The bed shuddered beneath me, rousing me from sleep. I nearly panicked and scrambled to take cover from an earthquake, then I saw the dimly-lit lamp towering over me, its dark bulb reflecting light from the other side of the room. The previous day came flooding back, and I remembered that I’m tiny now. These tremors could have been created by anything, from a large truck driving by the building to my wife walking across the room. With a sigh I pulled the cloth acting as my blanket over my head and turned away from the glinting bulb to get back to sleep.
To my dismay the pounding continued, and two immense columns wrapped in white nylon appeared before me. “Oh, did I wake you up?” Kirsten boomed, entirely unaware of how she sounded to me now. “I’m so sorry!” She knelt down beside the end table she had designated as my bed, still looming head and shoulders over me with her lengthy legs significantly reduced. Two enormous fingers reached in and pinched my blanket, then pulled it over my head. “You’re still going through such an ordeal, you deserve to sleep in.” This close her voice seemed even more tremendous, and I scarcely recognized it as Kirsten’s.
Weakly I reached up and pulled down against the blanket, barely able to move it against her now seemingly infinite strength. “No, it’s okay,” I said, peeking out from the small divot I was able to make with my insignificant efforts. Kirsten’s face was all I could see, and I still hadn’t gotten over the fact that I could straddle her nose and she wouldn’t even be inconvenienced. “I’m already awake, and I’d like to stay on the same schedule as you. No reason I should go nocturnal just because I’m the size of a mouse, is there?” Kirsten grinned. My tired joke must have had the desired effect.
“Well, if that’s what you want,” she replied, relinquishing her iron grip on my meager covers. Her voice shook my insides on its own, making me feel like I was talking to her for the first time again. Kirsten stood, bumping against the end table and subjecting me to an intense wave of tremors. It hardly seemed like she noticed. I couldn’t even see her face from my vantage point at her knees she was so tall to me now. “I stacked up some old books so you can wander around the apartment as you want, try not to get too lonely without me, okay?” There was a loud smack, then her hand tilted down toward me – blowing a kiss, I suppose, since her lips would be too terrifying up close.
“I’ll do my best!” I replied, doing my best to “catch” the kiss she blew at me despite it being several times my size. Kirsten lingered a second longer. I imagined she was grinning down at me, but her lips were blocked from my view by her modest breasts. The next thing I knew I was subjected to another set of quakes while she walked away, jostling me inside the cocoon she had tried to make for me. They got weaker the further she went from me, until they were little more than nuisances after she closed the door behind her.
Since I was already awake I figured I might as well get up and explore on my own. I didn’t expect that I’d be able to go back to sleep anyway – something about how she towered over me made me feel giddy in ways I couldn’t quite explain. My restlessness overcame me, and in only a few seconds I had thrashed myself free of my makeshift covers. Free from their constricting nature, as well as Kirsten’s oppressive presence, I looked around for something to do.
It only took a few seconds to determine that my options were lacking, There were little more than a couple square feet on the platform I was on, and the only significant feature beside my bed was many times taller than me. Without the option of climbing, the only choice left was to go down to the floor. With a sigh I resigned myself to the long staircase Kirsten had set up for me, threw the covers off, and walked to the edge of my platform.
Everyone always says that the first step is the hardest, but that was not my experience with the staircase Kirsten had set up for me. Before stepping down I turned around, gripping tightly to the ridge I was about to leave before trusting myself to the terrace below it. To my surprise my feet touched the cover of the top book before I lost contact with the end table’s top, and I carefully let go of my white-tipped hold on the wooden platform supporting me.
Much to my surprise, the entire descent along this “staircase” was about the same. Though we didn’t have many physical books left in the apartment, Kirsten had managed to find the optimal arrangement so that I would have a steady trek to the floor, as comfortable as it could be for someone my size. Each step down required me to hold on to the previous ledge, keeping my grip until my feet touched down on the cover of the next book. My caution continued until my feet touched upon the hard wood floor of our bedroom, the broad base of over a dozen books I had used climbing down.
Once on the floor I took a look around, trying to decide what to do next. On the other side of the bed there was nothing interesting: there would be no shoes since her upgrade to the universal wardrobe, and I had no desire to wander into our shared bathroom, rather confident that nothing had changed since yesterday. The rest of the apartment offered so much more to explore anyway, and if there was anything left out for me it would be there.
I walked along the plank I landed on toward the common room, remarking on each change in the grain’s rings as I passed over them. Previously such a trek had only taken me a few steps, but now it was at least half an hour to reach the edge of the board. My legs were already beginning to feel tired while I looked from the hard ditch in front of me to the doorframe in the distance.
