A113-126s

Apart from the quiet sobbing the mall was silent.  Without a word Mari went over and threw her arms around part of the giant girl’s waist.   One minute, two, five… they just stayed that way,  feelings and emotions trading substituting for words. Officer Jack didn’t know how to proceed so he just stood back.  

Tanya finally got some words out.  “Thank you Mari thank you.  It’s just too heavy..” 

silence…

“Jack?” she said   “Could you see if the nurse came?”

“on it.”  Now he wasn’t just standing there.  

Mari caught his ear.  “Could you leave us here for awhile?” 

He left the way he came in.  Coming out all eyes were on him.  The National Guard presence had grown by two Humvees and a helicopter had landed in the parking lot.  Several vehicles he didn’t recognize were around.,  Maybe it was time to make a statement.  He cleared his throat.

“I’m Captain Stanburg - the county police department’s special disaster liaison with the National Guard.  I’ll give you a rundown on where we are and what we know..“

Everyone became quiet and moved towards him

“We’re withholding the subject’s full name at this time.  She’s a naturalized citizen attending the University.  We think her size is the result of an accident that took place before dawn this morning.  She’s about 20 years old and currently stands about twenty seven feet tall.  We believe there is no danger to the public,. We also believe her growth was the result of an accident, but we don’t know the specifics.  Beyond that I’m unable to comment.  At this time we’d like to not answer media questions.  I’d like to meet with everyone else as we have a humanitarian issue on our hands.”

A few people wandered off, but remained in the area.  Probably reporters, he thought.  He couldn’t blame them. He probably had more questions than them.

Turning to the remain group he continued.

“We have approximately three meals worth of MREs and a water tank for her.  Currently she has no means of sanitary waste disposal and that is THE pressing issue at the moment,. My understanding is a public health nurse from the University hospital coming and a fabrication crew is here now.”  several guys put their hands up  That looked like a fabrication crew to him.  “My partly informed suggestion would be a chemical latrine.  I have a five gallon unit for camping that works well.  Until the nurse comes I suggest sketching out something.  For what it’s worth she is about four and a half times taller than she was, so start there… And go for strength.  She probably weighs about ninety times as much too.”  He saw someone raise their hand and paused for the question.

“Captain.  I represent the emergency food bank that was set up after the Superstorm five years ago.  I can proceed with some necessities, but I need to have disaster authorization.”

“Can’t you see this is a humanitarian issue!”

“I have to go by the rules.  I don’t have authorization and under the new administration we don’t have any funding.  You could try the churches.”

Jack turned to the crowd “Anyone.. find out if we have some gaddammed disaster authorization yet!!”  He realized the food bank was a brick wall and moved on to other topics.

“It’s hot as hell in there.  Can anyone bring up the power and get the HVAC system going?”  Two hands shot up “Just do what you can.  If you get flack tell them I told you and there’s a crowd on TV watching.” he turned his eyes back to the food bank guy “and who are they going to side with - a beautiful young woman who’s in dire straits  up against a bureaucracy..? You do the math.”  He went on. 

“We need creative thinking about anything you’d do in a house.  Showers, chairs, a bed.. everything.  That crew on the latrine’s going to be hosed, but we need another team.  The good thing is she says she has clothes that fit.”  He paused again deep in thought.

“Lots to do.  I need to light some fires.”  With that he turned around and took out his phone.  He’d escort the nurse in when he or she came, but for now his place was out here finding and moving roadblocks and starting fires under people.  He took out his phone and dialed.

“Janet?  Good..  Yeah, I heard the news.  no.. I haven’t seen any television today.,  yeah, very weird.  Could you tell your mother I’ll be late for dinner tonight..  yeah .. go ahead without me.  I’ll let her know when I’ll be back later…   No … nothing dangerous…  oh.. there’s something you can help me with… can you find out everything you can about those online funding pages?  .. yeah.. it’s kinda important..  love you kid!”  

He hung up and went onto another call.

________


Inside Mari was still holding Tanya.  Mari knew Tanya well enough to just let her cry letting her know someone was there for her..

“I am so f u c k i n g dumb!” she said between sobs.  “I should have…”

“ water’s under the bridge..  we can only move forward now.”

“but I ruined someone’s life and now what am I going to do?  I could barely make it as a student.  What did he say? Three hundred meals and that should give me three dinners?  Do you have any idea..”

“shhhh… we’ll get there…”

Tanya’s sobbing started up again.  

A few minutes went by before the relative quiet was broken by a mechanical clanging and then the sound of fans coming on.

