Cracked

If he didn’t hit the round part hard enough against the rim of the bowl or failed to move fast enough, they would leak all over the place. It was a mess that was hard to clean, especially if he waited too long. The burgundy fluid stained everything it touched and the giant hated having to clean those spills. And no matter how many thousands of the fuzzy orbs he had cracked, he would still have accidents.

Crack. Another meatball plops into the bowl and he tosses the husk into the fire of his stone cooking stove.

There were furious little teeth in the round parts that would latch onto the ridges of his fingerprints, harmlessly pulling away flakes of his skin. He would flick them and that seemed to settle them down enough so he could continue cracking the fuzzy round orbs.

Crack. He grunts, looking down in dissatisfaction. The squirming thing in his hand had turned as he swept it down toward the bowl and he had managed to only create a gaping hole where the thing’s mouth had been.

Crack. One more meatball for the bowl and another limp husk to pop and simmer in the rolling fire.

Sometimes they would clump together, like a roux when the stew has gotten too thick. He would shake their box for a few seconds or break them apart with a paddle. Both methods of loosening the clumps would elicit high-pitched screams and he didn’t care for that. And when he used the paddle their limbs would sometimes come off, causing them to leak. They were always leaking something.

Crack.

Making fresh meatballs was a chore but it is his favorite dish. He resigned himself to the fuss and mess, hearing the rumbling in his stomach. He imagined the sautéed meatballs in brown gravy and his mouth began to water, a trickle of saliva running from the corner of his mouth.

Crack. He guessed that there were at least sixty of the succulent meatballs in the bowl now, the remainder of his night harvest huddled in the corners of the box.

He plucked one of the tiny, delicate ones with no hair from one of the round long-haired ones. The long-haired one made an exceptionally high and annoying sound. He pressed a finger into the bottom half of the mewling one until it crumpled against the side of the box and he felt a sensation like grinding rocks. The mewling stopped.

Crack.