A strong, rhythmic pounding roused me from an unusually deep sleep. Light from across the room glinted off the bulb several stories above me, and I rolled over on my new bed to escape the glare. Kirsten was walking close enough to the opposite wall that her arm nearly brushed against the picture frames hanging from it. When she saw me stir she practically recoiled, pressing her back against the nearest bare surface. “Oh, you’re awake!” she exclaimed, placing a hand over her breast. “I’m… I’m glad to see that!” Though she was by no means tan, she had gone white as a ghost.
“Yeah, it’s a wonder I can get any sleep with your giant feet stomping around,” I joked. Kirsten did not seem amused, however, and diverted her eyes away from me. I readjusted myself beneath the sheets and covers I was wrapped in, a sharp contrast to the handkerchief and bits of scrap I had fallen asleep under. With a glance to the night stand’s precipice, I saw there was a staircase resting against it, designed for someone my size. “Hey, all this stuff is pretty nice, did you set it up while I was asleep?”
“Yep, sure did!” Kirsten replied, much louder than I expected. “I couldn’t sleep knowing how bad you were going to have it today, so I got up and got all the things on the list we made… yesterday.” She paused a bit, looking like a deer in headlights, before continuing. “I even took a bit of time to make a surprise for you! You’ll find it when you go into the living room, and I really hope you like it.”
I smiled, and she slowly inched toward the door. “Aw, you’re so good to me!” I exclaimed, and she started blushing. “That’s how I know this will be fine, you won’t let anything bad happen to me like this.” Now she was starting to look downright uncomfortable, probably because of the sleep she missed and now she might be late to work. “I don’t want to keep you any longer, though. Give me a kiss before work?”
Kirsten took a pair of earth-trembling steps toward me, then froze. “Uh, I probably shouldn’t,” she said. “Doctor Kirillova’s advice, you know. She thinks you should get more used to this size before I bring you too close to my face, something about a reflexive fear of being eaten? It’s probably best to listen to her, at least for now. I’ll see you when I get back from work, I’m sure!” With that she left, her footfalls shaking the room around me.
This was a different tune than Kirsten had been singing just days before, when she was only a few inches away from me when I woke up. I shrugged, and chalked it up to her being excited to see me again after the procedure. It was rather terrifying to see her looming so large to me, so the doctor had a point. Kirsten also might be having misgivings – if something happened to me, even by accident, it would tear her up.
There was no sense prognosticating on it any more right now though, and there was no point staying in bed all day either. I threw off the covers, leaving them in a pile beside the bed, and swung my legs over the side. The bare wood was cold on my feet, and I felt every minute detail of it on my skin. Weird, I had gone to sleep wearing socks, and didn’t remember taking them off. Maybe Kirsten had removed them when she set up my bedding and forgot to leave them anywhere nearby.
Being free from the covers made me acutely aware of how cold the entire room was. I looked down and saw that, to my confusion, I was only wearing a pair of boxers. Apparently, Kirsten had seen fit to remove all of my clothes and then hide them from me. All of this was confusing, but standing here thinking about it wasn’t going to make my clothes appear. Instead I grabbed the sheets, draped them over myself like a cloak, and went to the new staircase leading down.
It was an impressive piece of work, made out of metal that exacerbated my condition and complete with a handrail running down the whole length, which I needed several times on the descent. There must have been a few hundred stairs, and a tumble down them would result in me lying in a broken pile at the bottom. Still, the whole journey took about ten minutes, much longer than I would have liked. Later I could ask Kirsten about getting some sort of elevator installed.
Once on the floor it was a whole other ordeal to get to the doorway. The cold wood was scarcely more pleasant than the metal, and it took so damn long to make it there. Walking barefoot, when I had previously been accustomed to shoes, did not make it any easier. I was eager to see what surprise Kirsten had left for me in the living room, though, so I soldiered forward without taking a break.
After I crossed the threshold a tremendous shape materialized in the center, leaning against the back of the leather chair. It was Kirsten, wearing her casual outfit. I could have sworn she left for work about an hour ago. “Did you take the day off work, hon?” I asked. From how she made it sound yesterday getting a day off would be like pulling teeth, and it wasn’t like her to do this without saying anything.
