Friday, April 13th 2001

I wake up, naturally. I usually don’t use alarms and the like to wake up, since I can naturally do it myself to not oversleep if I need to. I can feel the warmth of my wife, Erica, radiating onto me .A brunette hair strand softly landing on my nose, I quickly pick it off. She’s seven months pregnant with our first child, Francine, her stomach’s outline seemingly protruding out into the dark red sheets of our bed. I met Erica a few years back in September of 1998, she’s about a year younger than me, my birthday being June and Erica’s being August the year after mine. We met through mutual work friends, since we both know Roger, an older cook at the Denny’s I manage, and occasionally after hours and on my off days we’d hang out, he’s about 62 years old and works part-time, him being a former cook in the Navy in the fifties and all the way up until the seventies. Roger just seemingly living off checks from the government and doing all sorts of odd jobs over the years, Denny’s being his latest gig, he’s been here the past seven years. I’ll get a nugget of wisdom from him over a Budweiser (seemingly his preferred brand of choice of beer) at his house and enjoy whatever interesting story he has to tell about his past jobs or his time in the Navy, he’s got a pretty nice country house in a township of Grand Rapids, somewhere out in Cascade not too far from the airport.

 His wife, Beth, seemingly always near his side also, her seemingly a nurse in the Navy and the two marrying in 1960, that’s how I met Erica, her being the daughter of one of Beth’s friends. Beth’s friend, Joyce, was having her 55th birthday bash over Beth’s and Roger’s house, and she had all her friends and family over and their mutual friends so it was like, close to 40 people on their property, and luckily they live a bit more out into the country so there was room and food for everyone and Roger invited me over that Saturday, since in previous conversation he knew I was off that day. I drive over to his house and I partake in the festivities that’s going on, cutting the cake, singing happy birthday, playing party games, watching slideshows of her past, all the usual junk at these type of events. And me and Erica was assigned to try to babysit the kids that were present also by Roger, so that’s how he had our start, from keeping the smaller children entertained with sock puppet shows and Barney and Blues Clues VHS tapes from their parents and grandparents in their living room, to trying to keep teenagers from doing dumb stuff like pushing each other into the backyard pool for fun or playing spin the bottle or something like that. Everyone else between that age range seemingly standing near their parents seemingly bored out of their minds or more focused on their Game Boys and sitting on the benches outside near each other, trading games and talking about cheat codes and asking each other if they have any unused batteries.

 Once things started to settle down and around sunset we started to get to know each other, her being the second to the youngest of Beth’s children, the youngest being Gabe, a 20 going on 21 year old  whose seemingly way into this rave scene going on at the time always driving to Detroit during the weekend in his shitty dinged up beige 1982 Chevy Citation and hanging out with people there she says, getting in trouble with the law all the time too. He was pretty quiet at the party, he’s about my height, 6’1. Had a Black goatee and a pencil-thin mustache and bloodshot eyes. He mostly talked about Fatboy Slim, some artist that he said he’s just discovered in a genre he listens to that he was introduced to by a friend in Detroit, the artist seemingly putting out a new single for his next album, something type of song with the words “funk soul brother” in the lyrics, as I could barely make out, he was mumbling a lot when talking to me.  He was wearing a stained “The Chemical Brothers'' t–shirt and a pair of really ripped jeans around the knee-cap area. He smelt like he hadn’t showered in weeks, so I didn’t really talk to him long .Erica was talking about briefly earlier how she had just broken up with her previous boyfriend with one of the few teenagers that didn’t need to be supervised at the party who seemed mature enough to have a meaningful conversation with, saying she had just broken up with her ex-boyfriend Scott over the summer, some older 30-something year old Welder guy from Milwaukee that she was with, saying that it didn’t work out the way they thought things would, long distance relationship things. 

I talked to her about that at the sunset outside, we walk together a bit farther from everyone else near the tire swing deeper into their large backyard  while everyone else is lounging around the pool and grill and slide door area, old Doo Wop music from the 50s and early 60s seemingly blaring from the record player behind the slide doors, sounding somewhat muffled. She’s a pretty attractive woman, I was 26 and she had just turned twenty five at the time a month before as I discovered previously, she was wearing some beige shorts and a pair of dark brown sandals, the shorts showing off she had somewhat of a ass, her legs seemingly tanned in the sun, her somewhat thick thighs with a few brown freckles on them, her thighs a little more on the pale side. She was wearing a red short sleeved ribbed Henley top, the outline of her collarbones seemingly sticking out, you could see a little bit of her pink bra-straps, too. She seemed like she was average in the breasts department, about a single D. She had a single acne pimple on her left cheek, but you wouldn't really tell unless you were looking at her for a while. Ironically enough, she was the first one to make a move on me, Sadie Hawkins style.  

