I crouched deeper into the carpet until the fibers should obscure my body to anyone not looking directly down.  No one was here, so I had plenty of time to find the perfect place to hide.  The table leg to my right should give plenty of cover, and I doubted it would be inspected too closely.  It should give me the perfect view, too.  A few more minutes of waiting and my plan would pay off.

It was a little shocking my plan had gotten this far.  Getting shrunk had been expensive, but I felt comfortable selling everything and clearing out my savings since I would no longer have any expenses.  They also did not ask any questions when I told them to deliver me to my crush’s house, though of course I did not say that exactly.  I expected some questions when I told them to drop me through an open window, but people wanting to surprise their partners seemed relatively common.  All I had to do was wait for a hot day when she left a window open to do it and I got free, easy entry to her apartment.

Keys jingled on the other side of the door, and my heart skipped a beat.  It was time!  A key slid into the door, then the massive thing swung open with an ear-piercing squeal.  Loud booms accompanied each step as she entered, then she paused just inside the doorway.  She closed the door behind her and turned the deadbolt, then slid her high heels off.  With a groan she bent over to pick them up, letting each one dangle from a finger.  Her footfalls pounded the floor, every step accompanied by a small earthquake that got stronger the closer she got.  Just as one ended another began, and I was subjected to a constant cycle of seismic activity by my unknowing crush.

Dorothy had always towered over me, but this was on an entirely different level.  When her gorgeous blue eyes and long, straight straw-colored hair first caught my gaze from behind the reception desk, I made up a reason to go talk to her.  As the conversation continued, I came up with excuses so I could linger, watching her pink lips move while we engaged in playful, flirty banter.  After a while she had to leave, and when she finished rising from her chair I found myself looking at her stomach, her blouse a white wall before me.  Our eyes met when I looked up at her, and she seemed to stare into my soul.  “Are you gonna move, shorty, or do I have to step on you?” she asked with a dusky voice, and I quickly got out of her way.

Today, she was similarly dressed as she had been then and most other days, in standard business casual attire.  Her white blouse was tight, with her breasts straining the button over them a little, and her sleeves had been rolled up to her elbows.  A snug black pencil skirt outlined her broad thighs flaring out from her waist, and flesh-tone stockings made her long, shapely calves look even more chiseled.  She would have looked hot wearing a burlap sack, so she rocked the secretary look even without glasses.

Dorothy flopped onto the sofa with a deflated sigh, making a muffled crash as the cushion crumpled beneath her.  She was sitting right in front of me as I expected, unknowingly giving me the perfect opportunity to stare up at her.  Her shoes dropped to the floor with a clatter, then she raised her feet and extended her legs toward me.  Dorothy’s feet slammed down right in front of me, making the ground tremble and my bones shake from the crash.  I had misjudged how long her legs were and nearly gotten crushed, but I was closer to her than I had ever been.

She reached a hand into the purse resting against her thigh, then withdrew her phone.  The camera’s facial recognition feature unlocked it, then she began tapping at the screen with her thumbs and forefingers.  As she did this, she began idly kneading the floor with her toes, pressing the digits into the carpet and grinding the fibers down.  Her big toe was taller than me, so I was mesmerized as it wiggled, randomly rising and falling.  Each movement, no matter how small, made the nylon clinging to her skin move with it, distorting the grid of finely-stitched threads.  It was amazing to watch, and I wished my desk at work had been under hers.

Dorothy slouched while she messed with her phone, sinking into the sofa until I could no longer see her face past her knees.  She straightened her legs, sending her feet sliding toward me.  I did not want to risk giving myself away, but as I watched her feet flatten carpet fibers like a steamroller I knew I had to move.  However, I could not bear to tear my eyes away from them, so I backpedaled away as quickly as my legs would move.