“Oh, hey Julian!” she responded, taking a step toward me. For once, this was not accompanied by an enormous tremor or the crack of thunder. “I was concerned about you being here all by yourself with no one to talk to, so I made this holographic program to keep you company!” That explained just about everything about this. Even the lack of weight to her steps. “I synced it with your tablet so you can have some degree of control over it. If you want you can change my clothes, hair style, voice, talkativeness, activity, size, and even turn me off if you want. I left your tablet in your new chair, so give it a shot!” She was pointing to the tiny chair in the shadow of my old favorite one, so I hurried that way.
Making my way across the vast plain of our living room floor was more of an ordeal than expected, and the gigantic holographic Kirsten was no help. I didn’t expect that she would carry me, of course – she was merely a projection of light in the shape of my wife, after all – but the way she tapped her socked foot made me think even the computer controlling her was becoming impatient. Thankfully, the weightless body did not make an impact each time, or I would have been even more unnerved during my long approach. Despite her impatience she remained silent while I traversed the great distance, her dark eyes following my slow progress.
Finally, I reached the chair and picked up my tablet. The first thing I did was navigate to the holoprojector app, where I found a single program, “Kirsten,” running with no end time. I scrolled through the options and found that she was not even close to listing all of the features, for the sake of brevity I hoped. Once through the list I looked up at her towering over me, barely even able to see her face past her knees. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to make you solid, is there?” I asked.
Kirsten giggled. “Sorry, you’ll have to make do not being able to touch me until I get home. But there are lots of other options, try them out!”
I grumbled. Didn’t think so, but it never hurt to ask. My next option, obviously, was to change her size. I placed my finger atop her head on the display and gradually dragged it down, and my holographic wife reduced accordingly. There seemed to be no limit to this, so I could make her the same size to me as I was to the real Kirsten. That seemed a little extreme to me though, so I settled on having her just a head taller than me, like it was before the procedure.
“Is this what everything looks like to you?” was the first thing she asked while walking toward me. I simply nodded in response. “Huh, it is weird. Everything looks so… big, doesn’t it? Like, that chair looks big enough that you could found a city on the seat. Not that you would, obviously, since it would be incredibly dangerous, but you could.” The hologram’s eyes looked around the room, taking in the sights that I had just begun to grow accustomed to.
She continued forward until she was about an arm’s length away from me, then stopped. “Look, Julian, I think it’s really sweet that you want to just hang out with me again, I do. But part of the reason I did this was to help you get used to seeing how I look to you now. I totally understand you wanting things to be like they were, and I can’t make you set me back to normal size, but it’s better for both of us if you do.”
She had a point, though I didn’t want to admit it. Reluctantly, I placed my finger back on the tablet and got ready to slide upward, when I noticed that it would also go significantly larger than where she started. I suppressed a devilish grin and threw my hand upward, dragging it over the screen’s border.
Correspondingly, the holographic projection of my wife exploded in size until she filled the room, with the top of her head bumping against the ceiling. Her feet extended forward until one of them clipped through me, and one of her calves was contained entirely within the chair. There was a slight hiccup in the picture while it adjusted her away from obstacles, and when she settled again I was looking up at the curve of her big toe. According to the tablet she was now supposed to be eleven feet tall.
“Woah, this is different too!” she exclaimed, barely able to fit in the apartment now. “Everything’s so small compared to me now, I feel like if I sat in the chair I’d break it.” She bent over and spotted me, despite me being practically eclipsed by her toe. “And you’re positively miniscule now! I mean, I know you can’t help it, but it’s a good thing I’m integrated with the security system’s life sign sensor or I’d have trouble finding you.” The newly expanded Kirsten looked around giddily, relishing her new point of view even though she was nothing more than a digital image.
I was in no rush to return the image to its normal size. Weirdly enough I found this version more appealing, and found it kind of funny huge she was. It’s not like I was in any danger, anyway: the flip side of her being unable to help me was that she also couldn’t hurt me. Besides, I was getting hungry and wanted to try some of that paste Kirsten had picked up for me last night.
