Tuesday, September 15th, 2009.

My alarm clock wakes me up, the light from outside shining into my apartment, I slowly turn over on my side, yesterday was the first year anniversary of me living in Buffalo.

It's crazy how much can change in a year.

I get up, rising out of bed slowly, practically slamming my snooze button with my fist, hurting my hand. I make my sheets, in my bedroom, a Flat screen TV mounted on the wall near my closet, the bedroom set of these wooden drawers next to me, and a lamp on each side, hopefully it doesn't run up my electric bill, since I actually have to pay for that. I open up the shades a little, the feeling the coldness of the window radiate onto me, fall landscape of upstate New York shining, cars passing by and all. The trees multicolored due to it being fall, days like this you just wanna stay in bed all day and drink a nice mug of hot chocolate, but sadly I can't.

I take my showers at night so I don't have to waste time in the morning doing so, so I just grab my bar of Old Spice deodorant and apply to both of my arms and brush my teeth, rinsing my mouth out with some minty Listerine afterwards. I walk into my closet and grab my usual outfit for work, a button down white long-sleeved shirt and a either blue, red, or light green blazer, that I usually wear in the fall or winter depending how cold it is, but if it's spring or summer the dress shirt just works. I put on my blue blazer and grab my dress pants, quickly slipping them on. I walk out and grab a pair of black work pants off of the chair near my desk in my room, quickly slipping them on also.

I open my drawer again and grab a pair of socks, dark brown, they smell freshly washed and dried, I apply them to my feet. I exit my room, head down my small hallway, leading into my kitchen/Living room/laundry room, it's somewhat jumbled up, but that's apartment living for you. It's pretty modern, despite the building being at least 40 years old, judging by the outside and how close it is to the city center of Buffalo.

I take a good look for the first time, at my pad. I've got a pretty sweet place, the brand new plasma TV I got installed in the living room last week, a Sony flat screen TV, with a new cable package to ago along with it, a Playstation 3 laying on the side on the rectangular drawer holding the TV, the controller and a couple of games laying right beside it. My living room wall with a couple of Movie posters in frames on it, them being, Superbad, Goodfellas, and SAW, all three movies being of a different genre and all in different areas of the living room, Superbad being Above the TV, SAW being above the couch, and Goodfellas right next to the window. My kitchen is pretty good too, my sleek metallic microwave and fridge, looking like something straight out of a futuristic cartoon in my opinon.

"I do have a pretty sweet place" I say, as I walk and grab my keys and a banana off the kitchen counter, putting the keys in my pants and putting my shoes on, putting the banana back down again.

I open the door, grabbing the banana and walking out the door closing and locking it, I get out to the hallway, I see about three other people who seem to doing the same thing I am, we nod at each other and carry on our own ways.

As I walk down the steps I attempt to un-peel the banana, possibly the only thing I'm having for breakfast, my shift starts at 10, even though the Bank is right down the street, I'm scared I won't make it in time even though it was only 9:43 last time I looked at the clock.

"Ah, SHIT. I forgot my cell phone" I say, stopping myself in my tracks.

I turn around and quickly run back upstairs and go to my floor and jog back to my room, quickly unlocking the door and grabbing my LG cell phone off of the table in the living room and my wallet. I just practically throw the banana down on the counter and say I'm not that hungry anyways, and then shoving both items into either of my pants pockets, and then rushing out and locking the door behind me.

I basically run down the steps, my keys and phone and wallet jumping in both of my pockets as I run. I make it downstairs and go through the lobby and out the door, the cold air hitting me hard. I remember it would get cold in Seattle, but not this bad, the cold air coming in from Canada probably having something to do with it.

I walk towards my car, a beige 2003 GMC Envoy SLT that I've had since 2004 as a graduation gift when my bought it brand new from the dealership and my very first car from my rich stepfather, Howard. I drove it all the way from Seattle last year to Buffalo, a road trip one would say. My stepdad sending my stuff to my apartment via Mayflower so I didn't have to worry about packing and unpacking and all that junk. I get my keys out and unlock my SUV's door, opening it up and climbing in, the car also ice cold and the leather seats really reflecting that.

I put my keys into the ignition and turn and let it sit for a bit, blasting to hot air onto me, turning the knob on the red side.

I wait about 5 minutes for the engine to get warm again, I look at the clock and it's about 9:50, I immediately pull out of the parking lot and out onto the street.

"Oh right, I have a date tonight" I say in my head as I head down the street, remembering going out to the bar with friends yesterday and chatting it up with a girl who was doing the same thing with her group of friends, and we hit it off and exchanged numbers and all.

The radio's off, and I usually keep it off when going to work, since it's not really long distance to my job.

I get close to the bank, the traffic not usually bad on this street, since it's basically in the center of town. I park on the side of the road, parallel parking never was my strong suit, but hey, I still passed my driver's test at 16 first try.

I shift to P and get out, taking my keys out of the ignition in the process and opening my door and getting out and locking it in the process, I walk into the building, it still having that fresh money smell.

"I see someone finally made it into work today" says Danny, one of my fellow bank tellers and one of my after work friends. He's a redhead who was born and grew up in Buffalo, he's about a year older than me.

"Har Har, I wasn't as late as I usually am. Plus you were out last night too bro" I reply, as I walk into the back and get into my station.

"Yeah, but we were both still earlier than you" says Ashlyn, she's one of those fresh out of High School Types that joined here over the summer, being a former cheerleader and seemingly was one of the popular girls in school, everyone here pokes fun of her about the fact she's pretty new to the working world. She'll give a little bit of banter back, trying to compete with us, and sometimes she'll win. She'll stick out like a sore thumb when she walks into work, dressing in a sweatshirt and a metal nametag clipped on it and jeans rolled up at the bottom cuff, everyone ignores it due to her youth, a bit more casual than most people at the bank.

"Yeah, but I've been working here longer than you" I say and me and Danny laugh, Ashyln just rolls her eyes.

Not too long after this our first customer comes in and we start going to work, cashing checks and all that bank teller stuff, it's a boring job, but I'll probably quit once the recession is old news, the event still pretty recent in everyone's minds.

For lunch I just half a Wegmans sub with Danny, him offering to share since I forgot to pack a lunch for myself.

Around four or so I get off of work, and drive home, I shower and call the girl from last night.

"Hey, Molly right?" I say, walking through my bathroom, with my towel wrapped around my body, the only thing that's exposed is my chest hair and my head and legs.

"Brandon, right?" She says, lovingly mocking me.

"(I chuckle a little at this) So what time do you wanna go out, I just got out of the shower, maybe around 7 or so? I've been thinking about going to the new Cheesecake Factory in Cheektowaga" I say as I take the towel off and quickly put on some Fruit of the Loom underwear from my drawer.

"Yeah, 7 would be nice. I love The Cheesecake Factory, I remember my ex-boyfriend took me there back when we were dating and I visited him while he was going to Law School at UCLA a couple of years ago, in Beverly Hills, it's the original one I think" She says, honestly I really don't like it too much when chicks talk about their former boyfriends while you're currently dating them, but I suck it up.

"Do you want me to pick you up or like?" I say.

"You can pick me up, I'm kinda tired of driving right now. I live at Hyde Park apartments, you know where that is?" She asks me.

"Yeah, I think I've drove past it before. See you at seven" I say, hanging up my phone, sliding the text pad back up.

I look at the clock on the alarm clock, it's currently 4:48.

I iron my clothes in my underwear, a casual look, some blue jeans, a pair of Adidas I've had since high school, a Universal Studios Orlando t-shirt I've had since probably middle school that still fits me, and a light Toronto Blue Jays jacket I bought around early May of this year when I finally had a chance to cross the bridge and go to Canada, driving with me and a couple of buddies to Toronto to do stuff there, one of the things was to go see a baseball game, me not being much into sports in general but I went anyways with them to the game.

I grab my pair of red Adidas that and slip them on, not bothering to put on any socks.

I sit and watch TV until about 6:52 or so, flipping channels, mostly reruns and stuff.

As soon as 6:52 hits on the cable clock I turn off my TV and head out down stairs, grabbing my keys and my wallet as I do so.

I make it out to my SUV and get in, and I turn on my radio after I insert in my car keys, and the song "I Gotta Feeling" by The Black Eyed Peas, a song I loved at first but grew to hate over time due to it's overplayed-ness, so I just turn the radio off.

I make it to Molly's apartment, as soon as she walks out, and I feel totally underdressed, she looks stunning. Red dress that shows off her slender looking legs, red lipstick, and high heels, her dirty blonde hair swaying side to side as she walks, she frowns at me, and gives a weak smiling, I cringe internally.

She walks up to my car, opens the front door, letting the cold air in, kinda blasting me with it, she sits down and closes the door.

"You look, comfortable" She says, as I pull off and begin to make my way to The Cheesecake factory.

"Thanks, I know what you're trying to say. I thought you would go casual too" I say, fiddling with the radio, it turns on as I turn this corner to get onto the main road, the song "Use Somebody" by Kings of Leon plays, I usually keep the radio on the pop station, since I don't really have much of my own musical taste so I just listen to what's currently going on to try and keep up with the trends or whatever sounds good on the radio.

"Well, I didn't" she says, throwing her hands up in the air briefly .

It's quiet between us as the song on the radio ends and the radio station jingle goes and then goes to a ad-break. When I get to the highway shortly afterwards I speed up and attempt to break the ice.

"Well, are you a Buffalo native?" I say, as I turn lanes and adjust my speed to the highway.

"No, actually. It's kind of a long story" She says, I notice she's trying to talk over the radio ad so I turn down the radio with my other hand.

"I mean, we've got time. It's a 17 minute drive to the restaurant since it's kinda on the outskirts of town to get there" I say.

"Alright, fine. Well, I was born and grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, so I'm a southern girl. Grew up in Matthews, which is apart of Charlotte. Went to elementary school, high school, and middle school there. My early life is pretty generic, did all the typical girl stuff, sleepovers and parties and all that. In beginning of ninth grade I took the bus with this guy named Matt, he was new, he was this "Northerner" from Baltimore who had recently moved down here, this guy with brown hair and kinda looked like Michael J.Fox in Back To The Future, "Marty Mcfly" was his nickname that I'd call him every now and then and he'd blush a little. We'd kinda hang out after the school year was done that year, going over each other's houses and getting a ride from our parents to go to different places. It wasn't until tenth grade we started to like each other a little more, and he popped the question if he wanted to actually date and I said yeah. Over the couple of years he gained some more friends, a guy named Richie and another guy named Jon, I can't really remember much about them, all I remember is that Richie went into the military after high school, I talk to Jon every now and then, as friends of course, me knowing him through Matt" she says, I'm actually pretty interested in what she has to say.

"What were his friends like?" I respond, driving further down the highway.

"I mean he had friends in school but I'll just focus on the two he hung out with in and outside of school. Richie was this black guy with dreadlocks and all that, he was pretty chilled out, I actually worked with him at the mall I used to work at before I headed off to college, he was from a family of veterans and stuff like that, so he was really the odd one out. He was into rap and hip hop and was somewhat of a ladies man at the school I went too. Jon was one of those guys who was really into the whole pop punk scene that was going on at that time, you remember it right?" She says.

"Yeah, it was everywhere earlier this decade, it's seemingly kinda still there nowadays, but I don't really notice it, I'm not in that age group anymore" I say as I begin to turn lanes and slow down, seeing the exit in front of us.

"Yeah, he was really into it, almost to the point where it was his entire personality. We got along okay, even though we would butt heads every now and then. He we got along more once once Matt headed to college, though that was a short time before I left out to go to college in New York City. I joined the Red Cross part time too for about 3 years, I quit last year. Went and helped out in Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami. Matt went to college in L.A, law school. We had a long distance relationship for about 3 years, I visited him in Los Angeles once a year either in the fall or over the summer, and he visited me usually after spring finals each year. We broke up not too long before he graduated last year, he became less caring about me and more focused on his career. Last time I talked to him was last year, when he wished me a happy thanksgiving one day out of the blue, and he sounded like he was drunk and his mom in the background yelling at him and his family laughing" she says.

"Wow" I say, the last guy she dated was quite the character.

"Yeah" she says.

I turn the radio back up, the song "Fireflies" by Owl City playing, I haven't really noticed it this entire time.

"Did Jon say anything about him, like what he's doing nowadays?" I say, as I get onto the exit, turning my steering wheel a little as I do the turn.

"Last time I talk to Jon was about 2 months ago, he filled me a little bit in on what Matt's doing nowadays. He said worked at his father's old firm in Charlotte for about a year, and he moved out around may, and went back to Baltimore and worked for his father's old firm he used to work at in Baltimore, he's dating another girl currently, a black girl. He says they sound pretty happy together" Molly says.

"Oh, well, life goes on" I say.

I make my way through the street, slowing down and transferring to street speeds. I park at the mall and we walk to the Cheesecake Factory, it takes about twenty minutes for us to get seated.

"So, I've said a lot about my background, so what about yours" she says with a sexy smirk, grabbing a slice of bread off of the basket and buttering it up with her butter knife, the sounds people talking and waiters walking around us invade my head.

"Well, you remember that whole missing persons thing that was really big in like, late nineteen ninety nine. National news and all. That was my dad" I say, as I say this I see some of the people around us look at me as I say this somewhat outloud over the chatter of the other voices around us, some of the other diners remembering the event and looking at me with pity. A old man with thicked rimmed glasses seemingly in his 60s sarcastically pretends to play a violin while making brief eye contact, as if he's saying "so what?". His wife slaps his wrists and mumbles at him to stop doing so.

"I'm so sorry, I remember watching the Dateline episode in my dorm a couple of years ago, and I remember watching it the event live as it happened, my parents were glued to the TV when this was going on, kinda like they were doing that whole O.J. Simpson case" she says, sounding somber in her voice.

"Yeah, it took mom awhile to recover even though she was married to a different man by that point, being him being her first love and all. I remember my older sister visited him not too long before he went missing" I say, I feel tears start to come up but I hold it back, not wanting to breakdown in front of everyone inside of this place. I didn't even know him all that well besides a couple of memories, they split when I was only four or so.

The entire dinner between is pretty quiet and somber the rest of the dinner , we do simple conversation after that, just stuff like what we do for a living or both of us somewhat being a fish out of water up here in the Northeast, Molly being from the south, me being from the Pacific Northwest. Although Buffalo and it's surrounding cities have much more of a Midwestern feel to them. I drive Molly back to my apartment. Both of us somewhat starting to talk a little bit more and open up on the drive back, the radio turned off the whole ride back to my place.

"Alright, hey, so you wanna..." I say, as I open my apartment door.

She laughs and walks in, I close the door behind us.

"I mean, I just met you, let's wait a little bit more into our relationship" She says.

As soon as she says this, I start shrinking immediately, Molly freaks out.

I look up, and I see a giant Molly touring over me, screaming. Her long red dress and her long slender tanned legs. I can kinda see her lace panties, somewhat of a camel toe going on under her dress, I somewhat I have to look up for this.

"Oh, Crap" I say, realizing that everything around me is big and I'm not dreaming.

Molly screams again, she stumbles over over to near the couch, and faints, landing on it a boom that echoes into my ears.

This, This can't be good" I say, realizing the severity of my situation, me still being struck by the fact I'm one inch tall in my own home.

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

I slowly wake up, barely remembering last night, the light from near the living room shines into the house, I think the last words I said were, "This, this can't be good" before I passed out after seemingly shrinking. I start to notice my surroundings, I passed out last night right near the end of the couch, I look up and everything's ginormous to me, my lamp seeming as high as a highway light pole, I look in front of me and see my TV stand, my own TV seeming more like a drive in movie-theater screen to me, and the Playstation and the cable box looking more like the size of a smallish building to me, compared to just the simple item I'm used to. I'm more confused than scared on how I shrunk, at this size. It's honestly weirding me out more how I'm like, only a couple of inches tall in my own home.

I walk closer up the couch, and I'm completely stopped in my own tracks.

I see Molly, she's seemingly still laying down sleeping on my couch after passing out last night, though I think she did wake up shortly afterwards, but probably wasn't thinking about this current situation we're in for whatever reason, since after all, no-one passes out that long anyways, at least only in movies and shit like that. She's still in her red dress, showing off her curves pretty well, her chest seeming slowly moving up and down, from her breathing, her facial expression seemingly relaxed, her blonde hair laying down on the arm of the couch, I walk out a little bit more, she snores a little bit, but not that loud that it's taking away from my train of thought. Her hands seemingly resting on her stomach. I mean we both were pretty full from last night so I guess it must of been a pretty good sleep aid, neither of us bringing back leftovers.

I actually take a look at the time and it shocks me to my core when I take a look at my cable box, it's 9:35am.

"Ah FUCK, guess I'll have to call in sick" I say out loud to myself, Molly still sleeping, I hear a slight mumble out of her mouth, she apparently drools when she sleeps, I notice a small stream of water droplets forming near the right side of of her mouth, her teeth seemingly a little stained from last night, not as white as I remember them being from when I picked her up yesterday evening. Her lips still as red from yesterday though, the lipstick making it the color pop out at me.


I look back at the cable box and pull my phone out my pocket, sliding the phone up and pulling out the number keyboard, I got this phone about a year ago this month actually. I think about who to call, either my boss, or Danny who'll probably cover for me, I just start dialing Danny after I put down my area code.

He takes about about thirty seconds to pick up, for a brief second I'm surprised my phone works at this size, apparently being shrunk down also with me along with my clothes.

"Dude, WHAT?" He says, he sounds super groggy in his voice, as if I just woken him up from a deep slumber, and I probably did since he had only a couple of more hours to sleep before I he had to get ready for work.

"I'm sick today, I think I'll be sick for uh, maybe a week or so, if anyone asks just tell them I'm going to take off for a bit, I should have enough PTO for it" I say.

"I'm not you dude, and I can't just magically go up and tell Steve that you're off either, but I'll try. I think he mentioned something about you barely taking any off days besides the weekends he gives to you, so you'll have a good chance if you ask him yourself. What are you sick with anyways?" He says, sounding like he's getting out of bed judging by the ruffling of the sheets in the background.

"Strep Throat" I say, lying on the spot.

"Reallly huh. Whatever dude, see you whenever you come into work" he says, hanging up afterwards.

I dial Steve's number, he's our boss. The guy barely shows up though to work, seemingly a regional manager for the banks around here, he visits on Thursdays and Sundays, and every other Monday. I notice Molly in the background is shifting around, showing signs that she's starting to wake up, her snoring seemingly dying done.

"Hello, this is Steven. I'm not available to the phone at this time, please leave a message after the tone" and as soon as I hear the last word of that message I just hang-up.

"What the hell?" Molly says behind me, seemingly fully awake now. I look behind me and I see her pretty shocked face, her eyes seeming concentrating on me, a little bit of her southern accent comes out when she says this. Her irises are brown, I actually noticed, looking pretty much black whenever when I was at full size.

"Trust me, I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS HAPPENED EITHER" I say, making my voice louder for she can hear me better, she towers over me completely at this size, it's kinda sexy to me a little bit.

"Do you need to go to the doctor or anything" She says as she stands up, I walk back a little bit, under the living room table I have, giving her space.

"Fuck no, I'm not trying to get tested on. I might be another Jack Cooper if I get found out but I really rather not go through all that pain like he did, plus, I like my life private anyways" I say.

"Well, what do you wanna do then, I'm mostly confused how this happened, you just randomly shrunk out of nowhere, did you take the same Irish pill he took" she says, smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress with her hands, I look up back at her as she talked.

"I have no fucking clue either, but it's bound to wear off eventually" I say, with some hope in my voice. I notice Molly starts to wonder off towards the kitchen, the click clack of her high heels echoing through the living room.

"Are you off today? Didn't you say you worked as a massage therapist last night?" I say, walking and noticing how she's opening the fridge and looking through it, if she was hungry I was hoping she would ask before just looking through it.

"Yep, I have a pretty flexible schedule. I rotate days a lot, I don't really have set days off" she says, she closes the refrigerator door.

I walk out from the living room to the kitchen, looking back up at Molly, this blonde haired girl in a red dress and black high heels, she's got a nice ass, and the dress shows it off pretty well, a somewhat above average face, and a somewhat average pair of tits, judging by the bra. This is only the second girl I've ever dated, never really dating through all my high school years due to personal reasons, focusing on grades and shit like that, and the first I've dated in Buffalo, taking a break from relationships for a year, my ex-girlfriend and I breaking up about two months before I left for Buffalo. I'm doing pretty well for myself, I guess.


"Admiring what you see" she says, giving me a sly smiling while looking down at me.

"Heh, I guess so. Do you wanna head back home or whatever, change into whatever makes you comfortable" I say, walking back a bit.

"Yeah, I'll do that at some point" She says, my ringtone soon goes off, just a generic sounding ringtone, nothing really custom or whatever, just a phone automated ringtone that has trumpets or whatever in it.

"Hello" I say.

