Jack didn’t care too much about his grandma being an enchantress, he just wanted to play video games. She was always trying to get him to come outside to see some important business in the garden, the latest chile or corn varietal she’d developed, and dutifully Jack would wander out and take a took and wonder what the big deal was.

That was, until the magic beans.

Jack was a native of a place known at the time as New Mexico, and New Mexico was known for its beans: Anasazis, Appaloosas, White Aztecs, and Giant Pintos, to name a few. Beans that were black speckled with white, white speckled with brown, beans pale peach in color and beans so black they bled off purple when soaked. There was even one that had supposedly been found in a pot sealed with pitch in a cave somewhere and was supposedly 1,500 years old. But he’d never seen beans like this.

These beans were the color of a cotton candy sunset flecked with turquoise and shot through with veins of gold. His grandmother told him these were very special beans that had been in his family for more than four hundred years, since King Phillip the Fourth had given it to them by stealing it from the Indians. Jack noted that this wasn’t a very nice thing to do, and his grandmother agreed—she said it was a sin they had to do their best to atone for. Jack didn’t know how it might be possible to atone for a sin that occurred four hundred years ago, but he nodded like he understood and went back to playing Minecraft.

But his grandmother wasn’t done with him. She placed the beans in a special leather pouch on a leather cord and came and stood between him and the TV screen. She told him that when these beans had been given to her by her own grandmother, who was also an enchantress; she had told her to protect those beans with her life, for they were the only protection in this world from giants. Now Abuela was going on a little trip, and she was entrusting the beans to him.

“A trip?” he said. Jack had lived with his grandmother for most of his life and she had never gone anywhere except to the grocery store, the yerberia, or church.

“A trip,” she confirmed, slipping the leather cord over his head. “I’m going to see some friends. There’s enchiladas in the fridge, and some of that stuff you call food in the pantry, but I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, mijo, so maybe learn how to take care of the garden, okay?”

“Uh, okay,” he said.

“And remember, don’t plant the magic beans until the end of the world.”

He asked her how he would know when it was the end of the world.

“Oh, you’ll know,” she said.

Then she put on her Sunday best, walked to the end of the driveway, and disappeared.

—

Jack ate his way through the enchiladas while building up his skills as a thief in Skyrim, then polished off the food in the pantry while fighting off zombies in Warcraft. But by the time he ran out of Chef Boyardee and Fruit Roll Ups and grape soda and Spam, it hadn’t rained in a month and everything in his grandmother’s garden was dead.

Then a wildfire swept through the National Forest nearby, blackening the skies. Jack rode that out in the casita out back, which had been constructed by his great grandfather out of local granite, by boarding up the windows and covering them with old Pendleton blankets. He’d discovered a stash of elk jerky and dried apricots there, so he settled in fairly comfortably with his iPad and a heavy duty battery pack, and by the time he’d finally beaten the Ender Dragon in Minecraft, redecorated his mansion in Skyrim, and completed his quest chain in The Elder Scrolls, he figured the coast must have cleared.

But he emerged from the boarded-up casita only to discover that the air was now choked with dust, twisting every which way, and when he made it back to the house, every surface inside it was covered in a good two inches of what the Internet informed him had once been prime Midwestern topsoil.

So he tied a bandana around his nose and mouth and ventured back outside to the former site of the garden. There he opened the pouch his grandma had given him and planted those magic beans. Because if this wasn’t the end of the world, what was?

The magic beans sent up their first little sprouts within a few minutes, and then, within a few hours, shot up high into the sky. They were stout, those stalks, and seemed sturdy enough, so Jack, in his bid to escape the second American Dustbowl, began to climb.

—

Now Jack was not in the best of shape, given that the central focus of his life for the last ten years had been video games. But after some huffing and puffing and stopping to rest here and there in the crook of some oversized shoots those beanstalks were putting out, he managed to haul himself up and over the shifting cloud of dust. And when he stopped to catch his breath, loosening his bandana, he realized that he was not just above the earth now, he was below something as well—something that cast a large shadow on the dust cloud below.

Being naturally somewhat curious about this, Jack kept climbing until he was level with the thing, which appeared to be a kind of island, on which stood a kind of castle. Really, the whole thing was pretty futuristic looking, the landscape all cookie cutter and uniform, the grass an unnatrual shade of green, with a sort of pixelated-looking river running through it. The castle itself looked like a cross between a big-city skyscraper and the Masyaf Castle in Assassin’s Creed—so of course he had to go see it for himself.