The rest of the day practically flew by. Every now and then I took a drink of the bland but filling sludge in the bottle while I played with the hologram. I left her at that ridiculous size but put her in a familiar pair of black flats, and settled on a white skirt and black blouse for her. Everything else I ended up returning to its default after playing with it for a bit – there wasn’t much on Kirsten I could improve on, I thought.
Time went so quickly I was actually startled when the door beeped, allowing Kirsten entry. “Oh, hello!” she said, then carefully stepped inside. The real version of my wife was a little shorter than the projection’s leg, and she looked up at her in surprise. “Well this is… interesting.” Her enormous doppelganger looked back down at her with a smile, not saying anything. “Julian, have something you want to tell me?”
I laughed, and set the program to sleep. “Every part of you is so lovely I just want to look at more of it,” I said while the projection flickered, then disappeared. “Can’t be mad at me for wanting to see more of you, can you?”
Kirsten smirked and stepped more confidently into the room, shaking the ground when her foot set down. “Aw, you always have the sweetest explanations for doing weird shit,” she said, kneeling in front of me. She peered over her knees until she was finally able to see me. “So, how was your first day by yourself? Did my program help keep you busy?”
“Your program’s great,” I responded, “and it helped keep me entertained once I found it. Getting there took a while though, this place is huge for someone like me. Like, hours to get across the floor. By the time I got to the food I was already starving. Is there any way you could get me like a tiny bike, or some skates or something for getting around, and an elevator to get up and down places?”
“Um, an elevator?” she repeated. “That seems expensive, and difficult to install and maintain. I’d have to call someone to set it up, and it’ll cost at least a week of credit. What’s wrong with the ramps and stairs I have set up for you?”
“They’re fine, it just takes so long to get up and down on them. It would be so much easier to just ride something up and down and not worry about falling to the floor.”
Kirsten sighed, and forced a weak smile. “I’ll think about it, okay? And I’ll see about getting you something to help get around so that you don’t get exhausted just walking to get lunch. In the meantime, try to get along without it, okay? If you made it one day, you can make it a week, I’m sure.” Apparently the issue was settled, since Kirsten stood and went to go make herself dinner, her steps rumbling through the floor as she went.
The rest of the week went similarly: after Kirsten went to work I would get out of bed, fortunately with clothes after that first day, and play around with her holographic program until she got home. When she got home I asked her again for something to help me get around better, or some item to help make my life a little easier. She always gave the same tired smile, said that she’d see about it, and went about her evening until picking me up so we could snuggle.
Friday, however, something was different. Kirsten stormed through the door, walking right through the holographic image and plopped down on the couch. I followed as best I could, but could only make it a few inches before she sat back up. Her hair was mussed, and she had dark circles under her eyes. It seemed like she’d had a bad day at work.
Without saying anything she pulled out her tablet and turned on the projector, which made an image a couple inches tall appear on the table. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she muttered, and leaned forward to adjust the image. Apparently I had forgotten to reset the size after watching a movie earlier, this minor inconvenience was irritating her beyond belief.
“Hey, why don’t you pick me up and we can snuggle?” I offered, trying to make her feel better. Her gaze snapped toward me, and I felt a chill run down my spine.
“Snuggle?” she repeated angrily, shooting up from the couch. “Is that what you call it when you sit in my lap and annoy me?” She took a thundering step toward me, and I saw storm clouds gathering around her head. “Or is that reserved for when you crawl down my shirt and I have to dig you out?” Kirsten took several more steps, rumbling like artillery fire while she crossed the immense distance between us.
Seeing Kirsten this mad was rare, and it was even more uncommon for her to be mad at me. This was the first time she had truly lost her temper in a long time, and seeing it from this point of view was terrifying. “Okay Kirsten, just stay calm, you know I didn’t-“
“Calm? I bet it’s easy to be calm when you don’t have any responsibilities, isn’t it!” she shouted. I was now entirely within her shadow, and she was glowering down at me with a ballet flat on either side. “I wish I could be a useless little bug like you, I’d be calm all the time! But one of us has to go out and support us, and you sure as hell aren’t going to do it, are you?”
Slowly I backed away from the wrathful titaness, though a few inches could do little but secure peace of mind. “Kirsten, honey, let’s take a moment to think about this so we can unwind.”