"Yeah, so Brandon. Why'd you call me earlier" Steve says, his voice is pretty husky, he's a pretty muscular black guy about twenty years my senior, you'd think he'd be bodybuilding for a living, but it's really just a hobby, guy's pretty smart too, majored in Finance, Valedictorian of the class of 1995 at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as he practically always mentions to everyone he meets when working with them for the first time

"Oh, yeah, sir. I'm requesting sometime off from today to uh, let's say about the next two weeks. I know it comes off on such short notice, but strep throat is kicking my ass so I'd thought I'd just tell you. I haven't really took a vacation since the day I joined last year, so uh, yeah" I say, sounding kinda immature I've noticed at that last bit.

"Y'know what, fine. I'll swing by there today and go through the system today and give you your PTO. Do this shit again though, and your ass is mine, got me?" He says, sounding quite stern.

"Yes sir" I say.

"Okay, your ass better be back at work by the thirtieth. Get well soon" He says, before hanging up the phone.

"That sounded rough" Molly says, as she opens up my fridge again and opens up a box of Toaster Strudels, the cream cheese and strawberry kind I bought the other day, seemingly, grabbing my red toaster along with it, plugging it up on the counter.

"He's not that bad, trust me, I've worked with the guy before in person, he's comes off as a tough guy but he's really a softie in person, it's all just a act. And why are you just raiding my fridge, if you're hungry, you can just ask" I say, giggling a little bit at this, she laugh at this too as she opens the packet and tunes the toaster and places the confection in the toaster, pushing down the lever.

"Yeah it's a bad habit that I gotta learn to stop doing, I used to do it all the time when I was with Matt and I was visiting his dorm at UCLA, he wasn't too bothered but it" She says, mentioning Matt again, I was annoyed at first about this Matt guy, but I'm slowly starting to get generally interested in his back story.

It's quiet between us for a bit, Molly walks over and turns the TV on, it now being around 9:55 in the morning, as the pastry cooks in the toaster she flicks channels, most of the local channels like ABC or NBC airing something like Live! With Regis and Kelly or some kinda after the Today Show or Good Morning America talk show, once you got towards the cable channels things started to get interesting, stuff I'd sometimes watch, like 1000 Ways to Die on Spike TV or a re-run of Tamed and Uncut on Animal Planet. She stops it on The Travel Channel, playing some show about some guy who goes around the country trying to beat food challenges.

The toaster dings and the strudel pops up, Molly gets off the couch and walks back to the kitchen, where I'm still standing.

"You hungry?" She says, looking down at me as she walks by.

"Nah, I'm still full from last night" I say.

Molly stops and bends down and picks me, her hands feel so cold honestly, I can feel the air rushing as she brings me up from the floor, and onto my own kitchen counter, I get a way better view of my own apartment from here, seeing the show cutting to a commercial break, the first commercial for HP laptops, showing some guys in a factory singing Lollypop in some doo-wop 50's type way, imitating the real song I guess while making the laptops. I stop paying attention to what's on the TV after this.

I watch Molly as she gets a plate out of one of my cupboards, slowly placing the toaster strudel on the plate and opening up the package with the creme in it, spreading it on there by squeezing it all over. She makes a remark on how it burned her hand taking it out that way.

For the next hour or so is pretty boring, she just she writes her number down for me to put in my phone contacts. She gets called to work by her boss around 12pm or so, saying that it's a little bit more busier than usually it. As soon as she finishes the toaster strudel, washing it down with some milk from the fridge.

"Well, did your keys also shrink down with you, I'm not walking back to my apartment to get dressed y'know, it's already a literal pain enough walking around the apartment in these high heels" She asks me.

"Are you really going to take my SUV to get back to your place?" I say, realizing my keys have also shrunk down with me, I try to hide my expression of nervousness realizing that, I look back up at Molly's face, she's kinda hot when she seems a little bit upset, I'll admit.

"I mean, YEAH, I'm not walking like twenty minutes back to my place, in a red dress like this, I don't want perverts staring at me" She says, looking down on me, I'm still standing on the counter after all this time.

"Uh, well, you're going to have to figure something out" I say, pulling my car keys out my pocket.

"Are you serious? You don't have a spare key or anything like that at all?" She says, I can smell the milk on her breath from earlier, a couple of crumbs the size of small rocks too I notice around the sides of her mouth to me.

"Uhhh, wait. Check my room, there should be a key for the car, in my nightstand drawer near my bed" I say, and as soon as she says that she rushes off to room, I hear the click clack of the high heels, the door opening with a wooden creek, and the sound of my night stand opening, sounding pretty frantic when opening it with out fast it came out. I hear a jingling sound and a faster click clack, sounding like she's border-line running.

"Yeah I remember Howard bought my two keys just incase I lost them or whatever, I guess it really did come in handy this time" I say, referencing my stepdad to her.

"Yeah, that's a really great thing he did that. I'll probably be back by six to check up on you when I get off work this evening, love you" She says, as she unlocks my apartment door, taking down the locks and and whatever, and opening the door, closing it but not locking it. Probably for she could get back inside at 6pm tonight. I don't really care anyways since security does pretty well at this complex, plus, who robs an Apartment?

After she leaves I basically try to make my way down to the living room just to park on the couch for the next hours until she comes back, and sleep. I just use the knobs of the dresser drawers as something the climb back down onto the floor.

It's not really a long walk to the Living Room from the kitchen, one thing I guess I'll have to get used to by being shrunk, even though I'm still wondering how, maybe it was something I ate or someone I came in contact with. There's some type of swine flu virus going on worldwide from what I've heard on the news this past year, maybe this is a side affect and I've had it without even knowing it?

I basically fall asleep after climbing up the, for the next couple of hours, waking up around five our so, not really paying attention to whatever's on TV, still on the Travel Channel.

I walk over to the remote, it's about as long as a sofa would be at my size, I press on the channel button with my hand, stopping on the Home and Shopping Network, I press it again, as hard as I can, it lands on AMC, seemingly playing a re-run of some newer show called Mad Men, it looks interesting so I watch a little bit of it, some sixties set show about a advertising agent or whatever, before I can really understand what the plot of the episode was about I fall asleep again.


"Wake up, Brendon" I hear Molly say, I open my eyes. Her hair's in a messy bun, she's wearing red scrubs with her name sewed on the left of her chest it in black cursive, she smells like hand sanitizer.

"Oh, oh you" I say, waking up, she's smiling at me.

"So uh, you want me to just stay over your apartment with you until go back to normal or what? It's your call" She says.

"I mean, yeah, if you want to" I say, standing up and smiling, I notice the TV seemingly turned off, either it turned off by it's self, or Molly did it.


Molly's phone rings, it being the background music to "Sexyback" by Justin Timberlake. she takes it out of her pocket, apparently she has a Nokia, she slides the pad up and answers it.

"Hey, what's up" She says.

"It's been awhile so I thought I'd see you're doing" I hear a male voice say, I think I might be Jon, the guy on the phone sounds like he's in somewhere in his twenties, around our age. He sounds somewhat whiney.

"Oh, Jon, how are you?" Molly says, sounding a little happier now.

"Pretty good pretty good. Just thought I'd call, Matthew called me and said he's visiting Charlotte again next week with Nicole, do you wanna swing by maybe? I'll buy you a ticket, if you want. I'll be like as if we all got back together again, minus Richie, since he's still deployed in Germany, I read something on" he says.

"No, I have work. And plus, we really aren't on speaking terms anymore, Me and Matt, I'd thought you'd understand, Jon" She says, sounding annoyed about this.

"Alright, my bad, I'm sorry. Thought you'd be interested. See whenever you come back to town, I guess. It honestly sucks that no-one really lives here anymore, it's like, honestly just me and probably four other people from school, and even a lot of my skater friends from back in the day seemingly either left and went out to the west coast to try to make a career out of it, or just quit skating and stuff like that" He says, sounding disappointed, I can hear the beeping of a microwave in the background of wherever he is.

Molly sighs. "Look Jon, you gotta grow up. I'm not too sure why you said back in the day either, like it's been twenty years or something, it's only been like, five since we've all hung out together. I guess you're done with that whole Emo thing you were invested in and now you've ran out of whatever huge rock fad of the year seems to be and don't know what to do with yourself. We've all moved on since after graduating high school, it's about time you should too" she says, sounding like some seriousness going on in her voice, as if they've had this conversation before.


"Fine, whatever. Give me a call whenever you're headed down this way" he says.

It's kinda awkward between me and Molly, since that whole conversation was on speaker phone.

"Yeah, Jon's kind of in a spell where he doesn't know what to do with his life, he still lives with his parents and has a full-time job working at UPS as a Delivery Driver. A late bloomer mature wise" She says, sitting down on the couch, the wind from her sitting down knocks me back a bit, she doesn't seem to notice though.

"Uh, sucks for him I guess" I say, being unsure which choice of words I should use in this situation.

It's kinda quiet for me and her after this for the rest of the night, after me witnessing that awkward conversation. I watch some black and white movies, local TV stuff. Nothing that really caught my attention

She uses my shower and brushes her teeth, and sleeps in my bed, bringing her suitcase from the car to the house sometime around 8pm or so. saying she ate work when I offer her to use some of my money in my drawer to order a pizza or whatever.

I fall asleep around 11:30pm or so. I think a little bit about my own immaturity in many areas before I doze off.

Thursday, September 17th, 2009


I wake up, still on the couch from yesterday, my apartment still feeling pretty chilly from the weather outside, the fall wind rustling against the window right next to the other side of the couch. I look at my Goodfellas poster, since it's right above the TV. I lock eyes with Robert De Niro's character, I'm not even that big of a fan of the film, I just bought this poster and the other three since it was for sale at a thrift shop back in Seattle earlier last year. The time is about 8:06am, judging by the time displayed on my cable box. I slowly start to stand up and wake myself up a bit, the lighting outside from the sun shining into my apartment, I also hear the snoring of Molly from the other room, she's still seemingly sleep, I allowed her to use my room as a guest room as she's here, since it's not like I have any use for it anyways, at this size.

I run my hand through my hair, feel on my chin and it's surrounding areas, feeling a little bit of stubble growing throughout this time, I've always been pretty clean shaven throughout my life. I can hear Molly shifting in the bed, the sound echoing through the hallways.

"Well, another day stuck like this, I guess" I say to myself, looking at the world around me, everything seeming so huge when just a couple of days ago it was only normal sized, I look out my window, the sun out but it's somewhat cloudy, a couple of cars parked on the side of the road, a red 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse with it's left wheel on the sidewalk, the only one really catching my eye.

I walk across the couch and climb onto the windowsill to get a better view, but I quickly step down off of it and back away from the window realizing I could get seen that way.

I see the TV remote on the coffee table, I make a jump from the edge of the middle seat of the couch to the table, barely making it, I grab onto the ledge of the table and pull myself up onto the table with my right hand.

I walk up the table, and up to the remote, at least Molly set the remote up straight for I wouldn't have to push it around a bit to point it at the TV to get it to work, I climb up onto the remote, pressing the power button with my right foot, my flat screen TV immediately powering on, the sound of some stupid commercial for Subway, some jingle for five dollar footlongs. I press the negative button with my right hand to turn down the volume.

I have to lean my head back a little bit to look at the TV screen while on the table, compared to on the couch where I can just see the whole thing just like a movie screen.

The channel still left on AMC from last night, shown by the fact they show a promo for the newest season of Breaking Bad, a show I've only really heard of through a couple of coworkers talking about it earlier this year while on their lunch. It's apparently a newer show.

I change the channel, tapping again, landing on the History Channel, playing some WWII documentary like they always do, I constantly forget that TV during the weekday isn't all that exciting, I change the channel again, landing on VH1, playing some type of morning music video countdown, the music video in question seemingly being Hotel Room Service by Pitbull, judging by the description box in the corner as it fades away. I decide to just press the the power button with my hand and turn off the television.

"I see someone's awake" Molly's voice says, sounding pretty seducing.

I'm startled for a quick second, not realizing she was even in the room.

I look behind me, Molly still towering over me while standing over to the side of the couch, she's in a grey robe she brought from home, it seemingly open, she never tied it up, the only thing she's wearing is panties apparently, her tits seemingly perked out a bit, they're pretty pink, her areolas seemingly perked out, her breasts seem pretty tanned compared to the rest of her body, back when I was normal sized, her breasts didn't seem like they were anything special, even yesterday when I said they were average, but with a better view, it's honestly a major turn on. Her stomach seems pretty average, not exactly slim but doesn't have much pudge on it either, her navel more of a innie, I can somewhat see inside of it from where I'm standing too, a little bit of lint but not much else. I can tell she used to have a piercing, judging by the small hole above her belly button, I think she mentioned something about getting her navel pierced when she was living in New York for college, only getting rid of it when she graduated. She wears laced panties too, from what I can tell.


"Uh, hey. Good Morning, I guess. That outfit isn't exactly helping out with morning wood" I say, cracking a joke. I turn around fully to get a better look at her.

Molly giggles at this and walks into the kitchen, she must be a fast moving chick, I didn't see my last girlfriend's tits until about two months into our relationship.

I watch as she seemingly walks back into the kitchen, I eye her thighs too, she opens up my fridge and brings out a container of Orange Juice. She reaches up into the cupboard, I can see her breasts jiggle with each movement, and she brings out a glass, rinsing it out first, giving me a sly smile, noticing I'm looking at her breasts. She pours the Minute Maid container out into the glass, filling it up to about over half. She screws the top back onto it and then opens up the fridge door with her free hand.

"So, I guess you're the type of girl to sleep all natural" I say.

"I usually sleep bra-less since I started living alone, plus whenever I'd visit Matt's Dorm in Los Angeles, he'd always appreciated it, since we'd share his bed, he always liked to use these as a pillow whenever we were cuddling or sleeping together or whatever" She says, gesturing towards to her tits before she takes her first gulp of the Orange Juice. I make the jump from the table to the couch after she says this, this time making it completely making it.

"I mean, what guy couldn't resist tits, besides y'know, gay guys" I say.

"You'd be surprised, my roommate in college had a couple of gay friends and they'd love to just go to those art shows out in Greenwich Village or The Upper East Side with naked women just standing around for artistic purposes and just look, something they said found aesthetically pleasing about the female body, calling it a work of art or whatever" she says, I hear her footsteps walking over from the kitchen to the couch.

"Wait, so were these lesbians or they were dudes?" I say, she didn't exactly make it super clear.

"Oh no, these were guys. I think my roommate might of been a closeted lesbian though, looking back at it, sadly. She came from some small Mormon town out in Utah, she was an ex-Mormon but still had alot of self loathing" Molly says with some pity in her voice, sitting right next to me, a couple of strands of blonde hair fall onto me from her robe. I push them aside, although they smell like watermelon shampoo. The air from her sitting down knocks me back a little, but I quickly stand up.


It's quiet between us for about a minute, she has the glass of in her hand, she takes a couple of sips of it, I can hear her belly gurgle a little with every couple of sips, seemingly digesting the orange juice. Since I'm sitting with my legs crossed only inches away from her torso, a small burp comes out of her mouth, she quietly excuses herself afterwards.

"What college did you say you went to again" I say, trying to start up the conversation again between us.

"Pace University" Molly says, before setting the Orange Juice glass down on the table.

It's silent between us for another minute or so

"I'm gonna go change into some actual clothes, I'm getting goosebumps all over" Molly says, I notice this too, goosebumps forming on her knees and a little bit on her upper belly.

Molly gets up and walks back to my room, I walk up to the glass of orange juice, I'm kinda thirsty myself, so I climb up it, the design of the glass having some small edges on it that I can use as a stepping stone, I quickly remember I have my cell phone on me, I grab it out of my pocket and toss it onto the table, it landing with a small thud.

I climb it to the rim, I notice there's strands of pulp in it, I usually get the one with no pulp but if I remember correctly PriceRite was out of the Minute Maid orange juice with no pulp, PriceRite is a pretty new grocery store chain around Upstate New York when I think about it.

I try to cup some with my hand but I end up losing my grip and splashing down into the juice, completely soaking myself in Orange Juice, I practically sink down to the bottom of the glass, my eyes seeing nothing but a thick yellow liquid and I feel the pulp strands all over my jacket and pants, this medium sized cylinder glass pool I'm currently in.

I can hear the muffled voice of Molly talking through the glass, I can't see her besides a silhouette. I try to swim up, knowing she might swallow me.

I feel the cup lift up from the table, I brace for what might come next. I frantically try to swim up to for she can see me, but that only leads me towards my doom, I see her pink lips open, her teeth under them, I feel myself transfer from the cup to her mouth, a ice cold feeling to a wet and damp and covered in liquid feeling, I get a brief look at my surroundings as I go along with the wave of the orange juice, the light from outside her opened mouth showing off everything, try to grab onto her left back molar, but the thick yellow wave is too strong, and I go past her mouth, and down into her throat.

I can't see much as I fall besides feeling the warmness of her throat, besides the fact I'm falling, I pray that my demise is quick, never thinking that I'd end up dying like this. I land with a splashing along with the rest of the orange juice, it's dark, damp, and I can't see anything, my clothes and drenched, I feel the warmness of the acids pinch at me a little, it doesn't hurt, but it doesn't exactly feel pleasant either.

"Where the hell did Brendon go?" I hear Molly say, her voice muffled due to her stomach walls.

"I'M IN HERE!" I scream as loud as I can, over the bubbling and churning going on, the orange juice seemingly going full on digestion with her acids, seemingly all the pizza from last night seemingly made their exit sometime this morning, if I had to guess judging by the occasional amount of light that would come in whenever she would swallow spit or whatever, her stomach sphincter opening up, seemingly.

I feel her start to walk around, seemingly as if she's panicking in a frantic way, her stomach starting to churn more out of seemingly anxiety, and the fact she's moving around more.


"Wait, is that is Brandon's phone" She says, I feel her stop and bend down near the coffee table right near the couch.

"I'M. IN. HERE.!" I say, as loud as a possibly could, and I think she could hear me that time.

"Brandon, is that you? Where are you" I hear her say, she sounds extremely trembled in her voice.

"GUESS, GUESS WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW!" I screaming loud enough where she can hear me, over the sound of the bubbles of the orange juice being churned pretty loudly.


"Oh my GOD, how did you get in my orange juice?" She says, the realization seems to be starting to set in for her, I feel her start to sit down, assumingly on the couch.


"I tried to get some, climbed up on the cup, fell in, I tried to swim out, but it was too late" I say, I notice her stomach starts to slow down with the digestion, less gurgles going on around me, maybe due to the fact she's not as anxious.

"And you're okay right? You're not slowly dissolving or whatever? You must be going through whatever Jack Cooper has, if you're alright" She says, sounding somewhat more relaxed.

"Apparently so, I never bought any of the pills he did though" I say, starting to ponder on this for a bit,

"I'll go to the bathroom and puke you up, I know how, I'll just touch my uvula like I did that one time when I was sick that one time back in my freshman year of college when I was sick, Sharon, one of the couple of friends I made while I was at Pace-Hey that's cool and all, but I really would love it I wasn't in here" Molly starting off, but I interrupt, not exactly in the mood to hear whatever story she's going to tell.

Molly sighs and says okay. I feel her walk into my bathroom, making an under her breath remark that it could use a little work in the cleaning department.

I feel her get on her knees, the contents of her stomach seemingly shifting towards a certain way as she angles herself, I can also feel. and I think she's grabbing her hair and pulling it back, with her other hand she's touching her uvula I'm assuming. Before I can really understand what's going on like I flash I feel myself and the orange juice rise up her throat and into the toilet with a splash, I she's about to go for round two of puking so I attempt to climb out of the bowl and out of the puke, but failing completely, sliding back. Ironically enough, the orange juice looks about the same coming back up. Molly throws up for a second time, but this time she tries to do it in the sink, holding it back for a quick second. I'm reminded of that Ben Stiller movie that came out a couple of years ago about this couple living in a Duplex and Ben Stiller ended up getting puked on by his wife, who somewhat looks likes Molly, since both of them had blonde hair. I forgot the actresses name.


Molly pukes again in the sink, and I kinda start to feel bad for her now. Since she's dry heaving now.

She finishes up, I get a good look at her face as she walks back over to retrieve, she seemingly seems tired after doing this, her blonde hair seemingly a mess, not that vomit got into her hair or anything, it's seemingly un-combed.

She grabs me off of the side, rising me up in the air, and then setting me down in the tub. Molly's seemingly wearing a "The Killers Hot fuss tour" concert t-shirt, and a pair of green mesh volleyball shorts, her eyes seemingly tired.

She flushes the toilet, the vomit seemingly going down pretty quick, it was pretty much liquid, and then shecloses the top down. Molly sits on it, with her head in her hands.

"Uh, thank you" I say, me being unsure of what to say after all that.

"You're welcome, I guess. Better you to go out that way then the other way, throwing up takes a lot of energy out of you, y'know" she says, taking a deep breath afterwards.


"There's some Gatorades in the bottom of the fridge" I say, trying to somehow mend the situation.


It's quiet between us for a little bit. After a hour or so she gets up and turns the shower on, washing me pretty clean of my stench, all though it felt like I was drowning at time, the water droplets soaking me. Molly takes some cleaning products out of the bottom of the sink, she did a pretty good job from what I can tell, seeming scrubbing it clean.

The rest of the day, after she picks me up and brings me to the Kitchen, she just sleeps basically on the couch, trying to conserve energy for herself I guess since she goes back to work.

