[Original Novella] All the Little People, Part 2 (the finale!)

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Part 1}

She backed away from her work and her voice took a morose turn. “I thought I could do what they all failed to before. A perfect society. No violence, no pain or death. No theft, no selfishness or cruelty. I release my little ones to settle the woods around us. They built towns, farms, mines. With myself as their giant protector and caretaker. When not busy with other things I would stop by to help move buildings, build a bridge across some stream or erect fences to keep out cats.”

It made sense of the little village I’d seen. Everything about it was too fine for human hands to have constructed. It looked lived in, too. She now stared wistfully as she recounted those early days. “It always starts out well. When there is plenty to go around, and not too many. At first, only men so that they could not expand their numbers. But the men grew lonely and heartsick. I caved and made them women in equal number.”

As she spoke I studied the immense book on the workshelf. It was open to illustrated instructions for making these little people, step by step in a language I’d never seen. “There were small problems even before that. Fights, stealing, petty matters. But with the introduction of women, it became so much worse. How they would bicker and brutalize each other over the prettiest few! The very first murder was due to infidelity. On that day, I realized they were too much like us to escape our problems.”

I now recognized some of the items lining the shelves as furniture they must have made. It was like very fine, expensive dollhouse furniture. Come to think of it they’d be right at home in one. “I try everything to make them behave. I wrote for them simple set of rules. I add punishments for those who disobeyed. How I regret it, to dole out those punishments. You must understand boy, these are my children. I love them so dearly, and only want for them not to hurt each other. That’s why I created the tyrant.”

That caught my attention. In part because I’d turned a page. The next one depicted a much larger “homunculus”, with strange proportions. A thick barrel like body, very little in the way of a neck between that and the head, and long thin limbs. The face was blacked out.

“How could I be so foolish, to repeat the mistakes which destroyed my motherland? It seems so simple, to create one irresistibly stronger than the rest who enforces the laws. One that cannot be fought or resisted in the least. Very much like the man who sent my mother and father away. I did not see it then. Only after the damage was done did I understand how I’d failed my children, and myself. They would only behave perfectly if punishment was immediate and severe. The tyrant would simply hunt down the offender and gobble him up in front of the rest. Terror kept them in line after that. A very effective way to ensure obedience. But what a monstrous thing for a mother to inflict on her children.”

I held onto her, hoping to provide comfort. She did not push me away but neither did she embrace me. “When it tried to kill me in my sleep, I knew something had to be done. If I were to die, my little ones would suffer beneath it forever. I couldn’t abide the thought. But, I prepared a failsafe. When I made him I included a spell which, if spoken aloud, would compel him to climb into an enchanted box I had the little ones build. It locks itself when the lid closes and can only be opened by twisting the four knobs on the lid.”

I didn’t remember a box. Just the little village. But I said nothing. “I buried this box myself deep in the woods, the little ones present to witness, then set about slowly regaining their trust. That long, brutal nightmare was like an illness which nearly kills you. Only having seen what striving for perfect order leads to could I give up on that fool’s errand and accept my children as they are. In turn, having seen how it wounded me, and what lengths I went to on their behalf, the little ones eventually forgave me and have achieved for themselves as much stability, peace and understanding as they ever will.”

When the sun came up, she sent me off with hug and a paper bag full of scones. I arrived at the school to find the parking lot full of police cars. My parents erupted from one of them upon spotting me and frantically ran to embrace me.

“WHEREWEREYOUWHYDIDN’TYOUCALLDOYOUKNOWHOWWORRIED” and so on, one long unintelligible wail. I hugged them both and after speaking with one of the policemen, climbed into the car and rode home. On the way I explained as best I could what happened. They both grew very silent. When we got home dad sat me down, told me this wasn’t the time for imaginative stories and that he expected a truthful account.

When I insisted it was truthful I could tell he was angry, but also too relieved that I’d come back unharmed to punish me. I returned to school the next week, somewhat of a celebrity. In the good “He braved the witch forest and survived” way, but also the bad “He’s secretly one of her hypnotized spies now” way. As ever, I just ignored that stuff and waited for it all to die down.

It might’ve ended there, except that next recess I saw my usual bullies heading into the woods. I thought of the feeble, kindly old woman and what they might do to her home if they found it. It was plenty light out, no harm in tailing them I thought. I don’t know what I expected to find. I came upon them trampling the little village to bits and laughing about it.

They finally did it. They found a way to get a rise out of me after all this time. “STOP IT!” I ran out from hiding and knocked one of them over, taking care not to step on the little houses most of which were already smashed. “Look who it is! I thought you’d follow us you little queer. Is this what you were doing out here all night? Building this weird little elf town? I’m impressed, it was really detailed. Until we flattened it.” He flashed a devious grin.

I punched his lights out. The rest balked. It was the first time I’d struck anybody in anger and I immediately regretted it. Not because of the beatdown that followed but because I’d sacrificed my favorite thing about myself. In a sense I was no longer separate from the world, no longer so different from the ogres which inhabit it. Even one drop of poison in the well ruins it. I certainly felt ruined. On the inside and out.

As they left me battered and bleeding on the forest floor, one of them called out “Oh and we found your gay treasure box, dipshit. Dug it up and opened it. Now you’re burying animals? That’s fucked up even for you. I didn’t get a close look at it but I did nail it with a rock as it ran away, hahaha! Probably your only friend huh. Later.”

As before, I waited until they were out of earshot to resume crying. It really wouldn’t stop, and only got worse as I surveyed the damage to the little village. Prying the roof and walls of what used to be a cottage from the mud, there was a sickly red splatter on the underside. I vomited, put it down and continued bawling.