Quick as lightning Kirsten raised her leg up until her knee nearly reached her shoulders, then brought it crashing back down beside me. It hit with an immense crack that ruptured my left eardrum and a shockwave powerful enough to throw me off my feet. “Yes, let’s unwind, honey,” she growled, practically spitting the last word. “I’ll go ahead and start.”
Kirsten raised her leg again, and before I could react it was already coming down in a powerful stomp. While her tremendous foot descended I raised my hands to shield myself from my furious wife, but it was no use. I couldn’t even blink again before the worn sole of her ballet flat filled my view, and an instant later it made impact. After a brief flash of pain I was crushed utterly beneath her shoe, leaving behind nothing more than a small spot on the wood floor.
Kirsten felt the tiny biosleeve crunch beneath her foot, and an immense wave of joy washed over her. Grinning, she lifted her foot again and again, smashing the tiny body even further until it was almost two-dimensional. Finally, she could have a night alone to forget about her sorrows without being pestered about installing a series of elevators around the apartment for that tiny person to use. She lifted her heel and pressed down, then began grinding her shoe back and forth, rendering the puddle beneath it into unrecognizable mush. Is this what she had to do for a single night where she didn’t have to pull her husband out from her shorts?
Oh shit, that’s right. Kirsten had become so wrapped up in the annoying bug aspect while he buzzed around her foot that she had forgotten that’s her husband. What joy and relief she had felt melted away, to be replaced with anguish and regret. How had she let herself get so carried away that she so brazenly killed him – or at least, this biosleeve of him? She felt herself beginning to hyperventilate, and leaned against the couch’s arm before placing her hands over her mouth to calm herself down.
After several minutes she felt grounded enough to do something aside from panic. “Call Doctor Kirillova, personal line,” she commanded, her voice still quivering from adrenaline. There was a pause while the call went through, followed by a couple long rings. Olga answered, and an image of her sitting in an armchair appeared on Kirsten’s table, still only three inches tall. Kirsten rushed to correct it before the doctor made a snide comment.
“Hello? Oh, Mrs. Fletcher, how good to hear from you! I see you’re adjusting to your new role as a giantess to your husband already.” Damn, too late.
“I’m really not, one sec,” Kirsten said, fumbling with the display. Finally, she zeroed it out, and Olga expanded to her full, natural size. She took a deep breath, trying to figure out the best way to say it, and settled on blurting everything out. “I killed my husband! He was being really annoying and I had a bad day so I stomped on him until I felt better! I don’t know what to do but I know I’m a horrible person and you said to call you if I have any issues and this is a big one!”
Doctor Kirillova listened to Kirsten’s confession impassively, and waited to make sure she was done before speaking. “Kirsten, I want you to listen very carefully,” she said. “If anyone else asks, you didn’t smash your husband in a rage. You stepped on him by accident when you came home from work, understand?”
“But I-“
“No buts. People understand accidents, they won’t understand violently and intentionally crushing someone if they’ve never undergone the strain of a loved one suddenly having to live in inch-tall biosleeves. It can put a lot of friction on even the best of relationships, and it’s perfectly normal to need some help adjusting. Your husband’s check-up is tomorrow, right? I’ll schedule you for an appointment with Doctor Brooks right after. She’s a relationship counselor who specializes in matters like this, I think she can do a lot to help you two adjust to your new lives.”
“Thank you… Olga,” Kirsten said, hesitant to return the doctor’s familiarity. “It’s just a lot to deal with, and the guilt-“
“It’s no problem,” Olga said, interrupting her, “but please, save it for Doctor Brooks. She’s the relationship counselor, not me. Now, is there anything else?”
Kirsten thought for a moment before answering, “No, not right now.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.” Olga hung up, leaving Kirsten in the silence of her living room.
It was an accident, Kirsten told herself, looking at the smashed and ground-up mulch of her husband’s biosleeve. Couldn’t avoid stepping on him, he shouldn’t have been in my way. No matter how many times she repeated it, she couldn’t convince herself it was true, and it seemed like nothing would alleviate her guilt. Finally she got up and grabbed a tissue, then wiped up the ruined remains from the floor. Leaving a mess wasn’t going to make her feel any better, and she didn’t want to answer any questions from Julian about it in case she forgot to wipe it up later.