I fall asleep in the kitchen, sleeping on the counter that night, Molly being too tired to move me back, and me not want to take a long walk back to the living room.


"Maybe tomorrow will be better" I say, thinking about this pretty eventful day, before falling straight to sleep.

Thursday, August 17th, 2006


I wake up, my window still open from last night, I take a look around my room, my room having that somewhat rotten egg smell from Lake Washington being near by, I look out the window, you can never really tell what time it is due to the fact it's pretty much always cloudy, the window being right in front of my bed, my desk being right near my TV if I were to look to the side of me. I look at the wooden work-desk, there's still papers on the second side shelf of it from back when I was in high school, and a orange stripped glass mug filled with number two pencils and a couple of red and green retractable pens. I've never really been that much of a poster on the walls type of dude, but I've been debating about it lately, so maybe that'll change.

I get out of bed, everyday somewhat feels exactly the same since I've graduated, and it's been two years this year. It probably doesn't help that the weather practically never changes, it's always cloudy and rainy. My feet slap against the wooden floor of my bedroom, echoing through the room. My walls are custard colored and made out of drywall. It's a pretty spacious room for a bedroom, not quite master bedroom sized, but it's close to it, a lot of it is empty space though, and I've had this room since I was elementary school.

I walk out of my room and into the hallway, the jet black guardrails across the top of the hallway, I look down over it at the stairs, that square spot where that huge step is, seemingly still stained with grape wine from that Christmas party mom and Howard had about three years ago this year.


"Is anybody home?" I say out loud, my words echoing in the hallway and the front of the house.

I know Howard's gone to work, Mom's probably spending time with one of her friends she made at whatever yoga thing or book club or whatever way she's been trying to find more friends these past couple years. Cindy's probably at whatever boyfriend of the week's house, Howard's still pretty pissed at her for dropping out of Washington State University, since he paid so much for her tuition and dorm room costs and everything. I usually spend my post high school days just lounging around the house, browsing the internet, and just hanging out with whatever friends I had, since I went to a private school for all my school years and lot of my friendships changed by grade year, only about two stayed with my entire school career.

I walk down the carpeted stairs, I feel the cold breeze from my room, flowing throughout the house, since I still left my window open. The freshwater lake smell seemingly staying just in my room, since I can't smell it down stairs. I fell asleep wearing a light blue t-shirt and just my red checkered boxers, I realize that as soon as I take my last step, my foot feeling ice cold as soon as it touches the white ceramic tiled floor. My hair's a mess, and I don't brush my teeth usually until after I eat.

Growing up the stepson of a millionaire, but a millionaire who was pretty frugal with his money, lead to us basically having not as many brand name snacks, besides occasionally the pack of Oreos he'd give in and buy if everyone complained enough about it. Walmart really isn't a thing in the Seattle area, you see them more towards Bellevue or whatever, more towards outskirts of town I guess, and he hated going to independent grocery stores which were a dime a dozen here although they were pretty expensive too, like everything else in Seattle, so he always went out to Safeway, which was a little far outside of our neighborhood of Madison Park. But if Mom had been grocery shopping that week, she'd go out and actually buy some brand name stuff from whatever grocery store was closest, she wasn't exactly picky about it like Howard.

I open up the metallic silver fridge, I hear the ice churning around in it, seemingly making more for later on. Looks like mom went shopping this week though, the only Safeway brand thing I see is the gallon of 2 percent Lucerne milk that Howard bought a couple of days ago. I pull out the gallon of milk and close the fridge.

I glance at the time on the Microwave, it's 10:28am right now. I usually wake up around 9am or so, but I guess I slept in a hour early.


I pull out a plastic bowl from the top cabinet and walk over to the pantry, I see more brand name stuff, like a box of Ritz crackers or a big jar of Skippy Peanut butter. I pull out the box of Coco-Puffs and start pouring it into the bowl. I make it about half full, not really being too hungry this morning anyways, I close up the bag and the box, setting it back down in the pantry. I pour the milk and get a metal spoon from out the kitchen drawer.

I eat for about 15-ish minutes, just standing at the kitchen counter and eating my cereal, the living room TV isn't not on, so I just stare at the fridge for a bit, a couple of mutli-colored alphabet letter magnets scattered around it. The picture of the family in Rome standing inside the Colosseum about seven years ago, that summer when my biological father went missing. I'm only wearing beige cargo shorts and a red t-shirt, Cindy's wearing a Veruca Salt band t-shirt and blue jeans, this was back when she was going through that whole riot grrl faze when she was in high school, she seemingly got that from mom, I'd remember being in fifth grade and my mom would always play the same "The Best of Blondie" cassette tape on the way to school, my mom always seemingly cranking it up whenever the song Heart of Glass came on, singing it as loud as she can, I remember being super embarrassed about it, since all the other kids could hear her too as I got out of the station wagon.

Before I can go any more deeper into my thoughts, I hear the garage door open, I wonder who it is, the only sound before then was the sound of the ice in the freezer my chewing and swallowing of the Coco-Puffs.

I think it's Cindy, judging by how far around the car sounds, she usually parks way from the door in our three car garage. She drives a 2003 Toyota Matrix, she got it last year after her car accident, her original car being a 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix, a car she wanted as a graduation gift from Howard, since our dad seemingly drove one she said, when she went down to Phoenix to visit him around this time seven years ago. Howard blew money on us all the time, it was for a birthday or a specially event or whatever, but again, after all, he could afford it. He had friends at a lot of dealerships around the Seattle area, so I guess that helped a bit with the pricing.

I hear the car's engine turn off, and the door opening, the Cindy's footsteps also, since we do have a three car garage.


Cindy opens the door, it leads into the kitchen area. Her redhair in a ponytail, she's in wearing a tight fitting "Björk" t-shrit, she's been really into that experimental pop music stuff lately, since one of her friends from when she went to college introduced it to her. She's got some blue jeans on and a pair of red Sketchers on.

"Where did you go?" I say, looking as she walks through the door.


"Well, I went for a walk down near the beach, called Trevor and see what he was up too, he said he'd get off work at 4 today so I thought I'd just go for a drive around the city for a bit. I've been up since like, ssseven this morning" she says, stuttering a little bit when she said seven.


Trevor was another boyfriend she's had, she's been with him about a year now. A another redhead that she met through a friend, he's pretty tall, about six foot three, and I'm about five eleven so he kinda towers over me. Guy's pretty huge into going to the them, he's muscular and ripped, my parents like him. I think he works as a Manager at a Borders Bookstore.

"Ah nice" I say, going back to finishing my cereal.

Cindy remarks that she's going upstairs to the computer room, go on update her status on Myspace or whatever. I watch her leave.

I finish up my cereal and put my dishes in the dishwasher, for someone to load it up tonight, it won't be me though. I walk back upstairs to get ready to go out, showering and brushing my teeth and whatever. I grab my flip phone, a silver Verizon LG flip phone I got last year, Howard buying me one after I asked him why everyone else has a phone but me, even though I'm technically an adult and could buy my own, I guess that was a pretty immature move looking back at it.


I call up Kevin, one of the friends from school that I still kept all these years. An Asian guy I've known since like, fourth grade. He says he's off today from his dad's Korean restaurant, and he says he'll drive over here to hang out.

I go down stairs after this, Cindy seemingly still in the computer room, still messing around on Myspace if I had to guess. I walk down to the living room and turn on the gigantic projector TV we've had probably about eight years at this point. The last thing seemingly it was left on was MTV, now playing Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, something Cindy most likely left it on, the surround sound of the TV booming, I grab the remote and change the channel and turn down the volume.

I hear Kevin walk through the front door, since we never lock it.

"What's up dude!" I say, looking at him from the couch.

"Brandon my man, how's it going" he says, he wears glasses, a collared shirt, and just some regular jean shorts and a pair of flip flops, pretty chilled out for the day.

He sits on the couch next to me and we catch up a bit, we turn the TV to some random channel, the local news. He mentions why I still don't have a job and I say I'm trying to find one, but in a non nepotistic way, through Howard basically. We stay at my house for a hour and then head out in his car, a grey 1986 hand me down Chevy Nova that he got from his older brother who went back to South Korea to teach English at a school. We go out to get some food, since Seattle isn't really that big on fast food in general and not wanting to go too far from my house, we just go back to my place and make a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches, he's pretty big into classic rock, so he has a ton of Cheap Trick, Boston, and Queen tapes that he plays in the car, Howard and mom always complements his t-shirts whenever he wears one coming over, mom sometimes remising about living in Phoenix and dating dad when she sees the shirts and is reminded of the time period, she tears up sometimes about it in private.

Around eight or so everyone's home, and Kevin stays for dinner, and mom cooks and stuff like that, Howard staying late at work that day, being one of the higher ups at the Eddie Bauer corporate office.


I fall asleep that night, that day basically being a average day for me since about two falls ago, when the excitement of not though I usually hang out with Tim too, but he didn't pick up the phone. If no-one's able to hang out I honestly just park in front either the TV or Computer all day, since I haven't exactly thought about getting into a relationship yet.

Maybe that'll change soon.

Friday, September 18th, 2009


I'm awoken by the sound of feet slapping along the kitchen floor, Molly heading out to work apparently.

I slowly stand up, sleeping on this cold counter the entire night, after the really eventful day that was yesterday.

"Good morning" She mumbles, I really get a good look at her, she's wearing her scrub shirt and pants that I remember he wearing the other day, her hair seemingly not tied into a bun this time.

"Uh, morning" I say, brushing myself of off the crumbs that are on me, the toaster strudel crumbs from the other day still scattered around everywhere.

I notice that my window is open, the cold morning air from outside. The noise of a couple of cars passing by, catches me off guard for a minute.

"Did you do that?" I say, pointing towards the open window in my living room.

"Yeah, I mean, you're gonna have to get some fresh air somehow, it's not exactly healthy for you to be cooped up inside, y'know" she says, as she walks out of the kitchen and towards the door, kicking one of her purses that she brought with her from home on the floor, pushing it out of the way with her foot.


"Okay, but, I'm not trying to let anyone see me either y'know" I say, walking towards her direction, while standing on the counter.

"You won't, trust me, no one can even tell you're in here, the window's too high up anyways, it's more of a, they can't see you but you can't see them type of situation" Molly says, sneezing after saying that.

"Bless you" I remark, realizing it's been awhile since I've seen anyone sneeze.

"Thanks, but yeah Brandon, you'll be fine. I'll get off early today, around four or so, bye" She says, as she puts on her green slip on sneakers, and heads out my front door, it's still unlocked all the time.

"Another day in Paradise" I say, with a deep sigh, the morning light shining into my apartment, my movie posters, I'd moved them around before I left out for my date, switching around Goodfellas and Superbad.

I climb down from the cold counter, using the dresser knobs as stepping stones and I come down. I land on the floor on two feet, and I walk over to the couch, walking around the edge of it and towards the front, my feet slightly sinking into the beige carpet with every step, I climb up the couch, the gap between the sofa seats, about the size of a sidewalk to me, trying not to fall in as I climb.

I make it up, getting the high view of my flat screen TV and my posters, the cold gusts of air from my open window, right next to me.


I get another look out the window, seeing the outside world again for the first time in a couple of days, the cars passing by and all, the window isn't exactly up completely, but up enough to the point where I could fall out, I step back a bit, when thinking about this.

I people watch for a little bit, since again as Molly said, I can see them but they can't see me, due to the apartment's window angle. Since I live downtown, there's usually a lot going on, cars passing by constantly, people talking and hanging about, although, on a Friday morning, it's somewhat quiet, not much noise besides the cars passing by and the occasional honk, the sound of a jackhammer and other construction noises out in the distance. It's pretty cloudy today, but the sky is pretty blue too, sun out and all.

I hear my phone ring, still on the table from yesterday, I walk across the couch, and make the jump from the couch to the coffee table, making it in my first try.

I scoop up my phone from the table, I slide down my text pad and answer it.

"Hello" I say.

"Are you alright? I haven't heard from you since the other day" Danny say.

"Yeah I'm alright, just sick. I've gone a couple of days without talking to you before, are you worried or something?" I say, making my voice a little bit more raspy to play up the effect.

"Nah, just checking in on you. Want me to bring over some Chicken Noodle Soup or some cold medicine or anything like that, Beth made some really fucking good quiche last night, and I can bring some over if you want" Danny says, referring to his girlfriend, they live together as I found out the other day, me only thinking she was living with him temporally due to the fact she was still in the process of moving out of her parents house.

"I'm good dude, plus, I don't wanna spread it to you so just don't come over, alright. Maybe sometime next week this will be over, and we'll go and have a drink" I say.

"Alright. Oh yeah, how that date go with that blonde-chick the other day, I remember noticing you guys really seemed to be into each other at the bar, I noticed the napkin had her number on it" Danny brings up, I wonder why he's talking to me on a Friday morning briefly, but then I remember that he's probably off today.

"It was fine, we went to the Cheesecake factory out in Cheektowaga, she's from North Carolina, she's really likes talking about her ex-boyfriend a-lot, but dude, she's about a eight out of ten though" I say.

"Did you guys do the deed or you didn't get that far?" He says generally curious.

"Yeah bro, I totally got that far on my fucking first date" I say, sounding sarcastic.

"Yeah yeah whatever dude, see whenever you get better" he says, before hanging up and putting my phone in my pocket.

I make the trek from the couch to the window again, my jacket really helping out with the wind chill anyways, it not feeling as cold as you would think.

I look out again, it now being around ten or so, a little bit more life in the streets. I walk out and I stand on the ledge, attempting to get a better look.

"Woah" I say to myself, catching myself briefly, I felt like I was going to fall motion wise.

Before I can say anything else, a gust of wind pushes me off, sending me flying, I scream for a brief moment, but then stop, knowing that will cause attention towards me.

I fly downwards towards the pavement, I close my eyes and brace for impact, not even knowing if I'll make it or not.

I land, in a bag, my landing being pretty soft, some type of cloth material or whatever. The smell of cherry perfume is overwhelming, I look above me, an open window that seems to be a sunroof, it's surrounded by a beige cloth interior.

"What the hell was that?" I hear a female voice say.

I try to bury myself in the cloth, making sure that she doesn't find me.

I feel the vehicle make a right turn through a lane and keeps going, the music on the radio seemingly on a Canadian Radio Station, mentioning something about the CBC, it's all a bit muffled, due to the fact the cloth is surrounding me and affecting my hearing. Getting Canadian stations isn't exactly unusual anyways on TV and Radio, since how much close we are to the border.

She burps, whoever she is, pretty loudly too.

"I honestly forgot how much iced coffee makes me burp, she says, before I hear the sound of a plastic cup being picked up, the sound of ice shifting around in it, I've never been much of a coffee drinker, personally.


I feel the car slow down to a stop, the squeaking of the breaks also telling me that too, sounds like she needs to go in for maintenance.

I hear another burp come out of her mouth, smaller than the last one. She fiddles with the radio, as I can tell judging the sound of the radio switching from station to station, some bits and pieces of the songs I recognize, like one station she passes by playing "Drops Of Jupiter" by Train, as I can tell by the violins, I vaguely remember hearing it back in 2001 on the radio, some girl from school driving me home for whatever reason, maybe I couldn't get a ride that day.

She lands on some classic hits station, playing "I Ran" by A Flock of Seagulls. I really only remember this song since I used to play a good amount of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City over Tim's house on his Xbox back in our senior year, after school.

I move up a little bit, trying to get a good look at my surroundings, I peak my head a little bit out of the bag, the interior of the car is pretty much beige, it's a Nissan Pathfinder, probably around the same year as Molly's boyfriend's Trevor, a 2003 or 2002 or something along those lines, the interior looks pretty much identical.

The driver has long black hair, I can see a little bit of what she's wearing, blue jeans, I can see some of her white panty waistline showing too, a little bit of the skin above it too, showing a small brown dotted birthmark. She's somewhat tanned, a little bit tall, and pretty busty too, she's wearing an black tank top, too I get somewhat of a glimpse of her face from the side, her eyes are brown, from what I can tell. Maybe she's somewhat of a tomboy, judging by the way she's dressing.


The SUV moves again, the light turning green I'm assuming.

The drive to wherever she's going is pretty quiet, besides the radio playing more eighties hits, nothing really I like, just the hair metal stuff from the latter part of the decade, one of the few memories of my father was basically being on a plane to Cancun and my dad was yelling at some random teenager, telling him to turn his music down, listening to some type of band, it might of been Guns and Roses.

I feel the car jolt to a stop, seemingly in a parking lot, I begin to bury myself more into the cloth, seemingly some type of jacket.

I hear her turn the engine off and take her keys out of the ignition.

"What a day to spend your twenty eighth birthday, at work. I've been here six years and I'm still stuck bartending at this stupid bar" She says, before she sighs and opens the front door.

The door slams shut, and I hear her walk a couple of steps to the backseat door, where I am, and she opens it, the door creaking a little bit. From what I can tell from what I can see out the window, she is a fairly attractive woman, green eyes, pretty rare too, no lipstick, she seems more like the type of chick to spend time in the sun, beach-wise I can see.

She pulls the cloth out, and as she attempts to put on the jacket I fall into her black tank top when she does so, the warmth of her bra radiation onto me, right between both of her busty breasts, them both seemingly tanned from the little bit of skin I can see that isn't covered up by the bra, the warmness of it all makes me feel cozy.

She puts on the jacket, covering me up completely, all I can see is darkness at this point. I feel her foot steps as she walks toward the bar door.

I wonder where this will go.

She takes some more footsteps as she walks towards the door, the sound of her feet clacking against the pavement as she approaches it, I hear the muffled sounds of music from the inside, not much chattering going on though, since it's in the middle of the day, I don't imagine there's that many day drinkers though.

She opens the door, the screech of the door and the blast of cold air hits me from inside the bar, seemingly coming through the jacket.

The music becomes more clear as soon as she steps in, it being some type of rock, I can't really make out the lyrics too will, the guitar is pretty loud.

"THERE SHE IS, THE CALIFORNIA BEAUTY!" I hear a older male voice yell out, he sounds like he has a little bit of a drawl.

"Good to see you too, Dale" she says, sounding quite defeated in her voice as she walks, I'm assuming it's a patron, a regular one at it too, them being on a first name basis.

She takes more quick steps, she goes past a double swinging door, sounding a plastic sounding thunk as she walks through it. The music becomes a little bit more muffled again, and she takes more steps, I'm assuming she's in the kitchen of the bar, and then I feel her take a sharp turn left, opening a door.

"Ah, Cassandra, what brings you back here?" I hear a male voice say, a little bit older, sounding like he might be in his forties, mid to early if I had to guess.

"C'mon Vic, cut the shit, why would you schedule me to come in this early anyways, and on my birthday too?" Cassandra says.

"I didn't know it was your birthday, and plus, we're somewhat short staffed today anyways, Francine's off in Nebraska doing god knows what for the next week, and Xavier had a doctor's appointment anyways, something about chest pain he said, as much as fucking smokes anyways. It'll just be you, Rob, Eugene, and I think Veronica should be coming in today around too, about 3 or so" he says, I hear him swivel around in his chair and flip some papers around too, that I'm assuming that are on the desk in front of him.

"Well, alright then" She says, I feel her unzip the jacket a little bit, enough to where I can somewhat see outside of the jacket, her heart still beating behind me, sounding somewhat like a drum in a marching band, I can see Vic's face and the room, it's not really big, just a metal desk, a couple of grey filing cabinets near the back wall, Vic's wearing a red Hawaiian shirt with flowers plastered all over it, he's got a full brown beard and mustache, somewhat balding too.

Cassandra turns around and walks towards the kitchen, opening the wooden door, twisting the long metal knob and opening it, walking into the kitchen, seemingly all metallic, the cooks seemingly haven't made it in yet. The wind flowing through my hair as she walks towards the bar, the floor seemingly beige and yellowish tile, from whenever I look down. I think I'm well hidden enough to the point no-one can see my head.


Cassandra makes it out to the bar floor, the song "Drop It Like It's Hot" by Snoop Dog is playing over the speakers, I guess the bar doesn't really have a set type of music set for it, just whatever came out these last twenty years if I had to guess.

The bar is pretty colorful, the walls seemingly painted a pretty cool mix or red and orange, the colors mixing in with each other. A couple of TVs hoisted around the bar, one flat screen seemingly newer, and a older grey CRT TV, seemingly from a couple of years ago. The flat screen playing ESPN, airing Sportscenter in HD. The CRT TV playing the same thing, but the picture quality isn't as great and a little bit fuzzy, reminding me how far we've kinda come technology wise these last couple of years. The images and sound delaying each other by just a couple of seconds. There's some surrounding tables, seemingly empty, there's maybe three patrons in total, since it's only 12:45pm as shown by the digital clock in the back ground, all of them with seemingly a story to tell if I had to guess, one man, seemingly in his thirties and wearing a nice tan suit and wearing a pair of jet black sunglasses, seemingly looking at what appears to be an iPhone, one of those newer brand of Phones by Apple that came out a couple of years ago, all my co-workers think it'll just be a fad due to only the more well off people just having them, everyone thinking they're only limiting their market to only the rich, he's got some peanuts on his table, some shells surrounding the bowl.

