Friday around six in the evening, I heard a car engine start outside of my apartment. I peeked out the window and saw Jennifer pulling away, headed to the bar she worked at. I nervously paced around my place, thinking of what to tell her when she found me tiny again. “Oh, I thought you’d be home, I came to see if you wanted to hang out,” I thought I could tell her. “I need to be more careful, I can be such a dummy sometimes.”

Finally, around two in the morning, figuring she’d be home soon, I quietly went up the stairs to Jennifer’s apartment door and turned the knob. It was unlocked again; I guess she didn’t need to lock it with her new alarm. I stepped in, closed the door behind me, and walked into the middle of the room. As before, the red light on the wall hit me, and the device spoke its words of warning. I inhaled heavily as the light grew brighter and, pow, I was small again. So, so tiny. God, the words that escaped me the first time I was shrunken remained missing. I was a speck in the home of a goddess.

I kept an eye on the alarm system on the wall across the room, seemingly miles above my head, this time expecting the robot fly’s arrival. I began to hear the buzzing of the metal creature as it neared the floor on which I stood. Nearly halfway to me, I saw something out of the corner of my eye, movement. I turned my head and saw what I didn’t even consider. Her cat, oh, damn it all, her cat, running toward the fly, smacking it out of the air. Why didn’t I think about her cat? It walked over to the bug it had swatted and licked it, uninterested in eating something made of metal. It could have a different opinion of me.

I quickly ran over to the space in between two of the floorboards. The groove was not very deep but afforded me enough room to hide from the giant beast. Luckily, after a few licks on the fly, the cat lost interest and sauntered back into the other room. It had not noticed me, but still, one lick from the cat would without a doubt be the end of me.

I stood there in the dusty groove between the floorboards, my head poking out slightly to view the floor spread out all around me. I grabbed a wooden splinter sticking out above me and threw my body up and back onto the floor. There, maybe several feet (in normal sized people lengths) away from me lay the crashed metal fly. I rushed over to the wreckage to see what condition it was in, reaching it a couple minutes later. The wings of the silent creature were bent and ripped, and the belly that had contained me before was torn wide open. It was destroyed.

This is not what I had planned. Jennifer was supposed to find me in the alarm system on the wall, but with the metal retrieval machine unable to complete its mission, I was stuck here on the floor, in the middle of her living room. I looked towards the panel on the wall to find that it wasn’t blinking the notification light as it had the last time. She would never know I was shrunk, and she would never see me down here! I realized I needed to run, fast, toward whatever wall or piece of furniture was closest.

I figured it would be easier to head either straight ahead or behind me, in order to stay on the one floorboard so I wouldn’t have to stop and climb down into the grooves and then back up. And since one way was just the wall with the alarm, I decided to run in the direction of her coffee table, her couch behind it.

I was running and running, the giant coffee table looming closer and closer, when I approached the head of a nail. Instead of navigating around the shiny, silver disc (which was now to me the size my entire living room downstairs), I simply took a step up onto it and continued hustling to safety. But because of my careless hurrying, I slipped and landed on my backside. The pain went through my back as I laid there staring up at the ceiling, seemingly miles above me head. I wasn’t injured, just exhausted, still at a loss for the current turn of events. But then I heard it, a stomp stomp stomp coming from the hallway. And then, the apartment door swung open. I stood up but was quickly blown over by the gust of wind created by the swinging door. I slid off the head of the nail onto the wooden floor, staring at the giant woman now standing a mile high, but only five feet (her measurement) from me.

I scan upwards, starting at her toes, resting at the edge of her black flip flops; going higher up to her dark blue pair of jeans, tight and perfect around a perfect body; to her equally tight t-shirt, wrapped around two amazing breasts; and then ending at a beautiful face, blond hair in a ponytail with long strands dangling down her cheeks.

She turned to close the door, slamming it, and facing me again, tossed her purse on the couch. I snapped back into action, temporarily forgetting that I was in mortal danger. Standing up I began running back towards what I hoped would be the safety of the coffee table. I took three steps, but those steps were matched by three of her own, and her left foot slammed in front of me, separating me from the coffee table and knocking me back onto my rear. The black edge of the flip flop was stories above my head, the pinky toe of her foot sat atop that, mocking my size.

As swiftly as Jennifer’s foot had landed, it slid out from my view, returning only to kick the flip flop underneath the coffee table. I could see her right foot doing the same, as her bare left foot crashed back in front of me. Now I stood with her gigantic big toe dominating my view, with her longer second toe next towering next to my poor shrunken self. Jennifer’s eight hours of working was apparent as an odor from her foot wafted over my body.

I stood up, my heart pounding in my chest, screaming in fear, as her big toe rocked forward, her enormous unpainted toe nail, at least 100 feet wide, came flying down, landing directly in front me. The white growth on her well groomed toenail was three times higher than I was, but the entire nail itself rose up dozens of yards above me. Instead of running as fast as possible away from the giantess, I ran at her nail, pounding my fists on its smooth surface, looking upwards, as if Jennifer would be able to feel my puny cries for help. A loud commotion arose across the room as Jennifer flicked on her television and began to flip through channels using the remote control.

Her toes unscrunched, and I was hit by her big toe’s nail, and once again pushed off my feet. Her giant foot lifted, exposing a seemingly endless sole over my head, as I expected my last breaths being taken. Luckily, Jennifer swung her foot away from me, back towards the coffee table, and then over to the couch. She dropped her purse to the floor and crashed down, tossing her long legs over the arms of the sofa, as she carelessly flipped through the TV channels. I was a lost cause.

I remained standing in the middle of her apartment as a bug on Jennifer’s floor, shaking nervously as I replayed the last few moments in my head. I had to find a way to get her attention, lest I desire to live as an insect, darting away from her gigantic feet, living off the scraps of whatever food Jennifer carelessly lets fall to the floor. I needed a plan, and I needed it fast.

With no real strategy yet, I hustled over to the goddess on the couch. Jennifer continued flipping through the TV channels. I eventually made it over one of the four legs of the coffee table. The bottom of the table was hundreds of feet above me, and without anyway of climbing up it, I was forced to remain on the hardwood floor. I could see her legs stretching up into the sky through the glass surface of the coffee table, mocking me, mocking my size. Hell, everything in this apartment was. I noticed not too far from me was Jennifer’s flip flops, resting on the floor. I approached the massive shoes, with the only result being me feeling smaller.

I headed past her flip flops, under the coffee table, towards the couch that she rested upon, still without any clue as to how I would get her attention and be able to return back to my normal size. I had finally reached another leg of the coffee table when suddenly, her massive hand slammed down in front of me. Her fingers twitched once, but then, were motionless. The television remained on, so the only conclusion that I could come to was that Jennifer had fallen asleep after a long night of work. I won’t be able to get her attention tonight, but at least I won’t be stepped on, I thought.

I carefully walked toward her giant left hand resting on the floor. I began to attempt to find a way to climb up into her upturned palm, maybe if I pinched her skin enough she would notice her shrunken neighbor. But more likely, she would feel me as an itch and smear my body into paste to get rid of it. Damn it.

The thing is, I didn’t even know how I could get into her palm. I continued past the left side of her left hand, her thumb casting a shadow above me, to her other four fingers. I remember these same fingers, as they towered above me when I was in Jennifer’s palm before. And now, they do once again. I ran over and began to pinch the skin on her hand. Nothing, there was no reaction.

I needed a better strategy. I ran past her gigantic, skyscraper-sized fingers, and found a spot under her couch. I jumped into an imperfection in the wood of the flooring and tried to think of a plan while sleep eventually overtook me.