We started talking about our jobs first, me then being just a Server working like ten hour shifts back then, so I was always pretty tired. She being in her second year of nursing school, getting her associates degree at the local community college next spring, her working part time as a cashier at a Meijer at that time, paying off her tuition with a little bit of it, Joyce helping out with the costs also, her dad sending her money to her also, him seemingly somewhere in Texas nowadays I’ve been told for his job at Exxon. So that was somewhat of a conversation starter, and then the topic of relationships came up, and I told her I’ve casually dated a few times, a relationship with my first girlfriend two years ago at that time that I lost my virginity too. A Latina chick from San Diego two years older than me named Maria, she seemingly moved out here for family reasons and we met while at the grocery store, accidentally bumping into each other near the frozen aisle, making conversation there. We lasted about a year or so, breaking up last fall due to just differences in lifestyle, her wanting to go out every weekend and party going clubbing and me just wanting to just zone out in my boxers on the sofa with a large bag of Taco flavored Doritos and watch COPS or The X-Files or a episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast that I recorded on my VCR since it usually comes on late and I’m usually just getting home from work around that time, me being introduced by the show by a college aged customer at work seemingly talking about with his buddies at his table. My next girlfriend was a freckled redhead with glasses that I dated for about 5 months that I met via some blind date set up by one of her friends that I worked with that I didn’t really know all too well, her name was Veronica, didn’t really last long, we just got bored with each other and called it quits around the five month period, she said I was decent in bed though, at least. She asked if I was interested in a relationship at the moment, and she gave me a flirty smile and a bit of a wink, and it all started from there. About a month ago was our year anniversary of being married.

I slowly roll out of bed, it’s 7:46am, judging by the clock in the bathroom , we’re planning on moving into a house sometime in the fall of this year, since apartment living isn’t exactly ideal for raising kids, and Erica’s really big on that, so I saved up some money last year to make the move, eating out less and eating more at the restaurant I work at if I want to eat out and also trying to cook more also.  I have to be at work at 9am, so I take my shower and brush my teeth and the like, and shave a bit too. I've been growing somewhat of a stubble lately since I haven’t shaved in about two months. Erica thinks it’s kinda attractive but I think it just makes me look like I spend my time being a vagrant . Erica works late since she’s a nurse, usually getting off at 2am in the morning, despite being pregnant. I think she’s off today, so she’ll get the house to herself. I put on my black button down collared shirt and some dress pants, I grab my manager's name tag “Tony” out of the top dresser drawer, and grab some black socks. It takes me about 40 minutes to get ready in total. I grab my pager from the kitchen counter, where I left it yesterday when getting off from work. 

The drive from my apartment to Denny’s is about roughly twenty minutes, the location I work at isn’t too far from the Woodland Mall, so there’s a bit of traffic due to it being a local retail hotspot. I drive a green 1994 Toyota Camry that I’ve had for about a year now, my previous car being the Firebird that Brian bought for me when I became a regular sized person, trading that in for something more practical, symbolizing that that time in my life has past, and I’m pretty much fully assimilated to living like a normal person, although only Kate and her immediate family besides her brother and Brian know about my past, I’m still internally debating about whether telling Erica still after these last almost three years I’ve known her, she only knows that I pretty much grew up in Dallas as a orphan and later lived with Kate in down in Tampa Florida, which I what I told her and many others when the questions about my past come up, she’s briefly met Kate and her boyfriend and her family when they flew up here for our wedding last year, they saying they knew me because they took me in, her brother seemingly too busy to go, even though he doesn’t know who I am or why they’re visiting. Brian didn’t come, but I heard from Kate it was more than likely out of the awkwardness of having to see her again after that new year’s eve night that they broke up, but she says he’ll eventually get over and they might come back in contact again, since they were pretty compatible as friends before they dated.

I get to the Denny’s and I park my Camry right behind the restaurant as usual with the other employee cars, the backdrop behind me being the retail chains Michaels and PetSmart and their parking lot, with a few cars in the spots. I kept the radio off pretty much the whole drive there, I don’t really keep up with music like I used to at this point in life, I guess the pin point for that being Cobain’s death in ‘94 leaving me saddened and disinterested with whatever else musically wise is out there, but occasionally I’ll hear a newer song I don’t mind on the radio. Sometimes I’ll put on a sports station while I’m driving if I wanna catch up with a NFL or NBA game that I had to stop watching while I was in the middle of it because I had to go do something or I missed the game due to work or whatever, and I’ll just have to hear a blow by blow by local sports news commentators the next morning on the drive to work. I’ve gained interest in sports these past few years, Roger once inviting me one Thanksgiving about four years ago this year to go with him to Detroit in his van to see the Lions against the Bears play at the Thanksgiving game at the Pontiac Silverdome with his tailgating buddies, he seems to be the leader of them, everyone else man wise seemingly into their thirties and early 40’s. Roger seemingly jokingly called “Grandpa” by the other men and their families that they brought along. I was single during that time, I had just broken up with Maria about a month ago by that point, so I wasn’t in the greatest of head spaces, but the event kinda brought some life back to me. I still don’t really have very many friends my age or really in general outside of work besides Roger and maybe some of the husbands/boyfriends of Erica’s friends whenever we’re occasionally doing group outings like dinner dates and stuff.  I’m still somewhat anxious about turning 30 next year even though I haven’t even had my 29th birthday yet, even though it’s not really old or even hit middle age yet, I still feel like I should be doing more in my life by this point, even though everyone tells me I’m at my prime whenever I bring up how I feel to those I’m close enough with, my employees and Erica.