When I told the crone, she had to see for herself. I knew it would destroy her. She hunched over the crushed remains of her fragile little children, huddled in their homes as the boys stomped them to death. Tears poured from her eyes, as from mine. I held onto her and this time she clung to me as well. Only I knew the depth of her pain, and was glad to share the burden.

“They opened the box too.” She grew quiet. “They what?” I followed the footprints in the mud with her until I spotted the excavation. In the hole sat a dirty wooden box with the lid hanging open. Inside was another geometric charcoal etching. She knelt before it, deadpan, and stared for a time. Then she spoke. “He is loose now. What follows cannot be stopped. So much death at the hands of so few is a grave crime. He will relentlessly do what I created him for.”

I didn’t put it together until I recalled what she said the other night. “He’s going to visit them, isn’t he. At night.” She silently nodded, then added “He’ll come for you as well. He was always too thorough. In his mind, you are complicit. You led the boys here. But I have something for you.”

She drew a book from her robe, opened it to a particular page, then began to transcribe a passage from it to a scrap of paper. Once finished she stashed the book, folded the paper and handed it to me. “Memorize that. Only by reciting it when he comes for you will you be spared, and only if you never look upon his face. Do not come to see me for a while. Too much pain. I must mourn, and bury the dead.” She wiped away my tears, hugged me one last time and sent me on my way.

Of course, I was punished for going into the woods. Severely, as when I’d done so before it was a big deal, what with the police presence and all. It rolled off my back like nothing. Images of the crushed little houses with their crushed little occupants kept flooding back into my mind. Nothing school officials could do to me would ever exceed that.

I knew the lecture and spanking was coming when I got home and endured it quietly. Dad seemed to pick up on my indifference and with a heavy sigh, just gave up on it halfway through. “I don’t know what to do with you anymore”, he muttered. That makes two of us. Did any survive, I wondered. Even if it was only a few. Or even one. That would reduce the impact somewhat. I felt I could go on as before, in time, if at least one made it. Simply no way to find out until the old crone was done making peace with it herself.

I closed the door to my room, sat on my bed and studied the paper. There was an odd little poem on it. I recited it over and over until I felt sure I could get all of it right off the top of my head. But he did not come that night. Sleep was fitful but otherwise normal. It was at school the next day that I discovered who he’d visited instead.

One of my bullies, more fondly regarded by the other students, had disappeared. Each of us were meant to speak to a school counselor about it. I resolved to channel memories of the trampled village when I needed to appear broken up. It did the trick. But that wasn’t the end of it.

The next day, I sensed a tense energy in the air. Gossip was relentless. It turned out another of the bullies had vanished. So it went, one day after the next. One by one the boys who destroyed that little village simply disappeared from their homes without a trace.

The last of them approached me at recess. I cringed, expecting violence. But he cowered before me, his voice trembling. “I don’t know how you’re doing it but I know it’s you. Please stop it. I went along with it because they were my friends but I didn’t want to.” I met his gaze without emotion. “I can’t stop it now. I don’t think I would if I were able to.” I left him as he was, panicked and quivering. That night, he was taken.

I was questioned about it but not taken seriously as a suspect. I was by now becoming more skilled as an actor. More skilled at cutting myself off from others, indifferent to what became of them. This is who they all meant for me to become, wasn’t it? My compassion was crushed with that village. Justice, as I now understood it, had been done.

I almost forgot he’d come for me next. Exactly as she predicted. I was in bed when he arrived. The dim moonlight cast in through the window outlined a figure sitting, faced away from me, at the foot of the bed. I felt the weight before I saw it, and mistook it for a cat at first. That quickly passed.

It was a little nude man with a stout, barrel shaped body and long bony limbs. His head was as wide as his torso and joined almost directly to it. I could see each individual vertebra poking out of his smooth, pale back. My body painfully rigid, I began to sweat as my mind fumbled trying to recall the poem. Feebly, I began to recite:

“Little man sitting at the foot of my bed.
Are you lost? Are you lonely? Are you waiting to be fed?
Go back to your home in the box underground.
Take whatever you please, just do not turn around.”

It sat there, unnaturally still. Then as if in slow motion, began to turn towards me. My skin crawled. No. No, no, no. Did I get it wrong? Couldn’t be. I remembered every word plain as day. So I tried again.

“Little man sitting at the foot of my bed.
Are you lost? Are you lonely? Are you waiting to be fed?
Go back to your home in the box underground!
Take whatever you please, just do not turn around!”

Still, it turned. I could see the malformed little ear now. Not much more than a flap of skin at the edge of the hole. And now, the edge of its bulbous black eye. Just then it struck me.

“Little man sitting on the end of my bed!” I cried out.
“Are you lost? Are you lonely? Are you waiting to be fed?
Go back to your home in the box underground!
Take whatever you please, just do not turn around!”

It froze. I scolded myself for the error, however small, and prayed that it would leave. It did. Hopping off the edge of my bed, I heard a thump as it landed. Then the pitter patter of its bare feet as it fled the room.

After a while I got up and searched the house to be sure, and found a window open. I shut it, searched some more, then went to bed. Unsurprisingly I didn’t get much sleep. In keeping with her wishes, I let a week pass before I went back to see the old woman to tell her what happened. I found her hut where I expected to, but when I called out for her she did not come to greet me. So I went in.

I found her strung up by the legs, skin as white as a sheet. A metal basin below her caught the blood trickling from a long incision in her neck. I screamed, fell backwards and fought to regain control of myself. That’s when I saw the workspace. With the big book, opened to a new page I’d not yet seen. And before it, a long line of new tyrants in various stages of assembly.

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^{The End.}