I rest against a leg of the entertainment center, my long night turning into day. The sun shines brightly through the windows of the apartment. I assume my girlfriend Anna is normal sized now. I’m happy about that but also terrified of the grief she’s going to give me. It was my idea for the shrunken mailing thing. And it didn’t work out perfectly. Yeah, we were almost crushed a few times, I spent a time running across her little sister’s toes, but, hell, means to an end. But I know Anna. Oh no, I am not getting off easy.

I start to nod off, but soon enough, the front door to the apartment opens up. I stand to see Natalie and a now full-sized Anna come through the door and close it behind them. I hope they weren’t expecting me to find one of those white pads because I didn’t move an inch.

Natalie and Anna walk past the couch and stop right in front of me. “He should be under the coffee table or entertainment center, that’s where we’ve been hiding,” Anna says, pointing down at me. They both kneel down to me as I walk out from my spot. I stop and wave up. Anna inches down further and says, “Yup, there he is.”

“Hello, my love!” I shakingly say, but of course Anna doesn’t hear it. My girlfriend’s face sits above me as she angrily looks down at the little speck that is usually her boyfriend. She places her right hand near me. I’m absolutely terrified right now as my angry girlfriend’s face towers over my 1/8th of an inch body. I mean, I don’t think she’d do anything, I don’t think she’d crush me or eat me or leave me here on the ground. But fuck.

I approach her right hand, palm resting on the floor. Her middle fingernail, short and barely covered in a few spots with red polish, sits above me. She had painted her nails in the capsule earlier, but most of the polish must have scraped off during our adventures the past twelve or so hours.

Natalie is walking around the apartment. She appears to be collecting the unused white pads she had placed earlier. Anna remains peering down at me, a tired angry face just inches above me, her breath covering my entire tiny body. She watches me try to jump onto her middle fingernail, but because of the angle she has it at, I slide right off. She tilts it slightly, and I try again. As I somewhat make it up, she spreads out her fingers flat onto the hardwood floor so that I can safely stand on the flat surface. The flat surface of my angry girlfriend’s middle fingernail.

Not knowing what to do, I walk to the center of the nail past several small patches of dulled red paint and look up at Anna, waiting and wondering what would happen next.

“Well look what we have here. A tiny little man. A tiny little man that has bad ideas.”

I’m petrified. Natalie is finished collecting the discovery pads, or whatever they’re called, and heads to the desk.

“Hey, I found y’all’s tiny luggage and the broken shipping capsule. Lemme come get your boyfriend so we can head to USSPS and unshrink him and your things.”

Anna doesn’t respond immediately. I am nervous.

“Hey, I’m going to sue the fuck out of the USSPS. Unless….”

Natalie stops. “Unless…”

Anna smiles, her massive lips stretching high above my puny body. “Unless you don’t unshrink my boyfriend until our trip back to our city.”

“So you want to keep him at his current size until he returns to your home? And you won’t sue.”

Anna chuckles. “That’s correct.”

Natalie stops to think about the arrangement. “Hmm. I see. Okay, then. I’ll leave you now. I’ll be back maybe tomorrow night after unshrinking your bags back at the USSPS. Does that sound like a deal?”

“Deal.”

Uh, wait, I had no say in this deal. So Anna (my girlfriend that has said “I love you” to me before, several times) is going to keep me at 1/8th of an inch tall for the next two or three days, on our supposed vacation to visit her younger sister. I am standing on her fingernail and look around for a place to run, but of course I have no options. And she sees that.

“Sorry, pal, you’re stuck with me, it seems. I won’t hurt you, oh no. Grace won’t either, probably. But I have to punish you somehow. Do you have any problems with this?”

I cup my hands around my mouth and yell up at her. She doesn’t hear me, and the front door slams closed as Natalie exits the apartment. Anna stands up and raises her hand I’m on. She walks over to the sofa and tilts the finger I’m standing on. I slide off and land on the palm of her left hand. She brings that hand closer to her face.

“I’m exhausted, little guy. I need to crash ASAP. Where do you want to sleep?”

She’s not going to hear my response, she’s just messing with me. This is hot as shit, but also terrifying. My girlfriend’s long fingers flex above my puny body, the rolls in the flesh of her palm threatening to crush me in between them at anytime.

“Fuck, I’m tired. More tired than I’ve been in years, I feel,” Anna says down to me. “But where can you sleep safely?”

Anna’s head peers around the apartment. “Oh, here we go. It’s one of Grace’s running shoes. You know she’s an athlete at her college. I hope the smell isn’t too bad. Okay, see you tomorrow.”

Anna picks up the Nike running shoe with her left hand and tilts her left hand to the opening of the shoe, and I slide down her palm into the flat black soft surface of the insole. I’m in her little sister’s running shoe. And smells a little stinky, but not a bad stinky. It smells like a regular foot. I look back up to the hole in the shoe and see my girlfriend’s giant face.