I take my key out of the ignition after putting my foot down and shifting the gear to park, and sit and just wait a little bit. I feel the coldness of my car windows after I shut off the hot air from the AC when I turned the car off. It reminds me that I should have brought a jacket, the remainders of a Michigan winter still holding on in spring. One thing I really don’t like about Michigan and the Midwest in general is the extremely cold weather during the winter and fall months, but again I hated the hot humid summers of Texas and especially Florida, so I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. 

I get out of the car, opening the door and closing with a turn of my keys in the slot on the door, locking it. The cold air is hitting me like a wall, it’s even worse with the wind blowing as hard as it can in this moment too, my hair still feeling vaguely wet from my shower and the wind tossing it around a bit too. I step over onto the sidewalk and walk into the back door, entering the kitchen.

“Morning Tony!” says Cory, one of our younger line cooks, he’s about nineteen, I feel the warmness of the restaurant radiating onto me, contrasting with the cold chill of outside, the smell of just food in general overwhelming my senses, reminding me that I went to work on an empty stomach. 

“Morning Cory” I say back, starting to scan my surroundings and get into manager mode, and I begin to double as a host. 

It's not busy on a Monday morning, as one could imagine. There’s a few people that walk in, mostly retired elderly men and women seemingly out on a morning outing, seemingly only engaging in conversations about mundane things like the weather and the local news, seemingly focused on complaining about potholes in our streets or talking about what they   read in the local newspaper, I hear something about Tiger Woods winning this years Masters Tournament. I give them their usual free coffee, since that’s all they usually get anyways, sometimes ordering a Grand Slam or Grits, and always making that “I just got my pension” excuse as if I really care how much money they choose to spend on their already inexpensive meal. I notice one guy attempts to light up a cigarette while sitting inside, seemingly thinking I didn’t notice him sneakily taking out a package of Camel cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, quickly I walk over towards his table and I tell him that you can’t do that in here anymore, and he gives me the dirtiest of looks and begrudgingly walks out the door, seemingly standing outside and smoking.

After the elderly morning crew seemingly leaves group by group over the hours, the place is pretty much empty by 12. I chit chat a little bit as I clean tables alongside Carl, one of my cooks who’s working with me now. There’s about 5 people in total employee wise, Carl, Me, Denise, Cory, and Joanna. Carl, a black Detroit native who moved out here about 5 years ago, saying that he got sick of all the violence going on in the city, and wanted to move out to some place a bit quieter but also not far from his home city, he’s about fifty years old, and one of my best workers, he’s a balding divorced guy with adult children, and sometimes they’ll come out to Grand Rapids and visit him, he tells me. He usually works part time shifts. Denise is one of those ditzy blonde types, she’s a few years younger than me at 24, she grew up in the area, she’s been working here here only a few months, and she does okay as a hostess, she seemingly getting most of the good tips especially from single men compared a lot of other workers here, since she’s pretty attractive looking young woman with a bubbly personality. Cory, a 19 year old guy with his blond hair gelled up in that “faux punk” style that all the kids seem to be really emulating nowadays, we butt heads a lot, since he’s a bit on the lazy side or dangerous when doing things the proper way like food safety and the like, and I constantly have to remind him that he’s working for a corporation, and not one of his friends. Carl will occasionally back me up, usually saying he’s young and stubborn or something along those lines. He’s okay whenever he’s not trying to be the next Johnny Knoxville or something in the kitchen, another one of those things I see that’s popular with the youth these days. Joanna’s a Taiwanese-American 32 year old server, she’s one of the people I talk to the most I feel, another Hostess that’s on shift right now at the moment, she’s also one of better workers here, she’s the child of Taiwanese immigrants who moved here not long after her birth, we mostly talk about nostalgic things about the eighties and seventies that we remember, since we seemed to have somewhat similar experiences, due to being closer in age. She reminds me a little bit of Lucy Liu from that Charlie’s Angels movie that came out last year.

“I mean, yeah, you know what they say. Good things come to those who wait” I say, responding to what Carl seemingly pleased about his signed 1972 Joe Namath Jersey from his time on the New York Jets coming in the mail yesterday, as I wiped down the table of a booth.

“All you two guys always talk about is sports sports sports” Denise says, pushing her hair back a little bit before putting one hand on her hip as she grabs some menus off of a table.

“I’m sure you’ve got interests too, Denise” Says Carl, sounding somewhat annoyed about her comment.

“Just sayin” She says, putting her hands up and walking towards the kitchen.

“You’ve got any interest in sports, Cory?” I say, trying to include him into our conversation, Joanna seemingly looking through a phone book while sitting in a booth farther in the back, seemingly occupied with something.

“I mean, I used to play hockey back in Middle School, and I had some interest in it for a while, but I grew out of it sometime in 10th grade or so. I never really cared much for any sport after that. My Dad’s a huge Baseball fanatic, he grew up in Boston so he’s always been crazy about the Red Sox and took me to games and stuff here and whenever our family went to Boston if there was a game” Cory says, sounding like he was setting something in the sink.

It’s quiet again for a little bit, besides the sound of Joanna flipping through pages.

