A Tall Man Will Do The Same

Missy's little disappearing act had set us back more than I had anticipated. I had been trying to convince the village chief for days now to let Missy go. However, he was relentless.

"We'd really love to stay," I said, "But we have to be on our way. It's extremely important that we get to where we're going on time."

"Tell them who you are," Missy whispered to me. I turned to her and shook my head profusely.

"No." I wasn't going to play the god card. I didn't need the attention. And it wouldn't do any good. Empty promises and lies that I could do any favours would not work. It was clear what these people wanted, and I could not give it to them. Never in a million years would I have the ability to change their predicament, and I wasn't going to let Missy be a sacrifice, however much she irritated me. I took great pity on them, but as I whispered to Missy, "We simply cannot save them all. We gotta go!"

..... .....

"Then would you be willing to do it?" the chief asked after all his pleas for Missy to stay had failed.

"No responsibility will be held to you," he begged.

My eyes widened. Oh, this wasn't good. I hadn't counted on me as an option. Damn it!

"I-I can't," I faltered. I panicked to find an excuse. Missy looked at me in a state of confusion. She hadn't put it together...

The chief signaled to one of the guards and suddenly a line of short young women shyly walked in and lined up in front of us. How was he even prepared for this?! He gestured for me to come forward where he stood marveling happily at the women and asked me to pick one. Then there it was; in Missy's place, he wanted me to bear a child. A child of my likeness; tall as they had wanted, but more importantly, a child of my own. One who I was then to abandon and leave to a village of strange small people who were cursed short.

I turned to Missy with a terribly distressed expression. I noticed her awestruck eyes and realized she saw it then, what the chief was asking of me. I was stuck between a rock and a very hard place. What excuse was I to give now?

They tried to appeal to my pity, hoping I'd have some to give. The chief had even tried to sweeten the deal, made it clear that it would be different for me, as I would not have to stay to bear the child of course, or care for it, as would've been the case for Missy—whether she'd have liked it or not, I simply would've refused to move with her if it happened that she became with child. I had nothing against pregnant women, but on top of everything, I did not need a pregnant woman slowing me down any more than I already was with Missy alone.

But what would that mean for me? Had this whole situation made me cruel or were they for even considering it? The chief was in essence giving me the possibility of walking away from my arguable good deed once it was done and never looking back. This was cruel, even in my books.

Eventually, I knew I had to turn them down. It was a hard decision to make, but one that I had overcome the instant I had heard their first proposition for Missy: neither I nor Missy would be involved in any child-bearing business. I was already entangled in another anyway. One child would be enough for me.

Sure enough, my salvation finally came knocking. A thought came to me, like the flick of a switch. It would be the perfect excuse.

"I can't bear children," I said. "It of course has nothing to do with your lovely women," I continued, trying to tread lightly on their hopeless souls. I smiled nervously. Missy smiled too. The chief took a piercing gaze to me. If he was doing this to scare me into submission, it was on its way to working... I was terrified.

"I tried to have children once... You see, I was married," I said. "We found out I was the problem, then my wife left me!"

I cried as I threw my hands up in the air in a final act of fake despair. Missy's eyes saddened. Didn't she know this was a lie? But it appeared my little story had pulled everyone in as I looked around. The chief began to loosen his countenance.

"We burden you with our troubles and yet you have your own," he said. He sighed.

"Well, I tried." His eyes went around the room, looking at his disappointed subjects.

"We can only wait for another who can help us."

"I do wish we could've done more," I said. But he didn't hear me. His grief had clouded his ears. As everyone broke into soft murmur and stopped giving us their full attention, I grabbed Missy's arm and quickly slipped out of the hall.

"Okay, we need to go now. I'm already days late and I can feel myself slipping."

I was referring to my youth. I couldn't really feel myself aging rapidly, but I needed Missy to make my situation as urgent to her as it was to me.

"Please do not run away again, Missy," I begged.

She nodded and smiled. "I won't, as long as you don't leave me behind."

She didn't know this but I never really could leave her behind. And it wasn't because I needed her great navigation skills—I could've found my way if I really wanted to... It was because of Nan. Oh how I feared what Nan would do to me if I did. I smiled as I thought of this and nodded back.

We carried on with the journey. As we slowly picked up our steps, climbing over a hill, the village of small people below became a spec in the distance I soon wished to forget.