“G’night, my love!” She tiredly laughs and sets me and the shoe back down under the couch that she is about to sleep on. I look around the giant shoe I’m in. Jesus, looking at the tongue of the shoe, it says it’s a size 10. I could climb up the cloth sides of the shoe, but why? Anna is having a good time with me. And I’m not entirely opposed to the whole thing. I lay down on the soft black foamy insole of this young girl’s shoe and fall asleep. I’m spent too, and really, what else can I do?

Anna and I have had an exhausting day, we both fall asleep with the sun already up. The college girls whose house we were staying in wake up much earlier than us. Their younger bodies recuperate much faster than ours, it seems.

“Anna. Anna, wake up.” I open my eyes to hear Grace attempting to rouse my girlfriend. I can’t see what’s happening because I’m stuck in a sneaker under the couch.

“The fuck, ugh, I’m big again, right?” Anna is still exhausted.

Grace laughs. “Yeah, you’re fine. Where’s your boyfriend, did you find him?”

“Yeah, I put him in your shoe, he’s under the couch sleeping, I guess.”

Grace chuckles again. “What the hell, you didn’t go get him unshrunk? Lemme see.”

The shoe I lay in is pulled from under the couch, and from the opening, my entire view turns from blackness to Grace’s massive face. She smiles widely.

“Holy shit, I can see him! Hey, little guy! Can I pick him up?”

Anna is slow to respond, she’s still very sleepy. “Sure, just be careful, don’t squish him. I’m still mad at him.”

“Oh, I don’t want to hurt him. C’mere, buddy. Ohhhh, he’s so cute!”

The shoe rises high into the air and turns, and I stumble to the back of it. It continues to turn as I fall out of it onto the wrinkled surface of Grace’s palm. I land on my back and stare up at the towering fingers and face of my girlfriend’s little sister.

“Oh my God, he doesn’t weigh anything. Holly, get in here.”

The other girl that had yesterday shaken Anna and I from our package arrives in the room. She looks down at me, helpless in Grace’s hand. “What am I looking at?”

“It’s Anna’s boyfriend. See him?”

Holly comes closer to my small form and squints her eyes. “Holy shit, I’ve never seen a tiny person before. Hey, little man!”

I am still stunned, having just been woken less than a minute ago, and stand up, looking around me, trying to find an escape. But there’s nowhere to run. I can’t believe Anna is okay with this. I’m not going to lie, this is sexy as hell, but my life is in danger. Having fantasies is one thing, but I’m just a flea-sized man in a hungover girl’s hand.

“Lemme hold him,’ Holly asks Grace.

Holly places her hand next to Grace’s, and I quickly tumble down the soft wrinkles of Grace’s hand into her roommate’s. I land face down on the surface of the new palm and turn to look up at Holly’s enormous face beaming down at me.

“This is incredible!” She says. “Can we keep him, please? Anna, can we keep him?” Holly’s long fingers curl around me, and I’m helpless now in her hand.

“He’s a pain in the ass. You don’t want him.”

Jesus, what did I ever do to my girlfriend? Yeah, this trip was a disaster, but she’s really giving me the third degree.

“Ugh, fine. Well, we both have to go to swim practice now. Where do you want him?”

“Just set him down on the coffee table. I still need a few more hours of sleep.”

Holly leans down at me, her large red lips making a kissy sound, but she gets too close to me. My tiny body is pushed against her lips, and as her face moves from her palm, I become stuck to her oily red lipstick. I can barely breathe as I’m pressed against her lips, but luckily, I can turn my head away from the enormous ridged lips.

I fly away from her hand, and Holly says, “Shit, where’d he go?”

Grace looks down at Holly’s hand and back at her face. “Oh shit, hahaha, he’s stuck on your lip! Don’t move.”

Grace’s thumb comes up below me and scrapes me off Holly’s lip. I slide onto her long thumbnail, covered in red lipstick, resting face down. She lowers her hand down to Anna, still lying comfortably on the couch.

“Hey, your tiny boyfriend was trying to kiss Holly. Look at him, he’s covered in her lipstick. You might want to keep an eye on him while he’s here.”

I try to rub the oily red lipstick off my face, looking at my sleepy girlfriend. This is so unfair. This is bullshit.

Anna moves her right arm under the coffee table in front of her. “Put him in this empty Tic Tac box. Seriously, I need to get some more sleep.”

Anna finds an empty Tic Tac box on the ground that someone must have dropped at the party. She puts it on the coffee table in front of her. Grace takes me on her thumbnail and slides me into the opening on the clear box. I tumble down to the bottom.

“Open or closed,” Grace asks.

“Eh, leave it open. Let him breathe,” Anna responds.

“Okay, later, kiddos!” Holly and Grace both exit the apartment, as I sit, stuck inside a plastic candy container, my girlfriend sleepily looking at me.

She picks up the box I’m in and brings it to her face, her massive fingerprints pressing against the clear plastic all around me, her beautiful brown eyes staring straight down upon my tiny body.

“Just go to sleep. I’m so fucking tired.”

Anna sets me back down and turns over on the couch, and I angrily look at her, 1/8th of an inch tall, sitting in a plastic prison.