Everyone eventually starts cleaning again, sweeping and the like, since again, it’s now around 1pm on a weekday and virtually no-one’s in here beside two college kids coming in to seemingly study for business school judging by the titles of their books, and they’re pretty quiet also with the sips of their coffees. I chit chat again, mostly everyone talking about what they have planned for the weekend, if they do have one of the weekend days off. Seemingly only one me for Sunday and Denise and Earl for Saturday. Me just chilling out on the sofa and watching TV with some snacks as I always do on my off days if I’m not hanging out with my wife and their friends or going over Roger’s house, Earl seemingly having the same idea as me, Denise having a movie date with a guy that she met at a party a few weeks ago, they’re going to go see Bridget Jones’s Diary, a romantic comedy that I’ve seen trailers for on TV, it seemingly coming out today from what I can remember. Cory seemingly stayed quiet during this portion of our conversation. 

Joanna starts talking a bit, “The reason why I was thumbing through that phone book was because I was trying to look for a plumber for my parents, their sink pipe broke last night in their bathroom and my dad’s got it somewhat under control for right now but they’re gonna need a actual handyman for it, so I thought I’d get for them since their english still isn’t the greatest” she says, and as soon as she says that, I turn my head and see someone walk through the door.

As soon as I see her face, I feel like I just got flashbacked to 1993. My first thought is “no, it can’t be her”, since this is pretty much the first time I think I’ve ever seen someone from my time as shrunk that I encountered in a weird situation, besides the people that already knew me as shrunk of course. Plus, she was in Tampa, and I’m all the way up in Michigan. So it would be a weird coincidence if I saw her here, but granted, people do move all the time. I decided to be her server for the time being just to see if I was right or not.

“Hey, Welcome to Denny’s I’ll be right with you” I say, as I walk up towards the podium. The vague sound of  the song “Country Roads, Take Me Home” by John Denver playing over our speakers, I get so occupied with my own thoughts and the things I have to do that I rarely ever notice the music playing overhead with our speakers.

 I see her face, it’s so familiar, but I can’t remember her name, she’s definitely older now seemingly in her late twenties if I had to guess, as I can tell, she seems like she’s gained a little weight since then, you can notice a little bit of a pot belly through her puffy green Patagonia jacket, but she’s still pretty attractive as you can tell, her auburn hair still as radiant seemingly as it was back then. 

She gives me a smile, and I bend down and grab a menu from a bottom shelf, and bend back up and walk her to a booth near the window. And then suddenly her name comes into my mind, it’s Bridget.

I walk her towards the booth, sitting near the window, the sound of cars rushing by seemingly something that’s also filling up most of the dead silence, my workers seemingly in the back, I noticed Earl went out the back door for a smoke break.

“So, do you know what you want or do you need some time to look at the menu?” I say, trying to sound a little bit over the top friendly in my voice.

“Oh, I’ll take a Country Fried Steak and Eggs, and a glass of orange juice please” she says, scratching the top of her nose.

“Cool, cool. We’ll be right with you with that” I say, I hear Cory getting ready to cook, seemingly looking through a book and getting out ingredients, I quickly take back the menu, and grab a notepad and pencil out of my pocket and writing it down, quickly walking away and setting it on a ring of orders near Cory.

“Oh no, could you leave that for me please, I might get something to take back to the hotel” Bridget says.

“Oh, so sorry” I say, quickly walking back and putting the menu back on the table, and as I do this I think about asking her what she’s doing up here, I dismiss it quickly thinking that my workers might think I’m weird, but I remember I’m the manager and what they really think of me isn’t exactly impacting my job when it comes down to making conversation with customers during this already kinda slow period in the day.

“So, what brings you to Grand Rapids?” I say leaning a little bit on a table behind me, and I notice a few more people come in through the door, Denise starting to walk over and tend to them.

“Oh, I’m visiting my husband’s family, since they’re from out here and they’re on an outing with some family friends and our kids and I really don’t feel up to hanging out at the park, too cold for me up here. I’m actually from Tampa, so this feels like Antarctica to me” and as soon as Bridget says Tampa I know for a fact it has to be her, but I gotta ask one last question, just to really reassure myself, after all, there’s probably not just one redheaded white chick named Bridget in all of Tampa. I somewhat remember Bridget having a tattoo on her neck, again it’s somewhat hard to remember exact details nearly years and years later.

“Ah, nice nice, just out of sheer curiosity, because I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo lately, y’know, just to say I did something a little rebellious before I turned thirty, what do you think about that” I say, coming up with a lie on the spot.

“I mean if you want to, go for it. I had a tattoo on my neck dedicated to my dad, who accidentally drowned while sailing with his buddies one day after work. I had it removed when I was about twenty two and just put on my leg instead, just jobs and stuff being weird about it even though it’s literally a memorial to my dead father, but fine, alright” she says, sounding frustrated about it, I notice Joanna comes past me and gives Bridget a glass of Orange Juice, setting it down with a soft clink and quickly walking away.

As soon as she says that, it immediately clicks in my head that it really is the same Bridget that accidentally swallowed me nearly ten years ago it’s been, I think a-lot about how much time has changed since the years I was shrunk, it occasionally being a recurring dream that I’m still shrunk and all of this isn’t real.

