Author's Note: This story was sparked by a creative writing workshop at Megaplex 2019, and is based on one of the presenter's five writing prompts. Thanks,  sila!

Enjoy!

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Manja

© 2019 by Walter Reimer

(A gifted individual who is friend to a giant city-smashing monster.)

Thumbnail art by  marmelmm



The city burned.

Kenny, tears in his eyes, stood amid the ruins as the huge beast finished pulling down the Flammable Building in the city’s financial center. As the ten-year old tabby kitten watched, the armor-skinned monster turned and cocked its hind leg on the smoking pile of concrete, as if to express its contempt for capitalist theories.

“Manja!” Kenny screamed.

The beast paused, cocking one ear.

The ten-year old screamed the monster’s name again and it turned toward the kitten. Its lips curled back, exposing rows of teeth capable of tearing steel, and it stepped toward Kenny. Step by step, onward it came, and as it drew within ten yards of the kitten it dropped to its plated belly, and snorted foul vapors from its nose.

“Manja,” Kenny shouted, “I have to play my cello! Why do you have to be naughty!?”

The creature whimpered and shrugged its massive shoulders.

It looked almost apologetic.

“It’s all right, don’t be sad,” the child prodigy said. “Let me finish my concert and we’ll go play, okay?”

Manja bellowed its agreement and settled down amid tumbled masonry and smashed cars to wait for its friend.