Second guy, looks about retired, maybe somewhere in his sixties, somewhat overweight and wearing a grey jacket and some cargo shorts, a weird choice of clothes, but I digress, third guy, I think it's the "California Beauty" dude from earlier, he looks somewhat scraggly, wearing a heavily stained red shirt, his hair unkept and grey, he looks like he might be in his late forties, his head is down and in his arms, seemingly sleeping now.

I feel Cassandra beginning to take off her jacket, and as she does this, I bury myself deep into her bra again, sliding myself down to where I can feel her upper stomach on my legs, my head right between her lower breasts, her heart beat somewhat speeding up a little bit more since she's been moving around a little more. The black tank top being a bit more see through than the jacket.

Cassandra unzips the jacket and walks over to the coat hanger near the door, putting up. She walks over the bar, and goes behind it.


"Looks like Victor actually set everything before, I guess he was in a good mood today" she says, I notice all the different taps of beer, from Samuel Adams Boston Lager, to more average ones like Bud Light and Molson Canadian. She bends down, towards under the table, this causes me to slide down more, my head only staying out a little, only enough to where I could somewhat see what was going on, but the rest of my torso more on her stomach, the warmth from her stomach seemingly on my pants and back.

She stands back up, seemingly with a rag in her hand, cleaning off the beer taps.

The man in a suit from earlier walks up to the counter and sits down on the bar stool.

"I'll have a Heineken" he says, his voice seemingly sounding relaxed and baritone.

She grabs a glass from behind her, drying it off with a different rag, water droplets seemingly all over it from being washed earlier, and puts it under the tap and press it, the beer splashing down into the glass, filling it up to the top, foam and all.


"So, what's up with the suit" Cassandra says, initiating conversation with him, sliding the beer gently towards him, trying not to spill anything.

"Oh, this?" He says, looking down at himself.


"Yeah, that" she says, giggling at him a little bit.

"I wear suits so often I forget I'm wearing one, I'm actually a stock broker" he says, turning a side eye towards the TV.

"Oh, damn" Cassandra says, sounding somewhat shocked.

"Yeah, I'm slowly regretting choosing that profession more and more by the day, I could use a drink, even at almost one o'clock in the afternoon" He says.

"Yeah, fuck Bernie Madoff" Cassandra says, the man in a suit gives her a weak smile.

"It's a bit more than that Ponzi scheme prick, but yeah, fuck him" He says, as he picks up his glass and begins to take a sip, clearing his throat before he drinks.

A couple of more people walk in, a group of guys in Tapout shirts and a couple of chicks, two white and one black, all three wearing crop tops and cut off jeans.

I notice another guy come out of the other bar doors, seemingly one of the fellow employees Vic was talking about earlier, his hair in a short mohawk, he's pretty pale, and taller than Cassandra too.

"So, what's your name" She says, as he finishes his sip of beer.

"Isaac, actually. You?" He says, taking off his sunglasses. I hear more chatter now, the group setting down at a table and Cassandra's coworker tending to them.

"Cassandra, but my friends just call me Cass" she says.

"You've got beautiful eyes, I've never seen anybody with Green eyes, especially a girl like you" He says, I think he's starting to notice me a little, looking down at her breasts, I pop my head down quickly.

"I swear I just saw something, my own eyes must be paying tricks on me" he says, I feel a couple of gurgles going on behind my back literally, the iced coffee from earlier seemingly being digested.

Cassandra ignores the previous statement, seemingly focusing more on the complement on her eyes.

"Thank you, you're not too bad looking yourself, a guy in a suit like that, are you married?" She says, sounding interested.

"Yeah, I am. About four years last month, actually. We've got a kid on the way, we don't know the gender yet though, we want to keep it a surprise. My wife wants it that way" He says, sounding somewhat awkward about it.

"Oh, well congrats" She says, and I notice as more people start coming through the door, judging by the sound of more chatter.

"You have any kids of your own" he says, taking a huge swig of his beer.

"Well, it's a long story" Cass says, she gives a wave to one of her fellow employees.

"Well, it ain't like I've got anything else to do today besides hang out here" He says, taking another swig.

"I'm originally from Fresno, California, grew up there, all that shit, when I was eighteen, I graduated and I thought it would be cool to be a stripper, against my parents wishes and all that, since we were pretty much strict Catholics and I wanted to kinda rebel against them in a way, and I stripped for about a couple of years or so, I had the body for it and everything, got good tips every night, I was making wayy fucking more than I would of made working at some shitty retail store or whatever, and then around the summer of 2002 or so I fell in love with the owner's son, Adrian, he was about three years older than me, and we'd kinda hang out outside of work, since he was a bouncer and he'd help me out with the crazy guys that would come in, it was a friendship at first, but it eventually turned into a relationship, one thing led to another and whoops, the condom broke. I retired immediately as soon as the test came back positive the next day. I guess the good thing about this both of our parents were pretty supportive, especially my parents, they gave us money and everything. We were both planning on leaving Fresno at one point, Adrian had family in Buffalo, so about, September of 2002, we flew out here and we lived with his Grandparents for about, 7 months until we could find our own place. My son was born in April in the next year. His grandparents taking care of him while I found a job, I didn't wanna do stripping anymore, and this place wasn't too far, so I applied here, and here I am" she says, more people coming in as she told this story as I could hear.

"I mean, where are Adrian and your son now" says some random patron sitting next to Isaac, who came in during the story. I pop my head slowly back up.


"Me and Adrian split up about a year ago, Roman lives with my parents, since they've had empty nest syndrome since me and my older sister left, I let them have custody over them, until he's at least ten, until I get my money situation a bit better. Me and Adrian do put our differences aside and fly out to Fresno for his birthday and other stuff like that, we do try to remain present in his life as much as he can. Adrian left Buffalo for New Orleans last year, managing some type of club out there" she says.


"That's quite a story" Isaac says, seemingly finishing off his beer.

"Yep" She says.

"Welp, I've been here long enough, nice talking to you, Cass" he says, as begins to get up, he reaches into his pocket and dipping into his wallet and pulls out a twenty dollar bill and a five, placing it on the counter.


"Bye!" She chimes, as she takes the money off the counter.

The time is now 1:38pm, as I notice from the clock in the bar, the three women from earlier, walk sit, seemingly breaking away from the group of guys they were with earlier, one girl, with long flowing chestnut colored hair, peach skin and she's not quite busty compared to Cass, she's got a somewhat above average face, she's got a jewel navel piercing , she crosses her left leg across her lap, it seemingly freshly shaved and smooth. She's sitting exactly where Isaac was sitting just a couple of minutes ago. The second girl, she's got a caramel complexion, frizzy black hair, she's somewhat skinny compared to the other two girls, she's got a bit of an outie navel, compared to the other two girls in a crop tops. She's also above average. The third girl is somewhat chubby, her crop top looking a little bit like a muffin top, she's kinda pale, she has red hair that goes down to her shoulder, she's a bit more average in the face.


"What would you girls like?" She says, one of the cooks seemingly rushing out food behind her.

"I'll take a water, I don't really like beer or liquor or anything like that" says the third girl, her voice sounding somewhat somber.

"I'll have a Cosmopolitan" says the chick with the navel piercing.

"I'm not really in the mood, but I guess I'll take a water too" says the second girl.

As Cassandra begins to make the drinks, she also engages in conversation with them, the guys they're with seemingly their boyfriends, they're from Rochester and just on a day trip, they're all around twenty four, so around my age.

As Cass sets the glasses down the table, I end up falling out of the bra, luckily, it only happens exactly when there's a argument going on between two guys near the TV over sports, something about the Miami Heat from what I could tell, so everyone's paying more attention to that, even Cassandra. I land in the water of the second girl, falling straight down, I feel like I'm freezing honestly as soon as I touch down, falling along and splashing along with the cubes of ice.

I hear the muffled voice of Cassandra asking if she wants a straw, and I hear her say no, and as soon as she says no, I feel the cup get lifted up.

"Fuck, you have to be kidding me" I say to myself, I wonder if my phone even still works at this point.

As the ice cold water rushes towards her caramel lips, feeling like their opening in slow motion for me, I just close my eyes and hope she's not one of those people that chews their ice.

I feel the warmness of her mouth for a brief second, and I open my eyes for a brief moment, seeing a little bit of the pink in her jaws and her tongue, before being pulled down her throat with the rest of the water, the ice seemingly behind me, resting on her tongue.

I fall down her throat, landing in the pool of water, seemingly from before she came in her, water rushes down on me so fast before I can even say anything.

"You gotta be kidding me" I say, before I hear a another rush of water coming above me.

I'm washed out again, ice cold water practically dumping down on me, my shoulders starting to hurt because of it, the water pressure and how fast it's coming down, I can tell she's starting to get a little bit bloated, since the walls start to round out a little, from what I can tell. I brace for impact, just in case she start to drink more, and then just nothing, the water gurgling and sloshing around me, seemingly being pushed around by her acids, and I'm trying to wade a little bit, the water now up to my knees, feeling it all sloshing around me.

I can still hear the chatter from outside, although it's pretty muffled.

As I wade around, my Blue Jays jacket seemingly doing pretty good all this time, it's starting to fade in it's blue color, my Universal Studios shirt not doing too well, the words on it starting to melt off I've been noticing.

"So, what's your guy's plan for today, seems like day drinking was on the itinerary" I hear Cassandra say, her voice much louder compared to the other surrounding chatter outside, somewhat booming to me.

The three women give a slight chuckle at this. "We're just looking around, cruising around, Michael's cousins live around here so we're just going to hang out with them once they get off of work, until then, we'll just get some drinks in" says the first girl, before she takes another sip of her cocktail.

I hear foot steps walk over, as soon as she mention's Michael's name, pretty soft sounding though.

"What's up babe?" I hear his voice say, his voice somewhat cracking a little bit at the babe part.

"Oh nothing, I was just mentioning your name, you can go back with the guys if you want, I know you're probably pretty tired though, since you've been working overnights this last month, and since you're the designated driver alrighty after this point" she says, having a little bit of sympathy in her voice, as the other girl talks, I hear the swallowing of another swig of water, I prepare myself this time, I wade a little bit more to the right, to make sure I won't get splashed down on again.

"Nah Brenda, it's fine babe, I'll sit with you girls anyways, I'm tired hearing about whatever the fuck kinda weird shit Zach and Blair saw on TV the other night" Michael says, sitting down on a stool.

The water splashes down, less like a waterfall I could tell and more like a stream, water calmly flowing inside, still cold though, and it rises up to my waist at this point, I feel a couple of bubbles pop around me, the warm humid-ish air on the inside from the acids still seemingly working.

"Yeah I don't know what's up with Blair, he's been obsessed with this new show on Comedy Central, Tosh.O, recording episodes all the time on the DVR and watching them after work, laughing so loud at it as if it was the funniest thing he's ever thing" the second girl says, her voice booming especially, I can tell she takes a somewhat deep breath before talking about it, she swallowed some of her spit too, I noticed as she was talking, a drop the size of a puddle landing with a small splash.

"Oh yeah, the dude from the Taco Bell commercials that you used to see all the time, I've seen promos for that show you're talking about though" says the third girl.

"Yeah, Tracy, of course you're thinking about food" Says Brenda, before taking another sip of her Cosmopolitan.

The three girls and Michael laugh at the quip, and even Cassandra gets a hearty chuckle out of this. As the third girl laughs, I feel the water slosh around a little, taking me with it.

I can somewhat make out the music now playing overhead, though again, still pretty muffled, the song "Apologize" by One Republic playing in the bar now, another pretty modern hit. I remember hearing it constantly being played over and over again at my old job, when I worked at Best Buy a couple of years back, before I moved to Buffalo

"But yeah, it's a weird show. Do you guys always keep it on ESPN?" Tracy says.

"Usually yeah, we'll put it on CNN or the local news or whatever if a big event happens and we catch word of it through people, like we did when Michael Jackson died this summer or the Miracle on the Hudson way earlier in the year, or Obama's inauguration or the Oscar's or whatever, at least for this year" says a male voice, also coming from the counter.

"Yeah, Rob's pretty much right" Cassandra says, as she starts to move away from the counter.

The water level slowly starts to go down during this conversation, seemingly to her bladder. Although she takes a couple of more sips too. I still don't know her name, since it hasn't been mentioned yet, so I'm honestly still guessing what it might be in my head.


"How's Buffalo doing since that plane crash I remember hearing about that happened earlier this year anyways" she says, a little bit somber in her voice.

"Oh, that Colgan crash from earlier this year. It shook the city up for a bit, pretty horrible stuff. I haven't known anybody personally who was affected by it, but I think Vic has a buddy who helped out with some of the aftershock stuff" Rob says, as he starts to help out another customer, pouring someone a drink, as I can tell by the sound of the tap.

"Who's Vic" I hear Michael says, he sounds somewhat confused in his tone of voice.

"He's the owner, for like, I think the last seventeen years, I remember he was there when I started. The bar itself is only about, I think twenty six years old." Vic says, seemingly handing someone else a drink, judging by the clink of a glass landing along a wooden counter.

"You haven't really said much, what's your name sweetheart" Rob says, seemingly talking towards the second girl.


"It's Danielle, I'm just listening really" She says, her name finally reveled to me, I hear her take one last big swig of her water, things have seemed to calmed down in here, the water slowly making their way and splashing down pretty calmly, I start to notice my surroundings a little bit more, the flashings of light from her open esophagus, I can see some chunks of a candy bar floating around from earlier, seemingly mashed up chunks of a Butterfinger, judging by the yellow inside and the chocolate exterior, and the smell of it when it floated close to you. Although you can tell it's slowly dissolving judging by the bubbles forming around it whenever light comes in.

"Ah, well that's cool too" Rob says.

It's quiet between all three girls, the sounds of glasses clinking around them, the song now playing "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé, a newer hit from last year, an ironic song too, since they're all in a relationship from what I can tell.

"I'm going to go see what the guys are doing" Danielle says, standing up, I feel the water sloshing a little bit as she does this.

She takes a couple of steps, northwards as I can feel, more towards the TV, noticing how the sound from it increases.

"I was wondering when you'd make it back" I hear one of the male voices say.

"Eh, conversation kinda ran out over there so I'd thought I'd see what you guys are up to" Danielle says, her stomach at this point is less bloated, as I noticed as the walls seemingly deflating back to a normal point.

"Yeah, we're about to leave anyways, do you wanna go get something to eat, I think we passed a couple of Checkers on the way here" Another male voice says, either Zach or Blair says.

"Nah, I'm not really in the mood for any greasy fast food or something that, Zach bro, Pizza does sound pretty fucking good right now to me" Blair says.

"Eh, I'd say no to either of those, to be completely honest with you guys. I could go for Mexican food or something like that" Danielle says.


"Danny girl, this is upstate New York, the best Mexican food you're going to find is Taco Bell" Zach says, I hear him slightly burp before this.

I hear the footsteps of the other girls and Michael near us, Danielle shifts around a little, the water now down to my legs at this point, most of it seemingly moved to her bladder now.

"What are you guys talking about?" I hear Brenda say, Danielle scooting over a little, to let the two sit next to her on the booth seat.


"What we should eat, it's about three now, and I really don't want bar food" Blair says, I can hear him scratching something, either his head or his chin, judging by the sound.

"I guess I could go for fast food, I mean, how about Wings, this is Buffalo after all" Tracy says, she coughs a little before she starts off her sentence.

"Ehhh, nah. Y'know, a Chinese Buffet would be good though, I could go for that, cheap, fills you up. I'm kinda starving anyways" Danielle says, offering a suggestion.

"Yeah, that sounds good to me, I could go for some Egg Rolls and General Tso" Brenda says.

Everyone else chimes in agreement, I'm somewhat nervous after hearing this news, I'm not too sure how much this chick can eat.

Danielle and other two girls scoot out of the booth and leave, walking towards the door, the trio seemingly paying their tab, the guys didn't seem to buy anything I guess.

The six walk outside, and pile into someone's SUV.

"I bet you I don't look all that stupid now for financing that Hummer, don't I, all that extra space?" Says Zach, seemingly talking to Michael.

"Whatever you say, I know your wallet's constantly empty though" Michael says, sounding annoyed.

I feel Danielle step onto a step, seemingly on the SUV, she opens the door and gets in, along with Brenda and Lacey. I hear Blair ask what I think is Vic who was seemingly out in the bar about where the nearest Chinese Food Buffet was.

They all scoot in the back, I think the two guys climb over to the third row seating, judging by the sounds of the seats popping up in the back.

"I'm still pretty freaked out at driving your Hummer dude, I've driven a U-Haul from Rochester to Providence, helping my older brother move and all, but that was three years ago so I'm kinda rusty" Michael says, sounding somewhat scared about it.


"Trust me, it's not that hard. Think of it as if you were driving that shitty little red 1998 Toyota Corolla" he says, trying to be funny, but coming off more like a dick.

"Fuck you dude" Michael says, sounding even more annoyed in his voice, he cranks the Hummer up and attempts to leave the parking lot.

The drive from the Bar to the Chinese Food buffet, takes about fifteen minutes, with Michael complaining about why Zach has nothing but Eminem and Jay Z CD's in his CD changer, Zach response being pretty much that he's trying to get more into rap nowadays, listening to newer people like Kanye West, and Eminem making a comeback earlier this year. I remember when Eminem was pretty huge throughout all my high school years, 8 Mile being the big movie every guy wanted to see when it premiered, and I'd swear you couldn't watch MTV without seeing the music video to "Stan" or "The Real Slim Shady" or "Cleaning Out My Closet", or whatever new hit single song that he had that was freshly put out at the moment, I haven't heard anything about him in a couple of years, he used to be on the news all the time at one point too.


Michael turns into the parking lot, the song "99 Problems" by Jay-Z comes on, he finds a parking spot near the front, as soon as he fits into the spot, the turns the key out of the ignition.

"Alright, jokes aside, you actually didn't do too bad, you got a little too close to that Subaru when merging that one time though" Zach says, sounding somewhat chill.

They all get out, and Brenda says she's going take out her navel piercing before she eats, mentioning something about making that mistake before at thanksgiving a couple of years ago.

The group walks in, and I'm starting to get nervous, Danielle's stomach acids seemingly bubbling around in a mix of hunger and excitement, burning at me a little bit, but not doing enough to do any actual physical damage, which is somewhat confusing, but I'm pretty grateful for it.

They get seated down, and they get a couple of drinks, Blair offering to pay for the meal this time.

As soon as they're paid, the group sets off. Danielle seemingly the hungriest, she loads her plate up with food, one passerby mentioning that she's totally getting the most bang for her buck.

As she does this, the acids become more and active, sloshing me around a little bit more.

I feel her sit down, and I brace for impact.

As I can tell, she starts on the Egg Rolls first, chunks of them flying down, chewed up, splashing into the acids below, dissolving them, she eats about a total of probably, if I had to guess, about six. She starts on the shrimp fried rice, seemingly accidentally swallowing a couple of pieces of shrimp whole, I grab onto one, using it as a smallish raft, the rice seemingly somewhat chewed up also, but again, not quite, her stomach seemingly starting to work over time, there's a good amount of soy sauce too with the rice, I can smell it especially along everything else, she starts on her pork dumplings, judging by the smell, it's all chewed up. She takes a big chug of her Pepsi, swallowing a couple of ice chunks along with it, the sound rushing through her throat, and landing with a mighty splash among the rest of the commotion, the carbonation bubbles seemingly causing some gas bubbles to float around, she starts on the Beef and Broccoli, it's pretty much all grinded together as she swallows it all, a mix of green and brown mush, as I can tell, I can feel her belly bloating out through all this. She has some sweet and sour chicken, as I can tell from the smell, chunks splashing back at me from the impact

She takes another big gulp out of her Pepsi, taking a good couple of big swigs, an never ending flow of a soda waterfall to me, all the bubbling and churning going on in here, everything seemingly fighting against each other for space, plus getting churned around by her stomach, seemingly working over time.

"Holy shit, I'm full-ugh" She says, starting to lean back in her chair, when she does this, me and the other food shift around, due to how quickly she does this. I'm pretty much floating on the piece of shrimp at this point.

"I forgot how easily you bloat, since you're pretty skinny" Michael says, before taking another bite into his phone.

I see a pretty big burp bubble rise up out of the commotion going on in here, seemingly going up her throat.


She burps, it somewhat echoing inside the buffet, Blair saying that's my girl afterwards, a couple of the people around us laugh at this interaction, as I can hear over the churning going on.


"No dessert right?" Says Tracy, before taking a sip of the iced tea she ordered earlier.

"Nah, I'm too full for it tonight, honestly. Looks like Brenda's pretty full too" She says.

"Yeahhh...." Brenda says, sounding somewhat sleeping.

"Alright, me, Michael and Zach are going to get some dessert plates to take over to Mike's cousin's house, he's probably home by this point, you girls really over did yourselves" Blair says, laughing a little bit at this.

The three guys get up from their seats with the sound of the chairs scooting away from the table, and get dessert.

"God, I'm too full even move" Brenda says, before giving a pretty airy belch.

"Tell me about it" Danielle says, I feel her place her hand on her stomach, I can somewhat feel the pressure above me from her hand placed on it, food still seemingly going at it, everything seemingly still pretty churny and groany in here, I feels like I'm kinda riding a wave on the shrimp, although I'm starting to notice it's also starting to be digested.

