Dear Diary,

In just ten days it will be my birthday. It’s been an interesting ride. That’s one whole year since I got Toothpick! We’ve both had our ups and downs, but finally I can say he’s the perfect little playmate.

Daddy’s in the deep jungles of Africa, falling in love with a Hungarian scientist, being chased by the natives, trying to unlock the mystery of the 420 killer. He never fails to make me laugh. But before he left he said to me, "Now Brooke, in a short while you’re going to be a full grown woman, and I think now your ready for this responsibility." He gave me a freaking gun! So I can "protect myself" if the 420 killer comes after me. He wants me to sleep with it under my pillow. I suppose I’ll indulge him that. When I don’t pity him, I find myself respecting him for his commitment to protect me.

-----

She now sleeps with a gun underneath her pillow.

One long year. One very long year. Sometimes I think this is all one horrible nightmare, and that I’ll wake up tomorrow and I’ll be me again. Or maybe I committed some horrible crime, died, and now I’m in Hell. One year, my God.

I hate God. He never saved me, no matter how hard I prayed.

I think about the others that came before me; sometimes I pretend to talk to them. I’ve got no one else to talk to. I’m so lonely. Brooke’s the only human being I’ve spoken to since I shrank, and all she says to me is how cute she thinks I am.

First there was Huggy. Brooke said he was some fat guy in a business suit, maybe he was the president of a large corporation. She hugged him and he shrank into her arms. "A new dolly," she thought. The monster, that’s what I call her sometimes, never went into detail on what she subjected that poor man to. She was five years old. Some five-year-olds pull the heads off their dolls. She couldn’t understand that he was human, a life, someone who could feel pain. What did that poor man suffer?

He killed himself. I’ve tried the same. My first attempt was climbing to the top of my dollhouse and jumping off. I only broke my leg, and Brooke didn’t know. So when she grabbed me off the floor and burst my eardrums saying that I was supposed to stay locked in the dollhouse when she was out, she didn’t know her enormous hand wrapped around my body agonized me in such a terrible way. It was even worse when she administered my punishment. Six days going to school with her in her underwear. Math class was the worst, she always spoke of how she found her math teacher cute, and the mix of the moisture and heat nearly cooked me alive every day. My leg never did properly heal.

My second attempt was trying to drown myself in the toilet. But no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t climb it. Immediately I began crying as I heard the ground shiver as I knew Brooke was approaching, but it wasn’t her. Deafening boom followed deafening boom until the bathroom door opened and it was her mother in a blood-red bathrobe. Her bare feet pounded and pounded before me as she prepared to take a shower.

I smiled thinking that maybe I could get her to step on me. Then it would all be over with. But instead I screamed, "Help! Please, I beg you! Please! Help me!" But those great feet never heard me.

The bathrobe dropped and I was swept back by the gust of wind. Brooke’s mother loomed over me, gloriously naked. I can’t possible describe how terrified I was seeing a giant naked woman. Nudity always held the sense of vulnerability in the mind, but when a person looks over a hundred feet tall; their nudity only makes you feel so incredibly insignificant. And I was.

A boom came as one of her feet stepped right before me. "What on Earth is that?" the thunder said as the naked giant peered down at me.

"Please help," I murmured.

The giant foot was raised and her big toe approached. It nudged me, trying to figure out what I was, and instinctively I curled up in a ball, scared.

Was it funny? Before she had hit me with her car, and now she’s tapping me with her toe, which is now bigger than her car was. Hilarious.

"Oh my, it’s a little man," she gasped, putting her hand to her mouth.

I was saved! I jumped to my feet. "Yes, please help! I’ve been in your daughter’s bedroom for two months, and she’s been torturing me. Please, call the police, I want to see my friends and family again. I want to see Victoria!"

"Damn these hallucinations," the mother scoffed.

Later I would learn that the monster’s mother suffered from a condition known as Peduncular Hallucinosis. Sometime she saw things that simply weren’t there. I’m the luckiest guy in the world, aren’t I?

"That’s what I get for not taking my medication this morning," she said shaking her head.

"No! No! I’m not a hallucination, please! This is real. I’m real!"

The thunder laughed. "That’s what they all say." She then realized her hallucination could see her naked. Her hands covered herself, "What a filthy hallucination you are, too. What’s that Ducky Einstein? I ought to teach him a lesson? Step on him?"

"No! Oh God! No! I’m a real person, please don’t! Please!"

She bent down and her face filled my field of vision. "Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not about to let a duck tell me what to do." She smiled. "You’re really cute. I wish you were taller, you know. Some of my other hallucinations have been fun to get to know." A hand took me, lifted me into the air. I saw the world’s biggest smile say to me, "Before you disappear, I want you to come in the shower with me. My husband’s in France, with a little Chinese orphan, negotiating with the Parisian Mafia trying to find leads on the whereabouts of a notorious serial killer, and I get lonely sometimes."