Immediately it became apparent that, even if I were heedlessly sprinting away from her, I would not have been going fast enough.  I had only taken two steps when her foot subsumed me, the second toe knocking me onto my back.  Fortunately I was not crushed, though her foot pinned me with its sheer weight.  Nylon dragged against my face, scraping the top layer of skin as it slid over me, and the seam of her stocking gave me a firm shove before moving past.  As it continued, I realized I had never paid much attention to the fact that her shoes stretched the whole length of a floor tile.

When it finally stopped, I was under the edge of her arch, with the soft skin of her sole encompassing me.  She continued mashing her toes into the carpet, and I felt every slight muscle twitch as it passed through her foot.  When I was getting used to it, her foot lifted off me, and a cool wave of air hit me before it slapped back against the carpet.  My entire body stung from the blow, and it had not yet recovered when her foot raised again, only to crash back down.  Every time it hit me I worried this would be the time I got smashed, but she never pressed down hard enough.  After a half-dozen times, though, I worried that I would be turned to mush simply from being pummeled so hard.

Dorothy’s foot lifted off me, and I braced for an impact that never came.  Instead, her foot raised high and hung over me like a slanted roof while she spread and twiddled her toes in the air.  She picked up her heel, drawing my attention, and I knew that moving was no longer an option.  Her feet may not have flattened me, but I had no doubt her heel would if I were under it.  I turned and ran, jumping over carpet fibers like they were hurdles.  The sudden burst of activity drained me quickly, but when the ground trembled from her heels slamming down I knew I had made the right choice.

I turned back to her and saw that her foot had just fallen short of landing on me.  It was completely vertical, and as I stared up the curved sole it was clear that I had just missed getting smashed.  She idly scrunched and stretched her toes, and as I watched them, I realized just how massive her feet were.  If the office we worked in was built at my scale, her toes would extend past the roof (which made me doubt she would have worked there to begin with).

Her sole wrinkled and nylon bunched up when she flexed her foot, making the towering structure curve sharply.  The process reversed when she stretched it, making her skin and stocking taut.  Suddenly, her feet dropped to the side, lightly banging against the carpet before bouncing back to a more comfortable position.  I worried about getting spotted while her foot was down, but her heel was wide enough to block her view of me.  She brought her feet erect again, making a soft bang when they collided, then relaxed them.  Though her feet were the size of windmill blades, it felt like she was waving at something.

Dorothy pulled her feet toward her and placed them flat on the floor, sitting back up.  Her legs were so long that, when they were pulled in like this, her thighs sloped down from her knees.  She set her phone down and leaned forward, and I was very conscious of how exposed I was.  My crush almost bent in half while reaching down, then grabbed her foot and began massaging the sole with her thumb.  I simply watched her, staying perfectly still.

She froze in the middle of digging her thumb into her sole, and I looked up to see her staring directly at me.  I dared not move a muscle under her gaze, hoping she would write me off as a piece of lint among the carpet and move on.  The longer her eyes lingered on me, however, the less hopeful I became.  Dorothy knew something was off, and that whatever was on the floor did not belong there.  It felt like she was studying me, trying to figure out what I was before acting.

Her hands slapped the front of the sofa, and her biceps briefly bulged when she pushed herself forward.  She raised a foot and extended her leg as far as it could go while her body surged toward me.  In a flash it was almost on top of me, moving too quickly for me to react.  By luck alone it fell just short, smashing into the ground with devastating force.  The shockwave emanating from it made my legs buckle, and I fell to my knees.

There was no time to recover, and I forced myself to get back up.  Dorothy pointed her toes and extended her leg even further, pushing it toward me.  Unsteadily I ran away, knowing that getting dragged under her foot would end differently this time.  She swept her toes back and forth over the carpet, probing for me while I tried to put as much distance between us as I could.

Her foot retreated and she sat back on the couch, but I was nowhere near out of the woods.  She reached down and grabbed one of her shoes, holding the heel like a handle.  The whole room trembled when she dropped to her knees, causing me to stumble when it ran through my already weakened knees.  Dorothy’s tremendous body loomed large as she scanned the floor for me, shoe raised and ready to strike.

