You gazed up at Courtney’s huge face.
She glanced down at you, in thought, but from her point of view, you looked virtually identical to any of the dozen pitted cherries floating around the punch bowl. She kept paddling you around gently with the ladle, scooping at you without trying to lift you out. Then she looked up as the teenage girls passed the kitchen. The ladle paused and you stopped being gently swirled around in the punch.
“Mom’s here,” you heard Lara drift in from across the room. She jumped to her feet and ran and got her bag.
“You need a ride home?” Jake said, going down the hall.
“Yes!” said Kayla.
“Okay, I’ll take you. Let’s go, kiddo. My car’s in the garage.”
Kayla, who had been beaming at Jake, looked crestfallen at being called ‘kiddo’.
“Um, I’m seventeen.”
“But not eighteen.”
“Not like we don’t know what adult stuff is,” Lara rolled her eyes, “you know, like beer and fucking—”
“Okaay—”
“Don’t forget to take some punch,” Courtney offered, helpfully ushering the girls into the kitchen, and trying not to smirk at Jake’s puzzlement.
“Definitely not beer,” she emphasized. “But has a little something going on. Just don’t give any away to Ash’s kids,” she told Lara, “know what I mean?”
Back in the kitchen, Courtney looked right at you this time, and next second you were scooped up in the ladle for the second time. Hovering beneath you was the opening of a plastic jug already filled with rich, purple-red punch and some fruit pieces. The ladle tilted sharply, sending you plunging straight in, and hit the liquid, driving you beneath the tumbling red. The cool rush of liquid encapsulated you all around like you’d been dunked naked in a lake on a cold morning. The shock actually caused your brain to stop working for a second.
When the drink settled and you finally broke the surface, Courtney was already fitting a plastic jug lid over your head, to trap you inside. The world that surrounded you was very strange. It was as if you were floating in a red swimming pool in transparent walls, with giants looking in. You felt like a fish that had just been bought from a pet shop, being evaluated from every angle. It occurred to you, with acute discomfort, that everyone could freely see your dong, even if they didn’t know what it was.
No, wait, Courtney, please don’t give me away—! You thought, staring out miserably through the plastic at Courtney, but she wasn’t looking at you. The jug was passed into the awaiting hands of Kayla, who tilted it a little to look in at you briefly. Their voices were partly muffled by the liquid around your head, and echoed inside the jug.
“That rock-emo boy was your little brother?”
Kayla looked over at Courtney, and held the jug close to her chest. She wore a tight top and had large boobs for a teenager and they were squished up against one side of the jug. You could even see the faint crescents of her nipples, each as big as your head.
“Older brother by a minute,” Courtney replied. “And that rock thing was a phase. Then it was hip-hop.”
“He’s cute.” Kayla risked a smile, and that made Courtney smile back, in a slightly pained way.
“You know,” she said in a low voice, “I had a crush on Fuzz.”
“He’s like basically almost half your age!”
Courtney just laughed.
“No, we were the same age. He was twenty-two.”
“I don’t mean you’re, like, old, but I mean if he came back,” Kayla quickly added.
“Not sure I understand, but I think you’re mistaking him for someone else. Fuzz would be thirty-two this year. And a handsome thirty-two, I bet.”
“That’s just how it was for my uncle,” Kayla shrugged, causing her boobs to jiggle slightly against the jug. “He ended up 10 years younger than my aunt, and they both ended up in different relationships because he dated this girl 15 years younger than her. But, also, my aunt was already with another dude when he came back, who was actually 9 years older than my aunt, so he was like almost 20 years older than my uncle, which was very freaky, ya know—”
“That sounds like a whole other story between your uncle and aunt,” Courtney said gently. Then she got serious: “But…Kayla, you find out anything that is connected to my brother or Fuzz, let me know. Okay?”
“Sure.”
Kayla swished around, sending waves through the punch jug that pushed you to one side, “Gotta go now. Thanks for the cake!”