Only when Jack stepped off the beanstalk and onto the island did he grasp the scale of it. There were only two or three different kinds of trees and shrubs in this place, but all of them towered above him, and when he took a bite of a bright red apple he found, as big as a melon, it was as tasteless as Styrofoam. From where he stood, that river had to be five miles across, and while its pixelated waters were fizzy and delicious and tasted like grape soda, they did nothing to quench his thirst.

And when at last he’d floated across the river, buoyed by its carbonation, and reached the castle, he found it was the size of a mountain. But Jack had developed some muscle tone on his way up the beanstalk, and he’d gained some skills as well, so he found a seam in the rock wall at the base of the thing and began to climb.

Before long, he reached the massive double doors of the massive castle, and as he stood there gaping up at it, the doors swung open before him. He thought at first for him—but then he was nearly run over by a caravan of massive trucks approaching from the other side. Jack flattened himself against the doorjamb as they passed—water trucks and logging trucks and trucks carrying load after load of pesticides and fertilizers, based on the corporate logos emblazoned on them. None of the drivers of these trucks seemed to notice him, so when he saw his chance, he hopped up on the back of a logging truck, under the cover of a leafy Doug fir, and slipped inside.

The trucks were being unloaded in a place that looked sort of like a Viking hall, but decorated all over with antique farm equipment. The water trucks were being hooked up to large vessels that resembled giant Big Gulp cups, and the trees were being unloaded into a room he could see was piled high with lumber. The trucks with the corporate logos were proceeding through another set of double doors, these with a lot of fancy gold tasseling and flowers around them.

Jack touched the pouch his grandmother had given him for good luck and hopped up on the last of these trucks as it passed through.

As soon as he passed through those big doors, he heard voices—big, booming voices, and softer, more subservient ones. He’d figured out by now that this was a giant’s castle, and judging from what his grandmother had told him about such creatures, the giant was unlikely to look kindly upon his intrusion. If only he had access to his expert level invisibility spell!

Given the fact that he didn’t, sneak mode would have to do.

The driver of the head truck had backed up before a pair of massive gold chairs atop a couple massive steps—thrones, Jack surmised. The other trucks did the same, beeping as they backed up, and when the time was right, Jack hopped off the bumper where he’d been crouching and ducked behind a massive potted plant, which appeared to be a redwood. From there he observed the driver of the first truck bow before the thrones. He was dressed in a suit, which seemed strange for a truck driver—but then again, this throne room did bear a striking resemblance to a corporate lobby, based on what Jack had seen on TV.

“Your majesties,” the man said, “your tribute.”

“As is fitting,” boomed a big voice from on high. Then another big voice chimed in: “El mundo es nuestro!”

And now Jack could see not just one giant but two, standing before the thrones—a couple, apparently. The male giant was dressed all in green and gold and wore a crown of golden tassels, and the female giant was dressed in green and white, with a crown of purple flowers. As he watched, the giants stepped down onto the marble floor, their sinewy white feet bare. One by one the trucks dumped their toxic load of chemicals at the monarchs’ feet. Jack pulled his bandana back over his nose and mouth just in time.

He could hardly believe what he saw through his watering eyes: the giants were sucking up that pile of chemicals through the soles of their feet, and with every passing moment grew larger. As big as the throne room was—as big as one of those Spanish cathedrals his grandma had shown him once, in a book—they were going to need a bigger one soon.

Then the chemical trucks were rolling away again and the giant with the golden tassels was sniffing the air. He turned to the giant with the crown of flowers and said, “Fee, fi, fo, fum! I smell the blood of an American!”

So much for sneak mode, Jack thought.

Sheepishly, he stepped out from behind the potted redwood tree and dropped to the throne-room floor.

The giant with the crown of flowers peered down at him. “Quien,” she said, “eres tú?”

“I’m Jack,” said Jack. Actually, his name was Juan, and he had a long Spanish last name he never used either, but he figured he’d leave it at that.

The giant with the golden tassels rose up to his full height, which was very high indeed. “I,” he said, “am King Corn, appointed ruler of this earthly realm by the power of almighty Monsanto.”

“Soy Queen Bean,” the female giant said, “la reina divina de DuPont.”

“And you,” King Corn said, “are trespassing!”

“Well, hey,” said Jack, shuffling his feet a bit, “sorry about that. I was just trying to escape the drought and the wildfire and Dustbowl going on down there on earth. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

The king looked bemused. “Troubles among the proletariat do not concern those such as we. As long as our subjects pay tribute.”’

