tabletop, harder still. ‘I’m sorry mate! You’re just so funny!’ Slamming his heel down again, he propelled you half your height and onto your back. ‘Right, I’m gonna stop it now.’ His foot immediately came crashing down so hard you briefly became airborne, almost plummeting off the edge. ‘No, I mean it, this time,’ he sobbed with idiotic laughter. ‘I’m gonna stop. But you’ve got to admit mate, I’m still a mean bastard.’ With alarming predictability, he raised both trainers aloft and smashed their combined weight down with such force that the desk made a fearful cracking noise as the perilous shockwave catapulted you onto his toecap. ‘Fucking hell,’ roared your gigantic tormentor, in dangerous paroxysms of helpless laughter. ‘I bet that’s all you remember about me, i’n’t it?’ Meanest bastard in school! Look at you! Like shit on my shoe! Oh, I really am sorry bud - but just look at you!’ As he gasped with laughter, you clung, effectively twenty feet up, atop an adidas monster shoe shaking not unlike a very low setting on a bucking machine at a rodeo. ‘Look,’ he sobbed giddily, trying to compose himself, ‘if I scare you, just say.’
Deposited carelessly on a desk you shared with monstrously huge feet, simultaneously terrified they might shift position, killing or simply maiming, accidentally or deliberately, you now rode, facing the reality this mountainous halfwit might well pulverize you in an exuberant display of unrequited friendship. ‘You absolutely scare the living crap out of me,’ seemed a sensible reply.
‘I knew it,’ chuckled an evidently satisfied Derek, returning to a sober mirth. Gyrating at a far more sedate velocity, his foot stayed the safe side of unstable, no longer overtly or consciously lethal. ‘I always knew you were scared of me,’ he smiled fondly, ‘but that you were just scared to admit it. I bet you’re glad I’m not angry, aren’t you, mate?’
Hanging on to the foot of a giant bully, the wisdom of contesting an embroidered fiction might have proved a truth beyond self preservation. ‘I remember,’ waggled Derek, evidently relishing the spectacle of another human clinging for survival to his unpleasant foot, ‘you hiding from me in the cloakroom and then admitting you dreamt about running around between my feet, like an insect.’ Too instantly crushable to raise an objection, you swayed awkwardly at his leisure. ‘Yeah, I can see you remember that, too. And you promised you’d never lie to me like they all lied to me and one day you’d come back, really small and now,’ the thin lips on his wide mouth grinned, ‘it’s just like you said. Just what you said you always wanted. You waited and you got your own way, in the end. And, do you know what? It’s secretly what I wanted too.’ For a moment, he sat in a silent reverie, happiness plastered proudly across his enormous features, his eyes sparkling with a bizarre combination of tear-brimmed sentimentality and rapacious intent.
As if snapping suddenly out of a marvelous dream, he lunged forwards, scowling with a serious intensity. Gasping in fright but with nowhere to recoil, you had no option but to be grabbed without a struggle. Cupping you in both hands, he seemed to take great pains to attempt a clumsy semblance of tender guardianship. ‘The truth is,’ he whispered, filling the prison of his fist with early evening cigarette and coffee breath, ‘I hate people who don’t tell the truth and I know you’d never, ever dare lie to me.’
Until a knock at the door interrupted, you hadn’t considered where this interview was taking place. ‘Derek,’ called a voice. ‘Is that you in there?’
Interrupted, his fists tightened in dangerous agitation. ‘Yes!’
‘Ok,’ replied the unseen speaker. ‘Just checking.’
‘Wanker,’ muttered the giant wiggling a pair of cream coloured Adidas training shoes, on a desk top. ‘They’re always on at me. Just because I’ve got a conviction, they think I’m some kind of crook. Have you ever been in trouble with the law?’
‘No,’ you answered with not entirely truthful resolve. Seemingly upon this assertion, he again tipped you onto the desk, between his separately stationed feet. Unsure how securely your reprieve stood, you weren’t about to bemoan the smell of said feet, whose offence might once again place you beneath their hurt feelings.
‘Well don’t,’ he grunted, suddenly shifting his trainers off the desk and onto the floor with a thump as he lurched forward. ‘Come here.’ Leaning further, he fixed you with a gazely gaze. ‘I’m not gonna fucking hurt you,’ he barked, in equal measures offended and annoyed. ‘If I was going to hurt you,’ he continued, leaning so far across the desk he was practically meeting you half way, ‘I’d have stamped on you, out there. Yeah I admit,’ he shrugged with a suggestion of defensive embarrassment, ‘I was going to but you put me straight. Put me straight, again and get over here.’
Feigning a confidence you didn’t feel, you attempted to stroll without giving any impression of wilful delay. ‘You’re doing it again,’ he warned. ‘Why are you walking funny? If it’s not funny faces,’ he bawled with increasing volume, ‘it’s silly walks. What's wrong with you? Actually, no.’ His enraged scowl stalled, widened to bare his teeth before twisting into a lopsided grin. 'Do it again! Yeah, do it again!'
Palpitating, you affected a twirl, followed by a saunter, more exaggerated than before. 'No,' he snapped when you stopped twelve inches short of the edge. 'Keep going.' Practically collapsing in dread, you prolonged your mannequin walk until you stood directly beneath his pout. 'I thought,’ he growled upon your upturned terror, ‘I said, keep going.'
‘I'll fall off the edge.'
'I'm here to catch you,' he chuckled, as if planning the contrary.
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