"So who's the father?" some guy walks by, making a dumb joke toward the women, they all ignore it seemingly.


"Are you pretty full, Tracy? You actually didn't eat as much as you usually do" Danielle says.


"Eh, I don't really care for Chinese food all that much to be honest, kind of a picky eater" Tracy says, burping somewhat softly after saying that.

It's quiet between the three girls again, I find it funny that Danielle, the skinniest chick of the two, ate the most out of all of them I think.

Michael and the other two guys come back, and the Danielle and the other two girls get up, although slowly, Danielle and Brenda's stomachs gurgling loud enough for the others can hear, I feel some of the food making their way down to her intestines, I start to get dragged along too, but I think about resisting but nah, why not?

They all walk out to the car, the sound of the Styrofoam boxes squeaking against each other as they walk.

Zach offers to drive, and Michael quickly hands him the keys, saying something about he really didn't want to have to drive such a bulky vehicle though traffic, as they move, I feel me and some of the food go into the intestines, smaller, and more tubular, it's somewhat cramped. Some of the shrimp and rice behind me, and chewed up egg roll in front of me, the smell of all the food seemingly enrolled into one, not the greatest smell, but not the worst either.

They all pile into the car, all the girls seemingly tired, especially Brenda and Danielle.

The drive to Michael's Cousin's place is seemingly quiet, besides the groan or gurgle from Brenda's or Danielle's stomach from fullness that's audible enough, I can feel the digestion going on over head, somewhat. Zach turns goes from the CD to the Radio, playing some song called "Best I Ever Had" judging by the chorus a rap song, I can't exactly identify who it is, I'm pretty sure it's a new rapper though.


The drive is about 30-ish minutes, moving me and some other food inside towards the exit, not quite urgent, but enough that Danielle is still staying awake.

I feel the jolt of the Hummer, I'm assuming Michael's cousin lives in a suburban area, judging to how slow Blair is going as turns up, what I think would be a driveway.

Danielle quickly gets out, seemingly walking towards the door.

"Babe, what are you doing?" Zach says, as he also gets out.

"Bathroom, I have to go" She says.

"Alright" He says, sounding somewhat understanding.

Danielle opens the door, she somewhat rushes past someone standing at it.

"Where's your bathroom?" She says, sounding somewhat frantic.

"The guest bathroom is right down the hallway" an female voice says, sounding somewhere in her late twenties.

Danielle rushes a little bit, her foot steps clacking along what I think is the tile floor.

Never in my life I'd ever think I'd be shitted out, and holy shit, Molly must be home by now.


Danielle rushes and opens up a bathroom door, slamming it shut.

She quickly pulls her shorts and panties down, and sits on the seat, before I can comprehend anything else, I flyout, along with the rest of the semi-digested food.

I splash into cold water, seeing actual light for the first time in forever, I see a glimp's of Danielle's ass, it's a light caramel color her skin, she's totally got some cushion back there, there's more coming out as I can tell but she quickly flushes the toilet, seemingly as a courtesy flush.


I hear myself go through a metal pipe, wondering where this journey will take me next.

Friday, May 18th, 2007


I wake up, the sound of the dog's collar chain jingling as it walks by my door, I rub my eyes, it still cloudy outside as I can tell by looking out my window, it always is in Seattle. I remember I go back to work today, the first actual thought that enters my mind, I've been off for two days today from work, so being reminded of that dampens my mood a little bit. I slowly get out of bed, my usual shift is from two to ten, sometimes nine if I beg for more hours.

Mom and Howard renovated the house late last year, and one of the things they got during the process was a dog, since Mom wanted one but Howard always argued against one, not really wanting to have to shell out any more money towards having to buy dog food or wanting to take care of it or the like, Howard finally caved in, mom arguing something about getting one would relieve stress during this time, so he went to the shelter one day and brought back a female Border Collie, about at that point three years old. Due to all the open wires and the general mess that came with renovating though, we constantly watched her to make sure she didn't step or attempt to eat anything until it was done.

I get out of bed, I'm dressed a grey tank top and plaid sweatpants, my room wasn't renovated along with basically the upstairs besides the master bathroom. My Laptop now sitting on the desk, something I bought as a present for myself last Christmas, a ruby red Dell Laptop I bought from work, I'll use it from time to time if I have free time and there's nothing else to do and/or I'm off for work.

I walk into the hallway, and the dog wags her tail, making eye contact with me, she slowly walks towards me and sniffs around my lower pants leg.

"Who's good girl Sasha, who's a good girl" I say, petting and rubbing her head and back, her dog breath isn't the greatest thing to wake up and smell, but it's also a reminder to me too that I should probably brush my teeth.

I pet her black and white fur around for about a minute or so, she starts licking my arm. I stop and she walks into the computer room, since mom put Sasha's dog bed under the computer's desk.

I walk into the bathroom, brush my teeth and gargle some mint mouthwash, and freshen up a little bit, I usually don't shave, and I don't this time around, but I've started to notice a little bit of stubble on my chin starting to grow, surprising me a little bit as I observe myself in the mirror.

I walk out, remembering I go to work at around three today, and getting off at ten tonight.

"Kevin's probably hanging out with his family and older brother, since he mentioned that he came back to the USA for a quick vacation before heading back to Korea last week" I say out loud to myself, Cindy's in the process of moving out at this point, she's usually spending all day looking for apartments, like she's been doing since about March, leaves out at around eight, might come back around one or two, but she usually doesn't come back home and stay until around eight at night, so a good twelve-ish hours or so, if my math is right. Mom and Dad would complain about her being gone for so long when she came back home

I end up calling Tim, since he's a guy who's always been in the same boat as me, a long brown haired tall guy who grew up pretty rich, though his dad was more self made, and Howard was more born into it, I guess. He's heavily into that whole Post-Hardcore, dabbling a little bit into emo too now, since it's somewhat popular these last couple of years along with other mainstream genres of rock. He'd always have some girl with him too, whenever we'd hang out under his circumstances, a girlfriend or someone he met a couple of days ago, he was somewhat of a chick magnet, he played electric guitar at parties too, sometimes he'd invite me with him, every now and then. He's always talked and listened to bands like The Get Up Kids and Saves The Day, back in middle school, and more in High School, bands like Brand New and Thursday and Dashboard Confessional and Taking Back Sunday and Finch, the bands that would get airplay on MTV2 or whatever, and he had a group of friends that I'd sometimes hang out with too who were really into the scene, and every now and then they'd take me to a concert with them, I never really got into it though, all the head banging and mosh pits and all that.


"Bro! What's up? You're off from work at Best Buy today?" He says, sounding a little exited.

"Well, I gotta go in at two, so I've got a little bit of time, so let's go hang out at your house or whatever, my mom and Howard are still kinda weary about letting people over after the renovation and all that" I say, walking towards the staircase.

"Yeah yeah sure dude, y'know, if I got that job at Circuit City you'd be making a lot more money right now and a much more freer schedule" he says, in a kinda mocking tone.


"I really rather not go out and work for a company that's going under pretty soon, at least that's what Howard told me when I told him the idea of it" I say, walking down the stairs.

"Whatever dude, be there in ten" he says, as he hangs up. I get down to the last step, closing my phone and putting it in my pocket.


I walk into the kitchen, the TV seemingly on in the living room, although the volume turned down low, some movie trailer for Spider-Man 3, saying that it's out now before turning to some other commercial for Jack In The Box, and that creepy mascot of theirs.

I look into the pantry, and pull out a package of Fig Newtons, not really having the energy to make anything this morning, to be completely honest with you.

I grab the package and sit on the couch, I grab the remote off of the floor, and change the channel, landing on the Disney Channel, airing some stupid live action show staring the daughter of some country singer that I vaguely recognize, I keep my finger on the plus button, passing by few other channels quickly, stopping on VH1, playing some clipshow show called "I Love the 90's" from a couple of years ago, celebrities giving their opinions on whatever happened in the titular year, I mumble something about how boring TV is and this I why I usually just go online nowadays.

I press the off button on the remote, and stand up. I didn't eat any of my Fig Newtons, I wasn't really hungry anyways this morning, I'll just skip breakfast.

I walk back up stairs, I quickly put on a grey collared t-shirt, and some shorts, slipping into to some Reeboks, though I'm not wearing any socks today.

I walk down stairs, with my cell phone in my pocket, it's around 11:05am, according to my phone time.

I unlock the front door and head outside, as soon as I do, Tim pulls in, he drives a green 1997 Jeep Wrangler, I can hear the music playing, pretty loud too, since there's no windows on it or anything like that, some modern day rock song with whiny and screamy voices.

I walk toward the Jeep, and I notice Tim lean over and pop open the passenger side door, to let me in.

I climb in and sit down, and Tim turns the radio down on his aftermarket radio, showing some picture of a fish moving around on it. The song seemingly called "Face Down" by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.

He speeds off, turning the radio down, I forgot how windy it can be with just no windows.

I get a good look at Tim, he's wearing a "Senses Fail" T-shirt, one of the bands he likes and dark blue jeans, we make it out of the neighborhood and onto the street, the one thing about Seattle, there's always Lake Washington in the background, especially when you get outside of the city and more towards the suburbs.

We stop at a stop sign, and then we go, the radio babbling loudly still.

The top 100 radio says it's stupid little jingle and announces the next song, it being Don't Matter by Akon, R&B has always been one of those genres I've had interest in, ever since hearing Ghetto Superstar by Pras back in the 7th grade playing on a former friend's dad's radio as he was driving us to get pizza, and before that point the only music I liked were the Weird Al CDs my mom would let me buy with my allowance money, if a new album came out or whatever, Howard putting me onto his songs. I've had a liking towards newer acts like OutKast and Usher stuff about a decade old like Boys II Men and All-4-One.

Tim Drives to his house, his house's driveway is much bigger than mine, compared to the three car garage that I have. There's a newer looking four door Audi A6 parked to the side, his Mom's car I'm pretty sure.

He slows down and sets the car to park, turning the engine off, and we both hop out.

We knock on the door, his house is two story too, but the way they use the space over his house, is kinda cool too.

The living room is pretty nice, a white sofa and two brown recliner chairs, his mom seemingly watching a recorded episode of American Idol, judging by the pause and play buttons the the recording line on the bottom of the TV Screen, she's dressed in a blue robe and sipping on Tea out of a mug. She gives us a small smile and a wave.

We go up to his room, it's plastered in stickers and posters of the bands he likes, their touring posters, and it always smells of Lysol. His jet black electric guitar and amp in the closet, peaking out a little bit, wires on the floor.

We talk for a little bit for a couple of hours, mostly about what's going on in our lives, mostly weird stuff we've seen at our respective jobs, me working at Best Buy and him working at a Bowling Alley, mostly his stuff takes the cake, since my stories are mainly about stupid people and dumb thieves, his mostly about fist fights between middle aged men and the like the conversation comes around due to me mentioning me having to go into work in a couple of hours.

He drives me home after eating a couple of Hot Pockets and watching each other play Guitar Hero and I get ready for work, putting on my stupid blue collared shirt the drive to work isn't too far.

I clock in and stuff, it's a pretty slow day today, the sound of the same three Movie Promos played on the new flat screen TVs in the background, The Simpsons Movie, Transformers, Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix, all big upcoming summer blockbusters I've been told. All three annoying the hell out of me with it's constant loud noise of promos.

One of the customers I strike up a conversation with seems to be a film school student, buying the DVDs for Office Space, 9 to 5, and American Psycho. Some type of assignment about the American Office worker and why they're seen as the everyman, a paper assignment. I kill time by chit-chatting with co-workers, mostly talking about how annoying the TV promos are, I tell them my story on how I snuck into South Park's: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, when it came out, being caught by a the ushers and them making my group of friends go see Muppets from Space as a punishment, the theater owner finding it funny and all. My coworkers laugh at this story, finding it pretty amusing.


We close that night, the entire day only just a handful of customers for a reason, I check my phone after the drive home and see I have a couple of missed calls, from Melissa, my girlfriend. I forgot to talk to her today, I say something to myself along the lines of I'll talk to her tomorrow, my mind being so occupied on something else that night, as I turn my keys in the ignition, and walk towards the door entering the house.

I fly along in this dark, metallic enclosed space, a mix of clean water from the toilet and what's previously been expelled around me, I feel warm, but yet cold at the same time, the coldness of the outer pipes somewhat reflecting the chilliness outside of this cold fall season, I feel myself rushing along with it, and then, some type of drop, like a weightless like feeling, some type of turn, and then I'm falling, along with the rest of the waste, just free falling.


I land with a splatter, and then, among the rest of the waste, I'm now in the sewer system, it's pretty big compared to the pipes I was just in, more space to move around, I'm rushing along with it all, there's some lighting as we move, from a little bit shown through the open rain drains, the light shining besides the lined up shadows from the metal grates, giving me a glimpse of the outside world, seemingly though we're in suburbia still, judging by the sounds of cars passing by and a lawnmower sounding like it's cutting grass.

The waste, which at this point, is mostly water, I've been noticing other stuff have been added into it as we go, more waste too, but seeming bath and shower water, judging by the faint smell of shampoo too, though I can't really make out the exact scent of it though, just a vague hint.


The flow keeps going and going and going, I get the realization that I might end up going out to the river or a treatment plant, shortening my chances to ever get back home, the thought greatly sticks out in my mind, and I try to swim over, even though everything's just about up to my knees in liquid, and the flow is pretty quick. I see some steps and a manhole cover, what I think is the bottom of it, I quickly trudge to the side, trying to get a grab onto the concrete barrier of the sides of the sewer, seemingly a ledge.

I flow closer and closer towards it, getting my jump ready, as soon as I'm in distance, I reach my hand out and grab onto it, and use my body weight to throw myself on top of it, and I do, somewhat completely successfully.

"Finally" I say, trying to catch my breath, it's completely loud in here, the sound of everything rushing behind me, I can barely hear myself think. I feel somewhat dirty, after being in all that filth for the last forty five minutes, if I had to make a guess, it felt somewhat like a eternity for me, I look at the metal bar steps above me, seemingly covered in brown, it's pretty rusty, but I'll have to make it work in order to leave this place, the bars as about as long as a park bench and as big as a door to me, the spaces between them, I'd have to probably use all my might to jump, it seems like I could make it if I tried. The smell of the sewer is really starting to get to me now, since I'm not as used to it anymore due to the fact that I'm out of that disgusting flowing mess, my pants and the bottom of my jacket seemingly stained, but I really don't care all that much at this point, all I'm thinking about is getting back home.

I climb onto the bottom step, these steps are round and tubular, but stable enough on the top of them that I can basically just stand on it without worrying too much about my balance. I firm up my stance a bit more, and make another jump, reaching out my right arm to grab onto the next bar, and it works. The higher I get, the more I hear the sounds of outside and the world around me, compared to rushing of the sewer below me, step by step.

I eventually make it towards the manhole cover, there's holes around the inside of it, a small slit through the edge, small enough that I could possibly fit through, I project myself through it, using the final step as a launching pad and jumping, the smell of fresh air seemingly rewarding throughout all of what I've been through these last couple of hours. It's probably around seven o'clock or so, judging by the golden sunset in the sky, the road being somewhat clear, we're seemingly still in Buffalo, judging by the fact there's a "40 MPH" sign right out to sidewalk, it's still pretty cold outside, contrast the warmness inside the sewer, that also being a shock to me, the fall here in Upstate New York feeling much more colder to me than back home in Seattle.

I look behind me, there's a SUV coming, off in the distance, it's black and looks like it's a Ford Explorer, maybe about three or four years old, my surroundings are pretty much shops and some fast food places and the like, everyone else seemingly too focused on whatever their doing to even notice, I attempt to move out of the way, it seemingly speeding, the fact I've survived everything else during this weird trip is crazy to me, but I really rather not test out getting ran over, to be completely honest with you.

I run out to the other side of the road, the black SUV rushing past me, the wind from it sending me in the air, I start to scream but quickly stop, along with me are multi-colored leaves too, I notice. I think we're in Elmwood Village, a neighborhood in Buffalo. As I fly in the air another car rushes past, a red four door Mazda with it's back window's down, I end up flying into the backseat, landing on the floor, it's seemingly clean, as if it's been dry-cleaned sometime in the past.

The radio is playing a song I only know from hanging out with Tim back in high-school, "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows" by Brand New, I wonder who this is, I know it can't be Tim himself, he's still living in Seattle, and it sounds somewhat female too.

The voice screaming/singing along to the lyrics, sounding vaguely familiar, although it's hard to tell with the music turned up loud. I attempt to get up off of the floor, the car, but I end up rolling under the seat and towards under the feet and the legs of the driver, their seemingly wearing New Balances, which look exactly like the same kind my Coworker would wear, Ashlyn, even the same grey scuff on the bottom of the heel to prove it. I start to think of this as my possible ticket home, somehow.


"WASTING WORDS ON LOWERCASES AND CAPITALS" Ashlyn screams out, at the top of her lungs, seemingly her voice isn't all that well suited for it, but she manages.

The song ends and I hear the clicking of a button, Ashlyn seemingly changing the station, I had no idea such a preppy chick, was into that type of music, you'd get more of a Britney Spears or Jennifer Lopez listener vibe from her at work, but after all, looks can be deceiving as I've noticed. I hear her slow breathing and just the hum of the car, seemingly turning it off I'm assuming.

She stops, sending me rolling back towards the seats, the wind making the car even colder due to the draft coming through them.

I hear the passing of another car, and then she goes. I remember one day at work Ashlyn mentioning something about living in Elmwood Village, living with her parents, still, I realize that's she's probably my only ticket to go back home, and that realization hits me so hard right now, since the bank is right down the street from my apartment, either I spend the night in her car, or I follow her in somehow, I really don't want to alert her either though but I also don't want to spend a cold night in her car also, so I guess we'll find out pretty soon.

The car jolts forward, again, and then it takes a sharp right turn, onto a street, making me slide over the bottom seat adjuster.


"I wonder what mom made for dinner tonight, I honestly hope she's making Hamburger Helper like she said she would" she says, seemingly thinking out loud.

The car slows down and turns into something, seemingly a driveway. I start to think about my plan, to somehow get into her house and avoid being caught, in someway.

I hear her take the keys out of the ignition, the car shutting off, and I hear the door open, with a pretty loud creaking sound, she gets out, and closes the door. I hear her foot steps as she leaves, heading towards the house.

It's just me in the car now, I climb out from under the seat, and out near the petals, I look back up, wondering how I'm going to climb onto the cloth seat, the car seemingly made in the nineties, I make the jump from the floor to the seat, climbing onto it. I can somewhat smell her scent on it still, a fruity smell, it's starting to get more dark outside, as I can notice, the sound of an Owl hooting in the background, although it sounds pretty distant.


I climb up onto the door, using the handle as something to hold onto, lucky for me, she didn't close her car door all the way, so there's a pretty good sized cap I could slip out of near the bottom of of the door, I jump down and land on the floor, feet first luckily. And I slip through the small crack, being introduced to the pavement driveway, and how chilly it feels against the cool night air.

I get a good look at the neighborhood, it's surrounded by trees and the surrounding houses are in a colonial style fashion, cars lined up, parking on the street.

I run towards the open garage, I wonder why Ashlyn didn't park inside it, and as I get closer I realize there's only room for two cars in it, not seemingly a three car garage like how it used to be back home.

I make it in, I hear the chatter going on inside, seemingly a deep older male voice, and a older though pretty much higher pitched female voice. I walk through the slightly open crack of the door.

I'm greeted to warmness, but also the washroom, the sound of the dryer seemingly going off, the room's dark, but I can see the light of the kitchen shining into it.

I walk out, though my back against the baseboard, it's about as tall as me.

I walk through the smaller hallway, the floor being tile, there's a bar along with the kitchen, and the living room TV playing some movie, I can't exactly tell what it is but I can point out the voice of Tom Cruise. I guess her mom did cook Hamburger Helper, since I can smell the scent of beef cooking in the air.

"But yeah dad, it's fine, there's no need to worry about it, my Coworkers are nice" Ashlyn says, I can hear her feet slapping against the floor, I poke my head out from the side, she's wearing just a regular grey t-shirt and some grey shorts, nothing really revealing or anything along those lines.


"Alright then, if you say so" Her father says, sounding somewhat gruff.

I sneak from the hallway to under the bar, from here I can just see feet and legs, and the back of the couch.

"I swear I just saw something move" I hear the older female voice says.


"It's nothing, Helen, you just probably saw a dust bunny, we oughta clean up the house anyways" Her father says, he's wearing flip flops and Khakis, guy's legs are pretty hairy.

They go on about their family dinner routine, Helen mentioning something about wishing Will was still living at home instead of moving out, I think Ashlyn mentioned something about having a older brother who lived out in Rhode Island with his girlfriend, this was a couple of months ago, so that must of been Will.

As I sneak around during dinner, I end up on the foot of Ashlyn, her accidently stepping on me, luckily I just stick to her foot and she doesn't notice, she drops a piece of garlic bread, that I ended up falling onto.


