Hugo was unhappy. He’d been left in the tree swing too long. The swing, his favorite, hung from a branch of the biggest Douglas fir on Heffinger Mountain. A snack, a nap, a swing in the sack, and he’d be a happy boy all day.

Most times, once upon this time, all north-going and west-going breezes swung him merrily around. The goings-on of the villagers in the Hollow below kept him entertained until Mother returned from rampaging and pillaging, gathering him home to rejoin the family.

It was the best giant’s life.

Until the day she failed to return.

***

Mother hadn’t intended to abandon him. She’d tangled with the wrong giant blue ox, a mother with her own young to care for. In the end, Hugo’s mother lost, as always eventually happens, and Mother’s bones became playtoys for the young oxen.

Hugo sat in that swing for a long time, crying, his diaper soiled. Rumbles from his hungry belly rolled, and tears flowed down the mountain, flooding The Hollow below. The villagers, frightened, sent up a prayer.

It fell to the youngest demi-goddess of the Mountain to address the situation. Her first task? Hugo needed a diaper change.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2022)

March 21, 2022, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story to reflect the theme, “ready for a change.” Who is ready and why? How does the change unfold? What happened to initiate the change? Go where the prompt leads!