This was a conversation I really did not want to have. Alas, I needed to have it. Now that we both had a good cry it had finally come time to discuss just what was to become of me. Well, after we managed to work out a way to communicate that is.

With my phone dead and my charger more than a little over-sized we had to get a little creative. Thankfully in the age of smart phones we found just the answer: an app that allowed a shrunken person to speak into the receiver where it would then repeat what was said loud enough for a normal person to hear. It even had settings to suit whatever size the person talking was.  Technology’s great man.

Once we had that fully downloaded Mom set her phone down and we only then finally gained the ability to talk to each other.

I climbed onto the phone and poked my head over the receiver, “Can you hear me?” From behind I heard my own voices projected to seismic proportions.

Mom nodded, “Yes, thankfully now we can talk.” Even though she said that neither of us seemed to know where to go from there. An empty silence hung in the air, neither person particularly wanting or willing to speak up. It almost looked like Mom wanted me to say something. What, I had no clue.

“…What happened?” She finally asked.

The events of the day played back in my mind like they had many times already. Nothing seemed unusual or special from any other day to me but I still began to recite it anyway. “I went to school like always. I had a test this morning so I was pretty beat afterwards. Because of that I spent a lot of my afternoon whining about my next class. When my next class rolled around I decided to take a nap and-“

“No, not that.” Mom cut me off. “What happened?”

“What are you talking about?”

Mom glared at me as if I knew exactly what she wanted me to say, “What happened to make you shrink? What have you done?”

“Nothing!”

“Well what did you think about doing?”

“Nothing! I swear, this has to be some kind of mistake!”

For a moment she made a complicated face. It looked like some combination of sadness, anger, and confusion. But most of all there was disappointment. You know the look. That one face your parents can make that hurts more than anything else they could do. Yeah, my parent was giving me that disappointed look, as if this was somehow my fault. “Look…I won’t be mad sweetie. You can tell me.”

“I am telling you!” I shouted, quickly frustrated by how much my own Mother didn’t believe me. “I haven’t done or thought of anything especially wrong in all my life. This is some kind of mistake!”

“No need to get defensive Robby. I’m not trying to accuse you of anything.”

That was it. Blatantly lying to my face like that just threw me over the deep end. “Like hell you aren’t! Be honest with me for a sec Mom. What are you really thinking right now? Huh?!”

“I’m thinking people who haven’t done anything wrong don’t come home the size of an ant.”

Ouch.

No, seriously, that hurt.  I asked for it but damn. That was as blunt as can be and she said it with no real love or warmth behind it. It was just an ice cold truth that left me dazed and unable to respond for a moment.

“I want to believe you dear, I really do. But there has to be something. Did you accidentally run over an animal? Did you get into a fight with Kari and say something bad, maybe have a few angry thoughts? Take a candy bar from a store?”

“No. Hell No. And Seriously? The worst thing I’ve done in ages is cut class this one time, promise.”

Mom’s eyes said she didn’t believe me for a sec. Course, who could blame her? My size said I was untrustworthy. The more I tried to plead for her to listen the more that became apparent. By this point she wasn’t even listening to my “Excuses”. I was already guilty of something as far as her and everyone else were concerned. As a parent she must’ve wanted to believe in me desperately, but all the signs told her not to.

“Okay.” Mom pushed her palms out to signal me to stop, “If you don’t wanna tell me or don’t know that’s fine. It doesn’t change the fact we’re going to have to get you registered.”

Oh yeah, I should probably explain. You know how every person has an ID, social security, and stuff like that right? Well if a person shrank then they have to deal with a similar kind of process and visit the Department of Shrunken Businesses and Services to get registered. And yes, I agree that name sucks, although it has earned the lovely acronym DSBS, or more commonly: “Dis BS”.

Sorry, got a little sidetracked. Anyway you go to the DSBS to register yourself as a shrunken citizen. Basically they update your information as a regular-sized individual with more…accurate information, after which you are then assigned a new ID card labelling you as a person “Size Challenged”. That’s just one part of it though. The main role of the DSBS is to assign shrunken individuals to their new lives. Part of the process to get a new ID involves interviews where they try to pin point and narrow down any skills you could have and then they try to assign you a job suited to your expertise. Think of it like an employment office for the short and tiny.

