I could hear the wind rattling leaves on the trees outside the open window as I watched Kyle plug the power cable to the machine into the nearest wall socket. “You sure you know how to use this thing?” I asked.

“Honestly, there's not really much to it, John.”

“So you've used it before? What did you shrink?”

“Well... no. I haven't used it before, but these things are pretty simple to operate, you know? All the buttons are pretty basic, we've all seen the tutorial videos on the internet.”

“Yeah, I guess so” I replied.

“Wait a minute...” my friend began, crossing his arms and turning to look at me. “Don't tell me you're-”

“No, no, no” I said, fully aware of what my friend was going to say and cutting him off before the words could leave his mouth. “I'm not chickening out, I'm just making conversation. I've never had the chance to be up close and personal with one of these things, let alone operate it for myself, I'm sure as hell not passing this up.”

“That's what I like to hear, man!”

The excitement within me grew as I examined the machine in front of me, knowing that in mere moments it would be powered on and ready to use. In a way, it sort of resembled a giant gun. Its laser-firing barrel was aimed straight ahead and sat on a swivel. I knew from the countless instructional videos and product demonstrations I had watched on TV and online that this design decision was put in place to allow the operator to aim at and shrink multiple targets in a given area without having to move the entire impressively weighty machine.

Kyle stepped behind the machine, positioning himself in front of its many buttons and switches. I watched curiously as his fingers flicked at them, and when he hit a certain one, a red light switched on at the top of the device.

For such a large and somewhat outdated piece of technology, the shrink ray ran surprisingly silently. I could barely hear the faint whirring of cooling fans spinning up, nor the noises of any other internal mechanical processes that were undoubtedly taking place under the hood.

“Come on, man” said my friend, snapping my attention away from the red light on the machine.

“What?” I asked, facing him with a look of confusion on my face. He rolled his eyes as he looked back at me.

“Well don't just stand right in front of it, man. You didn't want the demonstration to be on you, did you?”

“Whoops” I replied, laughing. “No, I don't want that.” I stepped off to the side, out of range of the ray's barrel. “So, is she all ready to fire?”

“Almost” replied Kyle, stepping out from behind the machine and standing beside me. “See that red light?” he asked, pointing to the light I had noticed turn on just a moment earlier. “When that changes from red to green, we're good to go.”

“Alright, so what do you want to shrink first?”

“Uh... I don't know.” The two of us looked around the room in search of ideas. “What about that?” he asked, pointing to a wooden table tucked into one of the room's corners.

“Yeah, I guess that will work for a first target.”

We walked over to the table and began removing the items from its somewhat cluttered surface. When it was sufficiently cleared off, we each lifted a side and carried it across the room, setting it down gently directly in front of the machine.

By the time we had it in position, the red light on the machine had changed to green. “I think she's ready” I said, pointing to it.

“Yep, follow me.” Kyle led me to the back of the machine.

“Do you need to adjust any settings or anything?” I asked, looking over the array of buttons before me, thinking about what each one's purpose could be.

“Nope, it's ready to fire. But I think you should do the honors.” Kyle's hand guided my attention to a red button on my left. It was larger than all the others. “Just press that one when you're ready.”

I couldn't hold myself back any longer, my excitement was in full control of my body. My hand reached forward and my index finger pushed at the button. I pulled my arm back and stood perfectly still with my eyes glued to the table ahead, waiting for its size to change.

A few seconds went by and still nothing had happened. Disappointed, I turned to my friend. “Well... looks like your dad's machine is broken.”

Kyle laughed. “Have a little patience, guy. It's not broken. There's a fifteen or twenty second countdown before the thing fires. It's like a... safety feature, you know?”

Before I could respond, a bright light flashed in front of me and the table was gone. If I hadn't known any better, I might have thought it simply disappeared into thin air or that perhaps it was teleported elsewhere. But I knew the reality of the situation.

I scrambled to the front of the machine and lowered myself down to the floor. My eyes were soon met with the sight of a ridiculously small table. It was smaller even than if it had been specially constructed to furnish a dollhouse.

I delicately picked the minuscule piece of furniture up and examined it as I held it between my fingertips. It looked so fragile, especially the legs.

“Careful, don't break it” said Kyle, still standing behind the machine, clearly not as excited by the shrunken table as I was.

“I know, I know.” I gently placed the table back down onto the floor.

“Here, check it out with this” said Kyle before tossing me a magnifying glass. I caught it and brought it over the little table. I examined the tiny markings in the wood, every small detail came to life under magnification.

“Come on, let's try it out on something else” said Kyle after I had spent a moment or so scrutinizing the table. I set the magnifying glass down on the ground nearby and rejoined my friend at the controls.

“Alright, what's our next target?”

We had been on what I guess you could call a shrinking spree for a decent chunk of the afternoon. There was a variety of tiny objects scattered about on the floor in front of the machine. The table, an office chair, a couple of filing cabinets, stacks of boxes. Our supply of suitable targets inside the room had begun to dwindle, which is why I was now dropping the kickstand and parking an old bicycle Kyle and I had grabbed from his shed and carried upstairs.

“Ready?” my friend asked me from behind the machine.

“Yep.” Now used to the timer function on the machine, after he pressed the firing button the two of us stood in front of it, but out of range of the barrel, as we had done the last few times we reduced an object's size.

The two of us stood with out arms crossed, anxiously waiting for the device to fire. “This is gonna be cool” said Kyle. “It's gonna be like a bike... for bugs.” I laughed.

A strong breeze whipped at the trees outside and blew through the open window, entering the room. Kyle and I froze in panic as we watched the power of the wind force the barrel of the machine to swivel, stopping right as it was aimed straight for us.

“Oh... shit...” we said in unison. A violent flash of light escaped the barrel and the world around us changed drastically in the blink of an eye.