Toy Soldiers

Prompt: Write about toy soldiers

Words: 739

It is a very large universe made up of many smaller bits and pieces. There are stars that twinkle, suns that shine, moons that orbit, debris that smashes and planets that revolve. The smaller things are made up of even tinier things, if you can imagine that. Take, for example, the planets. These are fascinating things indeed! One in particular seemed to be the focal point of a great amount of tinier pieces. Oceans, mountains, roads, buildings, and perhaps the strangest thing of all - people. People are creatures that are quite often found inside the buildings, and at this particular time, many of these people kept within their cupboards a box of the popular children's cereal Snazzberrios (children are another species altogether, but for purposes of this story we need only bear in mind that they were, amongst other things, present).

Snazzberrios, as it happened, were so trendy at this time because every box (which were produced by the hundreds of thousands in a fantastic factory in one of the filthier cities where where most of the windows were boarded) contained a prize inside! Grocery stores all around this tiny bit of a planet struggled to keep their shelves lined with cereal boxes proclaiming the wondrous prize within. And the cheap, mass manufactured, painted plastic toy soldiers, did indeed make a very snazzy prize!

Some of them had a gun in hand, poised to stare menacingly toward an unseen enemy. A few had knives and were dressed in splotchy camouflage, painted smiles on their faces. A few even came stuck in a green plastic box, which in the right light almost appeared to be a tank. And of course there were a handful that were dressed as medics. The unfortunate kids who received the medics immediately cried for a new box, because who wants a soldier that isn't in some manner ready to kill?

And life was good on this incredibly average planet with its blue skies and damp oceans. And then somebody pushed the button.

Poor Johnny was dancing the plastic toy soldier dangerously around the wooden top of his parent's fine table when somebody pushed the button. If truly there was an invisible enemy on the oak battlefield, it had just been shot dead or surrendered under the might of the "Pew, pew, pew!" sounds issued by Johnny's mouth. "PEW - PEW - Huuuuh...."

Nothing good ever comes from button pushing and so forth.

Like a balloon that suddenly discovered an air compressor, the small toy soldier began to grow into something quite a bit more immense, and quite a bit less plastic. Its head blossomed like a flower set on a high-speed timer, but there was nothing remotely floral about the hideous face. It was missing most of its teeth, and from behind a black eye patch spring a shiny scar that slashed across the soldiers ugly cheek. It had ears that were much too large beneath its green army cap. The soldiers muscles grew to such massive proportions that Johnny waited (in awe) for them to pop.

He would still be alive now if they had.

Johnny stared at the soldier. The soldier stared at Johnny.

"Uh - hullo there, then," Johnny said weakly.

"HAYSNHS NHSW JYAHJB!!" The soldier roared.

"Yes, well," Johnny minded his manners well, "I'm afraid that language isn't familiar to me, but if you wait just a moment I can grab my translating dictionary and we'll have this all worked out right quick."

"AYREABS. USY!!" The delightfully fun toy soldier found in every box of Snazzberrios shot poor Johnny pointblank in the face.

And all across this average planet where millions of average people lived their average lives, toy soldiers responded to the push of just one little button. They grew, spilling out of cabinets and toy boxes. Piling atop one another in distraught grocery stores where women screamed and looters looted.

Toy soldiers - with guns that were no longer plastic, and green boxes that were no longer almost tanks but now weapons of mass destruction - filled the streets. Sounds of violence rocked the very planet to and fro - "PEW, PEW, PEW!" There was chaos on every corner, a war in every kitchen....

And somewhere, across the deep span of the great universe, an alien chuckled.

The invasion had begun.



THE END