Ploom #007

Ploom #007

Turning a mountain back into a molehill

Timothy C Goodwin

Well, here we are again: me gawping up at Godzilla, Godzilla glaring down at me.

His red eyes sparkle like the jewels of some mystical artefact; his mottled, dark green skin looks like it’s been carved from the rocks of some alien planet; silvery, pointy plates stand on end down his backside like the primitive knives of some ancient, unknown empire. All in all? Another big fucking problem I’m woefully unprepared for. He towers over the deserted city and roars through the fog (yeah, that famous roar you just heard in your head. Right? Yeah, I know. He can be a monster there too, sometimes), and I scamper into the first door I see. I step aside just in time: CRASH! The King of the Monsters bursts in after me, the city’s lights casting his menacing shadow on the wall opposite. My back pressing into a corner, I’m panicking at a spiking percentage rate: would I get stomped on? Laser breathed? Eaten? I never take the time to know exactly how he works, or how I managed to get rid of him the last time. Or the time before that. Or the time… wait. I pause the doomicizing inside my head and listen: there’s a styrofoamyish, rubbing togethery sound (weird) and huffing that reminds me of Grandma trying to carry all the grocery bags from the car in one trip. 

Is Godzilla stuck in the doorway? 

He creaks and shimmies in retreat, and I see him walking away. An opportunity to escape. Yes! Escape. That’s what I do. Just… run away from him. Sidestep responsibility. But how—fly away? I look up: Mothra! I look down: one problem at a time, thank you very much. Head into the water? No… that’s where Godzilla comes from, right? I take an indecisive, blank-headed step that crushes a small building, but it’s a hollow sound, like I stepped on a bag of potato chips. Here: a light switch! Night turns to day instantly. The city is… miniature, the ocean beside it suddenly shallow and pale. Even Mothra isn’t hovering, just swaying lifeless on cables ascending into darkness. But. Godzilla turns at the potato-chippsy sound, his tail smashing entire blocks of city, flinging balsa-wood municipal debris at me. I smell fresh paint; I see a fog machine. Another roar—but not the monster-movie cry I (thought I?) heard before, it’s much more anaemic, from behind thick foam. He sets; he charges at me from across the city, but his feet flop on the ground like badly-fitting clown shoes/but his head wobbles comically from side to side as if there were no actual skull/but his movements are the chirps of dog toys. It all makes him… smaller. Much smaller than I ever realised. And I’m bigger, bigger than I (always) remember to let myself be. This time I’m not running away: 

This isn’t Godzilla, I think to myself. There never was a Godzilla. 

‘Turning a mountain back into a molehill’ by Timothy C Goodwin

Timothy C Goodwin

Timothy C Goodwin graduated in writing from The University of New Orleans and has been writing essays, music reviews, and interviews for local publications since then. He has been fortunate to have his work included in Every Day Fiction, 365 Tomorrows, and Marathon Literary Review.

@timothycgoodwin