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     Outside in the car, the cold air leaked in through the half opened window and gripped him tightly. His fingers clasping the cigarette had grown numb a long time ago, the cherry at the end nibbling closer and closer to the filter. He tipped the cigarette out the sliver of open window and tapped the ashes into the frigid, stagnant air. He glanced up at the window of his apartment through the tangle of bare tree branches before taking out his phone and checking for a text. There was one. It was a message from some girl way out in Oklahoma, someone he had never met but had become acquainted with somewhere on the ephemeral waves of the internet. She went by Sara but he had never asked for a last name and neither had she. They were just two acquaintances on a crowded ship somewhere in an empty ocean. They were an affair in an empty office building. She was someone who had been willing to indulge his fantasy.

I guess my little man should crawl inside my shoe *i pull my big foot out of my shoe and tilt it so u can get in*

     Eli could feel a dull throb in his crotch, a pleasant little swelling. It only grew as he texted a quick, giddy reply. God, did she get him. Or at least one facet of him. He was a normal guy, a man with hopes and dreams and a girlfriend. But ever since he had been a child, there had been a dark, hidden characteristic that made up a massive portion of who he identified himself as. He had, as far back as he could remember, been interested in being shrunken down to a small size. If he had taken the time to stop and think about how disheartening it truly was that such a core part of his own personality was in fact the most secret portion and arguably his biggest embarrassment, he may have been a little upset. He may have identified with Peter Parker and his alter ego; or a gay man before he comes out of the closet; or a quiet atheist in the bible belt. But he wasn’t so eloquent, and it was something he preferred not to dwell on. Instead, he blindly reached out to strangers to help him live his fantasy, to indulge in the impossible with a faceless doppleganger . . . even if it meant cheating on his girlfriend.

     As Eli slipped the phone back into his pocket and he took another drag from his cigarette, the guilt came back to him and he glanced back up at the apartment window once more. It was cheating, of course, but everyone is the hero of his own story and he didn’t believe his actions were despicable. Of course not: cheating involved sex. This wasn’t sex, this was talking and chatting. Had he been better with words, he may have called it banter. Had he not been blinded by his own lust and desire, he may have realized it was possible to cheat on someone emotionally as well as physically. Like Spiderman peering through the reflective lenses of his mask as he patrolled the city, Eli sat in his car wearing the dark mask he donned when he delved into his fantasy. When he felt the little vibration of his phone telling him he’d gotten a new message from Sara-from-Oklahoma, he ceased to identify as Eli Bantam and instead became someone else . . . little man, as Sara called him, among other things. Occassionally she called him little shit when she felt particularly coy, and maybe that moniker would fit him better.

     He tossed the thoughts away and snubbed the cigarette in the ashtray in his vehicle before rolling the window up and stepping out into the winter air. The ground was packed and frozen solid, crunching underfoot as he dashed for the apartment door. He practically flung himself into the apartment and swung the door shut behind him, sealing out the cold and letting the warm air wash over him. He breathed into his hands as he kicked his shoes off and walked toward the kitchen. He didn’t see his girlfriend Melanie anywhere.

     “I’m back,” he called to the apartment itself more than to her. His voice carried down the hall and through the rooms that branched off from it. He saw groceries on the table, yellow plastic bags from the dollar store down the street. He absently pawed through them. Cans and coffee filters, batteries and dried fruits. But there was something else that caught his eye. Curious, he pulled the thing from the bag and held it out.

     It was a ski mask, made from cheap black cloth that felt itchy against his fingers. It had three holes stitched into its fabric—holes that peered back at him like a lopsided, grinning face. The tag still poked out from the top like the stalk of an apple. He tilted it a little to see if there was a price sticker clinging to it, unable to stop wondering why Melanie would buy a ski mask of all things.

     “Do you like it?” she asked from behind him, startling him. He jumped a little, causing her to giggle as she came forward and put her hands on his shoulders. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” She planted a kiss on his lips and giggled again, her laughter rumbling in his own mouth.

     “You didn’t,” he said as she pulled away. “You just surprised me.”

     “That’s just a nicer way of saying I scared you, honey.” She opened a cupboard door before reaching into a bag and pulling out a couple of cans to stow them away for the time being. As she did so, she turned to glance at him with a smile on her lips. He loved that beautiful smile, and always had—it drove him wild.