“Ah yeah, I’m sorry about that ” I say, not exactly knowing how to respond after that.

“It’s alright” she says, and I start to walk over and tend to the other patrons seemingly waiting at the front, the restaurant starting to be a bit more active now.

For the next hour or so I start helping with serving and sitting people down at tables as we begin to become more busy, I notice that Bridget eats two meals, ordering a tall stack of pancakes after finishing her Country Fried Steak Platter, seemingly not wanting to wait until she got back to the hotel I guess. I guess she gained a bit of an appetite over the years, maybe explaining the potbelly, I watch her eat a little bit, weird knowing you’ve taken the exact same journey her food is currently on the path of taking right now, but again I see Kate normally now so I guess it’s all revolves about how you think about it. Bridget seemingly just demolishing the food, she also had about at least three glasses of Orange Juice also, since I gave her her second glass, and Denise seemingly gave Bridget her third I noticed as I walked by her to go and find seats for an older couple.

Bridget leaves about 45 minutes later, seemingly leaving  a tip for me I’m guessing, a five and two one dollar bills out near the edge of the table, her plates seemingly stacked up on each other. I think she’s driving a rental car, a Gray 2001 Chevrolet Impala with Minnesota license plates since she parked up on the restaurant, her front bumper towards the sidewalk entrance . Before I can make a move I notice Denise takes it and gets the tip, I don’t say anything since I think she was oblivious to it and I kinda laugh to myself about it.  

The rest of the day goes by pretty quick, as more and more people come in getting off of work and taking themselves and their friends or their families out to eat on a Friday night. The only thing worth noting is about this retired couple from down south in Memphis seemingly having fun on their road trip through the Midwest, seemingly stopping in Grand Rapids for the evening to stop and recharge for the next morning,  just leaving Chicago and exploring the city for today. I ask them where they plan on going next after today and they say Indianapolis, seemingly scared of Detroit from what they say. I don’t really react, but I roll my eyes in my head, since doing touristy things like going to the Henry Ford Museum or the Motown museum there isn’t going to get you killed. 

I stay until about 9, as usual. Sometimes I’ll stay until 10 or even 11pm some days and as I leave some of the overnight people come in, we exchange goodbyes and hi’s as we go past each other. Everyone that seemed to be here in the morning left a few hours before I did.

On the drive back home from work it was pretty silent. I had the radio on a local sports channel, seemingly talking about the Utah Jazz Vs the Chicago Bulls game that went on earlier tonight, the Jazz seemingly winning by eleven points. I get home, I notice that Erica left our front room TV on, seemingly on TV Land, airing The Andy Griffith Show, a show I honestly have probably seen every single fucking slow as shit episode there is from my days sitting around in Kate’s apartment. I grab the remote and shut off the TV. Our apartment isn’t anything fancy, she moved in with me from her mom’s out. Just a wooden coffee table, with a couple of coins on it that I’ll put there.  Everything in the kitchen came with the apartment, dishwasher and refrigerator and all. Pretty basic. I walk into my wife and I’s bedroom, Erica seemingly in her black lingerie nightgown laying up in bed, the bulky back TV on our dresser seemingly on Fox, a local promo seemingly promoting an upcoming episode of King Of The Hill about Nancy losing her place at the news station to Luanne and Dale suing his favorite cigarette company about it, this is another one of those shows I’ll sometimes watch from time to time if it happens to be on. The cartoon is seemingly more grounded in real life, which is kinda boring at times. I couldn’t really get into South Park, another one of those newer animated shows geared toward adults that I’ll see when flipping through channels since Comedy Central is on our cable package, finding the comedy juvenile and cheap at times. Family Guy is another one of those newer adult cartoon shows I’ve seen TV promos for, I haven’t really had the chance to sit down and watch it.

“I’m guessing you didn’t cook anything to eat tonight” I say, as I begin to undress.

“I mean, I just ate some of the leftover chicken parmesan we had last night that I cooked. And yeah, hello to you too” She says, playfully pretending to throw the TV remote at me. 

I undress and quickly walk to the kitchen in my underwear, opening my fridge, I pull out a plate, seemingly with a few breaded and fried Chicken Filets with melted parmesan on it, at this point I’m super hungry so I just eat about two of them cold and wash it down with tap water, this pretty much being the only thing I ate all day.

I take a shower and fall asleep by 10:30, falling asleep to a rerun of Seinfeld that Erica put on. My last thought before I nod off to sleep is why do these average looking New York guys always seem to get hot girlfriends on this show.

I drift away quickly.

I look around, seemingly shrunken again. I feel movement, but everything is covered and I can’t see a single thing and I feel scalding hot. I hear the chattering of voices and the clattering of silverware and plates moving around, the sound of sizzling from I’m assuming our kitchen. There’s no way I’m at work, I look down at myself and I’m in my work clothes. I can faintly hear the steps of whoever’s moving me, over the sound of everything else. 

“Enjoy” I hear somewhat muffled, seemingly sounding like the voice of Joanna, her having that syrupy sweet customer service voice that she’ll use from time to time if she’s in a good mood.