Despite my puny size, it did not take long for Dorothy to find me.  She crawled toward me on her knees, covering more ground each time her legs moved than I could in a minute and sending out small earthquakes every time they landed.  I ran in a zig-zag pattern, though I was not sure how much it would help me dodge.  Considering how large her feet were, a well-aimed strike would cover anywhere I could move.

A shadow fell over me when she leaned forward, and the ground rumbled when her palm set down.   I started running toward her hand, hoping I could throw her aim off and take cover among her fingers.  This was the fastest I had moved in my life, and if I slipped up it would be the fastest I would ever move.

Dorothy let out a loud grunt and swung her shoe at me, and I dove forward.  I landed right when her shoe did, and my desperate dive took me just out from under the toe of her shoe.  It made a terrifying clap even on the carpet, and the resulting shockwave made my legs feel like rubber.  They were so distressed that I could not even pull them beneath me, let alone stand on them for support.  Even though she had missed, I was done running.

Her cold blue eyes stayed locked on me, and she raised her shoe for another swing.  Desperately I burrowed into the carpet, hoping its fibers were long and thick enough to shield me from a direct strike.  Dorothy swatted at me with her shoe again, and this one was right on target.  The deep lines etched into the sole were centered around me, and it crashed into the carpet with a bang.

Dorothy’s attack did not smash me, but I was far from okay.  My bones felt like jelly, and there was a persistent ringing in my ears.  The overwhelming shock sent my body into panic, and I alternated between feverish and freezing, shaking and sweating no matter what temperature I felt.  Through it all, Dorothy’s eyes bore down on me, her harsh gaze unavoidable.  I wanted to play possum, but my body did not care what I wanted and continued shaking.

“What is that?” Dorothy wondered aloud after studying me for several seconds.  The volume of her voice cut through the ringing in my ears, and its powerful rumble was no less terrifying than her footfalls.  She leaned in for a closer inspection, her tremendous face dominating my view.  “I don’t think it’s a bug…”  Her face continued looming closer, and I shook even harder.

Finally, when her nose almost touched the carpet, her eyes widened and she pulled her head back up.  “You!” she boomed, her voice brimming with anger.  “What are you doing in my apartment?”  I tried to answer, but my brain was too scrambled to come up with a coherent thought.  “Is this why you quit last week?  You weren’t creeping on me enough at work, so you wanted to creep on me at home instead?  Yeah, that’s right, I could feel your eyes on me every day from the second I sat down, and it’s not a mystery why you spent twenty minutes out of every hour at my desk.  I’m not a fucking idiot, you know.”

“I can explain!” I managed to shout.  Begging for my life did not require much thought.

Either Dorothy could not hear me or chose to ignore me.  “I’m guessing, since you thought you were moving in, you sold all your stuff and didn’t get another job?”  I did not like where this was going.  “And you spend all your time obsessing over me, so you can’t have any friends.  None who’d miss you, at least.”  I did not like this one bit.  “I doubt anyone will even remember you exist after I clean your smashed guts out of my carpet.”  She reared her shoe back for a final strike.

“No, no!” I begged.  “Please, Dorothy, don’t kill me!  I’m so sorry, I’ll never bother you again, just please don’t kill me!”  My words fell on deaf ears, if at all.  Dorothy’s shoe was already racing down at an incredible speed.  When the sole eclipsed her face I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing it would be the last thing I saw.

Several moments passed without an impact, and I figured it must have been so sudden and immense that I did not feel it obliterate me.   I forced my eyes open, and saw Dorothy still looming over me.  She had tossed the shoe aside, and her intense glare was now accompanied by a smirk.