As she picked up the garlic bread, I was already pretty much covered by cheese at this point, a quirk of her being that she puts parmesan cheese on her garlic bread, so I just got buried in it.


She puts the bread in her mouth, it all feels like slow motion at this point, I notice her teeth starting to chew, I know my fate is pretty much inevitable at this point, so I don't try to do anything to get her to throw up, I get softly gnawed on, but not actually enough to do any damage, besides a couple of rips on my clothes, I see her throat starting to open up, and me and the rest of the chewed up bread and the cheese flakes fall down it, her throat's a little bit less smaller compared to Danielle's.


I plop in, and the biggest thing I notice is, her stomach is working way harder than I remember Danielle's being.

"Great, third time's the charm" I mention, realizing I might be in more danger this time.

The acids around me are bubbling and gurgling near my waist, I can feel it somewhat burning me too, I try to trudge along through the sludge, seemingly thick with the chewed up ground beef and parmesan cheese flakes and bits of garlic bread, seemingly still in the process of seemingly being digested by her, I see the shadow of a big lump of chewed up bread slowly floating around near me, I grab onto it, the garlic smell really rubbing onto me, seemingly it was the type of garlic bread you put in the oven and bake yourself, judging by the somewhat starchy quality of it.


"So I was watching Conan O'Brien last night and they were promoting this movie, Jennifer's Body or whatever the hell it's called, and it had me thinking, is this what society has came down to? Sex sells on everything?" I hear a muffled gruff voice say, Ashlyn's father seemingly complaining about something.

Another big chewed up chunk of hamburger helper falls into her stomach, landing with a plop and a fizz from the acids, I see a couple of pieces of lettuce fall down too, it's light green color I could somewhat see from the light from the outside, seemingly when her throat was open. I notice that the bread is seemingly slowly starting to disintegrate, little bubbles showing up around near me, small popping sounds.

"I mean, it's late night TV, Greg. Don't you remember how old people would complain about Charlie's Angels or Three's Company back when we were younger" Helen says, I hear the shifting of plates and silverware going around, as if they were passing the salad bowl or whatever.

"Maybe so, but at least they were fully clothed, at least, I'm going to go change the TV" he says, I hear his chair scooting away from the table.

I notice the acids around me rise, as more and more food has been piled in, I see another chewed up lump of greens and red, seemingly out of tomatoes and more lettuce, I can also smell a hint of ranch in it too, mixed in it all.

The smell around me is really mix of everything Ashlyn's eaten, not the greatest smell, but not the worst either. I hear the rushing of her lungs, air going in and out of them, seemingly relaxed, her heart beat is pretty faint too, both of them seemingly drowned out by her stomach, seemingly going hard at work on her dinner, I've been sloshed around since I've been using this bread somewhat like a raft. I feel her starting to reach over the table, judging by the sudden movement of all of a sudden, causing me and the rest of the food to shift around.

She sits back into her chair, I can somewhat hear the sound of her unscrewing a bottle, a two liter bottle of soda if I had to guess, judging by the sound of the air releasing as she opens it.

I hear footsteps as her dad walks back to the table, getting back in the chair and scooting up again, the legs sounding like their grinding against the tile floor.

"So, how was your day today, Ashlyn" I hear Helen say.

"It was fine, went to work, nothing much interesting happened there besides the fact Brandon was gone, he's pretty nice" Ashlyn says.

I hear the sipping of something above me, and then the swallow, echoing from in here.

"Do you like Brandon, he's older than you isn't he?" Her dad says, as I hear this the soda lands with a splash, seemingly Sprite, judging by the smell.

"As a friend I do, he's nice, kinda cute but I wouldn't date him, plus from I've heard he's just got a girlfriend" she says.

"Aren't you still not over Jordan, you'd be crying every night over him?" Says Helen, before taking another bite of her food.

"I mean, when I first graduated yeah and he didn't wanna pursue a long distance relationship, me here in New York and him doing some study abroad program all the way in New Zealand, but I eventually got over it, Liz and Ann got me through it" She says, before taking big swig of her Sprite and swallowing it, I'm right above the opening of her throat, so me and the garlic bread get completely drenched by it, although, some of it got in my mouth, which was a somewhat pleasant taste in my mouth, the lemon and lime carbonation taste.


"How are they doing anyways, I've only seen them come around the house since you've graduated like what, two or three times? They used to come over almost everyday at one point, always raiding our damn fridge" Her father says.


"I mean, Liz went off to college so she's always wanting to study and we'll sometimes talk on Facebook and hang outside of work, Ann got caught up with this guy not too long after graduation and now she's five months pregnant, so uh, yeah" Ashlyn says.

It's quiet between everyone after that, I notice that Ashlyn's stomach has somewhat quieted down, some of her food moving to her intestines, the acids going down from my waist to my legs. I feel all the food around, seemingly just colored blobs of mush now, she's not eating as huge portions anymore, just bits of salad slowly falling in and and seemingly as if she's finishing off her Hamburger Helper, she takes two huge gulps of her Sprite though, seemingly flooding her belly with the soda, rising up to my waist again, finishing it off. I see a huge burp bubble rise through the all the commotion going on, her throat opening too.

Ashlyn burps, it sounding somewhat wet too.

"Manners, please" Greg says, sounding somewhat annoyed.

It's quiet for the next 5 minutes again, until Helen starts to restart the conversation.

"I've heard that Jack Cooper is on some type of Motivational speaking tour" Helen says.

"I wonder how the crowd could see him if he's only a couple of inches tall, though" Ashlyn says.

"From what I've heard, they really zoom the cameras in on him whenever he speaks, at least, that's what they did when he was on Larry King Live last year" Greg says.

"Didn't he get the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year? I saw something about that, on the news" Helen says.

"Yeah I think so" Greg says.

The food from earlier around starting to move to her intestines, and I do too, being sucked out of her stomach more towards her intestines.

"Well, I'm done, I'll guess I'll head off to bed, it's only around eight thirty or so, I'll let you and your mother decide who wants to do the dishes" Greg says, scooting up from the table and walking up the stairs, I can hear the stairs creaking as he walks up them.

"Well, you did them last night so I guess I'll do them tonight" Helen says, as I hear her collect the plates off of the table, the glasses clinking with each other.

"Uh, thanks mom" she says, sounding somewhat surprised that she's doing it.

Ashlyn walks upstairs, I somewhat shake around with every step, along with the chewed up food, it smells arguably worse in here, compared to her stomach, but it's not like it's suppose to be pleasant in here. The Lettuce behind me, and the chewed up macaroni noodles in front of me.

She makes it to the last step, causing me and the rest of the food to stop shaking around, although in her stomach above it doesn't sound like it's doing too well, lots of churns and bubbling above, tossing everything around.

I think she walks into her room and sits on her bed, beginning to take off her clothes, mumbling something about needing to change her tampon. She burps again, this time a little bit more quietly.

Ashlyn's stomach gurgles, seemingly out of fullness this time.

"At least I'm not as bloated as I am when I usually eat" she says, I feel her putting both of her hands on her stomach, feeling the pressure of it a little bit, rubbing it a little.

"I do kinda miss Jordan a little bit" she says, seemingly getting up and walking around a bit.

I feel her walk to her drawer and open it, seemingly changing out her shirt, and pants, judging how she's bending down for the pants part, changing into something that's a bit more, lounging around the house attire, if I had to guess.

I feel her bend down and pick her clothes off of the floor, seemingly throwing them into a basket into her closet and then shutting the door.

I hear her footsteps against the carpeted floor of her room, and the creaking of the wooden door too as she opens it, she takes a couple of more steps, entering the bathroom, seemingly the door alright open, I hear the flick of a light switch and then the opening of a box, which I assume are tampons. I've never really known too much about feminine hygiene, Cindy would always try to hid that stuff from me and mom just never really brought it up, as Ashlyn attends to her hygienic needs, I think about my life up to this point, if I'll ever get back home or whatever the fuck, I had this type of conversation with myself on the road trip from Seattle to Buffalo, driving by yourself and driving through wide desolate states like Montana and parts of states like Minnesota and Ohio and driving through other midwestern states, nothing trees or cornfields or mountains or even just empty fields for miles until you hit the next big major city or town in the state, I did a lot of thinking on that trip as I drove, about my life up to this point, my parents getting divorced at a young age and moving to Seattle, living with a rich stepdad, going from friend group to friend group throughout all my school years, and somewhat feeling like you never fit in with any of them. All of this lead me to this weird situation I'm in now.

She finishes I think and walks out of the bathroom, turning off of the light, and goes into her room.

Ashlyn gets into her bed, she lays on her back, her head on the backboard of the bed, judging by the small ouch she says when she puts her head on it with a thud.

I hear the powering on of a TV and the chatter of the TV, I can hear her mom doing the dishes downstairs too, judging by the clashing of the silverware in the sink, she's humming pretty loudly.


It's only around nearly nine at night at this point, but I guess everyone in this house goes to bed earlier than I do.

I slowly start to fall asleep too, the food behind me aiding as a pillow, I have a slight twinge of homesickness, but it quickly leaves me as soon as I thought of it though, I'm not exactly comfortable with being this tall, but I am starting to long for some since of normality.

"Another day, I guess" I say, as I slowly start to drift off too.

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

I wake up, still seemingly in the bowels of Ashlyn, the smell isn't exactly pleasant, judging by it we're getting more towards the exit, it's dark and damp and somewhat humid, the food around me from last night seemingly more solid and less mushy compared from when I was falling asleep, I can hear some of the gurgling going on above me, seemingly past her large intestine and more towards her stomach, seemingly hungry judging by the growls and groans from it, her acids basically done with the meal from last night.


I hear her alarm clock going off, although it's quite muffled, the constant chime of the beeping seemingly causing her to wake up, this reminds me that she works a second job at a hotel as a desk clerk on the weekends.

"At least I don't have to go in until twelve today" she says, and then sneezes.

She lays back in bed, shifting and rolling around in the sheets for a bit, I feel her shift and laying on her back instead of on her side, causing me and the rest of her digested dinner to shift around a little bit, giving me a little bit more room now, she rests her hands above me, seemingly on her belly, feeling the pressure above me a little.


She lays there in silence for about ten minutes or so, and then she starts to get out of bed, judging by her movements, I can hear the sounds faintly, her making her sheets and all. She walks into the hallway, making a remark that someone needs to turn the heat on, the house feeling somewhat cold.

I hear her open the bathroom door, taking her clothes off and and then taking a shower, I can somewhat feel the heat of the hot water radiate from the shower to in here, I feel some movement going on, seemingly bringing me and the rest of the food from last night a little bit closer to the exit, I honestly feel like I need a shower at this point, to be completely honest with you, I'll probably though all of my clothes away too.

Ashlyn sings in the shower, she's decent at it, singing the song "The Sign" by Ace of Base, a song from the nineties that I remember hearing back when we were living our first couple years in Seattle, mom living with her parents before they introduced her to Howard in 1994, who was a widower before he met her, which was grandpa's friend's son that they told him about, grandpa telling one of his friends that she's now on the market.

She finishes up her shower, she turns the water off with a squeaky turn. She starts humming the song now, as she steps out of the shower.

"Alright, it's probably ten now" she says to herself, I can feel her reach for a towel off of a towel rack, judging by the cloth sound off of the metal rack, she wraps it around herself.

"I wish these were bigger though, maybe I'd get more attention from guys" she says, I hear the watery slap from her touching her tits.

She dries herself off, seemingly rubbing the towel all over her, I feel her bend down too, moving us even closer, I feel. After this she removes her tampon and puts in a new one, judging by her grabbing a box of something and pulling something else out.

She seemingly takes the towel off and opens up a closet door, tossing the towel into a basket, judging by the poof sound of it, she's seemingly naked now.

I hear her open up a drawer and pull something out, it's pretty silent for a little bit, I'm guessing she's beginning to brush her teeth, this is confirmed by the sound of a cap being screwed on.

I hear the sound of her brushing her teeth, and it feels like a eternity too, but then I hear the sound of her spitting, and water rushing too, kinda odd she doesn't rinse her toothbrush, but that's probably the least weirdest thing about this situation I'm currently in. I feel a gas bubble float pass me, seemingly a fart if I had to guess.

She passes gas, although it's pretty quiet and you could barely hear it over the sound of water running.

She puts the towel back on as she walks to her room, making a comment about covering her breasts this time.

She walks into her room and closes the door, throwing her towel on the bed, I feel her walk towards her drawer, seemingly putting her panties on and grabbing some other clothes, and putting those on, I don't really know what's really going on though.

She gets dressed, putting on some perfume judging by the sound of the spray bottles and grabbing one of her handbags out of her closet. She closes the door to her room.

The house is pretty quiet I've noticed, her parents still sleeping in her room. She walks downstairs and into the kitchen.

"Looks like mom cleaned up the kitchen pretty well at least" she says, as she walks into the kitchen.

She walks into the cupboard looks around a little bit, and then makes a remark that mom needs to go grocery shopping and she'll probably pick something up on the way to work.

I hear her walk somewhere and open a door, bending down and picking up some shoes off of the floor, judging by the sound of the shoes in her hand clicking and clacking against each other. She throws them on the floor and puts them on, sliding her feet into them.


I hear the sound of her grabbing her keys off of the counter and her grabbing something off of the rack near the door, and then the sound of the door unlocking and her walking out and closing it behind her.

She stops and puts what I think is a jacket on judging by the zipper zipping up.

"Gotta love fall" she says, crunching through leaves as she walks to her car.

I wonder when she'll get the need to use the bathroom, but after all, it's pretty warm in here, so maybe it's not too bad compared to how chilly it is outside.

She grabs her keys and unlocks the door, and then sitting down and cranking it up, it doesn't start the first time, but it does the second time, much to relief of Ashlyn.

She sits for about five minutes or so, letting the car warm up, she switches from station to station, passing by the songs from what I could tell, All The Things She Said by t.A.T.u., Whatever You Like by T.I, and some radio ad for a local mechanic shop, before landing on I Don't Care by Fall Out Boy, another one of those rock bands that's gotten pretty big in these last couple of years.

She pulls out of the drive way and makes her way to the hotel she works out, she hums along to the song as she drives, I start to remember, in previous conversation the hotel she works at was roughly a 5 minute drive from my apartment, this was downtown.

She stops at a stop light and the song seemingly turns off, and turns into it's jingle, the station seemingly 103.3 The Edge. One of the big modern rock stations in this city, but they also play a mix of classic rock too. The announcer mentions something about how chilly it is outside before announcing the next song, seemingly 21 Guns by Green Day.

I remember Molly mentioning something about her ex-boyfriend Matt hated Green Day on our date, the band being really overplayed due to their American Idiot album and it's radio singles being really huge when he was attending UCLA in his freshman and sophomore years, and whenever he'd turn on his car radio to KROQ or whatever, and he'd just get super annoyed with hearing their new songs being played all the time, or at least that's what Molly would say when talking about it about. My last girlfriend wasn't really all into music, when I come to think of it.

Ashlyn takes off from the light, and makes a sharp turn as I can feel, she says something about maybe timing that better, since you could hear her getting honked at for waiting a little too long at the light.

She drives down the road and she stops at more lights and takes a couple of turns, and then she parks on the side of the road, seemingly in the downtown district where I live. She says something about she's not going to pick anything up since she's not all that hungry anyways.

The radio's playing Everything's Magic by Angels & Airwaves, one of the few bands that ex-girlfriend was seemingly into, formed by one of the guys from Blink-182 as I can tell by the voice of the singer, after that break up they had back in 2005 that I somewhat remember hearing about, although I think they're back together now since their drummer nearly died in a plane crash last year, as I heard through Kyle earlier this year, since it was on the Grammys. I never really cared much for the band or that whole scene in general, I always found it pretty cheesy and obviously marketed towards teenagers.


Ashlyn turns off the car in the middle of the song, and walks into the hotel, I can hear the sounds of the city going on as she walks, cars and busses passing by, people talking, she walks into the hotel, I can hear the sound of the automatic sliding doors open as she walks towards it, seemingly setting off it's sensors.

I hear the voices of people, Buffalo's always been a huge tourist spot due to Niagara Falls being pretty close by anyways.

I hear her greet her fellow coworkers, male and female, she goes into the backroom, and then I hear a huge gurgle/moan above us, and I feel everything around me starting to move a bit more.

"Finally, freedom" I say out-loud to myself, praying internally that hopefully being in the dark for too long won't mess with my eyesight long term.

"Alright, I have to go to the bathroom" She says under her breath, she speed walks to the bathroom, saying excuse me as she passes by a couple of people, seemingly getting in their way.

She opens up a door, and slams it, I feel her pull down her pants and panties, and I see an opening open up, showing the water below us.

I plop in, along with everything else with a splash, I try to get out of the way of everything else landing, climbing a bit more onto the bowl, you can somewhat tell she's been holding it in for a bit too, I get a glimpse of her ass, it's somewhat pale and I notice a couple of goosebumps on it, it doesn't seem like she needs to really clean either on the inside of it, she does one wipe, and then she pees, luckily this all lands in the water, leaving me pretty clean throughout all of this, she wipes again, the pee off of herself then she flushes, as I notice she's about to do this, I quickly climb the bowl and grab onto those blue toilet bowl cleaner clip-ons, grabbing onto it with all my might, to prevent from getting flushed again.

She flushes the toilet, everything quickly getting sucked up, the water-pressure is pretty strong at this hotel, as I can notice.

I hear her pull up her pants and panties, and walk towards the sink, she hums a little song to herself as she sprays the bathroom down with some disinfectant spray, as I can smell, she walks over and washes her hands and dries them off with the paper towel dispenser, as I can hear. She opens the door and closes it, although, she keeps the light on, luckily for me.

I climb out of the toilet, using the clip on as a stepping stool, I get onto the toilet seat, it's super white, the bathroom looks pretty clean, but again, I think this must be the employee bathroom, judging by how this is the only toilet stall in here, and the sink's right in front of it.

I can somewhat feel the warmth from where Ashlyn was sitting, and it's a little bit sweaty too, but I ignore it for the moment, I jump down off of it, I'm somewhat surprised I don't reek due to where I've just been, but I guess the fact I was out of the way for most of that event got me lucky. I land on the floor, and I can probably fit through the crack of the door underneath, and slide through it a little bit, it's like playing limbo.

I somewhat stick around the corner and try to strategize how I'll get out the door without anyone seeing me. I wait about 25-30-ish minutes to wait for the rush to die down, people still starting to check in, most people and families usually from the Canadian Border towns and Toronto and a couple of Californians and New Jerseyans, as I can notice from the conversations with Ashlyn and her co-workers.

As soon as I realize the coast is clear I run as fast as I can towards the sliding doors, the hotel's slick porcelain floors allowing me to kinda slip and slide my way through it all.

I make it through the door, I run under a SUV in the front of the hotel, some oil dripping onto me as I do so.

I look at the road, and I immediately notice my SUV about to pass by , front license plate and all, and Molly's driving it, she seems to be in a emotional wreck, her hair's a mess and everything.

As soon as it comes closer to passing by the hotel I start running as fast as I can towards it, luckily no-one out here is noticing, too busy focusing on getting luggage out of their cars or getting inside to get checked in.

I get closer towards my SUV, and I get pretty close to the wheels of it, but not close enough where I have to worry about it running me over, I grab onto the hubcap, it spinning me around and around, making me super dizzy, and I almost dry heave. But I realize something though, since my keys are also shrunk, how did she get into my car?

She stops at a stop light, and as she slows down, I jump off of the hubcap, and climb down onto the road. I notice there's car beside us, a newer looking Kia, I run around my car. There's no-one behind us besides the car passing on the other side, all other traffic seemingly far away enough that they wouldn't see what's going on. There's no-one next to us on the driver's side, either.

As a way to get her attention, I start slapping on the tire as hard as I can, and it makes a little bit of noise, enough for I can see her look out her window and look down, she has a mix of emotions, and quickly gets out of the car and tosses me in the front seat, I land with a thud.

"Where the fuck did you go, I was worried sick for you!" She says, I can tell she's been crying these last couple of days. Her blonde hair is a mess and her eyes are red, her mascara smeared too.

"I'll tell you what happened when we get home, but how did you get into my car?" I say, sounding confused.

"There's two spare keys, remember, something about your step dad?" She says, sounding somewhat annoyed about this whole situation.

"Ohh yeahhh" I say, remembering that, I mentioned it on the second day I was shrunk.

I tell her everything that went on as soon as we went home, from falling out the window, the barmaid, and the girls at the bar, and Ashlyn. She's totally shocked by all of this, and it feels somewhat good to be home again, being in all these different locations at this size, it's nice to have some type of familiarity again, although the house turned into a mess in the living room, Molly seemingly crying alot and everything turned upside down, looking for me, at least it shows me that she cares.

I fell asleep that night on the couch, wondering if I'll ever go back to normal, but also being okay with this too, if I end up like Jack Cooper and don't grow back, I'm starting to feel some neutrality on this situation.

Wednesday, September 10th 2008.