I realized I’m hiding in the hashbrowns, seemingly a lot of them more than usual, but again whenever Cody’s the main cook, he always seemingly loads down the plate with more food than the company would like us too, which I really don’t care, because it’s not like we’re losing a lot of money on it anyways.

I hear the unwrapping of a napkin, and the metal clang of a fork slightly tapping against a plate, I lift my head up a little through the soggy potato mush, and crack through the hardened cooked top, I see Bridget’s face, she seemingly ignoring me, I wonder why though, wouldn’t she be freaking out if she saw something like me in her food? Like a bug? Oh well. I can totally tell she’s gotten a little older since then, even more so when closer to her face at this, but she did age gracefully these last few years, she’s only twenty eight at the most, which is about my wife’s age and we’re both nowhere near old. She starts on the eggs, seemingly grabbing a bottle of Heinz’s Ketchup from the side of the window, the sound of the squirt almost deafening in my ears, reminding me that I probably need to start going around and replacing condiments a bit more, if it’s at that much of a liquidy substance.

I look at her mouth, her pink lips seemingly opening and pretty much swallowing every bite of eggs whole barely seeming to chew, I start to wonder when she’ll start on the hashbrowns next, I attempt to get free, but the warmness of the food seemingly still luring me in, like a nice bubble bath. The ketchup is smeared around the corners of  her mouth a little, but she doesn’t seem to care about it. She finishes the eggs pretty quickly, I turn around and look behind me, Denise seemingly setting down a plate of five Pancakes and a glass of orange juice, piping hot cups of syrup and cold scoop of butter also seemingly on the plate. Bridget mumbles a thank you with her mouth full, showing she doesn’t have the best of manners. 

I watch her swallow the last huge bite of eggs with a loud deafening gulp, as I watch the bulge travel down her throat, I notice her reach over and grab the glass of orange juice, a small fluff of fabric falls on me from her coat, gently landing on my head. She reaches her arm back and picks it up, I watch the glass travel to her lips, and I’ll admit, she doesn’t take a huge gulp of it, just a small sip before she places it back down again.

I see her pick up the Ketchup again, flipping the top back open, seemingly putting it right above my head, and she squirts it, covering me and the rest of the Hash Browns with Ketchup, squirting the bottle continuously. I reek of Ketchup, and I’m pretty much just blinded in red, some getting into my mouth, seemingly still a liquid consistency. I feel someone anxious, knowing that there’s no way out of getting eaten by Bridget again, but then I remember it’s not as bad as I remembered, though it’s been years since it’s happened to me. I hear the sound of crunching, as Bridget pokes her fork into some hash browns onto the side of me, and seemingly picks them up with her fork, a few wet flakes falling onto my head that seemingly fell off of her fork.

Bridget starts on it, with a slight crunch from every chew, from what I can hear, Ketchup is still in my eyes and my arms and hands are pretty stiff right now from still being stuck below me in the hash browns. 

She swallows the first bite, and I notice she brings her fork back to the plate, and slowly pokes into my forehead, slightly puncturing it a little, but not drawing blood or anything along those lines, she picks me and the bite of Hash Browns that I’m attached to, her mouth slowly opening as the fork comes closer and closer, her mouth looks about the same as it did those years ago, there’s obviously there’s some strands of pulp from the orange juice I’ve noticed on her tongue, and plus a few smaller flakes of chewed up potato flakes and ketchup smeared on her tongue and on some of her teeth, around the back of her teeth and the like, as I get closer and closer to her mouth the smell of orange juice and fried potatoes becomes more and more apparent. 

Bridget slurps me up first, along with the bite of Hash browns, I feel much more cramped, as soon as she closes her mouth and attempts to chew me and the food, luckily I manage to just wrangle her tongue and just try to keep myself on it, as the hashbrowns seemingly get chewed, her teeth grinding them up into brownish-light yellow mush. I’m pretty much bending my back just to not hit the top of her mouth, it’s quite cramped in here. I think about honestly tapping her uvula, to make an escape, since my arms and hands are free, but I also think about the mess it would make if she were to puke all over the table, and someone’s going to have to clean that, plus, why would I want to give myself away at my own job? But oh well, I guess I’ll take another trip through her. She seems a little bit chubbier compared to her old self, so I wonder if that’ll be any different?

Before I can really say or do anything else, I feel a strong force pushing me back towards the back of her mouth and towards where her throat is opening up at, I get sucked along with the rest of her food, and I notice her throat opening, I’m sucked away down her throat. 

Her esophagus seemingly dark and damp as I fall, I’m pretty much covered in chewed Potato flakes that’s a mix of hard and soft. I feel like she has a lot more space in it than she did all those years ago. I can hear the inner workings of her stomach below me, wondering if I may not be as lucky this time around.

I plop in with a splash, along with the other chewed up hashbrowns that she ate, her stomach pretty much working overtime, and I can hear her chewing up another bite of Hash Browns above me. I can’t really see, it’s still pretty dark and damp, but much roomier here. I feel her stomach constantly sloshing acids around and churning the food that she ate, before I can even make my next move a gob of chewed up hash browns fall onto me, I realize I’m in the way of her stomach opening, and I slightly swim to the right a little bit, the acid/orange juice liquid up to my waist, I accidentally misplace my footing somehow and I land face first into some floating gob of chewed up eggs, I can feel my legs and toes burning a little from the acid, but it’s not as bad as I remember it being though.