     “So,” Melanie asked. “Do you like it?”

     He held it in both hands and looked down at it. “Yeah,” he said. “But what the hell do you need a ski mask for?”

     “It’s not for me, it’s for you.” Her beautiful, bare feet padded against the linoleum as she went back and forth from the table to grab cans before walking back to the cupboard to stash them inside.

     He stepped up to the table before she could make another trip, grabbing a can and holding it out to her. She grinned as she took the can and continued stacking them in the cupboard.  “Why do I need a ski mask?” he asked.

     “For the trip, silly.”

     The trip. “Oh yeah.” He’d forgotten all about it. He was supposed to be going with his brother and his father to the hunting cabin that rested out on a plot of land that had been passed down to his father. The fact that Eli didn’t care much for hunting hadn’t diminished the insistence of his brother and father that he should come along with them. He had been dreading it and had tried to push it out of his mind. Apparently he’d done too good a job.

     “I know you’re not that thrilled about it,” she said. She stood on her tiptoes to reach the top shelf, giving him a breathtaking view. Her lovely arches and heels pointed toward him. Her fierce calves tensed under her pastel pajama shorts which barely contained her ample rear end. He practically drooled at the sight before lending a hand. He took the can from her and placed it on the top shelf. “Thanks,” she said absently. “But like I said, I know you’re not happy about having to go, but I thought you might as well stay warm while you’re there. Right?”

     “Yeah, I’d rather be warm and miserable than cold and miserable.”

     “That’s the spirit,” she chided, slapping him playfully. “Try it on. See how you looks.”

     He lifted the mask and tugged the price tag free before holding it open and ducking his head into it. He pulled the cloth down over his face, twisting and adjusting it in the darkness until finally his eyes and mouth met up with the holes in the mask. He peered out at his girlfriend through the holes in the mask, his peripheral vision a little diminished. The fabric was itchy, but it felt right at home. “It fits,” he said.

     “It does. Is it warm?”

     “Yeah, it’s great. Thanks, Mel.”

     “Good.” She leaned in and kissed him again. “And I can’t tell who you are. Maybe you should rob a bank or something, stranger.” She giggled and went back to work.

     From his pocket, he felt the familiar buzz that let him know he’d received a new message—undoubtedly from Sara-from-the-internet. From inside his mask, he felt the familiar sensation of guilty giddiness well inside him. He left the kitchen and headed for his room to drop off his coat. He pulled his phone free and looked at the message.

*seeing you in the bottom of my shoe, i slip my foot back inside. It glides over you until it covers you completely, then i shake my foot until ur tiny body slips down under my toes* kiss them, little man. Now.

     God, did she get him. Melanie didn’t understand the fantasy at all—he had mentioned it a couple of times, but it had never worked out well. She would get quiet and uncomfortable, and she  would ask a couple of questions but eventually he would drop it based on her reactions alone. She didn’t understand why he wanted to be small. She could get into the idea of domination every now and then, sure, but it wasn’t her strong suit and he had learned not to ask it of her too often. But after the awkward conversations about his fetish he had put it on the backburner to stay for awhile.

     Sara, on the other hand, was more than willing to be his goddess, and he was thankful to have some sort of outlet. He loved being the little man. He could be Eli with Melanie, and little man with Sara-from-Oklahoma. They were separate identities, not even the same person.

     But not all secrets can stay hidden, and everyone must choose who they are. It is always merely a question of time.

     He heard Melanie in the kitchen, and he imagined what it would be like to be riding along on her foot, desperately clinging to her skin as she walked around the kitchen. To be her little man. He reveled in the fantasy, and somewhere in the corner of his mind he decided he needed to pitch the scenario to Sara.

     He shed his coat and stowed his phone away again, then prepared to spend a romantic evening with Melanie before he left for the trip tomorrow afternoon. He began to leave the room until he realized he was still wearing the ski mask. He had forgotten it was still there, almost like it had become a part of him. He tugged it free and tossed it on the dresser before making his way back to the kitchen.

