“... softball-sized!”
Why a softball? In fact, Stephan’s keen eyes had already noticed something going on outside the window. A group of older kids were playing softball, and that gave Stephan a great idea...
Once again, Planet Earth and the seven billion people (more or less) living on it were transported into Stephan’s waiting palm. This time the tiny planet was enclosed within a transparent protective shield: the boy wanted to make sure the population survived for as long as possible. Nevertheless, while a good proportion of the southern hemisphere was saved from being crushed against Stephan’s palm, it was still cast into utter darkness, while the countries in the north could only look up at their new god’s face smirking down at them. Mass hysteria gripped the planet as it began to dawn on the miniaturized human race where they now were.
They didn’t have to worry about it for long.
The Earth abruptly vanished from Stephan’s palm... only to reappear in the grip of another, even bigger titan: the pitcher of the softball match. A fraction of a second later the tiny Earth was launched into the air and send flying towards the waiting bat. If the batter was aware that the previously white softball had changed to a mixture of blue, green and white he certainly didn’t have time to react, except by instinct. He hit the “ball”.
*THWACK*
The tiny Earth was instantly obliterated by the force of the bat, exploding in a messy shower of dirt, water, and minute blobs of semi-solid magma. The shocked kids crowded round the debris in confusion, poking at the fragments with their toes, unaware they were crushing the shattered remains of entire continents beneath their sneakers.
Stephan laughed uproariously at the sight, totally loving the prank he had just played on an entire inhabited world. It made him all the more eager to experiment further.
The rest of the afternoon was nothing less than a living hell for the human race—at least that “copy” of the human race that Stephan had brought into being to be his personal toy. The boy-god brought them back again and again at a variety of different sizes, only to be destroyed in some cruel and inventive manner. Not only that, he also arranged for the memory of each catastrophe to carry over: the human race was fully aware of every punishment that had been inflicted upon them while remaining utterly powerless to prevent the next.
Over the next couple of hours Stephan dropped the tiny planet into a beaker of acid and watched it slowly dissolve; he used a pen to scrawl “I AM GOD” across several continents, crushing everything underneath; he used a straw to suck up all the oceans... and then finished by sucking up the atmosphere (and much of the population) too. After that last little game he decided to experiment further by turning the Earth into a ball of candy, with a soft strawberry filling replacing the core. He popped the teeny planet inside his mouth and sucked on it thoughtfully. Of course the population died almost instantly, but Stephan was more interested in savouring the unique flavours of the continents as they were abraded away by his tongue and dissolved in his saliva. To his disappointment the planet felt surprisingly bland beneath his taste-buds. He’d hoped to enjoy the fragile textures of the mountain ranges and ocean trenches, but sadly even the tallest mountains on Earth were so microscopically tiny by comparison to the boy-god that the Earth might as well have been a highly-polished pool ball, completely without discernible features. Oh well.
As a punishment for that disappointment the Earth’s next destination was inside the mouth of one of Stephan’s buddies. Mike was busy scarfing down a bag of M&Ms and it took but a casual flick of the fingers for the planet to rematerialize inside the bag. Stephan then watched as Mike tipped the remainder of the bag into his mouth and smiled in satisfaction as the teeny Earth rolled between Mike’s teeth and was crushed a moment later beneath a gigantic molar.
Stephan brought the games to a conclusion by wandering into another Geography class. He wasn’t really supposed to be there, but who was there who could stop him? Moreover, the teacher, Mr. Wheezely, was a short-sighted old dinosaur who was counting the days until retirement. And his desk was an ordinary classroom globe, of the kind that were used in schools everywhere...
A boy sitting at the back of the class was unexpectedly reduced to half a millimeter in size right where he sat and Stephan slid into his place, crushing the tiny mite without a second thought. Instead, the boy-god focused his attention on the globe and was rewarded a moment later by a slight gasp and low murmurings from the rest of the class. Now the actual planet Earth rested on the teacher’s desk, with a metal bar, thousands of miles long, punched right through the poles and core to hold the little thing in place and allow it to be casually rotated.
And rotated it was.
Again and again Mr. Wheezely’s hand descended from the heavens, sending the tiny Earth spinning helplessly. Each time his hand touched the surface it gauged immense trenches across the continents, while towns and villages, along with millions of people, were scooped up to find new homes deep under the already-dirty fingernails of the shambling, short-sighted old Geography teacher. Each time his finger stabbed down to point out the location of a major city, that entire metropolis was obliterated in a trice. Los Angeles, New York, London, Tokyo... all were nothing more than tiny little specks ground into dust beneath a mighty fingertip.
At the end of the class many of the kids went up to the desk to examine the mysterious blue and white globe... but by then it had changed back to its original form. The actual planet was now in Stephan’s cupped palm where it belonged. By now he was starting to lose interest, but maybe there was time for one final prank.
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