She takes another big bite of hashbrowns that she seemingly swallowed, it landing with a huge splash in her acids, bringing bubbles around where it landed at, I feel some ketchup splashing on my face also. After it lands a huge wave of acid comes over me, and washes me a little towards the right of her stomach, I grab onto a chewed up chunk of a melting Lifesaver that smells like Wintergreen that I’m assuming she had before she came in, it serves as a literal life preserver to me, I use it as a floating device. I hear the rushing of liquid above me, and I hear the splashing down of the orange juice, seemingly flooding her belly more and more, the liquid mix going from my waist to my chest. I hear some bubbling going on right below where her opening would be, and hear a pop and that’s about it, scattering bubbles in the liquid around her tummy. I hear a slight muffled belch from the outside, I can barely hear the outside world or even myself think with all the noises and gurgles and little churns her stomach is making from digesting all the food that she’s currently eating, I’m worried about the beef fried steak filets and the pancakes that she hasn’t started on yet, wondering how her stomach will react to all this food stuffed into it. I doggie paddle a little bit with my feet, and another large wave of acid mixed with fried egg particles and orange juice washing over me, melting the Lifesaver that I’m using, the acid burns my eyes a little bit, not as bad as I remember it being, feeling as if I just got shampoo into my eyes if anything else. 

I think she finishes off the Hashbrowns, she seemingly swallowing it more than she chewed it this time around, a ginormous glob of potato flakes drop in, splashing back more acid onto me, her stomach really going at it more than anything else I’ve noticed judging by larger amount of bubbles and churns around it, I start to wonder if Bridget suffers from Acid Reflux, with all this action going on in here.I see another large bubble form around her stomach opening, seemingly leading into a another belch, as she a bit more louder with it, this time around, I can hear it somewhat over all the gurgling and loud churns going on in here. I she starts on the fried beef filets, something I hope is a bit more stable for me to use as a raft or something along those lines, as the lifesaver is turning more and more liquidy by the second I feel, I can feel some of it’s wintergreen flavoring flow onto me. I feel a few potato strands float up to me, they’re about the size of a smaller tree branch to me, I hear a little bit of her heart beating, seemingly slowly, but you really have to hear it out in the midst of all the digestion going on, and a little bit of her lungs breathing in and out, and I can hear that a bit more compared to her heartbeat.

 It’s damp and moist now feeling a bit more closer to hot than warm now in here, due to all the acids seemingly hard at work with breakdown what Bridget ate, I can hear a few deep sounding plops of the bites of fried beef steak plopping in, the gravy smell seemingly also overwhelming, Cory seemingly loves to just smother the steak and mashed potatoes with gravy whenever he’s putting it on something, something I scold him about doing, especially with the fried steak or chicken filets that we have, because just pouring it on there in excess just ruins the consistency of the meat, but I’ve also been told that some of the customers actually like it, so maybe he might be right. I swim over towards her stomach’s opening, drudging through gobs of melted eggs and hashbrowns and strands of orange juice pulp, and a mix of all of them mushed up together, just to get there, hoping that I can grab onto something more stable.

I hear the chewing and swallowing of her next bite, and I move out the way just a little bit for I don’t get hit in the head with the chunks of food, and I watch her opening open up a little, a little bit of gravy splattering onto my face, I feel like I need to take the world’s longest shower after this whole event, pretty much being soaked and covered head to toe with stomach acid and digesting/digested food. I grab onto a chunk of beef that’s more breading than meat, and it’s about the size of a small raft, this piece seemingly one that Bridget didn’t chew all that well, I stand up on it, and I succeed, though I have to crouch down a bit to prevent myself from hitting her upper stomach, instead of standing on it I just decide to use it as a much more stable life preserver. I hear Joanna come back and ask Bridget how she’s enjoying her meal, Bridget seemingly just talks with her mouth full, with a very muffled good and then I hear a deafening swallow, I try to move out of the way with the chunk of beef that I decided to use, a bit more to the right, a couple of potato strands covering my back.

The chunks also fly in with a hearty plop, more and more gravy seemingly being added into the liquid mix in her stomach. I notice that she doesn’t take long to finish off the fried beef filets, her stomach being a wasteland of beef chunks and breading and gravy more than anything else. She takes a huge swig of orange juice, also feeling like a waterfall as more and more orange juice, I hear another server voice approach her as she finishes her swig, and it’s somewhat deep, like your average American adult male, wait a minute. Is that me talking on the outside? This just keeps getting weirder and weirder. I ask her if she wants a refill of her orange juice, and she says yes, and I take it away from her. 

She starts on her pancakes, her final challenge, I can somewhat hear the click clacking of the silverware in her hand, and the moving around of plates. My beef raft is still holding on pretty well, although bubbles are forming around the back of it, some of the breading is dissolving too, it’s somewhat nauseating fried smell seemingly blending in with the acids. I notice some of the food and liquid going respectively into her intestines and the like, some room getting opened up a bit more. A couple of bites of pancakes drop down, with a somewhat softer sounding splash, the smell of butter and warm syrup now flood my senses, and I hear my outside self setting down another glass of orange juice and walking off. I see a few chewed up chunks float towards me, feeling much more softer compared to the Beef steak I’m using, which is still holding on pretty strong, I can tell. I feel something pulling against me and some other stuff towards her intestines, seemingly getting closer and closer towards the end. 