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     Eli Bantam loved his girlfriend, there was no question. When he thought of the future, he saw them both together in a house with children and they would grow old together and have a happy life. When he went to bed at night, she was the last thing he thought about and when he woke up, she was the first thing that came to his mind. He loved her! The only true blemish in their relationship was his secret, which he fostered away in the dark to hide it from sight and from mind; but it was like a fungus, and there in the dark near the furnace of his lust it continued to grow and multiply and consume him little by little. His secret became a major part of himself and began to take up more and more of his time. He sought out pictures to pleasure himself to, he found works of fiction to do the same, he scoured for people who could help him indulge in the pleasures of the impossible. And Melanie, by her own volition and by Eli’s, was not a part of it.

     The question became, which was the true Eli Bantam? The one that everyone knew, or the one who jacked off alone in the dark to text messages from a girl he’d never met? It was a tangled question and one he continuously pushed away, refusing to confront in any manner. But things have a way of coming to the surface. A thousand quotes have been made a by a thousand of the greatest minds in history, all concerning the furtive acts mankind performs when no one is watching: the Bible, Ghandi, Churchill. It was no wonder, then, that Eli’s secret would eventually become his reality only to ultimately bite him in the ass.

     He had spent a lovely night with Melanie. A couple of wine bottles had lain discarded on the kitchen table as they kissed each other passionately, their tongues darting in and out of the shelter of their mouths; their clothes had watched from the floor, shed and forgotten, as the two intimately caressed one another, exploring each other’s bodies as if they were novelties every time they began to make love. Her fingers traced his abdomen, up to his chest and down to his inner thigh. He let his fingers glide and tickle from the apples of her cheeks down her clavicle, and across the swell of her breasts before alighting on her nipples and rolling them gently, sensually. Her fingers slid over his thigh, up near his throbbing groin and then back down the other thigh, teasing him. She finally brought her hands back up and hefted the weight of his balls in her hand. He had leaned in and began to lick her breast, taking her tits into his mouth and playing with them. She had gasped and giggled, and then brought one foot up, adjusting her torso, so that she could press her toes into his balls and begin to stroke up his shaft to the head then back down again. Up and down, up and down, her soft toes dancing along his skin. After awhile she had taken the head of his cock between her big toe and middle toe and begun to sway it back and forth, back and forth, until he had shuddered and grunted and spattered his cum all over her foot. Then she had smiled and patted his head, still pressed tight against her breasts, and laughed soothingly, her voice like chimes. “Did you like that?” she asked, squeezing his quickly-wilting dick affectionately with her toes.

     His foot fetish was really the only thing she understood and had no problem with. Odd, considering the long string of girlfriends he had left behind and how none of them had ever seemed to be too thrilled with it. Even odder, because she refused to accept his other desires. Odd, and slightly frustrating (but only if he ever took the time to stop and think about it).

     The rest of the night had continued in the same dizzy slur of sexual gratifications and intimate acts, all through the hazy sheen of alcohol. They had eventually fallen asleep, nestled in close to each other.

*          *          *

     Eli had awoken alone. He continued to rest there, eyes closed but with the sunlight still filtering in through his eyelids. He breathed and stretched, and realized he did not feel the thudding pain of a hangover. He smiled to himself, and as he brought his hands back down he realized also that he had not felt the headboard of the bed when he’d stretched. He opened his eyes and turned to orient himself, certain he had just rolled at a strange angle while he slept.

     Instead of orienting himself, his mind all but shattered.

     The bed was a massive, rolling plane of wadded blankets and wrinkled sheets. He was standing next to one such wrinkle now, and it rose nearly to his waist after he’d leapt to his feet. He peered about, trying to take in the sheer size of everything. The wad of blankets absolutely dwarfed him now, standing as high as any hill, maybe higher. The bed stretched away to the room itself, the walls standing what could have easily been a quarter of a mile away at his size—like staring at one end of a shopping mall from the opposite end. The ceiling hung above him and was so far away he couldn’t make out the spackled texture—it was blurred and nondescript. This was probably the part that hit home the most, and he felt his stomach lurch in protest of what his eyes were seeing.

     Naturally, he couldn’t take what he was seeing as fact. His mind immediately grasped for any explanation it could find. The first thing that occurred to him was that he was dreaming. Of course, it was the only rational explanation. People don’t shrink. Sure, it had always been his fantasy, but that’s what made it a fantasy, that it couldn’t happen—that it didn’t happen. He was dreaming. But even as the thoughts rattled in his mind, he realized how flimsy they were. He had never been a lucid dreamer, and he had never once had the realization that he was dreaming while he was still in the act of doing so. The idea that it would happen now didn’t sit well with him.