I wake up, the realization that today is my last full day living in Seattle hits my mind. It'll take a couple of days to get to Buffalo, since I'm totally not going to drive non-stop. I've already put in my two weeks for work, my coworkers seemingly already saying their goodbyes on the day left, I've got my last paycheck already last week, on Friday. I'm still recovering from my breakup with Melissa though, I'm doing somewhat better now compared to where I was a month ago, staying in bed all day if I didn't have work or I wasn't dragged out of my room by Mom or Howard, every now and then I'd go hang out with Tim if he wasn't occupied with working, or Kevin, although he's not really seemingly all too cool with hanging out anymore, saying something about getting more responsibilities at his dad's restaurant and not really getting time to hang out anymore.


I shift up a little bit in bed, I hear Sasha playing around outside in the backyard, barking and the sound of her panting and running.

I think about why things went to shit between me and Melissa, I wasn't really attentive enough towards her, maybe me and her only talking about once a week, every now and I'd pick her up or she'd come over here when on a day she wasn't working as a barista at some local coffeehouse, she never really talked much about where she worked exactly, and maybe we'd hang out for a day, get some ice cream, drive out to a remote area and then do some fooling around in my backseat, and then I'd take her home. Besides that, we didn't really do much else together, she was a little bit taller than most girls, about five foot nine, average breasts, jet black hair, and looked pretty average, not exactly out of my league, but not the type of chick you'd take a second look at if you're walking down the street, either.


I slowly step out of bed, it's actually pretty nice outside today, something rare for Seattle, as I can tell out my window, the sun is shining and all, it's a little cold, as I feel from the chill of my window radiate throughout my room, it feels somewhat chilly in my room.

I walk out into the hallway, I can hear the sound of the TV on downstairs, mom seemingly doing something downstairs. I walk into the bathroom, I take a shower, brush my teeth and comb my hair and use the restroom, this all takes me about close enough to about a hour.

I walk out, and I see mom walk by, she's dressed in her pink robe that Howard gave her last year for her 51st birthday and her green and her green night gown.

"Good morning" she says to me, before she sips on the mug of coffee in her hand.

"Morning, mom" I say, and she gives me a weak smile.

"Y'know, Howard's really proud of you for trying to make something of yourself, I'm sure your dad would be too" she says.

"Yeah dad, I'm still really bummed out I never really got to know him" I say, being reminded of when we had to fly out to Los Angeles last year to go on Dateline and talk about the situation, it was a pretty big national news story in late 1999 and early 2000, they didn't really want us to get involved in it, for whatever reason until the second day of the year 2000, when I remember when some FBI agents in suits came by our house in a unmarked car came by our house and "officially" told us. We flew out for his funeral and everything. That whole period in my life was a dark time for everyone in this house, once that situation with that Cuban kid in Florida started to heat up and the news turned all of their focus towards that, our lives started to go back to normal, or at least, somewhat. We'd get recognized in public for the next three-ish years, and I remember girls and teachers in school would come up to me and ask me if I was okay, and stuff like that. It's not so bad once I graduated now, but every now and then It'll pop up.


"Well, he's in a better place now" she says somberly, and kissing me on the cheek and then walking off into her room and closing the door.

"Well, I guess I'll go call up Tim or Kevin and see if they wanna hang out" I say to myself, walking back into my room.

I grab my flip phone and dial up Kevin, and then it I wait about 30 seconds or so, and then it goes to voicemail. I try calling Tim, but the same happens.

"I guess I'll just see if Cindy wants to do anything" I say, dialing her number, she moved out to a Apartment in Lynnwood.

"Hello?" I hear her voice say.

"Hey, do you wanna hang out today? It's my last day in Seattle before I make the drive out to Buffalo" I say.

"I mean, I'm off today and Trevor's at work, so I guess I could use a little company here at home, so yeah, I guess you could come over" she says.

"Alright, be there in about 30 or so minutes" I say, hanging up the phone.

I stand up off of my bed and put some clothes on, a light blue t-shirt and some jeans and socks, I put on my light black Adidas jacket and zip it up, I slip into a pair of white New Balances and head downstairs, I'm not really hungry this morning.

I look at the slide door leading into the backyard, Sasha seemingly laying on a pile of leaves and seemingly enjoying the weather, the huge trees in the background all multicolored. I remember that I forgot my keys upstairs and run back up there, going up the stairs, I push open my door and grab my keys off of my desk, and then I run downstairs and go out the door leading to the garage, I press the button and the garage goes up, it's cranking sound. Mom's 1996 ruby red Buick Skylark in the first spot, the second car she's had since she got rid of the station wagon that she drove me and Cindy out to Seattle in that my dad bought for her back when they were a new couple and just moved to the suburbs, she had a lot of emotional attachment to it, but Howard bought her the Buick brand new, as kind of a sign to move on and to show his love for her.

I walk out pass the second spot, where Howard parks his car, a green 1993 Volvo 240, something he bought brand new, his previous car before that being his first car, a grey beat up 1962 Chevy Impala. He said something about buying built to last to me the other day, and the car being something along those lines.

I walk past the back of my Envoy and open the door and get in, feeling the somewhat cold leather seats, I crank my SUV up, it's on Howard Stern, dad being the last one to use my car, I let him use it due to the fact he needed to borrow it to help one of his employees move something around, I change the station, landing on the pop station, mentioning something about this upcoming election, talking about Obama and McCain and the campaign trail, and mentioning something about having the first black president, I've never really cared much for politics, so I just kinda tune this out.

I back out of the driveway and out onto the street, the radio's playing a Coldplay song, Viva La Vida. As I make my way from the street to the interstate, I think about the song and it's lyrics, while reflecting on the fact that today is the last day I'll be in Seattle, seeing these familiar sights, Lake Washington and the fact you can always see water surrounding you at all times living here, Madison Park and it's stores, and the Seattle skyline as I drive down the I-5 Interstate.

I make it to her apartment, the pop station now playing
Paper Planes by M.I.A, as I notice the name revolve over and over again on my radio screen.

I wait a minute before turning in, a couple of cars passing by and then I turn into the complex.

I park, and then turn off the engine and take my keys out of the ignition and then get out, I walk up to about 3 flights of stairs and the walk along the hallway, and then I knock on her door. This is probably the first time I've been to her apartment, since we've helped her move in last summer, she took awhile to find apartments.

She opens it, smiling, she's dressed in mesh shorts and a t-shirt with a orange Crush design on it.

Her apartments somewhat well furnished, her TV is on some commercial, I think it's Oxy Clean.

We just sit on the couch and talk, mainly about how much she says she's gonna miss me when I leave, and general stuff like that. We talk about old memories, like when we first came to Seattle as kids and being shocked by huge trees and mountains, compared to the desert landscape we lived in before, although she remembers more about Phoenix and dad than I did, she mentions something about dad being somewhat stuck in the seventies, or at least that's what mom told her at one point, she says that mom started to notice this towards near the end of her marriage with him, him keeping on the sixties and seventies hits radio stations, and complaining to her about the music coming out during this time. I remembered something about that, him yelling at a teenager on a airplane like I remembered before.

We talk some more, generally about just life and her telling me what to expect about living in apartment and just on your own in general.

I hang out there until about 5 or so, and then I head home.

As I pull into the driveway, I've noticed Howard has made it back, his Volvo parked into it's spot.

"There he is!" Howard says while standing in the kitchen talking to mom, he dresses in suits and stuff like that at work, he's never really been a casual guy, he's got thick rimmed glass and somewhat looked pretty nerdy, he's Jewish, and you can somewhat hear it in his voice, he's two inches shorter than me.

"Yep, I'm leaving out tomorrow morning!" I say giving him a bear hug.

I got the job doing some searching online, a bank job in Buffalo, New York that had some spots open, somewhere cheaper than Seattle too.

I get a call back from Tim, saying that he'll miss hanging out with me and tells me that we should keep up with each other on face book, didn't get a call from Kevin, but he's probably busy. We didn't stop communicating on bad terms.

I eat dinner that night, mom made some Tacos that night, at dinner we talk about memories and how they'll miss me being here, mom tears up during this all too.

I go to bed that night, thinking about everything that's led me up to this point, I wonder how different my life would been if my parents split up.

Maybe for the better, or maybe for the worse.

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

I wake up, sleeping on the couch, I feel pretty cold, since it's still fall outside, despite the events of the last two days feeling like a eternity to me, at least. It's pretty cloudy outside, so it's somewhat dark in here, besides my lamp still being on all this time.

Molly cleaned my apartment up last night, since she basically threw everything around trying to look for me since I've went missing, the couch cushions all over the place, the table was literally turned upside down, my video game packages were seemingly opened, just total disarrangement around me and the like. Living room wise, the place was a mess, the kitchen you can tell she looked around in there too, with the cabinets opened and you can tell she shuffled around in the fridge too, the way she moved some stuff and due to the fact she always kept it open.

It's about 8:37am in the morning, as I can tell by the time on the cable box. I can hear that Molly is still sleeping in my room, she snores, kinda making me feel pretty safe knowing that there's someone out there, not as alone as I felt when going through all of this, even though I technically wasn't. I asked her yesterday when we came home when she noticed I was missing, and she said she called my name a couple of times when she came home and noticed I wasn't responding, and that's when she started to panic, at least, that's what she told me.

I get up, I can tell my clothes aren't exactly in the best shape, my Blue Jays jacket slowly starting to deteriorate and the logos on it turned into a blurred mess due to all the acid it's been through, my jeans aren't exactly in good shape either, they're super faded and somewhat starting to turn a little bit stringy towards the bottom, near my socks. My Adidas has held up pretty well though, throughout this whole saga, and so has the Universal Studios t-shirt, too, seemingly being shielded from the elements due to the jacket, for the most part, you can tell it's been bleached in some areas, though. Besides the clothes, I've realized that I've never really been injured by anything while at this size, making it somewhat suspicious too, maybe being at this size, however the hell I got this way, has some perks too?

I can briefly smell myself for a second, since I haven't really thought about it, or the fact I've been in worse smelling situations which overpower the stench, that I probably need a shower. I wonder how I'll do that though, I've heard that Jack Cooper got himself his own miniature shower built in his house, built by the sink of his mansion, according to what I saw on that one episode of E! News last year. I haven't really been hungry either, being at this size.


I just sit a minute, I remember it's Sunday now, I remember mom was Catholic, and she'd take us to Mass when we were kids, living in Seattle, she mentioned something about our dad somewhat being Christian, but never really went to church, Howard was Jewish, wasn't exactly practicing though we'd do some type of Hanukkah mixed with Christmas mashup in our house every year, but whenever his parents would come over, which was every now and then, he'd take us to to Synagogue on Saturdays with them and all that. All this stuff somewhat stopped when I was a teenager though, around 10th grade for me they didn't really take us as much.

I lay around a little bit more, just really finally being able to relax, although at just a couple of inches tall, in my own home for the first that feels like forever. I occupy myself with my own thoughts, just generally thinking about what I'll do if I'm not back to normal by the time I have to go back to work, maybe I'll give in and pull a Jack Cooper and reveal myself to the world, but again, the idea of getting tested on like he did scares the ever-living shit out of me, and the fact I don't even know how I got shrunk, he got shrunk due to getting some un-tested Irish pain reliever pills on a plane going from Los Angeles to Madison, granted, it was a connected flight.

I hear the snoring of Molly stopping, and her shifting in bed, the sound of my sheets flopping and shifting around as she does this, she sounds like's she pretty sleepy. She ordered Chinese food last night, all for herself, so she's suffering from that food coma from last night, if I had to guess.

I really don't wanna watch TV, since I feel like there's not much interesting on especially on the weekends, and Molly might sleep until twelve for I all I know, I guess I should maybe go back to sleep myself, or maybe not.

I sit in silence for about thirty to forty five minutes or so, just really just taking in my surroundings, the only sound really being the sound of the AC turning on, bringing in hot air into my apartment, to somewhat of my relief, to be completely honest with you, and the sound of cars passing by every now and then, downtown is somewhat quiet on Sundays, almost as much as it is in suburbia.

I think Molly fully wakes up around 9:20 or so, judging by the fact she's one of those people who likes to yawn pretty loudly, from what I can tell, I hear her foot steps clamoring against the floor, telling me that she's awake.

She walks out of the room, judging by the sound of her foot steps, and walks into the bathroom, closing the door, I can hear the sound of her lifting up the toilet seat, judging by the clank from the ceramic, seemingly about to do her business, I try to ignore everything I hear after that, the walls aren't exactly paper thin. After that I think she showers and brushes her teeth, I get a glimpse of her naked ass, in the hallway as she enters my room, and it's glorious, she's got dimples on her lower back too, it's somewhat tanned compared to the rest of her body. Seeing this really reminds me of how lucky I am to be with her, I start to think about all the things we'd probably do if I was back at a regular height, but again I shoot that idea down, not knowing if I'll ever be the same height as I was again.

She closes the door, seemingly to dry off and put on clothes, I notice the wet spots on the carpet, since I've now climbed up arm rests on the couch, I can somewhat feel the warm moist air radiating out from the bathroom and into the kitchen and living room, Molly leaving the door open.

She takes about fifteen minutes, and it feels like somewhat of an eternity, and she comes out.

She comes out, dressed somewhat sexy, she's wearing a green Abercrombie and Finch, that goes down to her lower stomach, it stops a little bit pass her navel and shows off a little of her panty waistband which fits really tightly on her, and her blonde hair is in a pony tail, she's wearing a blue jeans, but no socks. I can tell she's not wearing a bra either, the way I can tell her areola's poke through the shirt.

"I see you're trying to turn me on huh?" I say, with a flirty smile as she walks through the hallway, closing the bathroom door and turning off the light as she passes.


"Maybe" She says, with a smile, before walking into the kitchen and pulling out a box of Cocoa-Puffs out of the cupboard.

"I didn't buy that" I say, angling myself on the chair's arm, trying to get a better angle of what Molly's doing.


"Yeah, I went grocery shopping when you were gone, if you didn't know, starting to run a little low on snacks and food, y'know" Molly says, opening the fridge and reaching into it, pulling out a jug of milk, I can see a little bit of her panties showing, showing the Victoria's Secret branding on them.

"Huh, well that's alright I guess" I say.

Molly makes her bowl of cereal, getting out a bowl and pouring the Cocoa-Puffs in it and then the milk into the bowl, and then I hear her open up a drawer and get out a spoon out of it, the sound of metal shuffling around in it.

I decide to turn on the TV as she eats, the sound of her crunching and chewing and swallowing echoing throughout my apartment, is pretty scary to me, knowing that I've gotten pretty lucky to only be lightly chewed at most throughout my journeys, I jump down from the armrest of the couch down to the cushions, to walk to the power button remote, turning on my plasma TV by pressing on the power button with my foot, it's about the size of a medium pizza to me.

I change the TV, landing on one of the movie channels I have, seemingly playing What's Eating Gilbert Grape, a movie I've only seen bits and pieces of throughout the years, and we watch that for about the next 40 minutes, it captures both of our attentions, around the point where Burger Barn comes to their town is when we change it.

Molly finishes her cereal when she was watching the Movie and sits down next to me, and she smells pretty amazing to, I can't exactly point out the scent, but she smells really clean though.

When it gets to that scene Molly softly grabs the remote from near me and changes the channel, saying something about it kinda gets boring towards the end of the film, or at least that what she thinks, I don't really react.

As she changes the channel, I can totally hear her stomach seemingly going to war with the cereal she ate, seemingly gurgling pretty loud, she's slouched back on the couch, her other hand on her stomach, her other hand channel flipping.

"Are you alright" I say, looking over at her, she doesn't break her gaze from the TV, her eyes seemingly a little glossy.

"My stomach hurts little, I might of filled the bowl too much, but besides that I'm fine" She says, she scratches below her navel putting her other hand on the couch.

She stops it on National Geographic, playing some older documentary about Polar Bears, probably from earlier this decade.

I think about Jack Cooper again, as Molly watches the documentary, she begins to put her hair out of a ponytail, placing her hair tie right near me, a couple of hair strands in the air too. Her stomach starts to quiet down, though with the loud churn every now and then, the Cocoa Puffs seemingly starting to digest better, I'm sitting near the edge of the couch, near her lower stomach since she's slouched, so even then I can somewhat hear what's going on inside her, her intestines seemingly gurgling a little bit. I look back at her, her arms crossed on her breasts in a relaxed way, her eyes directly focused on the TV screen.

"I've been giving it some thought, I think I wanna meet Jack Cooper, I've heard he's on a Motivational Speaking tour right now" I say, remembering hearing about it when I was inside Ashlyn.

"Really" she says, sounding disinterested, luckily for me, the documentary goes to commercials.

"I'm serious about this Molly, I think this if for the best, honestly, this might be the best thing in this situation" I say, sounding somewhat serious about this.

Molly slips out of her daze and slouches up, sitting upwards now.

"Wait, you're serious about this?" She says, sounding a little bit concerned in her voice.

"HELL YEAH I'M SERIOUS ABOUT THIS" I say, raising my voice.

"I mean, you wanna get tested and all that, it's only been what? Three or four days?" She says, I notice her southern accent slips in when she says this.

"I mean, we'll cross that road when when we get there, that's all I'm saying" I say.

"Okay, let me just try to make since of this situation. So you wanna go meet Jack Cooper, and show yourself off to the world?" She says, sounding confused.

"Yeah, I do" I say.

"Well, are you sure, I don't wanna be like half-way down the road to meet him or whatever, and I don't even know where the guy is touring at right now, he could be in Australia or Europe for all we know" she says.

"I mean, the guy has a website, I've got a laptop in my closet in my room, pull it out and lets see" I say.

Molly looks shocked, but does so anyways, she gets up and walks to my room, opening up my door with a creak and going into my closet and pulling something out, and then closing it.

She puts my ruby red Dell laptop on the table, and opens it up, I tell her my password, and it's just the word password, and she gets in, it takes about 30 seconds to load, she clicks the Internet Explorer icon and it takes her into it, she types in Jack Coopers name and clicks enter and it shows her a link to his Wikipedia page and some other articles, his website's the second link and she moves her finger and clicks on it.

His website looks pretty sleek and modern, and it plays a video of a Ted Talk that he did in Scotland this year that originally on YouTube, a newer site that's pretty popular these days. She scrolls down to a link that has his tour dates on it, and clicks it, giving us a new tab.

"Alright, so Toronto was did last week, the next one is on the twenty second, he'll be in Cincinnati, Ohio. Do you wanna go there? I mean, that's not too bad of a drive" and as soon as she says this, I feel a sensation in my chest, and I start growing again, and it all happens so fast before I can even say anything about.

"HOLY SHIT!" I say, looking at myself, standing on the couch, seeing everything from a regular height again.

"OH MY FUCKING GOD, YOU'RE NORMAL AGAIN!" Cindy says.

"Okay, Okay, let's just calm down" I say, I still can't believe my eyes that I'm back to normal now.

"We're still going though, I'm telling someone about this shit, and this is the best way possible" I say, sitting down on my couch for the very first time.

"Alright, just take a shower though, you really smell like you could use one" she says, scooting all the way to the edge of the couch.

That day we go to MapQuest to print off directions on how to get from Buffalo to where Jack Cooper talking at, in Cincinnati, Ohio, using the printer in my closet, that I took from my parents house, hooking it up to my laptop. We'll leave out tomorrow morning, Molly saying something along the lines of someone will cover for her.

I stayed in the living room all day, just watching TV and getting our clothes ready before we leave out tomorrow, after I showered, not too sure how I'll react, if I'll get into my room again, I still feel so emotional after going though what I just went through.

Monday, September 21st, 2009

I wake up, on the couch in my underwear, the first thing I realize is that I'm normal sized again, all my movie posters looking normal sized to me, instead of the size of buildings like they always did, it's about 5:45am, and I hear the movement of Molly seemingly packing stuff up in my room, getting her clothes ready and toiletries. I see the stack of printed MapQuest directions on the kitchen counter bar behind, the staple in the top left-hand corner shining in the reflection of the light of my lamp.

I see that I left my clothes out that I was planning on wearing today on the coffee table right in front of me, some blue jeans and long white socks socks and a light blue Superman t-shirt, something pretty casual, compared to tomorrow, a whole entire suit that I'm planning to wear to introduce myself.

I get off of the couch and put the shirt and jeans on, as Molly opens the door, I think she's woken up before I did.

"Brandon, did you really just wake up" she says, her voice pierces the former sound of silence as she says this, only hearing the light sound of the buzzing from the lamp and the wind beating on the windows every now and then, downtown is pretty quiet this early in the morning.

"Nah, I've been up these last ten-ish minutes" I say, as put my Superman t-shirt on.

"Alright, but remember, you drive me over to my apartment so we can use my car for gas mileage purposes, and I'll drive all the way to Columbus, and you'll drive the last leg from Columbus to Cincinnati" She says, she's dressed in a light grey Patagonia Pullover, she's barefoot right now, and she's wearing red sweatshirt pants, it's pretty baggy around her.

"Yeah, yeah I remember" I say, as I grab my folded up jeans off of the table and attempt to put those on too.

My cell phone stopped working sometime throughout my travels, the acid burning most of it away, so I'll have to buy another one when I get back, so I'll just rely on Molly for hers. I threw mine out yesterday, I forgot about it for most of my travels. I have no clue what I did with my car keys either, so I assume it just burned away while I was in someone's stomach, so we just have my spare one that Molly has.