Where you end up is totally up in the air from that point though. Ideally a friend or family member offers to take you in but there are more than a few cases where a person gets assigned to a complete stranger. If there’s no one who needs someone with your skillset or if you have no skillset you’ll more than likely find yourself employed as an “Assistant” where you shall help someone and in return you are given room and board along with a meager supply of money. There’s no end to these positions. People who take care of shrunken people not only get their help, but they also receive funds to care for and pay them from the government. However these funds are the same thing so the more you eat and need stuff the less money you earn. Usually an Assistant’s earnings are laughably small…No pun intended.

Anyway, sorry about that little detour. Back to the story.

When Mom mentioned registration I cringed a bit. The fear of being reduced from a college-student to someone’s fancy slave repulsed me. But more than that, it made me nervous.

“You…know what that means right?”

Mom nodded with a sad look. “Yes…It’s very likely you’ll be going away.”

There was a reason why my house had no shrunken employees helping us out. We were kind of… black-listed. Once upon a time Mom joined the countless people who allowed shrunken people into their homes, and in fact we got one. Her name was Maria, a really polite girl who was a foot tall. For someone as short as she was she seemed really reformed so it was a real pleasure having her around. Then there was an…incident.

One day around a month in, while I was out at school and Mom was out at work, Maria finished her jobs and decided to enjoy some nice TV. It was so relaxing in fact that she ended up turning off the TV and taking a nap. An hour later my Mom comes home, also tired and wanting to relax with some mind numbing television. So after kicking her shoes off she walked over to the couch. She wasn’t paying attention. She didn’t notice the young girl cozily lying down on the cushion. She didn’t notice that Maria wasn’t at the door greeting her. She simply sat down and then it was too late.

The doctors said roughly 80% of the bones in her body were crushed. Supposedly death was instant but Mom swore she felt a second of struggling before that. Regardless, Maria was crushed. Both Mom and I mourned for a while but we managed to get past it, though the incident did ban us from ever taking in another shrunken person. Though even if we could, Mom refused to ever consider it again. Lest her careless would cost another life.

This left me, someone significantly smaller than Maria, living in this house impossible. Not only would it be highly illegal, but my Mom couldn’t trust herself with it anyway. So once I got registered I would be forced to move out.

I’d heard of parents kicking kids out of their homes before but this whole arrangement left a bitter taste in my mouth. I bet it was the same for Mom too. She did her best to give me a reassuring smile. “No matter what, you’ll always be my boy. I’ll come visit you. We’ll still keep in touch.”

“I’ll still be someone’s pet.”

“Come on, don’t be so dramatic. I bet you’ll end up in a really nice place. Maybe even a rich, pretty girl’s house, hmm?”

The joke did make me chuckle a little, “Kari would really enjoy that wouldn’t she?”

“Maybe she’d be the one you end up with?”

“Now that’d be something. Everyone already jokes about how she has me whipped.”

“See? It won’t be so bad. I bet after you get a good night’s sleep you’ll forget all about these troubles.”

Highly doubtful, but the sentiment was very much appreciated. “Maybe after we figure out where I’m sleeping.”

Mom shrugged, “No reason not to be in your room is there? I can lay down a pillow on your desk or something and it’ll be like you’re in your own bed.”

“Yeah, that does sound kind of nice.” I smiled wearily.

“Let me get right on that then.” Mom smiled down at me and headed to my room. Considering how this conversation started with her disappointed and interrogating me, it was really nice to reach this sort of peace. If I was going to leave home it would be best if I did so without hurting my relationship with my family. I glanced at the time on Mom’s phone and realized how late it had gotten.

All of sudden I could feel exhaustion coming on. It got harder to keep my eyelids open. My mind started getting hazier. I think I was half asleep when Mom came back and I just kind of went along with everything, not fully aware of what I was saying or doing. Next thing I knew I was on a pillow with a torn napkin as a blanket.

I  do distinctly remember Mom saying “Sweet Dreams” before I fell asleep though.

I would like to say after such a rough day that I slept like an angel, but then I’d be lying. I was in a deep sleep for sure, but it was far from peaceful. I couldn’t escape from all the worries plaguing me and even while asleep my subconscious was unable to figure out anything to calm me down. What was going to happen to me? Where was I going to go? Who was I going to live with? So many important elements of my life were changing all at once and I was in absolutely zero control of any of it.

No, I take that back. I did have a little bit of control. Tomorrow would be the day I go to the DSBS and get registered. Then after registration there’d be the interviews to determine what I’d be best at. If I wanted to avoid a menial job as a servant then that meant I had to really nail the interviews. Man, I was starting to wish I had more time to prepare.

After all, tomorrow would determine what my new life would be like.