     And then his miniscule nose picked up on a particular scent. The soft, almost spicy aroma of Melanie’s sweat and skin oil mixed with the heady cloud of her vanilla perfume. It lingered on the sheets, rising into the air around him like a ghost, wonderful and inviting and sexy as hell. He had developed a kind of Pavlovian response to that perfume, and his cock began to swell with the mere scent of Melanie’s perfume. It couldn’t be a dream, because there was no way this miniscule detail could ever occur to him. Something so trivial as perfume and body oil lingering on a bed would never be something he could come up with—it had never even occurred to him in the roleplays he had performed before.

     So then Melanie. She wasn’t in the room anymore, she must have awoken already. All that meant was that he needed to get her attention.

     Feeling the queasy gnaw of panic nipping in his stomach, Eli made his way toward the hill of blankets to get a higher vantage point so he could assess his options. The wad of blankets (or the hill of blankets, from his perspective), was not a firm mass but would compress inward a little with every step he took. He must have been incredibly light, though—he was sure if he tossed a penny on the blankets it would have sunk in much deeper than he was doing at the moment.

     When he finally crested the hill, he immediately saw that he was in luck. The bunched-up blankets rolled away and cascaded down the side of the bed to pool on the floor. If he’d needed a lifeline to the carpet, this was certainly it. He bounded down the other side of the hill and came to a rest at the edge of the bed-cliff. He assessed the angle, trying to decide if rolling down the slope of the blankets would, in fact, kill him. Maybe he should just climb down. He glanced down at his arms. He wasn’t particularly strong, really. He was toned, sure, but that didn’t mean he could endure a three minute repelling session to the floor. The angle wasn’t all that steep, really. If he could lay sideways and roll down it like he used to roll down grassy hills as a kid, he might be able to pull it off—and with no grass stains, either!

     He laid down on his back, body parallel to the edge of the bed, arms crossed over his chest. He gave himself a count of three with his heart pounding in his ears and the dull understanding that he might die right here and right now echoing in his mind. Then he rocked himself over the side of the cliff and down the blanket slope.

     It was soft and resilient. He rolled relatively slowly at first, but the farther he went the more momentum he built up. The world was an infinite loop, a roiling kaleidoscope. The rough material of the blanket scuffed at his naked form and he was able to stop thinking of dying to complain to himself, almost comically, that it was going to chafe. Then he came to a soft halt in the puddle of blankets at the foot of the bed. He rested there for a moment in its soft embrace, letting his whirling head settle and checking to make sure that he was really and truly still alive.

     After a few moments of resting, he leapt to his feet, the adrenaline gripping his body and intoxicating his mind. He was shaking as he leapt and danced, shouting Yeahhhh!!! and laughing like a madman. He had done it! He had made it to the floor. When the shaking had finally stopped and he had nearly cheered his vocal cords to tearing, he came to a halt and gazed at the door a quarter of a mile or so away. Melanie was out there somewhere, absently realizing how small he had to be to consider the hallway almost a different part of the world. There had been inside and outside when had been normal size; now there was here and there and the distance between them was hard to comprehend, let alone measure.

     Better get going, he thought to himself and he shambled his way off the puddle of blankets and across the carpet. He instinctively stuck close to the bed at first; it was like a shelter, shrouding him in its shadow and keeping what was really a roof over him. It felt safe here, in a secluded spot rather than out in the open. Maybe it was akin to a million years of evolution: the cave was the safe spot; it was the open plains where the predators could get you. And they would. But when he reached the outter leg of the bed there would be no more shelter, and if he wanted to get Melanie’s attention and try to survive this whole, inexplicable ordeal then he had no choice but to go. He took a deep breath, and began his march across the open plain of what had once been (and remained to Melanie) a normal bedroom.

     He walked for several minutes, gazing like a tourist in New York City who gawks at the skyscrapers. The dresser was enormous, towering over him. The bedside table was, too. He could peer under it and see dust bunnies that he had never noticed before, and the dull glint of what could be jewelry or maybe a coin. How long had that been there?