“Air conditioning?” Tanya asked.

“I bet.  see… things are looking up.  The next few days are going to suck, but you’re up to the challenge and I’m right behind you..” she paused for effect “just don’t step back without looking”

The tall girl tried a bit of a laugh, but that isn’t always pretty when you’ve been crying.

“Where is he?”

“Austin?”  

“Yeah..  “

“I took him back to his place.”

“I need to talk to him, but I’m so scared..”

“I know..  it’ll take awhile.  He’s gotta be just as confused and worried as…” Mari said.

“Did you see how tiny he is now?  My fingernail..   I can’t really see his face … and what do I look like to him ..  fuck!  I’m so fucking stupid!”

“Feel that air? Something’s working.  Wanna go out in the light and sit?  We’ll pretend we’re at the beach and it’ll only get better with the cool breeze.”

Tanya blew her nose and nodded.  “You better get away when I stand up.  That’d be all I need…”  Tanya rase half standing and half bending with her head bumping against the second floor walkway. “opps.. I’m not used to this place”   A few feet further out and she could stand normally.    She was looking at another floor of empty stores.   At least where was headroom. She stretched and when sat down.

This time Mari leaned against her giant friend.  “Ya know..  you’re so fucking huge this is comfortable.”

Tanya laughed a little.  “And you’re such a little shrimp..”  she hadn’t thought far enough ahead to fill in the line.

“With the AC going they’re  probably working on your food, some kind of toilet,  placed to sleep, a …”

A sense of how much needed to be done suddenly crashed down on her again.  It felt like the weight of the world was coming down on her and she was incapable of doing anything about it.  Her mind raced from what if to what if to what if.  The momentary good mood she was in melted into despair and a sense of panic.  Instinctively she pulled herself in against herself.

They just sat for awhile.  A text came in from Jack.  The nurse had arrived but was directing the toilet project.  There was progress and he didn’t want to stop it.  Mari replied she’d hold the fort inside.  Tanya had a lot to work out.  

“Do you watch Pixar movies?”  Mari asked.

“A few. The one on dinosaurs and the old guy with the balloons…”

“They always have short movies first.  Did you ever see the one about a jackalope?”

“The what?”

“Jackalope - a mythical jackrabbit crossed with an antelope.

She shook her head no.

“Folklore in places like Montana and Wyoming…  Anyway my favorite Pixar short has one.  It starts with this sheep who is all proud of his beautiful coat of wool.  He’s a fine dancer and shows off to his animal friends until one day the sheep herder comes and sheers off his beautiful wool coat.  He just sits there depressed.”  she paused to see if her giant friend was following and then continued.  “Then a jackalope comes bounding up the road.  They do that.  Just bounding along rather than walking.   I loved it as a kid.  I still do and watched it so much I know it by heart,  Here’s part of it.  You have to use your imagination.  The narrator does all of the voices and has a really strong western accent”  she changed her voice adding a bit of a twang.

“then one day…

Then a-boundin up the slope

Came a great American jackalope.

This sage of the sage, this rare hare of hope,

Caused to pause and check out the lamb.

‘Hey kid, why the mope?’

‘I used to be something all covered with fluff,

And I’d dance in the sunlight and show off my stuff,

Then they hauled me away in a manner quite rough

And sheared me and dropped me back here in the buff.

And if that’s not enough, now my friends all laugh at me

Cause they think I look ridiculous, funny, and pink.’

‘Pink? Pink? Well, what’s wrong with pink?

Seems you’ve got a pink kink in your think.

Does it matter what color? Well, that gets nope.

Be it pink, purple, or heliotrope.

Now sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down,

When you find that you’re down well just look around:

You still got a body, good legs and fine feet,

Get your head in the right place and hey, you’re complete!

“Now as for the dancin’, you can do more,

You can reach great heights, in fact you can soar.

You just get a leg up and ya slap it on down,

And you’ll find you’re up in what’s called a bound.

Bound, bound, and rebound.

Bound and you’re up right next to the sky,

And I think you can do it if you give it a try,

First get a leg up, slap it on down…’

So every year, along about May,

They’d load him up and they’d haul him away,

And they’d shave him and dump him all naked and bare.

He learned to live with it, he didn’t care,

He’d just bound, bound, bound, and rebound.”

She paused and let her voice return to normal.  “See, you’re still you.  You’ve still got your bounce.  It’s just a little…”

As she was talking Tanya twisted around sweeping her off her feet into a big almost smothering hug.

“Thank you, thank you thank you!!”

__________


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