“I’ve got a better idea than just killing you,” Dorothy rumbled.  She dug a fingertip into the carpet beside me, then propped my back up with it.  Her thumb joined it, and she carefully pinched the back of my collar.  Much less carefully she yanked me out of the carpet hard enough to leave rugburns on my arms.  While I swung back and forth beneath her fingers she sat back on her heels and raised me to her face.

Eyes bigger than me focused inward, watching me helplessly dangle in her grasp.  “Hm, have you always this small?” Dorothy asked, then answered her own question.  “Yeah, you must have.  The first thing I remember about you was threatening to step on you if you didn’t stop your squeaky voice, and it wouldn’t make sense for me to say that to someone much bigger than you.  It’d make even less sense for you to make yourself smaller just so you could stalk me.”

Dorothy shook when she planted a foot on the ground, making me start swinging anew.  She slapped her free hand on her thigh and pushed herself up, and it felt like my stomach got left behind.   When she reached her full height, she batted me with her index finger hard enough that I nearly flew out of her fingers.  As she watched me move back and forth hanging by my collar Dorothy giggled, making a horrific growl come from her throat.

The world shifted when she began walking, and she continued pondering things out loud.  “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this months ago, you spent enough scurrying around my desk.  Maybe I just liked flicking you away too much, or it wasn’t obvious until it dropped in my lap.”  She struck me with her finger again, and I screeched while she laughed at me twirling.

We crossed the threshold into her kitchen, and my mind began to run wild wondering what she had planned.  I had invited her to lunch a couple times, and she might have thought it would be poetic justice to include me in her next meal.  There was no way she would eat me, though.  She was irritated with me, but she wasn’t a monster.

Was she?

Dorothy’s tongue slid out and moistened her lips when she reached past me to open a cabinet, and my trepidation grew.  Glass clinked together, and my mind jumped to what flavor of jam I would be joining.  My eyes flashed to the first sign of movement coming back out of morbid curiosity and to my surprise she had an empty jar in her hand.  Hardly encouraging, but at least I would not become part of her next sandwich.

“Oh yeah, this is perfect,” Dorothy purred, placing the opening below me.  Her fingers opened, and I fell into the jar.  I landed on my back, then slid along the glass floor when she raised it to her eyes.  The glass distorted her face, making it seem to wrap around me so she could gaze at me from opposite sides.  She slowly rotated her wrist, making my helpless body slide along the bottom while her laughter echoed inside the jar.

“Do you like it?” she asked, finally able to stifle her laughter.  Her voice made a cacophony erupt inside the glass, making her distorted voice even more difficult to understand as she walked back.  “I figure, since you like looking at me so much, why not let you?  This way you can always look at me from the safety of your jar without worrying about me stepping on you!  I can keep you on my coffee table here, and since you already spend so much time at my desk, I won’t even have to explain why you’re on it!  Maybe they’ll even pay you for your new position as my desk ornament.”

When she got back to the living room, Dorothy set my jar on the coffee table with a resounding thud.  As I gazed up at her towering over me from below her knees, I should have been ecstatic.  Something about it did not sit right, though.  Maybe it was because she was a colossus, or because I was trapped in a jar, my bug’s eye view of her was disappointing.

Dorothy leaned over far enough that her hands rested on her knees and her face filled the sky, her gleaming blue eyes accompanying a smug grin.  “I think I’m gonna like looking at you in there just as much as you like looking at me.  And remember; I’m giving you exactly what you’ve always wanted.”  Her mocking laughter filled the jar as she stood, seeming to revel in peering down at my puny form.

She fell back onto the sofa, kicking her legs into the air.  They crashed down beside my jar, making the whole table violently shake.  Dorothy crossed her legs at the ankles and picked her phone back up.  A huge grin was plastered on her face as she scrolled with her thumb, acting like I was not even there.  Apparently, it was simply enough for her to know I was trapped and helpless, and that she had won.