     He could smell the faint, almost nonexistent aroma of floor cleaner, fresh in its chemical nature. He could hear the sound of a crow from somewhere beyond the walls of the house. He could track his miniscule shadow as it was thrown by the sunlight splashing in through the window.

     When he was more than halfway to the door, he heard something that froze him solid and terrified him at the same time. A door down the hallway, distant but still incredibly loud at his size. He took his new size into account, tried to pinpoint where it had come from. The bathroom door, down the hallway. Melanie had been in the bathroom.

     Then he felt something stirring beneath him. Slight tremors in the floorboard beneath the carpet padding, quavering vibrations that signified her footsteps. It was terrifying. It was kind of sexy. She had to be enormous now, and her feet even larger . . .

     He tore himself out of these thoughts and flung his gaze wildly in every direction. He needed to make a decision and fast. The dresser was too far away, and so was the moulding where the floor meet the wall—he’d never make it in time. The door was out of the question because that was where Melanie would be coming in and as much as he liked her feet he certainly didn’t want to be plastered on them with his dying breath—sure, he had always fantasized about it, but reality was always much different than imagination, wasn’t it? The bed was far away, and as much of a longshot as it seemed to be at least she probably wouldn’t be making her way directly for the bed. Maybe if he took off that way, he could buy himself enough time for her to come to a rest and then he could try and get her attention.

     As he took off at a mad sprint for the bed, he became acutely aware of the growing intensity of the tremors. Shockwave after shockwave. And then he could hear the meaty sound of flesh and muscle and bone of a petite and beautiful brunette woman walking barefoot across a wood floor in the hallway. Jesus Christ, she was moving fast! He had always imagined people and other things moving slower if he were smaller, but clearly that was not the case. As if to reassure him of this fact, he heard the half open door behind him creak open as Melanie came into the room. The world was shuddering and leaping around Eli as her massive footfalls slapped against the ground behind him. There was no way he was going to make it and he was too terrified to turn and see where she was in relation to him let alone which direction she might be heading.

     Her footfalls echoed behind him, and despite his own survival instincts roaring its dissent in his mind, he looked back over his shoulder. What he saw made his heart stop and forced his breath to be lost as it escaped in one quick gasp that barely managed to come out as “Oh shit—”

     What he saw played out at normal speed, but for the first time since he’d reached diminutive stature time slowed down to a crawl. Melanie’s right foot was planted on the ground, tensed and ready to lift as soon as the other made contact. It was still in the distance, a step or so from him at Melanie’s perspective but a few yards at Eli’s own. Her toes were gorgeous, the nails unpainted and glistening in the sunlight from the fresh shower she must have just finished taking. He could see the muscles of her foot quivering and writhing under the skin. He wondered where the left foot was, but his question was soon answered as he caught sight of a shadow in his peripheral vision. It was like watching the shadow of a hawk—he saw it darting across the floor and it was moving toward him and he flinched as if it was a physical object that could hit him. But it wasn’t, and the shadow merely slowed and then began to grow. He glanced up to see a terrifying and arousing sight: the gargantuan sole of Melanie’s foot coming down toward him. It was all happening so quickly that he had no real time to react, to dodge to one side or the other. All he could do was marvel at the soft, creamy skin. The wrinkles stood out on her sole, soft and verdant and welcoming. He could just make out the subtle blue ropes of veins beneath the skin. He could see the muscles in the ball of her foot flex as it prepared for impact. The toes wiggled in response, the pinky toe the only one that didn’t follow the others in unison; instead, it jutted out just a tad bit from the others.

     Eli managed to have enough time only to throw himself to the ground like in the old duck-and-cover movies from the days of the Cold War. It would probably do him just as good now as it would have done for an atom bomb. He didn’t close his eyes, though, but watched with morbid fascination as her foot descended on him like a zeppelin plummeting from the sky. Her skin came down on him and the world grew darker in its shadow. He felt as much as he heard the impact from her foot on the padded carpet as the floor beneath him shook. He felt her skin press on him from above, pressing him into the carpet slightly. Then he felt another impact as the other foot, somewhere beyond the enveloping fold of this foot he was trapped under, came to a rest.