She seemingly finishes up her pancakes pretty quick and pretty much chugging an entire glass or orange juice, I can hear her stomach above me seemingly somewhat kicking back up again. I hear her ask me for the check, and I get her set to go. I notice I somewhat fumble through it like an idiot, I cringe at my own behavior. She gets up after I leave, and as she does this, I can feel everything above me and around me shift, the acids in her stomach seemingly going into overdrive in her stomach, and some the digested food from earlier moving forwards a little bit, her intestines feel exactly the same as they did back then, down to the same penny she seemingly swallowed, the copper smell seemingly intensifying as we get closer and closer to that area. I can feel more and more food entering behind me, the food in front of me seemingly from the other night, I can’t exactly tell what it is, but it seems to be as if it was here for a while.

Bridget walks, and I can kinda feel everything swaying a little bit, as she walks. The food in her stomach seemingly going  to war judging by all the popping and gurgling and the like going on, I can also feel her hand on her stomach above me a little, she’s also pretty full.

“I probably won’t need to eat until later tonight” she says, seemingly trying to insist that she’s full.

I hear her open the door of the Denny’s and walks outside, the sound of cars rushing by and honking seemingly signifying that. She walks up to her car door, and gets the key out of her jacket pocket, and unlocks the door and opens it. I can feel all the food shifting around again as she bends over a little bit to get into her car, another audible groan comes from her stomach I hear, this time loud enough that Bridget herself can hear it and she loudly sighs, she burps again, remarking that it tasted syrupy sweet. 

As she sits down in the car and closes the door, the Impala shaking a little with springy bounce, she lies back a little in her seat. She unzips her jacket and puts her hand under her shirt, on her lower belly and I can kinda feel the pressure of her hand above me, leaning into her upper stomach a bit and causing more activity there due to the pressure, more gurgles and groans that I can hear. She remarks that maybe she shouldn’t have eaten that much, since her husband’s in-laws are taking them to a steakhouse this evening. She passes gas, I can somewhat hear it being formed a little bit away from me ahead, seemingly somewhat loud. She scoots her seat upwards a little and takes the keys out of her pocket and puts them into the ignition, turning on the car. I hear the song “Ride Wit Me” by Nelly, a newer popular Hip Hop song that I only know due to flipping through channels last weekend and landing on MTV for a bit, playing a music video featuring the name of the song and who’s in it, the song catching my ear for a bit, the Smokey and the Bandit reference catching my eyes with the focus on Semi trucks and the old school Grand Am that Nelly seems to be driving, and also the beautiful scantily clad backup dancers.

She gets out of the parking lot, and into the street, and after that, I quickly fall asleep. 

I wake up, seemingly jolted by her running seemingly down the hallway of her hotel, I can feel the warmness of her feces radiating on me, seemingly from a meal from before she went to Denny’s, her body seemingly trying to make more room for her meal, I seemingly moved along with the rest of her digestive tract more and more towards her 

“Oh wait, how am I going to get home” I think to myself as she runs, seemingly starting to slow down as I guess she gets closer to her door. 

She quickly pulls a card key out of her pocket and presses it against the door, opening it quickly and slamming it pretty much, dropping the key card on the tile floor. This is kinda funny, because this is the same type of exit I made way back ‘93 through her, with her being all frantic, I guess this is book-ends huh? 

I hear her frantically pull down her pants, and I move faster and faster through her bowels feeling warmer and warmer, seemingly as if this is an emergency. She makes it just in time, and I see a little bit of light and feces plopping into the water, and I fly out too, the room temperature air feeling like a relief compared to how hot and stuffy it felt being inside her.

I splash into the water along with some other feces that also falls out, and I notice that there’s more coming, I get out of the way for I don’t get hit directly with any, sliding onto the bowl, and then a long one comes out and then she wipes, seemingly tossing that into the bowl, and then I remember, how I am I going to get out, so I might as well risk myself getting caught. 

“WAIT, WAIT DON’T FLUSH ME!” I scream, but Bridget doesn’t seem to notice or care, and I hear the sound of the toilet lever being pushed, and I feel nothing but cold water rushing onto me and I scream at the top of my lungs as I feel myself being suctioned down.

“Babe, Babe. What’s wrong” I hear from Erica, I wake up, seemingly in my bed and it’s pitch black. I must of had a dream where I was shrunken, I guess it’s a version of PTSD for me.

“Nothing, nothing. Just a nightmare, I thought I’d died or something. Freaked me the fuck out” I say, looking around, I have no clue what time it is, but I think it’s still at least before midnight, so that dream I had didn’t even last as long as it felt.

“Alright, I mean you were screaming “Don’t Flush Me” at the top of your lungs, whatever that meant” she says, laying back down her side.

“Yeah, just a weird dream” I say, remembering that a dream like that used to be a reality for me not so long ago, I lay back down and fall fast asleep.