Now Jake had
headed off into the bathroom under Courtney’s order to clean scum off the
surfaces. Meanwhile, she was rustling around in the cupboard. In living room,
the TV was still running through a saved music playlist, and the tunes lulled
you and Will into a sense of calm. Then a loud sound crashed over the top of
the music.
You both
went stiff in alarm. The sound was like a passing train, and obliterated all
other sounds. It was a vacuum cleaner motor. Courtney was vacuuming down the
hallway outside the living room. With a jolt of panic, you realized the sound
was gradually getting louder.
You went
running over the floor. As usual, Will was a little faster than you. He was
heading for a reclining chair, and you unthinkingly followed him. The two of
you reached the chair as the vacuum noise encroached into the living room. Will
ran straight under the recliner footrest, which was lifted, and so did you.
There was a metal frame that ran around in a square, supporting the reclining
mechanism. The two of you pressed yourself in against a length of this
mechanism and watched in wonder as a gigantic vacuum cleaner came in and swept around. It glided around searchingly, as if it could sense you. You could
only watch as a vacuum nozzle bigger than you nosed around the floor, back and forth, pausing
to swallow every small object it came into contact with. Objects whizzed so fast up the nozzle they practically vanished, and any of them could have been you. The sound was
everywhere, like a surging storm. The size of a pair of walnuts, and feather
light, the two of you were adequately sized to pass into the nozzle and whiz
straight into the vacuum bag like a monster’s belly. Courtney had no idea she
was leading this monster around to eat you up.
At some
point, Courtney began getting down and sending the nozzle in under the chairs
to strip up all the dust and detritus that was trapped underneath. She stopped
in front of the recliner and got onto her hands and knees to check beneath.
You were
met with the sight of her humungous face peering in under the footrest,
exposing the two of you directly for her consideration. Her eyes locked upon
you; she seemed to make you out amidst the shadows, but didn’t know what you
were. Maybe she thought you were a couple of pieces of discarded litter that
had drifted under the chair and gotten caught in the metal framing. Whatever
you were, she decided to swallow you up whole with the vacuum. The nozzle came
impatiently pushing its way under the sofa.
With no
time to escape, and no way to outrun the vacuum, you and Will both wrapped your
arms around part of the metal frame and desperately held tight. Next second
your view of Courtney’s face was obscured behind a huge metal ring that roared
and sucked at you. Dust, lint and crumbs tore away from the ground and
disappeared down the nozzle before it aimed right at you. A fierce stream of
air grabbed your feet and pulled hard. You yelled in shock as your legs whipped
back and were guzzled up into the nozzle. Your hair was rippling; you felt like
a piece of paper being flapped about by a fan. No matter what, you ensured you
held onto the framing with all your might as the nozzle fiercely tried to wrench
at you. As the surge of powerful air grasped and shook you, you felt your torso
stretch alarmingly, and your body became thinner.
Unable to
detach you, the nozzle reluctantly relinquished its hold on you in order to
focus on Will. It tugged at him viciously, but he managed to hang on.
Undaunted, the nozzle returned to claw at you, stubbornly trying to separate
you from the framing. It even managed to gulp you all the way to your head, but
every time it pulled away, you had managed to cling onto the chair and keep
from vanishing down the long cylinder.
Unable to suction
either of you away, Courtney finally gave up. She assumed the two of you must
be fabric strips lining the underside of the chair, and retracted the nozzle.
Forgetting about you, she went back to vacuuming the floor.
Breathing
so heavily your lungs ached, the two of you let go of the framing and lay back
on the floor. You listened as the roaring of the vacuum gradually receded
across the house. Courtney was taking a phone call on her phone, through an
earpiece. The vacuum was so loud you couldn’t make out what she was saying, but
it was clear from her lively tone she was talking to someone she knew, probably
a friend.
The vacuuming
had exerted so much force on your flexible body, you had been pulled out of
shape. The yanking torrent of air had teased your body out into a long, thin
tube. You had previously been the thickness of a walnut; now you were ¼ that
width, roughly the thickness of a pencil, and half a pencil in length, or 3 ½
inches long. Looking across, you noticed the same had happened to Will.