     He came to the realization that she was standing right on top of him and by some dumb luck or miracle or whatever, he was still alive. He was pressed into the carpet and her muscles and skin were uncomfortably compressed on top of him, but he was alive. As he looked up, he realized what it probably was, a combination of two things. He was caught in a little open space between the floor and her foot. If he had been standing it probably would have snapped his spine, but since he was lying prone there was just enough room for him to squeeze in. She had high arches. Thank God, she had high arches. And the carpet—it was soft and yielding. It provided just enough give to push him slightly downward—enough room to keep a hundred tons of beautiful woman from crushing him beneath her foot.

     But his delight was short lived. He felt her muscle above him writhe and flex as her toes wiggled to assess the sensation under her foot. She felt something there, soft and small. She assumed it was probably adhered to her foot, as most small and soft things usually do. She never really looked to see what it was, how many people really did? She was focused on another task. She didn’t bother to look as she lifted her foot and simultaneously kicked it out, trying to throw whatever it was under her free from her foot.

     She had no idea it was her boyfriend. As such, he was not in fact stuck to her foot and when she performed the motion, she was able to send her boyfriend volleying across the floor and under the bed, out of sight. He rolled more than he bounced, but this time it was several magnitudes more painful than it had been rolling down the blanket. It wasn’t deadly by any stretch of the imagination, but it was painful. Had he been rolling head over heels there would have been a chance he wouldn’t have made it out alive: a snapped neck or a shattered spine. Luckily for him, he was rolling sideways yet again.

     He tumbled for a couple of seconds before coming to a dazed rest on his side, gazing back at the foot that had just kicked his ass. The left foot that he had been trapped under now gracefully found its way back to the floor, still managing to emit a shockwave under him as it settled on the floor. The toes flexed and her feet moved idly as she began to get dressed. He saw one foot lift as she stepped into a massive pair of pink panties that lowered from the sky like a circus tarp. Then her shorts, and then no more clothing for the lower half of her body. Her right foot tapped rhythmically against the carpet, something she probably didn’t even realize she was doing, but for Eli it was different. Every time her toe hit the carpet it made a decently loud sound, like a boulder falling into packing peanuts. And the tremors, they rattled out every time she so much as twitched. Did everyone do that? It was like every movement no matter how subtle was straining at least one of the boards under the floor. How the hell did houses even survive?

     She stepped away from the bed and slipped her feet into a pair of black flats that he absolutely loved. They were relatively new, still shiny, with no particular accessories: no studded gems, no bows, just a simple pair of black flats that had a soft sheen in the sunlight. Then she stepped out of the room, taking the earthshattering tremors with her.

     Well, now he knew what it was like to be in the presence of a goddess. He rose to his feet, somewhat sore, and decided he needed to chase after her. He also realized how completely turned on the whole ordeal had made him, and at the memory of almost having been crushed under the soft sole of the woman he loved, he took his erection in his hand and began to masturbate the fresh memory.

     Eli was honestly surprised by how horny his brush with death had made him. The combination of Melanie’s feet, the power she’d had over him without even being aware, and the looming presence of death had charged his libido. Now that he had finished his one man handshake, his lust had mostly faded away and he was left with the strong urge to cuddle with Melanie, stroking her back while she stroked his hair. But at this size, it was a long road until that could happen . . . if it could ever even happen at all.

     This realization saddened him. How had he even gotten this small? How many of the possible tropes could actually work in reality? Had God finally chosen fit to answer the naive and misguided prayers of Eli’s ten year old self? And was there any way to get back to normal?

     He shook his head in an attempt to get himself to focus. He needed to prioritize. The task at hand was to survive. The best chance he had of doing that was to get Melanie to notice him.

     He breathed deeply, building up his confidence and trying to weave together the frayed threads of a plan. But the plan wouldn’t form. All he was left with were tattered slivers that didn’t quite mesh together as well as he wanted. She would probably be having breakfast soon. If he could get to the couch before she sat down to watch TV, he could potentially get to her while she was reclining and he wouldn’t run as much of a risk of being stepped on . . . maybe.

     “Autobots,” he mumbled as he readied himself to sprint. “Roll out.” He took off across the open expanse—he’d already more than learned not to walk across the open places. He made it to the moulding where the wall met the floor. After  he’d had a moment to rest, he sidled his way along the contour of the wall until he was able to round the doorframe and peer into the hallway.