Dorothy danced a little in her seat, her mood much more upbeat than when she had first gotten home from work.  Her feet waved back and forth while she danced, knocking into the jar and pushing it a bit.  Although staring at the titanic Dorothy was unsettling, I could not bring myself to look away.  She had given me more than I could have ever asked for. 

Dorothy’s hand wrapped halfway around my jar as she carried it into work the next morning.  She had it pressed against her stomach, keeping me hidden from view and making sure she was the only thing I could see – as she called it, my “perfect set-up.”  Her hold was tight enough that her skin pressed firmly against the glass, but I was still jolted by every step.  I had given up trying to stand a while ago, and now simply bounced against the glass bottom with her gait.

She stooped to walk through a doorway, then strode toward her desk.  Through the glass bottom I watched Dorothy’s legs glide effortlessly over the carpet, her black high heels crushing and rolling over the fibers.  Her gradual turn around the desk was sharp enough to make me slide over the smooth surface, her constant slight changes of direction enough that friction never brought me to a stop.  The faux wood desktop came into view, and I knew it was time for the ride to end.

Dorothy pulled me away from her shirt, and as the fake wood grain grew larger in my view it felt like I was on an elevator plummeting rapidly toward the ground.  A tremendous bang echoed inside the jar while the force hit my body hard enough my teeth rattled.  She dropped her purse by the desk with a thud, and the chair creaked under her weight when she sat down.  Casters roared over plastic when she rolled to the desk, and the whole structure shook when she stopped herself with her hands.  Staring up at just her upper body looming over me gave me a new appreciation for how high she sat in her chair.

Looking around, I realized how utterly she intended to humiliate me.  My jar was placed in a conspicuous spot on her uncluttered desk, and there was no divider so the receptionist would seem more approachable.  Previously I had taken advantage of that so I could catch a glimpse of Dorothy no matter where I was, but now it meant everyone in the office would be able to see me.  There was a good chance that the first thing someone saw when they walked in would be a tiny man trapped in a jar.

There was nothing for me to do, so I figured I would survey the top of her desk.  Closest to me was the keyboard in front of Dorothy, a massively broad structure with keys twice as tall as I was.  Beside that was the enormous tower of her monitor, its glowing screen still showing the still image while waiting for her to log in.  On the far side was a building-sized phones, all its lights dark, with buttons as big as my chest.  Their cords, thicker than most ropes, ran into the darkness beneath her desk through a chasm behind the monitor.

Two loud pings on the glass grabbed my attention, and I spun to see Dorothy’s hand race away.  “Hey!” she snapped, peering down at me from her much higher vantage point.  “You’re supposed to be looking at me!  Isn’t that your favorite thing to do?”  She grinned smugly, then the desk rumbled while she typed in her password.  Being exposed and treated like a desk ornament was not the only discomfort I would have to endure.

The clock on Dorothy’s taskbar helped me keep track of the minutes ticking by.  I tried to keep my focus on her, stealing a glance toward it when I thought she was not looking so I had an idea how much longer I would have to endure this.  If my gaze strayed from her for too long Dorothy rapped on the glass to get my attention back, smirking each time.  She did not have to say anything for me to appreciate the irony.

It felt like everyone glanced at me on their way in, but it was a half hour before anyone said something.  Irene, my former cubicle mate, approached Dorothy’s desk and leaned forward until her hands cupped over her kneecaps, standing the way you would when talking to a small child.  The glass warped her face, making her dark brown eyes seem even larger, and her straight dark hair was pulled back in a bun.  She smiled and waved, which seemed condescending combined with her pose.

“Hey, I thought that was you!” she boomed.  After hearing her voice daily for the past few years, I was not ready for the deep rumble that emerged from her lips.  “I thought you quit, didn’t expect to see you back so soon!”

I looked at her in stunned silence for a moment.  “That’s what’s surprising to you?” I shouted, hoping the jar amplified my voice enough she could hear it.  “Me being here is the shock, not that I’m an inch tall?”