“Okay,” said Jack, “but ayuda me un poquito here. How will your subjects pay tribute when the water’s gone, all the trees have been cut down or gone up in smoke, and there’s nothing left to eat?”

“SILENCE!” the king boomed. “Would you deny our royal persons our sustenance? Would you slow the growth of our great empire? At last, when we have cleared the earth of all impediments?”

“Well, hey,” said Jack, but that’s all he managed before the king and the queen were stomping their royal feet in an effort to squash him. And it was true that he was just a little guy compared to them, but being a little guy, he was a lot more nimble as well, so he took off running and slipped through that big double door to the throne room just as it was closing.

Bells rang and clanged as some sort of home security system was engaged, but except for the guys in suits, there didn’t seem to be anyone else around—maybe because they were all off celebrating the end to all those impediments down there on earth. And maybe now Jack’s sneak mode was actually working, because none of those suits seemed to notice him as he slipped into the royal lumber room. And as he stood there a moment catching his breath, it occurred to him that he hadn’t tried to steal anything yet.

So he opened up the pouch his grandmother had given him and peered inside. Without the magic beans in there, the thing appeared to have no discernible bottom. And he found if he opened it up, it kept opening, as far as he cared to extend it. So, carefully, he picked up a nearby 2 x 4 and slipped it inside. Maybe that pouch his grandmother had given him contained a wormhole or something, because it didn’t feel any heavier. He loaded up all the lumber, and all the fresh-cut Doug firs as well, and then snuck out the back.

Here he found a room filled with those giant Big Gulp cups full of water. Carefully, he punctured the side of one with a pond-skimmer thing he found there and drained the water into his pouch. The water that spilled pooled around his feet, but the water that poured into the pouch disappeared, and the pouch itself grew neither heavier nor wet. He went around and drained the rest.

Those voices out there were drawing nearer, but Jack figured he should try for at least one more theft; clearly, all this water and all these trees had been stolen from down there on earth, and he figured stealing them back would be one way to atone for the King of Spain having stolen his family’s land from the Indians.

And indeed, the next room he found was piled high with seeds in every size, shape, and color, and the next with thin, white, rootlike filaments. He’d just gotten the last of all of that in his magic pouch when he heard the giants thundering down the hall outside.

Quickly, Jack hid behind the door when it opened—and when the king and queen stood there in the empty room bellowing that they’d been robbed, he slipped out and ran for his life in the direction of the Viking hall.

Unfortunately, those big double doors that led out of the castle were now shut—but Jack, thinking fast, grabbed one of those old-fashioned decorative scythes off the wall, jammed it between the two doors and pried them open, then took off running.

Across the repetitive landscape with its too-green grass he ran, with those two or three trees and shrubs repeating over and over, like a video game. Across the pixelated river of grape soda he swam–its carbonation buoyed him up, scythe and all. Jack figured that scythe might come in handy if the giants caught up with him, which is sounded like they were very much in the process of. All around him, this island perched precariously over the heads of most mortals was trembling. One way or another, it was clear some kind of big shake up was coming.

At last he reached the magic beanstalk and began to climb down, somewhat awkwardly, with the handle of the scythe clenched between his teeth. But then the he felt that massive beanstalk sag, as if under some great weight, and he looked up: the king and queen were climbing down after him, hand over hand, and they were moving a lot faster than he was.

So Jack stopped on the next giant leaf, took the scythe handle from between his teeth, and began to chop down the beanstalk.

Jack was never quite sure afterward what broke his fall, but when he landed, he saw that the National Forest near his house that had burned down in the wildfire once again stood tall and green. There was a light rain falling, and the earth all around him was filled with trees and shrubs and grasses and herbs and flowers of every kind.

When he looked up, the beanstalk appeared to be moving in slow motion, dropping from the sky like a rope, and the king and queen with it—their royal vestments filled with air as they fell, and if Jack hadn’t known better, he would have mistaken them for a pair of hot air balloons.

He ran for the cover of his grandmother’s house, but before he could make it inside, the king and queen hit the ground. As they did, they burst into a million seeds, which pelted both Jack and the side of the house, and when he leaned down to get a better look at them, there in the moist, clumpy earth, he saw that they were seed corn in every imaginable color, and a rainbow of different beans.

That’s when his grandmother came walking up the driveway in her Sunday best. “Hola, mijo,” she said as he stood holding a handful of seeds. “I see you learned to take care of the garden.”