     The normally short hallway was now immense. The first thought that Eli had was of looking at the world from on top of a mountain on a hot summer day: when everything in the distance seems to blur until all that remained were basic, hazy shapes. Not only that, but everything in the distance took on a blue hue, supposedly from the light travelling through the air molecules or something.

     As Eli gazed down the hallway, everything in the distance had taken on these same effects. The couch that rested against the living room wall at the end of the hallway was only an immense, green, fuzzy blob from where he stood and it was shrouded in the same faint blue hue that things far away had. It was one thing to see these effects from the top of a mountain looking down at the city below; it was entirely another to see it happening in your own home.

     He braced himself mentally and physically before sprinting again, this time down the hallway. He stayed as close as he could to the walls and the moulding, trying not to venture too far into open space. As he ran, he became aware of the sounds of cooking coming from the kitchen that rested opposite the living room. The aroma of eggs filled his nose and he realized he was absolutely starving, and incredibly thirsty.

     How far was it to the couch? He began to wonder after he realized he’d been running much longer than he’d expected to. Running certainly wasn’t making him any less thirsty. He had to slow to a walk after a few more minutes. Apparently he was more out of shape than he remembered.

     The sounds of Melanie working in the kitchen suddenly stopped. Now he felt the tremors rumbling through the floor again. “Oh Jesus,” Eli said aloud, pressing himself as flat as he could against the wall. The sound of footsteps grew louder and then deafening. Her gigantic figure loomed out from behind the wall and for the first time, Eli got a clear view of how mindbogglingly gargantuan she was. She towered over him. It was hard to estimate an exact height, but he had to crane his neck to see her as she continued down the hallway toward him.

     One flat-clad foot after the other would slam to the ground, the force of which would send muscles rippling up her calves and her thighs and her ass cheeks, eventually causing the loose cotton fabric of her shorts to quiver and her full bust to jiggle beneath her loose pastel shirt—breasts that were conveniently unencumbered by a bra. Her right foot landed a few feet from him (inches, if she’d look down).

     As one foot slammed beside him he called out to her. “MELANIE! MELANIE! Down here!” He waved his arms and leapt up and down. When her other foot slammed down a few feet further down the hallway, the foot beside him lifted away and she continued on. She stopped at the bathroom door and knocked gently. “Eli?” she asked.

     “I’M DOWN HERE!” he roared.

     When there was no answer, she swung the door open only to find the bathroom empty. “Eli?” she asked again.

     “DOWN! HEREEEE!!!”

     She walked out of the bathroom and went further down the hall to the bedroom. “Eli, honey, breakfast is almost ready and you need to start getting packed for the trip.” But the bedroom was empty, too. He watched as she shrugged and made her way back to the kitchen. She probably assumed he had stepped outside to smoke, or to pick up some last-minute things to take with him later.

     “No, Melanie, please, I’m right here!” Her footsteps began to rattle and thunder as she made her way back toward him. “No, no, nonono please, Melanie, PLEASE. I’m right here. Please don’t leave. Melanie!” He moaned as she walked away and rounded the corner to disappear into the kitchen once more. He felt completely and utterly helpless. She couldn’t even hear him. If he didn’t do something, he was going to die. Even if it meant doing something drastic, he at least had to do something.

     He took the despair that clawed inside him and he utilized it rather than succumb to it. He sprinted off down the hallway, reinvigorated almost magically. He reached the couch within minutes and it was then he paused to breathe. Now he had options, and he liked options. He could climb the table, or he could wait here and try to climb her. The choice was easy for him in theory. He wrapped his arms around the polished wooden table leg and began to shimmy his way up. But he couldn’t get any traction, and almost immediately slid back down. He tried a few more times, but he never made it more than a handful of feet from the ground. And what would he do when he got up there, anyway? He couldn’t get to the surface of the table no matter how hard he tried, not unless he had rock climbing gear.

     So he waited. He hunkered down by the table leg and listened to the sounds of Melanie cooking breakfast. The sizzling stuttered and then silenced. Not long after he felt the ever familiar tremors again. His girlfriend was a goddess, alright. The earthquake goddess—and if he ever made a joke about that, she would be certain to kill him.