Irene stared at me, confused.  “Why would it be?” she asked.  “You were a bit on the short side, right?  I guess I just never saw you when we were both standing up.  I always figured I was taller than you, but wow!  I feel like I’m a giantess or something standing next to you!”

Dorothy chuckled.  “Trust me, I know the feeling,” she cut in before I could respond.  “Is there a rumor going around that he quit?  Because if there is, we need to squash that before it spreads.”

Irene stood to address her, seemingly forgetting about me in an instant.   As I gazed up at her towering over me, I understood how she felt.  “Yeah, didn’t you hear it before now?  Apparently, he sent Lisa his letter of resignation right before closing time on Friday, and she was pissed.”

“Oh, that?” Dorothy replied, laughing.  “I saw the letter, that wasn’t him leaving the company!    He was just transferring to a new position, as you can see.”  She pointed down at me and Irene nodded.  “He was getting frustrated standing on the keys to type, so he wanted something more in line with his skillset.”

Irene nodded a few more times and cradled an index finger against her lower lip.  “Yeah, I can see how that could be difficult for someone so small,” she finally said.  I was stunned; she had seen me type every day!  “Anyway, I should probably get back to work.  Catch you later!  The cubicle’s going to feel a lot smaller without you in it.”  She waved at me with her fingers and walked away.

“Tell the others to come say hi to him,” Dorothy called after her, “and feel free to stop by any time!”  She lowered her voice to address me, “You sure did.”

A few minutes later someone else stopped by and stood in the same demeaning way to address me as Irene had.  When her gray eyes got close I recognized her as Anna, someone I had often visited in accounting before Dorothy got hired.  Her blond hair was much shorter than the last time I had seen her, with her bangs swept off to one side.  She gave me a broad smile and leaned in until her nose bumped against the glass, making a loud scrape as she nudged it back.

“Hey, welcome back!” she said.  Her voice was powerful at my old size, and as it bounced between the jar’s walls I worried my eardrums were going to split.  “Hope you had a few good days off to help you adjust.”

“Come on, you have to notice,” I shouted back.  “The last time I was here, I wasn’t an inch tall!”

“Admittedly, I was sitting the last time I saw you, but you seemed pretty short then, too,” Anna replied.  “How’re you settling into your new position here?”

“It’s fine, I guess,” I answered, not really sure what to say.

“He’s still learning the ropes,” Dorothy interrupted.  “First hour of his first day and all.”

Anna nodded as though she had just been told a startling revelation.  “Right, of course.  Say, do you mind if I take him out of the jar real quick?  This is the first time in a while I’ve gotten a good look at him and, since he brought it up, I’d like to compare our heights.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Dorothy replied.  “Just be careful with him, I’m not sure if he’s back on the company insurance yet.”

Anna grabbed the jar, and I slid into the far wall when it tilted in her grip.  She set a hand flat, and I tumbled over the floor when she canted it the other direction.  I drifted along the wall when she upturned it, flowing through the jar’s neck into her palm.  Fortunately it was a soft landing, and I only bounced once off the waiting flesh.

Once I had settled, she reached in with her free hand and pinched the back of my collar.  Anna lifted me out of her palm and held me before her face.  While she studied me with her big gray eyes she smirked, and I could tell she was trying hard not to laugh.  “I guess I never noticed how small you are,” she said, suppressing a laugh by placing a hand over her mouth.  “But then again, with how small you are how could I?”  She could not resist any longer and broke into full-on laughter, tossing me like a ragdoll with the slight movement of her hand.

When she recovered, Anna considered me between her eyes for a moment before looking past me.  “Dorothy,” she began, “do you mind if I put him on the floor for just a second?  I want to see how he looks on equal footing.”

Dorothy’s chair creaked while she leaned back and pretended to consider the offer.  “Well, I guess I don’t see any harm in it,” she replied.  “Go on, but be quick about it.”  Anna let out a high-pitched squeal that pierced my ears, and my body shook while she vibrated in excitement.

