The Backyard Forest
Old story, written in 2021
This was originally written for a writing class I took over the Summer in 2021. Some of these stories had prompts, which are noted after the story along with other comments.
Dan is a Dwarf. For generations Dan’s people had toiled on these grounds. His forefathers told him of The Great Cataclysm that had plagued the land many ages ago; the earth was ravaged and left a desolate wasteland. For three ages of darkness the land lay barren. When the next age of light arrived, the land was blessed with a lush expanse of new vegetation. Today was the day of The Prophecy. Today the Bulb Trees would be ready for harvest. Today Dan was to harvest the bulbs.
Dan ascended one of the sacred Bulb Trees, dagger in hand. Large leafed branches dotted the tree’s smooth, green trunk. He had placed a tarp on the forest floor to collect the bulbs. All he had to do was cut them from the tree and drop them. The sun beat down on Dan as he got to work. Suddenly, everything went dark. Dan turned to face the source of the shadows. It was The Flood Titan.
Greg is a Giant. Last week Greg dug up part of his backyard to make way for a vegetable garden. A few days later he planted enough things to make himself a nice salad. Today Greg felt like having that salad. Greg stepped outside into his yard. The white picket fence surrounding it gleamed in the sunlight. The birdbath he installed the other day stood proudly in the center. By this point the birds had flown away, but this didn’t bother Greg. He had a salad to make.
The first order of business was the broccoli. As he stood over his garden he saw a strange glint among the broccoli’s florets. That and a strange little man. A strange little man breaking into his property and tampering with his would-be salad.
“Die, Flood Titan!” squeaked the minuscule miscreant. With all his might, Dan hurled his dagger into the sky. It went up maybe half an inch in Giant units before pathetically plummeting to the ground. Greg crouched down to take a closer look at the vegetable invader. The puny punk was clad some kind of armor fashioned from a cricket’s exoskeleton.
“You dare approach me, Flood Titan?” Dan shrieked as he waved his fist. Greg had no idea what was going on, but decided to play along.
“Yes, it is I, the all-powerful ‘Flood Titan,’” Greg snidely responded with air quotes. “But seriously, who’re you and what’re you doing in my garden?”
“I am Dan, of the Dwarves. Who are you to call our sacred ancestral land your garden?”
“I’m Greg, and I own this property.” Greg motioned towards the rest of the yard and his house with his arms. Meanwhile Dan held on for dear life as Greg The Flood Titan attempted to knock him off the Bulb Tree with a blast of air.
“You may have destroyed my home with your foul weather powers, Flood Titan Greg, but you are no match for my Dwarven spirit! If you kill me all my kin shall come for your head!”
“Wait, there’re more of you down there?”
“The forest shall bear ever more fruit with your blood nourishing it!” Dan continued screaming his head off while Greg pondered how to deal with his newfound neighbors. Just then an idea hit him, unlike Dan’s dagger. Greg got up and started heading back to his house.
“Where are you fleeing to, coward?” Dan screeched. “Get back here and fight me!”
“I’m going to the store,” Greg responded. “I’m gonna buy some pesticide.”
The prompt for this story was "A dwarf and a giant meet in the middle of a forest. Both claim they are the rightful owner of the forest. What happens next?" I was thinking of adding more to the story, with Greg coming back home from the store - which was closed - to find the Dwarves had an industrial revolution and destroyed his garden. Dan would've been retired in some kind of resort town built in the birdbath and Greg would talk to his son. The next day the dwarves would've evolved past the need for physical possessions, and even physical bodies, kinda like that one episode of Futurama with the robot planet. I think it ending where it does is fine.