They said their byes and Kayla moved quickly through the house. Towering walls flashed past either side of the jug as she made her way into the garage. She dropped into the passenger seat of a sedan, placing the jug on her lap. Jake, in driver’s seat, started the car and the punch swayed you around as the car turned out of the driveway and into the streets.
The streets seem to zoom by, and you swished to and fro with every turn of the car, before the car cleared onto a highway through town that was a straight shoot to Kayla’s neighborhood, in a well-kept street with nice lawns.
Caught in a thoughtful trance, you came to when the car slowed beside a two-storey house. Kayla got out, again nursing the jug to her chest, her large boobs once again rudely staring in at you. Looking elsewhere, you didn’t recognize the street and wondered where you were. By the time you got a quick look around, Kayla had reached the doorstep of her house. Before you knew it, Jake’s car had peeled out of the driveway and you painfully watched it disappear down the block.
Kayla brought you inside her house, where it was fresh and new like she must have just moved in. Everything was wondrously big and spacious, although that made you feel even smaller. You bobbed around inside the jug, riding the gentle current of punch that swelled about in sync with Kayla’s movement.
From inside the clear plastic jug, you scanned the distance from room to room nervously; and it was clear travelling on the floor would be difficult and risky, taking you too long to cross a room safely. If nothing else, you were grateful Kayla was carrying you place to place for now.
From the size and space, you guessed she lived here with her family. On the other hand, your home was a jug. As the walls passed by your jug, you searched for family photos or some clues about the others, hoping they looked friendly. Kayla seemed nice, so you trusted her family would be like her. Then it shouldn’t be too difficult to get their attention and possibly explain to them what happened to you.
In the kitchen, Kayla set the jug down on the counter while she opened the cupboards. Just then, a woman wandered into the kitchen and noticed Kayla. From inside the jug, you gazed out at this woman in surprise.
She was a good-looking redhead around forty, and voluptuous. The woman’s large breasts hung full, stretching out her top, her hips were wide and round, and her tummy and thighs were slightly chubby in a desirable way. Even her lips were full. She also had pierced ears and an eyebrow stud, plus a coiling snake tattoo that peeked out of her low neckline, curving close to her armpit. You wondered if the snake was on her substantial breast, but it was hard to tell.
“Hi, mom,” said Kayla. “I just got back.”
Kayla’s mom squinted at the jug; and it seemed for an instant she was looking at you.
“Did you make that?”
“It’s punch that Courtney made.”
“It looks delicious but we’re going to have dinner soon, so no punch until after dessert, okay?”
“I’m not having it all right now. I’m just gonna have the tiniest little bit, and a cherry.”
The older woman pursed her lips and said:
“It’ll refrigerate perfectly fine for a couple of hours, and taste even better if you waited for it.”
Sensing she couldn’t win, Kayla sighed.
“Okay.”
She opened the fridge and found some space for you against a carton of orange juice, and a bottle of sparkling water, which were as tall as buildings. You stared out at Kayla, whose enormous shape was filling the fridge doorway, and behind her, her mom started running the kitchen sink, completely oblivious about you. Kayla was bending slightly to peer in at you, checking the jug had space. Then, without a second look, she shut the door.
The fridge hummed all around, and the cold trickled in like a cool gel was being applied to your whole body. Although it wasn’t painful, it did stiffen you after a while, until you were unable to move, and could only bob helplessly like a buoy on the punch surface. Even your thoughts slowed to a lazy crawl. You felt oddly calm and safe; floored at how much your body had been altered to endure extreme environments.
You thought of Kayla, how it made sense she was into UFOs, when her trendy ‘cool’-seeming mom seemed laid-back and mildly alternative, too. Even Lara seemed to be going through an experimental, alternative phase herself, something like Will a couple of years ago – or specifically, a couple plus ten. That made you think of Will; and wonder what he was doing. There were a couple of possible answers. He could have been poured into the punch Courtney had then given Lara and she took him home with her. Or, he stayed in the punchbowl and was still at Courtney and Jake’s house. Both of them were keen for another glass of punch, and Will could be poured into either of their drinks. Hopefully he could get their attention before then. He might be able to tell them where you were and they could come collect you.