My legs kicked up when Anna rushed me to the floor, and momentum kept them there until her hand suddenly stopped.  Her hand continued descending after my feet touched the ground, making me crouch before she finally released her hold on my collar.  She stood back to her full height and placed her hands on her hips while staring down at me.  I glanced to my left and right and found myself dwarfed by plain black flats on either side.  Looking up, I saw that Anna was, if anything, reveling in how she towered over me.

“You’re so puny I can barely see you!” she exclaimed.  “Like, I know I’m not super tall or anything, but next to you I’m gigantic.”

“That’s a common sentiment today,” Dorothy offered.

Anna laughed, then continued, “Man, if I’d known how small you were before I would’ve spent more time around you.  I feel like if I stepped on you right now, no one but me and Dorothy would know.”

“All right, I think that’s been long enough,” Dorothy cut in, offering Anna the jar.  “Scoop him up and put him back on my desk, he’s got work to do.”  I was not sure what my work was, but it would be less dangerous than this.  If Anna walked in either direction, I could be smashed under one of her shoes.

Anna took the jar and turned it upside down before bending over.  She placed the jar atop me, then moved it to the side until the neck bumped into me.  Her wrist turned and the glass caught my legs, flipping me up and into the jar.  As she righted the jar I slid back down along the walls, finally stopping against the bottom before it was vertical.  The sudden rush of movement when she stood made me lightheaded while it felt like my insides stayed on the floor, then it all caught up with a rush of vertigo when she suddenly stopped.  A thud shook the jar when she set it back on the desk, and after a quick wave Anna walked back to her desk.

The employees coming to gawk at me felt like a parade.  Every few minutes another one came, always with the same questions.  Dorothy sat back and watched, interjecting every now and then, glad that her new display piece was generating so much interest.  None of them acknowledged I had been shrunken even when prompted, always insisting that I had just seemed short to them.  Fortunately, no one else wanted to take me out of the jar, and I merely had to deal with them leering at me through the glass.

When the stream of people died down, I turned to Dorothy and asked, “You arranged this, didn’t you?”  If the others could hear me I knew she could, though it would be the first time she acknowledged it.

Dorothy came forward and slammed her elbows onto the desk, and the resulting shockwaves dropped me to my knees.  She leaned in close until her face dominated my view, her nose hanging over the jar’s opening.  “Arranged what?” she asked.

“This farce,” I clarified.  “No one acknowledging I’m an inch tall now.  If it weren’t a controlled response someone out of the dozens would have mentioned it.”

Dorothy laughed, a terrifying sound that made the whole environment tremble.  “Your obsession for me has made you think I’m some sort of demigod,” she said.  “I didn’t tell them anything.  Truth is, the human memory is more malleable than you can imagine.  They see you at an inch tall, I weave a little tale about you transferring positions, and you’re stuck on my desk for a while longer.  Now stop distracting me.  You’re supposed to be looking at me, not talking to me.”  She sat back up and returned to her work, making the desk tremble with every keystroke.

Lunch came, and Dorothy pulled a whole salad out of her purse.  I watched her pierce the leaves of spinach with her fork and cram them into her mouth, the mound of food making her cheeks bulge.  Her jaw worked up and down while she mashed it into a pulp, then gulped it down over several swallows, making a visible bulge as it passed through her esophagus.  Almost every day I had watched her eat this same meal, but my perspective was different now that I could end up on her fork.

Dorothy paid me very little mind while she ate until all that remained was a single vinegar-soaked leaf with some bits of cheese stuck to it.  She scooped it onto her fork so it draped over the tines, then moved it over the jar.  Vinegar dripped from the leaf to form a pool beside me, then she scraped her fork against the glass.  I stepped to the side just in time to get out of its way as it hit the floor with a splat.

