“Did you bring Alisa today, Mrs. Stone?” I hear Chrissie, the popular girl with short blonde hair and green highlights, mock from her desk in the front row. I can’t see her, but I know the layout of the classroom, and I recognize that terrible girl’s voice. Class was supposed to start a few minutes ago, but everyone knows that’s not a big deal to my Mom. She’s not going to be dictated by the daily schedule, or by when class was supposed to start.

“She’s grounded, so…” TAP! TAP! She taps her foot against the floor, crushing my tiny body. I’m lost under her footfalls as she walks up to the front of the board. I, Alisa Stone, am the tiniest little lump underneath the padded arch of my gargantuan mother’s right foot. Her insole. “I’ve gained a few pounds over the break, so I'm sure she's wishing she hadn't crossed me,” she adds. Everyone laughs. I whimper helplessly as my mother’s weight presses down on me, all but crushing me into oblivion.

“I can probably get my dad to give you a free year at his gym,” I hear Mark shout, “if you wear Alisa when you go, of course!”

“That’s quite a deal, you hear that Alisa?” I hear Mom tease, as she taps her foot against the floor again, plunging me into her sweaty foot flesh for the thousandth time today. "We'll see," she adds.

I begin protesting my mother’s crushing weight as best I can.  

“Enough of that, everyone get out your homework and turn to page 258. We’ve got a lot to cover today so we’d better get started. Any questions before we start going over this?” I hear her say, finally entering teacher mode.

I’m lost now, motionless. I submit to being forgotten, just a constant, tiny lump under my gigantic, beautiful mother’s foot. Smelling that all too-familiar sneaker smell that invades my mind. My giant mother is in complete control, and I won’t leave her shoe until she says so.

I’m her insole.

She starts shifting her weight back and forth. God, I’m going to die down here.

“No questions? Okay, let’s start with number 7,” she booms happily from above.

*          *          *

"Seriously though, they need to realize they don’t get a say in this," Mom's voice says from high above. It's muffled, but very much still audible. Her massive weight shifts, to and fro, and I groan in agony feeling my tiny bones creaking under the strain. God. It's got to evening by now, and I’m still down here… suffering underneath the crushing weight of the beautiful woman who long ago brought me into this world.

"I know, right?" she adds in quick, righteous agreement with whatever my dad just said over the phone. "You remember, I wore Sarah in my shoes until I was twenty-seven," Mom adds. Sarah… Sarah was mom’s younger sister… my aunt. I never knew her, no more than fleeting memories of a tiny bug Mom used to flick around between her toes. Then she laughs loudly. "Exactly! They just need to butt out of our lives,” she concludes.

I know there are people out there who disagree with my parents, but they have no power to help me. I’m about half-an-inch tall right now. Mom's entire being is flattening me into the rubbery insole of her new white sneakers. It’s a sweat oven, being trapped in here, under her giant foot. When I can get air, that’s all I can smell. Mom’s massive, sweaty foot and that rubbery “new shoe” smell.

How can I fight it...? She’s so immense.

“Yeah, I know,” her voice booms again. My mom is the ultimate defender of traditional in-shoe discipline. I’ve spent quite a bit of the last six years underfoot. The tradition has been passed down for generations in this part of the country. She uses our religion as a handy excuse, but as time goes on, I'm becoming more and more convinced my mother is just a complete sadist when it comes to me. Her weight shifts again, somehow putting even more pressure on my tiny body. I’m lost, hopelessly, helplessly, lost, underneath her crushing, sweaty flesh. Mom’s feet mold around me, my tiny, miserable form splayed out painfully, my bones creaking.

“When will you be home?” Mom continues, finally lifting some of her tonnage off of me. Her feet are practiced tormentors with perfect technique. My feeble struggles can’t begin to put a stop to them. Mom told me about her former siblings when we first found out I was a shrinker. She owned her two younger sisters and one younger brother for years, and got lots of practice pounding her siblings into the insole of her sneakers. Her younger brother Chris barely lasted a month after being tossed in his big sister Kristie’s shoes, brutally crushed and smothered endlessly underneath her clumsy unpracticed feet. Lucky enough to be the second shrinker my mom owned, her younger sister Amy lasted three long years as an insole, on and off, largely due to Mom’s improved technique. However, that didn’t stop Mom from carelessly ending Amy’s life one hot summer day, when she got the idea to go for a long jog with Amy underfoot. And Sarah… she survived for years as Mom’s insole. YEARS. Mom had time to fine-tune and perfect her technique, and Sarah lived for a long time, endlessly stuck under her godlike, sadistic big sister’s foot.

Mom was delighted to describe to me how Sarah's life ended. She didn’t finish Sarah off with her feet... she dropped a tiny Sarah onto my birthday cake when I was younger, and watched as, I, myself, unknowingly ATE her. That was well before Mom and Dad knew I was a shrinker.

Now, I’m the one stuck to the bottom of Mom’s sweaty sole, in her shoe, as it lifts it just a bit off of the insole. It’s her right. I’m in complete darkness, separated from the giant world by her thick sneaker.

As her foot lifts, I inhale sharply, deeply, as my lungs are finally allowed to decompress. It is SUCH a relief, just to be able to BREATHE, even knowing that the overwhelming smell of Mom’s foot is about to flood my senses. And it does. Immediately. Rubbery new sneaker. Sweaty feet. … the essence of humiliation.

“Okay, I’ll see you later. 'Kay. Bye,” Mom’s voice finishes. And suddenly she’s walking. Walking… is so common a thing. But when you're the size of a tiny bug, and you’ve been shoved underneath someone’s foot and are forced… to endure the sudden jolts and crushing consequences...

God, it’s terrifying…

…

“No… god… please… … no…” I whimper. She's walking too fast. I’m unable to keep up, physically. I can’t… get enough air... It’s all too brutal, too fast, too real. I don’t have time… to stop and collect my thoughts from one crushing stride to the next. I barely have time to catch… my breath. 

…

“…please let me out… mom…” I say between crushing strides, knowing it won’t stop my gigantic mom from flattening me. Even if should could hear them, I think my cries would mean nothing to her. 

 “...no… no… no…” I mutter. I have such a scared, timid voice. But at this size... so tiny... it could never escape... this massive... shoe...

...