It seemed like a long time passed, much longer than expected. At some point you fell asleep, awaking to the fridge door bursting open, and Kayla’s dad’s enormous face stared in at you. He was now wearing pyjamas and looked sleepy. He took the punch jug handle, only to slid it sideways, and pull out the sparkling water. The kitchen was dim, it must have been a weird time of night. Kayla must have gone to bed without remembering the punch.
Somewhere outside, a car exhaust popped and revved into almost hyperdrive. Kayla’s dad groaned a little. Within a minute, he put the water back and closed the fridge.
Another long period passed. The fridge door opened, and again it was Kayla’s dad. A glimpse of pale sky outside the kitchen window told you it was morning. It was Monday. The fridge opened several more times and each time the doorway filled with the gargantuan visage of either Kayla or her mom or dad. They alternatively reached for milk or bread, and didn’t notice you at all. Kayla was getting ready for school, while her parents were preparing for work. They each left the house, leaving you in the fridge over most of the day.
You were very meditative and inattentive, in a low-energy trance state. Sometimes the fridge motor clicked over and you came to, before realizing you were still in the fridge. Then you drifted back into a daydream. You allowed yourself to recall the day you were abducted, running through the events from waking up that morning to being knocked out that night. It was hard not to wonder if you could have done anything differently to avoid it, but what? It was also tempting to imagine what would have happened if you had not been taken.
That evening you made out some muffled noises of people in the house. Kayla was back from school and her mom had finished work. A short time later, her dad returned. They seemed to go about the house doing their own things, and then came together again for dinner. You heard the conversation at the dinner table, barely, but couldn’t make any words out.
Again you listened to the cooler motor whirr and click over, staring blankly around a second before remembering you were inside a refrigerator, held in a jug of punch. By now, you had a weird flashback this had happened before, which made no sense, but you couldn’t shake the feeling. It was gradually coming back from behind an inexplicable fog; a whole chunk of your life.
It ran through your mind like a movie playing…
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Amazingly, you had not been knocked out in Fountain Park. Neither had Will. A dart shot into your shoulder and paralyzed you, you fell to the ground, unable to speak, but aware. Then something truly incredible happened.
Through the shadowy trees, out of nowhere, a curtain burst open. It wasn’t through the trees; it was the trees. Two trees melted away, or were shrugged off like a sheet falling away in a magic trick, leaving two figures standing in the park. Alien camouflage. The figures stood upright and had thin wires coming off their bodies in some places, connected to fabric that looked rubbery and stretchy. Alien clothes.
With no warning, they sprinted at you and Will running crazily on two skinny legs with splayed, long-toed feet, like two big chickens. You would have laughed if you hadn’t been so dazzled.
But you weren’t laughing when they stopped by you and you got a better look at them. They had bodies like cuter, baby versions of dinosaurs, with rounded baby dinosaur heads and big expressive eyes, but intelligent eyes. Their clawed hands were double jointed and exceptional for dextrous grasping and there were a lot of teeth in their mouths, which they kept showing each other in expressions you couldn’t decipher. They had scaly bright colored ridges over their eyes – alien eyebrows – which they lifted and scrunched to convey more expressions.
They didn’t move like animals; they were precise and efficient, like animatronics, but more fluid. They tweeted melodically to each other like songbirds, fast chirpy ringing tones and little vibrations like purring or soothing white noise. Their speech came like hopelessly complicated morse code of extravagant, varied sounds that you had no hope of following.
They looked at each other, and then looked at you. One of them made a rapid pulsing sound like lots of lasers. The other understood and showed its teeth.
From across the park, through the trees, a male voice called:
"Hey...you fellas okay?"