“Eat up, little guy!” Dorothy implored.  “You always seem so interested in what I eat, I figured I’d start sharing it with you now.”  She smirked and turned back to her work, seeming to forget about me immediately.

I had not eaten since before I shrank, so I attacked the morsel she offered me.  My teeth clamped onto the green leaf, and the acrid taste of vinegar filled my mouth.  No matter how hard I tried, however, I could not tear the leaf with my teeth.  Even with my hands tearing at it I could not separate a bite for myself.  Swallowing my pride, I stepped onto the leaf and walked to where her tines had pierced it.  Knowing that it was this or nothing, I summoned my strength and tore off a handful, then jammed it into my mouth.  It took about an hour but I was famished, and working from that initial point I was able to consume the whole leaf.

No one came to visit me after lunch, though I was subjected to the mocking waves and glances as people passed by.  Anna came close enough to bump the desk with her hip as she walked past, and I decided that was enough.

“Hey, Dorothy!” I called out, knowing she could hear me now.  “Do you think I could get out of this jar and walk around for a bit?”

Dorothy shifted to loom over me, looking directly down at me from above.  “Why do you want out?” she asked, making her booming voice as patronizing as she could.  “Are you getting tired of looking at me?”

Answering that was a trap, so I moved past it.  “It just feels weird being out here and exposed to everyone.  Maybe I want to get some privacy beneath your keyboard, you know?”

She chuckled at the suggestion with the smuggest expression I could have pictured.  “So, what you’re saying is,” she began, then bit her lip to keep from laughing, “you don’t like it when people are always looking at you and can come talk to you whenever they want while you have to stay there and deal with it?”  This was another one of her traps, and I stayed silent until she growled, “I asked you a question, and I expect an answer.”

“Well, when you put it that way, yeah,” I answered, knowing she would not be satisfied until I did.  “I could use a chance to get away from everyone staring at me.”

“I know I’ve been saying this a lot today, but I know how you feel,” Dorothy replied.  “Unfortunately for you, I don’t feel bad for you.  You can deal with the same thing you did to me, I think.”  That seemed to settle it in her mind, and she went back to work.

For the rest of the day I stayed in the jar, watching people come and go as they pleased.  When they got too close I hid on the far side of the jar and crouched over, hoping they would walk past without bothering me.  They got the hint, and I was left undisturbed for the rest of the day.

When it was time to go home, Dorothy grabbed the jar and dragged it toward her so she could look straight down at me.  Being this close to her and having her still tower over me while sitting reinforced how puny I had made myself, and I gazed into her blue eyes through the hole in the glass.  She stared back down at me and let the silence grow with the tension.

When I could not bear it anymore, I shouted, “So we can leave now, right?”

Dorothy grinned and answered, “Yes, of course.  You can come home and sit on my coffee table while I mess around on my phone.  And tomorrow you can come to work with me and sit on my desk again.  And that’s how it’ll be, because you don’t have anywhere else to go in either situation.  Got it?”

I sighed, knowing I had no other option.  “Yeah, I got it,” I said.  No matter what I said, I was not getting out of this jar.

“Good.”  Dorothy reached down and grabbed her purse, then added, “I’m sure you didn’t get your fill of looking at me today, but don’t worry.  You’ll have plenty of time to stare at me longingly after I get home.”  She grabbed the jar so her fingers wrapped halfway around it, then stood and clutched it against her stomach.  Again the only thing I could see was her, and she stood and walked toward the exit.

Each step she took shook the jar, bouncing me in rhythm with her gait.  Through the glass bottom I could see her heels move over the carpet, covering an enormous amount of ground with each step.  She ducked under a doorway and made her way to the elevator, humming to herself as she walked.  Not only had she given me what I wanted, but she had done to me what I had done to her since she got hired.  I suspected the cycle would never end, and I was stuck as Dorothy’s desk ornament with nothing to do but look at the woman I had spent so much time looking at so I could avoid working.