Later that evening I wandered back to Brooke’s room; soaked in more than just water. I never made a third suicide attempt. My spirits were crushed. I saw no hope, even in death.

Brooke discovered me out of my dollhouse again. Twelve days in her underwear.

For months Brooke and I were thick as thieves. Sexual favours were commonplace. Sometimes she couldn’t help but abuse her power. I was numb, somewhere in my mind I had lost myself. I was no longer a man. In order to survive in this Hell my conscience had refitted my personality to a subservient state. I was no longer Daniel, I was Toothpick.

But some fire returned in me the first time I saw her gun. She sleeps with it under her pillow, eh? I could never kill myself with it, but that wasn’t what inspired me. My purpose was clear. While the monster slept, with whatever strength that was left in me, I would crawl to the head of Brooke’s bed, position the gun, and blow her brains out.

April 19th, 1962, the day before my 26th birthday.

In the hush of the night’s air, the monster was preparing for sleep. "Tomorrow Toothpick, can you believe it?" She put on her sleeping attire, kissed me goodnight, and crawled in between her sheets. She was just so fucking happy. I looked down at my hands, was I really going to kill a little girl?

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the question. This was certainly not a little girl.

I could feel deep down within me my very soul dance with excitement. It knew my day of revenge had come. Toothpick’s revenge. It would be glorious.

Shadow now, and only shadow. My eyes peered into the darkness. Out of the window in my dollhouse I saw what appeared to be a stretch of polka-dotted mountains. It was the monster fast asleep. First things first, get out of the dollhouse.

"This is for you, Huggy," I said aloud. "Sic semper tyrannis."

I imagined Huggy there with me, assuring me that what I was about to do wasn't insane or evil. "Be brave, Daniel," Huggy answered back.

"Avenge me!" shouted Abigail.

"Shh! Abby, be quiet. You’ll wake her," Adam whispered.

"Yes, very smart Adam," I spoke to my invisible companions. "Tonight a great evil will be snuffed out, and all your souls will rest in peace."

My cold, murderous hands grabbed one of the plastic chairs in the kitchen of the dollhouse. I fiercely slammed it against the window.

"Shh!" Adam reminded me.

Once again I bashed the chair against the window.

"Shh! For God’s sake."

Just one more crash against the window and the clear plastic tile popped out. I could feel the chill of the free air outside. I spread my arms out and breathed liberty. My eyes opened, I saw the monster patiently pulse with her breath. "I wrote this poem for you Brooke…

Roses are red, So is blood,

Violets are blue, So are cold dead corpses.

And Toothpicks are sharp,

And should not be played with by little children."

The sheets of her bed were easy enough to climb, and it only took me a few minutes to reach her pillow. At that instant I paused, gazed up at the giant’s sleeping head, and truly marveled it. Was a part of me falling in love with depending on you? You always told me how much you loved me.

But that thought just made me more willing to kill her than ever.

Tonight you die.

I look over at Brooke’s alarm clock far in the distance.

12:00am

Happy Birthday Daniel. Happy Birthday Brooke.

I crawl under her pillow and find my metal friend. I yank and heave at the gun for what feels like hours. Brooke repositions herself, putting her weight on the gun and I can’t budge it an inch.

3:55am

Brooke moves again, and I’m able to get the gun out from under her pillow.

4:32am

Nearly out of breath, I prop the gun against Brooke’s right cheek. I kick it until it’s pointing right where I need it to be. I crawl into the trigger, press my back against it then put my legs up on the other side. Goodbye you monster.

-----

"Detective Crackley, how does it feel to be the hero who captured the infamous 420 killer?" the reported asked while shoving a bulbous microphone into the detective’s face.

"I’m no hero," he said. "The 420 killer was bound to screw up at some point or another. His biggest mistake was thinking he could enter my home, shoot my daughter in her sleep, and get away with it. Luckily my wife was there to hit the killer over the head with a baseball bat, and call the police."

The detective’s wife was standing right next to him and spoke into the microphone, "Ducky Einstein and I hope the court sentences this horrible man to one billion years in prison!"

Crackley tenderly put his hands on her shoulders, "Thank you, Dear, that’s enough."

The court showed no pity in sentencing Daniel McCready. The plea for insanity was overruled by the judge. But his defense certainly was the product of a sick mind. He claimed the victim had shrunken him, and treated him like a mere toy. Once he managed to shoot her, the spell was broken and he found himself returned to his normal height.

Daniel was sentenced to life imprisonment. He still kept his nickname Toothpick. Every night before his birthday he still heard someone call, far in the distance, in a girlish whisper, "Daniel."

THE END