The dinos stood straight and fixed their posture to look human. Out of nowhere, one of the dinosaur-aliens said:
"A-okay," perfectly mimicking a human voice, straight out of a scripted TV show, although the accent was a little strange. “Nice scenery here. It’s different. I think we’ll come back.” It then began to whistle happily. The man left.
The dinos chirped angrily at each other, and then flipped some sheets around themselves, that pixelated and showed images. These quickly got very detailed, until the sheets projected a man and a woman where each dino used to stand. The sheets were kept slightly off the ground so the dinos didn’t trip on them, ending where the human ankles would be. There was a sound like compressed air, and the sheets pulled around the dino bodies like vacuum suction, expanding in some parts to suggest a human form. As long as the dinos didn’t move much there was a good illusion of two humans standing there. Once they moved, the illusion glitched.
Suddenly the human images fragmented back to shifting pixels, and then reflected the forest. This was much more convincing since it was dark, making the dinos virtually invisible, although you could faintly make out where they were when they moved.
The dino-aliens swiftly unrolled a tablet with wheels and placed it on the ground, lifting you onto it. Then they did the same to Will, and began to cart you away through the trees. They sprinted like roadrunners, but it wasn’t funny anymore because you realized you were being abducted.
There was a streamlined shape ahead, edges partly blurred. It looked like more trees but you could tell now it was a big object covered with an image sheet. One of the dinos slipped inside it, taking Will with them. The other dino went next; sliding you inside a hidden doorway under the sheet. You were rolled into a compartment like a morgue tray and were freaked out immediately, but it was light lined and aerated inside and you sensed you wouldn’t die. There was a clear panel on one side of the tray viewing a high tech control room with lots of weird machines, lights, screens, and devices.
The dinos appeared in this room, on the other side of the glass, operating the machines. The room rocked and you felt a sensation like a punch in the gut that nearly made you puke. When you looked out the window there was outer space.
One of the dinos went over to a panel and began operating it. It got dark in the control room like a movie was about to play, but the lights in your compartment intensified, strange and UV blue. A big moving screen descended on a robotic arm and began running back and forth past you just outside the glass of your compartment and there was the sound of lots of tiny fast lasers.
You eventually guessed the lasers were invisible and shooting your body from the panel that was moving back and forth across the compartment. Within a few seconds your body heated and then began to twinge in different places, while your joints and bones cramped and ached a little.
There was a claustrophobic feeling of tightness, but as you looked around, nothing was squeezing you. Instead, the walls of your glass compartment began racing away from you on both sides, and the top shot upwards, way over your head. The glass compartment was growing, and growing…
When it stopped, the walls were a hundred feet away. The moving panel folded away on its mechanical arm, and the dinos moved in front of the glass window on the side of your compartment to look at you. Now, they were giants, closer to the size of ancient dinosaurs like the tyrannosaurus. Satisfied, they moved away.
Some kind of gas flushed through the compartment and you became unable to move. Then it got very cold. You succumbed to complete stillness, and the feeling of cold evaporated, although you could recognize it was cold, that it was uncomfortable, it didn’t bother you, which was weird. Something was flowing through your body, which hurt acutely for a minute, then went numb. With shock, you realized a tiny cord was injected in your stomach, pumping you with something. You drifted on a cloud of patient, serene awareness. You could have spent a lot of time in this state, as the spaceship circled Earth for ten years, while you were cryonically preserved, time travelling the slow way. Or the cryonic process was brief and the spaceship actually took you far away, into Earth’s future purely by general relativity, time travelling the fast way.
Either way, you ended up in 2033, tiny, naked, cold.
As Earth’s atmosphere came back outside the window, the fluids stopped flowing into your body, and you warmed up a little again. The chemical effect wore off, giving you a moment of piercing awareness as a tiny piece of machinery on the ceiling of your compartment buzzed to life, and said:
“u4;w2;Ԡʉb4;v4;(5;(7;ǀǁǂȾxœƍ(4;Ԡx4;z1;y7;”
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