It was a
little weird to have been stretched out, but also a relief that you hadn’t been
sucked up. Either way, you needed to get moving again and find a sheltered area
to give you time to reform, and then figure out the next move, maybe figure out
another plan to get someone’s attention.
The vacuum
cleaner noise had now receded further down the hall. You tried to get up, only
to wobble on your feet and fall over again. You were too long and skinny to
balance upright. Will had gotten to his hands and knees and began to crawl.
Taking his lead, you did the same. Crawling was easier than walking upright,
but still difficult. Your body was weirdly stiff and difficult to move.
The two of
you slowly crawled to the middle of the room. Will seemed to be leading you to
the side opposite where Courtney was. When you were both nearly across the
room, the vacuum shut off and you heard it get packed away. A moment later,
Courtney reappeared. Like opossums the two of you lay down and went completely
still as she began to walk through the room. Surprised, you could only watch as
her mountainous form strode directly on the path you were lying on. Playing
dead was a bad idea, but you realized too late.
Without a
downward glance, Courtney marched over the carpet, heading towards the kitchen.
She didn’t even notice you lying on the floor. Before you could react, the end
of her foot shadowed over your vision and got lower and lower…
Her big toe
landed squarely on your face and your entire head was flattened by her
stupendous weight, and also curled a little around the underside of her toe,
cupping it from beneath. Then her foot lifted, her toe slipped off your head.
You were left lying on the ground, and your head was a shallow cup shape. By
flattening your head, her toe had effectively stamped your face into frozen
position, which meant you couldn’t close your eyes or open your mouth.
The steady
thudding of Courtney’s departure trailed away. Mere minutes later, more
footsteps boomed in the room, different from Courtney’s. A gigantic pair of
socks appeared nearby, and stopped right before you. Jake bent down, briefly
looking into your face without comprehension. His humungous forefinger and
thumb delicately pinched the skinny pencil-thin tube that was now your neck.
His fingertips were so huge your neck practically got lost between them. You
hoped he wouldn’t press too hard and accidentally squeeze your neck even
thinner. As his firm grip searched about for a comfortable position on your
neck, he accidentally closed off your throat, your voice was trapped in your
lungs.
Holding you
in one hand, he grasped up Will in the other, who was also the same weird shape
as you; thin with a flattened, slightly curved head. Courtney must have
accidentally stepped on him as well.
“You leave these
spoons here?” Jake called out. With a sinking feeling you knew he was talking
about you and Will. Courtney’s tread had accidentally deformed the two of you
into what looked like a pair of spoons.
When Courtney
didn’t answer, Jake said:
“I’m
putting them in the wash.”
Taking you
both in hand, Jake briskly went into the kitchen and stopped by the sink to
yank open the dishwasher.
He placed
you down on the retractable cutlery tray with several other knives and forks, and
then slid the tray back in. You had one last glimpse of Jake’s legs before the
dishwasher interior surrounded you, some plastic rotors directly above. The
door shut you inside.
Then you
had to wait out the dishwasher cycle. This involved two hours of being sprayed
by warm jets of soapy water, which blasted you from below. The spouts of water
then rained back down, like a monsoon, rinsing you thoroughly. Roaring like a
waterfall, water pounded around and sluiced over you in unending waves. Your
body naturally absorbed the water. As you began to fill like a little balloon, you
could feel yourself swelling and tensing. You flexed your little body rapidly
to keep squeezing the water out so you didn’t burst.
As the
deluge carried on, detergent was added into the mix, causing the hose down to
get thick and soapy. You were covered in bubbles and foam, before being blasted
by more jets of water. Now your body began to absorb the detergent, and some
pieces of dishwashing tablet. Once inside you the chemicals reacted with your
body, clumping together and turning you rock solid. No amount of squeezing and
flexing pushed them out.
Over the
course of the dishwashing cycle, more pieces of dishwashing tablet packed into
your body and stiffened. Your body had removed all the water and some of the
chemicals, and the tablet pieces were left behind, filling up inside your body,
all gummed together like rock candy.