By the time I reached the doorway the sun was all the way up, and I figured it had been over an hour since Kirsten left. The central room was much larger, and filled with tremendous obstacles – furniture built for people hundreds of times my size, that I had been comfortably sitting on no more than a week ago. With the immense scale of everything I doubted I would even be able to make it across the room before Kirsten came home.
Far away, up against the kitchen counter, a single cracker sat atop a small paper napkin, a small square of cheese resting on it. That must be the food Kirsten left for me. It looked like a puny amount, and my first thought was that there’s no way a single slice of cheese and a cracker could satiate me for the entire day. Then I remembered standing on her plate while she ate with crumbs the size of my hand raining down around me, and how full I was just from that. This morsel would be enough to feed me for an entire week, I realized.
My stomach growled, and I realized it was almost empty. The veritable feast waited for me, mere hours away, and all I had to do was walk over to it. Seemed easy enough, just one foot in front of the other a few thousand times. With the long journey ahead of me I figured it would be best to start toward it now before the hunger pangs began in earnest.
As it turned out, walking for four hours straight was more rigorous than it sounded. My feet ached by the time I left the fifth plank, and my ankles felt unusually swollen from the constant movement. Several times I slipped and nearly landed on my face due to the slick lacquer, and hopping over the trenches that ran in a network of rectangles throughout the floor became more of a chore each time. Work in a comfortable office with minimal physical activity had done a poor job of preparing me for the tribulations of being tiny.
It took four hours of trudging forward, but I finally stepped onto the paper circle on which the cracker rested. My legs ached, and my back didn’t feel too great either after doing my best to stand tall for so long. Taking a load off for a few couldn’t hurt, I told myself, and placed my hands on the tan surface of the hard bread in front of me. With a small hop I turned around and sat on the cracker, then leaned back against the soft cheese. It was like sitting on a rock, and my feet dangled beside its ridges, just too short to reach the floor.
I took a moment to reflect on the absurdity of my situation. This was a snack food I had seen Kirsten easily slide into her delicate mouth, sometimes two or three at a time, and I was using it as an oversized throne. While I lounged against the cheese I thought about how much food this was for somebody my size, and from there my mind wandered. Why didn’t we make other people this size? If billions of humans were given biosleeves like this, with only enough people remaining normal sized to provide for us, it would cut our consumption across the board drastically. Of course, I thought, Kirsten would have to remain un-sleeved – she was too lovely to be hidden from the world.
My stomach roared, reminding me why I had walked so far in the first place. I turned and sank my mouth into the cheese blanket’s corner I had been using as a backrest, filling my mouth with yellow dairy. As it turns out an entire mouthful of cheese is much less pleasant than a small bite, and my palate was overpowered by it. Chewing it was unexpectedly difficult too: opening my jaw wide enough to whittle away at the solid block caused an undue amount of strain, and I came close to choking multiple times.
Finally, I was able to gulp down more cheese than I had eaten in a year and ached for something different. Since my only other option was under me, I pushed myself off the seat and landed on the plain white circle. It had worked the first time, so I leaned in to take a bite. The instant my mouth touched the cracker all moisture vanished, replaced by the overpowering taste of salt. Undeterred, I worked my jaw on the hard surface, but found my teeth unable to even chip it. Never one to give up, I persistently bit the tiny bit of cracker I had, but couldn’t even get a flake free.
Persistence, it seemed, was not going to pay off in this instance. I backed off and considered what else I could do to get even a bite of this enormous cracker in my mouth. A small circle of moisture darkened the surface where my mouth had contacted it, then quickly dissipated into the air. Cautiously I placed a hand against it and pushed. Moving it was out of the question as well, and it felt more solid than the apartment’s walls.
I may have been deterred, but I was far from defeated. Swiftly I raised my hand and lined up my fingers as straight as possible, then brought it down in a hard karate chop on the tip of a ridge. For my trouble, all I got was a serious ache in my hand. While I rubbed it to stop the pain radiating up my arm I raised a foot and kicked at the same spot, hoping to knock just a little bit loose. Again, nothing happened, and I ended up leaning against the apparently invincible cracker with all my weight. My other foot slipped and I fell forward, hitting my forehead against the normally bite-sized treat.