     He watched her feet swing in beside him like a pair of jets attempting again and again to take off, only to fall to the ground before trying to lift off once more. He watched as her massive, firm ass fell to the couch cushions.

     Her black flats rested in front of him, filling his vision. One foot slipped free and rose out of sight above the tabletop leaving an empty shoe behind. The other foot rose onto its toes and the heel rested against the couch, as if she were wearing an invisible pair of heels. Eli stood and peered upward.

     One foot hung above him, crossed and resting over one knee. It dangled now fifty feet above him. With every shake of her foot, a small shower of dust and debris rained down and was scattered by the wind current from the heating vent. Her toes flexed methodically, scrunching and stretching, making the wrinkles of her sole stand out and then nearly disappear. He couldn’t make out her face—it was obscured by her knees and the seat of the couch. He heard the TV come to life behind him, and then heard the sound of utensils scraping against a plate. She was eating.

     He brought his attention back down to his level. He was just barely taller than her black flat. This was a relief—now he knew he wasn’t microscopic in comparison to her, at least. He had to be about the size of a small paperclip . . . maybe a little bit smaller, but it was something.

     He turned toward the foot that was propped by the heel against the couch and walked up to the toe section of her flat. He climbed his way up on the black leather of the shoe, not wanting Melanie to notice him until he was absolutely ready. The flat had grown warm from her body heat, and every now and then it twitched under him as her toes flexed or her foot readjusted under the weight of her dangling leg. He crawled up along the tip of her shoe, toward where the lip of the shoe opened up to reveal her skin.

     He stopped and gazed up. She was still distracted with breakfast and TV. God, was he starving, and those eggs smelled really fucking good. He would starve to death if she didn’t find him. That meant it was now or never. Eli began to pound against her bare skin. One fist slammed down, followed quickly by the other. Right fist, left fist, again and again. For added effect, he yelled out to her again. “MELANIE, HEY MELANIE! DOWN HERE! IT’S ME!”

     She was vaguely aware of a tickling sensation against her foot. It felt more like an itch than a bug, so she lifted her dangling foot from its resting place on her knee and brought it down to scratch.

     Eli watched as her other leg rose from its perch above him, her bare foot swooping down. He immediately realized what she was planning. He leapt from the shoe and hit the floor. Her bare foot came down as he landed on the wood floor. He watched as her gargantuan toes scratched at the skin where he had been only seconds earlier. Her toenails made a deafening sound much like an amplified version of sandpaper against lumber. Then her foot ascended to the heavens again to settle once more upon her knee.

     She noticed that the itch was gone, and continued to eat. The event completely left her mind.

     Eli gasped for breath below her. That was a close one. He chastised himself for not thinking it through enough. Of course she was going to scratch at the itch, what else would she do? How many times do people look down to see what’s going on? Certainly not often. He needed some way to practically guarantee she would see him.

     He looked over at the empty shoe. There was no way, he thought to himself. But then again . . . when you feel something in your shoe, you try to get it out, right? Maybe, just maybe, she’d notice him then. And if she didn’t . . . well, at least he’d go out in a way he would love.

     He ambled over to the shoe, gripping the lip of it in both hands and then hoisting himself over the edge and into the soft padding of the sole. Noticing he was able to fall in without even swaying the shoe, let alone tipping it over, only did more to drive home how small he truly was.

     Standing, he was the same height as the top of the shoe. But the heel was no place to be—it would crush him. And the arch of her foot, though high (as he had learned), would undoubtedly crush him as well. His best bet was to wait patiently at her toes. They wouldn’t have much weight to them, and there might be enough room for him to move freely down there, even if the toes were there with him.

     He fell to his knees and began to crawl as if into a cave. The padding of the shoe was slightly damp from her sweat and probably from residual moisture from her shower. It didn’t seep out like water from a muddy road, but it did dampen his skin as he crawled. It gradually became darker and darker, while the scent of sweat and foot and vanilla lotion become stronger and more cloying. He finally reached the end of the shoe. Here, he pressed his back against the curve of the toe section and waited for his girlfriend to put on her footwear.

     He hadn’t been a praying man since he’d been in college, but now he began to mumble silent prayers to anyone who would listen.