Now you
were straightened out, stiff like a log and you couldn’t move. You lay in
place, motionless, listening to the sound of the dishwasher wind down. As the
cycle finally drew to a close, the spray reduced, pattering down from the
spinning rotors like rain drops.
It had been
some time now, about two hours, since you had been placed into the dishwasher. There
were a few beeps, indicating you were finally done. And good timing, since
Courtney and Jake would need a couple more tea spoons; they had guests.
A pair of
teenage girls sat together at the dining table, murmuring to each other.
“I’m going
to make some coffee. You girls want a drink?” said Courtney.
The two girls
looked up. They looked like the kind of preoccupied teenagers who talked
quietly and excitedly together to block out the world, and thought anything
before ten years ago was too old. One of them was a reflexive hair-flipper while
the other barely turned her head from her phone.
Hair-flipper
flipped her hair and then piped up:
“Do you
have any carrot or celery juice?”
“Any other
requests?”
“Some
carrots and a blender? Vegetable juice makes you younger.”
"Aren't
you seventeen?" Courtney lowered an eyebrow. "If you got any younger
you’d be a kid again.”
The teens concurred;
tea for ‘weight loss’. Courtney went into the kitchen to make a tea, and coffee
for herself and get something for Jake, who had just wandered in. He happily
took whatever.
“You’re
Jake,” Hair-flipper said suddenly, staring at him. The other girl finally
lifted her eye a fraction from her phone screen to glance at her friend.
“That’s
right,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m great.
Okay I didn’t know you’d be here. Whatever.” She giggled and flipped her hair.
Courtney
came back with the drinks.
“Oh, I
forgot the spoons,” Courtney said.
"Guess we don't need them," Jake said. But Courtney insisted.
"No, I've got some cake in the fridge, too - wait, you girls said you're on a diet-?" she smirked at them.
"No," Bratty protested, "my friend was only joking! I want some cake!"
"Yeah, I was only joking, Mrs Rugger," said Chatty.
"It's Mrs Luxford now," said Courtney.
She offered to get the cake and plates, but Jake offered to get the spoons, since he already
knew there were some just finished in the dishwasher.
You vaguely
heard him enter the kitchen before the dishwasher door swung away, revealing
Jake’s legs again. He pulled the tray
out, giving you a full, bright view of his enormous upper body, and his hand
hovered over you a second before noticing you specifically. He caught you
around the waist and lifted you into the air. You wanted to say something, tell
him it was you, but the pressure on your stomach kept your voice trapped, plus
you couldn’t move your mouth. His other hand took another couple of spoons,
including Will, which were all bunched together with you.
Back in the
dining room, you were placed down on the table and Jake took his seat. He kept
one of the spoons for himself, leaving you and Will and a third spoon out. Staring
around, you wondered if you’d be picked up. Then you noticed the teens and did
a double take.
Placed
center of the discussion, you instantly felt hyper-conscious of your size. The
girls were disarmingly pretty, not shy, and didn’t look like the kind you could
just walk right up to and join. The girl on the right, hair-flipper, was the
most confident and talkative (you called her Chatty), and sitting next to her,
the girl on the left was smug and interruptive (you called her Bratty). She
didn’t talk as much as Chatty, but when she did, she talked fast which came as
a surprise. You could do nothing but stare up at everyone, in awe how big
everyone was, and how tiny you were. It was weird to be lying on the table, in
full view of everyone, yet no one paid you any attention. Anyone could, at any
time, pluck your narrow body up off the table and keep you between their
fingertips. It was crazy how helpless you were, a basic tool waiting for use.
Meanwhile,
the amplified voices resonated vibrantly through your body. Because you were
long and thin, you made a great conductor for acoustics, and every utterance
ran from head to toe down your body in ticklish waves. There was nothing you
could do except patiently wait to reform. Unfortunately all the chemicals your
body had absorbed during the dishwashing prevented your body from naturally
reforming. There were other distracting
sensations. The air was layered with herbal tea and perfume. Every time a cup was put down, a tiny shock
trembled up your spine.
Then Chatty
and Bratty reached over for the spoons.