Fortunately, I remained conscious, but my pride was severely bruised. I would not be eating this cracker after all. With a sigh I tore off two handfuls from the cheese and munched on them while considering what to do next. Kirsten would be home soon, I thought, and it would be nice if I could show her I wasn’t totally helpless. Recent events made that quite a quandary though: if I couldn’t eat that, I wondered, how could I show her some measure of self-reliance?
One lump of cheese was entirely gone, and I was beginning to hate the person who first discovered it, when an idea popped into my head: the couch! If I could get up there on my own, it would show her that I wasn’t weak and incapable of fending for myself. Re-energized with purpose – and an unhealthy amount of cheese – I started the long journey across the room.
Halfway there and losing steam, a loud beep came from the door. It slid open, and I saw Kirsten standing on the other side of the threshold, a large box in both hands. She appeared frazzled, but I was still glad to see her – she had never looked anything but beautiful to me. Quickly I turned to face her, forgetting about my desire to fend for myself in light of her magnificent size. “Welcome back, hon!” I called to her from the floor. This seemed early for her, but in truth I only had a vague idea what time it was.
Kirsten stepped into the apartment, her delicate ballet flat crashing against the floor with a tremendous boom. The floor shook from the impact, causing my teeth to rattle in their sockets with its force. Her other shoe creased around the toes while her heel lifted, and in less than a second it had swung forward, closing an impossible distance between us. With a glance up I saw that my view of her was now obscured by the box, and she hadn’t spotted me yet. I glanced back down and saw her shoe crease with her heel lifting in the air, and I was directly in line with it.
“Kirsten look out, don’t step on me!” I shouted. My giantess wife did not heed my plea, however, and her shoe lifted off the ground. I watched in horror as it glided over the floor, the toe kicking up while her heel came down to land. Her heel hit the wood with a deafening crack, and enough force to send me stumbling. There was no time to stagger though. The smooth sole of Kirsten’s shoe raced down and hit me with more power than I could comprehend. Not that comprehending it was an issue, since an instant later her sole hit the floor, flattening my poor body sandwiched between them into a red mush.
Kirsten heard a faint, high-pitched squeak with her third step, but told herself it was the artificial leather of her shoe. A soft crunch accompanied her shoe setting down, along with the sensation of something being crushed beneath her foot. She paused while horror crept into her mind. Slowly she leaned forward and set the box on the couch, then stood back straight. Though she didn’t want to believe it, there was only one way to find out.
Slowly Kirsten lifted her foot, trying to brace herself for the worst. When she saw Julian’s smashed body lifeless on the floor, she realized that nothing could have prepared her for it. She let out an involuntary scream, then clapped her hands over her mouth. Her breathing accelerated as her heart raced, a million thoughts flying through her mind.
“It can’t be- I just- He’s- I crushed my husband!” Kirsten whispered to herself, unable to pull her eyes away from the tiny corpse at her feet. Her panicked whispers gave way to stunned silence while she continued to stare open-mouthed at what she had done. There was no doubt in her mind that his death, though painful, was immediate beneath the unstoppable force of her shoe. At last she uttered, “I killed him.”
Kirsten’s rational brain finally caught up to the situation. She didn’t kill him, she reminded herself, she had only crushed one of his biosleeves. Julian was still safe and sound in the portable database from the hospital. Doctor Kirillova had even warned her this would happen and tried to prepare her, but she didn’t expect it to be on the second day. Kirsten took a deep breath to calm herself down, and wondered if she would ever get used to this.
Shaking, Kirsten began to unpack the box full of tiny furniture and accessories she had picked up for her husband that afternoon. She considered immediately bringing Julian back, but decided against it: he would just be waking up when she got home, and it would honestly be easier to get everything set up without him underfoot. The last thing she wanted was to smash him again mere minutes after cleaning him off the floor, and besides, the whole apartment being tiny-accessible would be a nice surprise for him in the morning.
Carefully she placed all the tiny-friendly items around the apartment: a ramp leading to the couch, a perfectly-sized chair, racks full of nutritious and – she hoped – flavorful paste where the untouched cracker had been, and a toilet he could use without having to worry about falling in. She had even gotten a tiny tablet for him pre-loaded with his favorite books and shows so he would have something to do while she worked.
Finally, she grabbed a tissue and wiped up the smashed corpse – no, ruined biosleeve, Kirsten corrected herself – from the floor and off her shoe, then threw it in the garbage chute to be incinerated. Having finished all her duties she poured a glass of wine, sat down on the couch, and turned on the holoprojector for a calm night that would hopefully let her get over her recent trauma. Julian could wait until morning, she assured herself, and it’s not like he’d remember her smashing him anyway.