For the next week or so nothing really happened. After the stellar ending to that interesting day things died down for a bit. The next few days Mom usually spent most of her time out, either working or out buying things to make life easier on me. Before I knew it I had my own bed, clothes and even a little TV to go with it. Turns out buying stuff for shrunken people is super cheap. Who knew?

We didn’t go all out with the new stuff though. After all, I wasn’t supposed to be around much longer. That is, until I got a lovely call from Jane. Unsurprisingly she told me that they’d need more time to assign me. There was no one in the local area in the market for a Micro. The new expected time table ranged anywhere from two weeks to a few months and I could wind up going anywhere from the next state over to another country.

All things considered, Mom took the news pretty well, though I could tell it bothered her. She constantly had to tiptoe around her own home and worry about every step crushing me. That is, if she was even home at all. Usually she didn’t trust herself to linger around for long. More than once I spent all day alone.

Honestly, if it weren’t for my new luxuries I’d probably have gone crazy but I managed to kill time lounging in bed watching TV or playing on my phone. I had a pretty nice set up on my old desk with a bed positioned before my TV and a small jewelry box with my clothes inside of it. Clothes aside, almost all of it was made for people bigger than me. Not many household items were made for people as small of me, though that just amounted to a bigger bed and TV so I couldn’t complain.

It didn’t do much to help though. After the whole thing with Kari we gave each other some space for a while. Even though she nearly accidentally killed me and I had every right to be upset I still cared about her. Nothing would’ve made me happier than hearing her tell me things would be alright. We hadn’t even talked since then, and I knew better than to try and force a chat. It left this weird void in my daily routine. It was no replacement for a girlfriend but I tried to fill the gap with simple things like internet and texting random friends. It actually served as a decent distraction.

Until I noticed something.

Up til now you notice anything strange? Perhaps how everyone was acting towards a certain Micro-sized someone?

If I may be blunt: People were being too nice to me. They’d been too nice to me from the get go. Think about it. My size basically labelled me as scum walking the Earth, but I could still text people and make dumb jokes like nothing changed? If they were my closest friends I could kind of understand things not changing but even my casual friends acted the same. Something didn’t add up.

The more I tried to talk with my friends the more obvious it was that something was up. Once I began to notice it everything started becoming real obvious. Long story short, they were just humoring me. People weren’t coming to me, I was coming to them. If I didn’t message someone first they’d avoid me like the plague. But when I did message them they’d humor the small talk for a minute just to be nice. People I could chat with for hours suddenly gave short, uninterested replies until I’d run out of things to say. Or more likely I’d get a message saying they were “Busy”.

 As time continued to pass it only got worse and worse. They were never outright rude or disrespectful to me, but it was clear I wasn’t someone they wanted to talk to. I was being out-casted.  

 At first I thought I was just being paranoid from being cooped up in the house for too long, but after a few more days I started giving up trying to talk to them. The more I tried the more their two-faced bullshit niceness irritated me. Maybe they didn’t want to be associated with someone my size or something. I can’t really speak for them. I just know that out of the dozens of friends I had, only a handful actually still treated me like one. Needless to say: Kari, Kristen, and Jaz.

Well, I’d assume Kari. We still didn’t really talk much though if anything from before the incident was an indication she still liked me. Heck, she even seemed fascinated by the idea of a Micro-sized boyfriend. If things were still okay between us then maybe we could salvage everything.

Kristen stayed pretty much the same too. She was always up for a chat. We still exchanged some playful banter here or there, maybe chat about the latest shows or something. Never talked about anything super meaningful but it was at least a real conversation and not her just humoring me.

Then there was Jaz…Oh boy…

You might recall I told you she had a bit of a sassy mouth on her. Well once the initial drama of me shrinking down wore off I never heard the end of it. Any time we talked I had to ready myself for any number of size-related jokes and insults. Her favorite was reminding me of my stature in relation to her smallest toe. In fact I believe the exact comparison was something like “Tinier than a speck of dirt on my pinky toe” but I could be paraphrasing. In its own way it was actually pretty refreshing. If nothing else it was a nice change of pace from all talk of my size being super serious and dreary.

And for what it’s worth, whenever Mom was around we still talked pretty normally too. I think it sank in after a while that despite how or why I shrank, my personality didn’t change any. I was still her little boy and I wasn’t going to suddenly reveal some supercrime I did when no one was looking.

Man, people asked me about that got old quick. If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me why I shrank I would be crushed under a sea of coins. Seriously, it gets annoying, especially when most of them take your denial as some form of guilt. Mercifully my friends I still chatted with seemed to notice and stopped asking.

These guys are probably the only reason I didn’t die or boredom. With more and more people basically avoiding me I found myself suddenly wanting human contact more than ever. Those small talks with my friends and family meant more to me than I could ever thank them for. But of course I soon got to the point where even that didn’t do it anymore.

I wanted to go outside.

The windows shining in the house started to mock me. I found myself annoyed whenever I saw something that reminded me of the beautiful world just outside my house. But there wasn’t much I could do. If I was outside I could easily go missing or a sudden gust of wind could wisp me away somewhere. Despite that I tried asking Mom once to take me out for a bit. “We” went shopping with my hidden away in her ear the entire time. Not exactly what I had in mind.

I remember bitching about it to Kristen one day when she came up with a great idea. “Why not just come to school with me?”

I slapped myself for being so dense. If I was with a friend I could head outside. And my school, where I hadn’t been in a couple weeks? Hell yeah. “That sounds perfect! When can we try?”

“Tomorrow if you want.”

“Tomorrow it is!”

I was so excited that night I could barely sleep.