After I finish putting on my jeans and socks, I put on a different pair of shoes, a pair of white Filas I haven't worn in a couple of years.

I realize I don't think I have a wallet anymore, since that probably burned away too and I didn't realize it, luckily Molly's deciding to pay for this entire trip, feeling bad about what I've been through these last couple of days.

"Damn, I'm going to have buy back a bunch of shit when I get back" I say out-loud to myself.

"What?" she says, seemingly jingling the keys around in her sweatshirt pocket as she walks back to my room, to get the suitcase with our stuff in it.

"My phone, wallet, and keys are missing slash or probably burned away and I didn't realize it, and I'm thinking the latter" I say, sitting on the couch.

"Shit, sucks to be you then" she says, playfully, the sound of the suitcase rolling against the floor, I let her borrow my suitcase that I've had probably around ten years now, a super spacious one I got that Howard bought for me right before we went to Italy that year.

"You're a real comedian, y'know that" I say, a little annoyed at that response, and she giggles a little bit when I say this.

"I mean, I'll help you get set up, you can tell your landlord your situation and they'll probably understand, minus the whole shrinkage part" she says, walking towards the door.

"Yeah, I'll probably have to tell them when I get back, to avoid getting a eviction notice on my door" I say.

I take a look back at my apartment, it's pretty clean, besides a couple of dishes in the sink. I quickly run back inside, and turn off all the lights, the lamp and the one in the one my room too, and I grab the MapQuest pages off of the kitchen's bar counter, holding it in my right hand.

"Well, I guess we're off to the Midwest, didn't you say your dad was from Chicago?" I say to Molly, the light from the hallway shining into my room, as open my front door. Referencing what she told me when we were waiting in line at the Cheesecake Factory

"Yeah, he is" she says, as she opens the door, as begins to walk out the door, and I do to, and I close it behind me.

As we walk through the hallways and down the stairs, it's still early in the morning so you can still hear people sleeping, or their living room TV on loud enough or close enough to their doors that you can hear that they still have it on, a couple of people walk out out of their doors, seemingly off to their jobs, I make eye contact with them and we give each other a nod, I live among some blue-collar job people, like electricians or construction workers, we make it to the lobby, it's still pretty quiet, the receptionist asks about how long we'll be gone for, and I just say just a couple of days, she gives us a nod and a thumbs up.

We make it to the parking lot, Molly didn't do that great of a parking job, taking up a little bit of space of the spot next to her, seemingly not angling the car correctly.

"Have you ever driven a SUV before you met me?" I say, as Molly walks towards the driver's side of my SUV.

"Uh, the biggest vehicle I've ever driven was my Dad's old 1989 Ford F-150 when I was learning how to drive, after that, all small cars from that point" she says, unlocking the doors.

I open up the passenger's side door and get in, and it feels so fucking weird seeing the world at a normal height again, my own car feeling like it was a ginormous tank yesterday, but today, just a regular car to me.

Molly opens up the driver's side door and sits in, she cranks the engine up, I put the MapQuest papers on the dashboard on my side.

We wait about ten minutes, in silence to give the car some time to warm up, I start to think about is this really necessary or not to do anymore, with cars nowadays, before I get a word out, she begins to take off.

She drives to her apartment, since we're taking her car anyways for the trip anyways. It's still pretty cold outside, and it's about 6:37 or so outside, and you can tell the sun is starting to rise and there's a little bit more action going on on the streets, people on their morning drive to work or out getting coffee or the like. Molly parks on the street, so she drives around the block until she finds her car, a dark green 2003 Dodge Stratus, there's a space behind it and she parks there, she turns off the engine and gets out, and I do the same, the cold fall air hits me, a couple of leaves fly into my face too.

"How long have you had this car for?" I say to her, as I walk towards the front passengers side of the car.

"I mean, I got it from a friend's dad's used car dealership that he had out in Staten Island, he said something about it the previous owner being a stock broker that lived out in Long Island and only used it as a commuter car to and from Long Island to Wall Street, this was about almost two years ago, I moved out to Buffalo around Christmas 2007" she says, tossing my car keys to me to keep.

"Oh, nice" I say, as she unlocks the doors, I quickly walk back to my SUV and get the directions off of the dashboard.

I take out the luggage out of my SUV and put it in the trunk of her car, she cranks her car up as I do this.

I make sure that my Envoy is locked before I get into Molly's car.

Once I finish locking the doors, the sound of Molly's car idling starting mess with my ears a bit.

I walk towards the passenger's side door and get in. It feels so weird being this low to the ground in a car, since I've been pretty much driving up-high for the most part these last five years I've had this car, her car smells pretty good, she's got one of those Little Trees air fresheners around her rear-view mirror, Black Ice scented.

"So, are you ready?" She says, looking at me with a smile.

"Yeah, lets go" I say, as she pulls off into traffic.

She navigates the city streets, not needing the instructions for this part, to find the on-ramp for I-90, and when she does we start to pass by city landmarks, like Coca-Cola Field and the Buffalo River and the Marina there and all of it's attractions, it's pretty quiet in the car, besides the sound of Molly's and my own stomach growling loud enough every couple of minutes out of hunger, neither of us haven't eaten anything since we woke up this morning. The radio's off too. It's quiet between us for the first hour, once we get closer to the Pennsylvania border I start to make some conversation.

"So, where was your dad from in Chicago" I say, breaking the ice, we're still riding down I-90, There's a couple of Semi-trucks in front of us and some other cars with New York license plates, it's a pretty somewhat empty highway, the summer seasons has been over for a bit, so there's not too much travel going on at this time.

"Naperville, he was from Naperville, it's a Chicago Suburb. I haven't been there since the summer after graduating high school though" She says.

"Interesting, did you like Chicago, or not really" I say.

"I mean, it's alright, it's a big city. My dad met my mom on a Business trip to Charlotte in the eighties, and then I was conceived, and one thing lead to another and then dad married mom soon after and relocated out to Charlotte" She says, I notice she's not taking her gaze off of the road, the trees and fields surrounding us passing by almost like a blur.

"Hmm" I say.

"Didn't you mention that your Ex-boyfriend went to Europe one time" I say, trying to see if I can get more conversation out of her.

"Yeah, he did. I remember like, I think a couple of weeks after graduation, or maybe it was close to a month, I don't remember it all too well, even though this was like five years ago, he flew out to England to go visit one of his friends out there that he was talking to on Myspace, and he was gone for about two weeks. I remember when he came back, he acted a little bit more humble, for some odd reason, the second day he was back Jon took me and him to the mall, and you could somewhat tell something was off about him, not in a weird way though, more like in a "I've changing my behavior for the better" type way. It was just something about the way he handled himself after that Europe trip that had him seemingly changed in a way, I remember on 4th of July when he came to hang out with my family near the river like I offered him to the day before, he wasn't as per-say, playful either, he was somewhat quiet too, around them. I feel like this whole stint of behavior lasted until he went to L.A. that fall for college, and then he started to act like himself again" She says.

"How much did you too keep in touch anyways, when you guys both went off for college, I remember you mentioned something about you two visiting each other during finals or something like that" I say, I notice we're getting pretty close to the border.

"Yeah, we'd visit each other. Another way we'd keep up with each other is TV, like, on Myspace we'd talk to each other, and both of us were into The Sopranos" She says.

"Yeah, I remember this one teacher said I looked like AJ Soprano jokingly, this was like in 11th grade, my History Teacher I think" I say.

"I mean, you do look like him a little bit" she says.

"But yeah how that started is that Matt was staying the night one Sunday, and Dad had just got HBO in the House installed the week before, and mentioned something about his coworkers at work talking about the latest episode of The Sopranos in the lunch-room, and they made the show sound pretty interesting when talking to him about it, so he caught a new episode one night and invited me and Matt to come watch it with him, and I remember what sealed the deal with Matt is that at the end of that episode, Tony was beating this guy with a belt for sleeping with this woman, which I think was his former mistress and he just cracked up, now I don't remember names of side characters, but that's what I think he said what got him hooked on the show, Matt and my dad" she says, as she finishes this off we pass by the "Welcome to Pennsylvania sign".


"I've never really seen the show, I remember every now and then mom and Howard would watch it downstairs on the weekends, mom said they reminder her of this Italian couple she and my dad were friends with back when they were in their twenties and living in Prescott" I say.

"Interesting. But I remember when we headed off to college they stopped for a little bit, and then the new seasons and it's episodes would come out and we'd talk to each-other about them the next morning on Myspace, I remember he'd say he went to a friend's parent's house in Pasadena to watch them as they were coming out and they'd have dinner with them and all that, since they had HBO, and I went to a friend's parent's house out in Newark, ironically where they filmed most of the show I think in it's surrounding areas, I never caught any filming though, and we'd talk about the episodes and who we thought would get whacked next and how the story was going to go from that point, and then the last season stopped in the middle and we waited another year for the rest of it to come out, but the ending shocked the hell out of both of us though" She says.

"Now I do remember that, it was right around that whole Jack Cooper thing, I remember some of my coworkers were talking about about it" I say, remembering that June of 2007.

"Yeah, it was all over the news, that cut to black of an ending" she says.

It's quiet between us for about the next 15 minutes.

The rest of the ride is pretty much quiet with some conversation, I tell her how my parents met, the KISS concert that mom always told me and Cindy about and how that was the most love in their relationship before dad proposed and everything, I tell her about the drive I did from Seattle to Buffalo, seeing the landscapes change as I drive, and seeing all the regional fast food places and convenience stores, like Holiday and Kwik Trip and Culver's and White Castle, places like that.

We eventually make it to Cincinatti, passing by and driving through Cleveland and the rest of PA around 1 o'clock or so, we stopped in Columbus for bathroom break and to get something to eat, at a Steak N Shake, I trade out driving with Molly, and I finish the last leg of the trip.

We spend the rest of the day at the hotel, just lounging around, and getting ready for meeting Jack Cooper tomorrow.

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009.

I wake up, Molly still sleeping right next to me, I can feel the warmth of her bare back radiating onto me in our cold room, she's still knocked out cold, all these times we've slept near each other, I've always been the first one to wake up. I remember she said something yesterday about long car rides really tiring her out, once we hit the Ohio state line. When I lived with my parents, we really didn't see much of the US besides where we lived in Seattle, though Howard took me on a business trip to Atlanta with him one summer, the year I turned seventeen, and that whole trip to Phoenix for that whole situation with my dad and where I was born and Los Angeles for that Dateline interview.

I roll over, the hotel she could find was a Comfort Suites across the Ohio river in Kentucky that's a riverfront hotel, since this is a state-borderline city not exactly my type of hotel, but I'll do for now. I stayed in these types of hotels when I was driving from Seattle to Buffalo, not exactly high society, but it gets the job done if you just want somewhere to sleep for the night and you don't wanna park on the side of the road and sleep in your car either. I remember that my birthday is next week, but that's actually not all that important to me right now.

I look at the clock, it's 9:27am in the morning, I'm looking at surroundings, a couple of hair particles from Molly floating around in the air around me, is it me, or chicks just shed alot? There's a Crave Case Box, she wanted White Castle, something she said she would eat every now and then when she lived in New York City and when she would visit Chicago and there's none in upstate New York, I've never really cared much for the sliders, since I remember it giving me food poisoning when I tried it out in Minneapolis when stopping there for the night last year, since my Hotel had one right across the street, I remember the fries being pretty decent, though.

Our TV seems to be a small blocky Sony CRT TV, again, another thing about staying in these cheaper hotels, things still seem to be out of date.

I slowly get out of bed, thinking about how today's probably the day that life might change for me, if I'm able to convince Jack Cooper, however that might be, he speaks at 7pm tonight at the U.S. Bank Arena, hopefully we'll be able to catch him after he speaks.

The hotel room's pretty clean, I will admit, outside looks pretty dreary though, fall weather seemingly the same wherever you go, in my case.

"Hey, babe, you awake" I say softly, enough that she can hear me, but not loud enough that it startles her awake.

"Yeah" she says, somewhat groggy like" she flips over on her back, laying stomach up, she's got a bra on, her hair's a mess.

"So what do you wanna do for breakfast, check out the breakfast they've got downstairs, or maybe see there's any diners around here or" I say, walking towards the hotel bathroom to freshen up a bit, take a shower since I didn't do so last night, we basically crashed on the bed as soon as we got undressed and ate.

"Yeah, Yeah we'll just eat downstairs" she says, her voice sounding pretty lispy due to the fact she's sounds like she's half awake.

I take my shower, I'll admit, the water pressure is a bit stronger than I thought it would be, giving me a extreme shock of cold water just blasting onto me before it got up to warm and then borderline-hot. I'm fully awake at that point, I guess that was my wake-up call.

I brush my teeth, the water doesn't really taste all too different compared to Buffalo, from what I can tell. I dry my hair off with the hotel towels provided and the rest of me, I can hear Molly opening up drawers too, and the TV is on, seemingly playing the local news.


I get out, the towel wrapped around my waist, my chest exposed to the cold air of the hotel room, I'm kinda freezing.

"What would you do if I took that towel off you and whipped you with it" Molly says with a flirty smile, she's putting on one of the green baggy Adidas sweatshirts she's brought with her from the trip. She's already got grey sweatpants on.

"I mean, would you like if I did the same thing to you when I got out of the shower" I say, walking towards the drawer that's holding the TV and I pull out some boxers, and head back into bathroom, I'm not too cool with her seeing me naked not quite yet anyways, not much really going on down there for me, to say the least.

She giggles at this and sighs, rolling her eyes a little bit at me.

I put my boxers on in the bathroom and then walk out, I'm pretty hairless on my chest, so I still feel the coldness of everything still.

We both put our clothes on, I've got a black suit and tie for tonight that I've had in my closet that Howard gave to me as an eighteenth birthday present that I think still fits, which I'll wear attend Jack Cooper's talk, and Molly has a red dress and all of her make-up ready, but for right now we're both going casual, I put a light blue long-sleeved shirt and another jacket over it, a light Seattle Mariners jacket I've had for only a couple of years at one point, I think I've only worn sports jackets these last couple of days. I put on a pair of grey jeans.

We put our shoes on and throw out the Crave Case box in one of the trashcans in the hallway. I hear a couple of side conversations, a teenage girl on her cell phone in one of the rooms, talking about the new Twilight movie coming out this November, that whole Twilight thing and the Jonas Brothers seems to be what teenage girls are into nowadays, from what I notice whenever I see ads for stuff on TV.

We're on the third floor and we walk into the elevator, it opening as we walk towards it, there's a guy in a Domo Monster t-shirt, another fad thing that I've noticed since last year.

We walk into the elevator and head downstairs, we can hear the music in the hotel, the song Mambo Number 5 by Lou Vega playing over the speakers, another one of those songs that came out the summer that my dad went missing. We get out and walk through the lobby.

"Ah what the fuck, breakfast is closed" I say out loud to myself bit louder than I should of, I get a couple of dirty looks, especially from the older Asian couple checking in at the counter behind us, I cringe a little bit in embarrassment.

Molly gives me a "Really dude" type look, really expressive with her eye brows, I shrug and we just walk out the door.

It's cold outside, it being fall and all, leaves all over the parking lot. I see cars with Kentucky and Ohio License Plates mostly, one Texas, about 3 with California, and one Colorado, which is parked right next to Molly's Dodge.

"Yeah, I'll drive" I say, she gives me a slight nod, and she tosses me the keys out of her jacket.

I turn the key slot and get in, I crank the car up and unlock the doors, she gets in. I look behind me as I pull out of the spot. The last thing the radio station was on was a oldies station that played music from the seventies and eighties, one of those self tuning stations that happens when you get out of the reach of a radio stations connections, the song Surrender by Cheap Trick playing, a song I'd remember that Kevin would always play on repeat twice whenever we hung out, his cassette tape always doing that whenever put in his Cheap Trick one in.

The Lyric "Surrender, Surrender, but don't give yourself way" sticks out in my head, for some odd reason, I've heard the song a million times before through Kevin, but it's never really resonated with me until now.

"I remember my dad had the main chorus of this song as his ring-tone back when I was in high school" Molly says, as I pull out of the Hotel's parking lot and onto the street.

"One of my friends was really into this band, even though it was like, close to thirty years old by the time he was into it, he was huge into that whole power pop rock stuff of the seventies" I say, turning right and driving across the street into the other side.

"Did you have a lot of friends, living in Seattle" she asks.

"Throughout my school years, they came and went, only ones two I had throughout all my years, Kevin, the seventies rock dude I was talking to you about earlier, and Tim-"Before I can say anything else her phone rings with that Sexy Back ringtone again.

"Hello?" She says.

"Oh shit, sorry, must of butt dialed you" I hear the voice of a woman, it sounds like one of Molly's work friends that went out drinking with her the night we met.

"Oh it's alright, I'll be back in the office probably around Friday or so, see you around, Michelle" She says, before hanging up the call and putting her phone back in her pocket.

I drive down the street, it's silent between us after that, she doesn't really want to continue the conversation earlier. We pass by a Subway and some other buildings, I remark that I'll stop at this gas station and go inside and ask the clerk if there's any breakfast places on this side of town, since both of us are in the mood for diner breakfast food.

I turn into the gas station parking lot, the radio now playing "Born To Run" by Bruce Springsteen, Molly says something about how this is the type of radio station her dad would listen to, and she changes the station a bit more, I don't say anything.

I park up front, in the one of the convenience store slots, the chain is called United Dairy Farmers, something seemingly regional.

I park the car and get out, I walk into your store, and it just seems like your average run of the mill convenience store, I ask the cashier, a pasty-white thirty something year old guy who reeks of garlic, Dale. He says there's a Big Boy establishment in the area, and he gives me the directions for it, I thank him and I head out, getting the sweet relief of the air outside, the garlic stench of the man really fucking with my noise.

I get into the car and tell Molly our plan, and I drive out to the place, we get a booth and we're not really talking all too much, I both of us are starting to think about how the situation might go. I'll admit though, the Pancakes here were really good.

After breakfast I do drive across the bridge and into Cincinnati, we do a little bit of sight seeing until we have to come back to the hotel, we go to the Zoo and gawk at some animals, Molly says a bit more about her travels to L.A. to see Matt, how his friends would take her to San Diego and Santa Monica whenever she'd visit him, mentioning the San Diego Zoo, and how whenever he'd get to New York, they'd take him out to Long Island and North Jersey, Matt making endless Sopranos jokes whenever he crossed the state-line into New Jersey, she says. We wonder around the city until about 5pm or so, and then we head back to the hotel to get read for Jack Cooper's talk.

"You've got everything rehearsed, right?" Molly says, as she puts on her high heels, she looks almost like a movie star with her blonde hair and red dress.

"Yep, I've been thinking about it in my head these last couple of hours" I say, as I fix my tie. I've got my shoes on and pants and mostly everything, I'm just putting on the finishing touches on my suit.


I walk towards the door, and look at her, and looking right back at me.

"Y'know, we look just like Mr and Mrs.Smith, minus the wanting to kill each other part" I say, and she cracks a toothy smile with a giggle.

We plan on catching him before the talk, since it's going to be easier to get his attention, because everyone's going to mobbing him afterwards, so it's our best bet.

We get a couple of looks as we walk down the Hallway and into the elevator, since the way we're dressing is seen as overdressing in a hotel like this, it's a Comfort Suites after all.

We walk outside, It's still moist in the air and it's been raining off and on since we've been out, the lyric from the song from this morning still sticks out in my mind, "Surrender, Surrender, But Don't Give yourself Away".

Molly gets into the car, she drives this time, since I've driven everywhere when we were exploring Cincinnati.

She gets on the bridge and heads back into downtown Cincinnati, towards the U.S. Bank Arena. You can see cars lined up around the block, I remember Jack Cooper was talking about his tour on Good Morning America last month too, when I come to really think about it.

We park our car not too far from the opening of the building. We see a big black newer looking Escalade park right behind us.

We get out of the car, and walk towards it, a couple of security people around us, but I hear the voice of what I think is Jack Cooper.

"GET BACK!" one of the men say, bulky black man in a dark t-shirt, he's probably about 6'5, taller than me and Molly. His ear piece seemingly as big as his own ear, a white guy that looks like he's a body builder pushes me backward from behind.

"No, No, if they wanna speak to me let them, I'm surprised one has yet, but if they're early so why not" Jack says, his window rolled down, but we can't see him, due to the fact he's only a inch tall.

"Sir, I know you've heard this a million times before, maybe, but I've been shrunk, I'm telling you" I say, realizing I've completely forgot what to say.

It's silent between all of us, and I hear a couple of cars pass by, and one of his handlers run off and shoo away some paparazzi people.

"Alright, I'll give you the test" He says, and the security guard that told me and Molly to get back gets back into the SUV.

Before I can say anything, the SUV runs over my foot, Molly looks stunned, but I don't feel a thing.

"Alright, I believe you, one of things that they say that happens to those who've been shrunk recently is that their pain receptors don't work in extreme amounts, c'mon, you and your girlfriend get in. I think I could use both of you in a good way" he says, and one of his handlers tell us to go around, to avoid sitting on Jack.

I don't know what's going on, but the only thing I'm thinking of is that Cheap Trick song.

Surrender, Surrender, But Don't Give Yourself Away.