“Now do you understand?” Julia's voice rang out across the small examination room.

Dan was still frozen in place as Leslie's gaze rested on him.

She was just standing there, seemingly still, but her eyes were all over the place as she took in his small body, occasionally bouncing back to her sister to try and gauge her reaction but the eyes would always come back to Dan. It was there that they eventually came to rest, and Dan instantly knew that look. It was the same clinical look that he saw all the time in a doctor's eyes, especially Leslie's. He wasn't a person, he was a patient, or worse just a body. A broken machine whose parts needed to be fine tuned.

Leslie took two earth-shattering steps forward before crouching down in front of the examination table. Her big blue eyes were a few shades paler than her sister's, more of a gray tone than the sparkling cold blue of Julia's. They stared down at him, even from her crouching position she was still so much bigger than him, and Dan could see as her pupils focused in on his tiny frame. “So, how did this happen?”

Dan's voice caught in his throat, suddenly self-conscious as he remembered that his voice now made him sound like a cartoon character.

“He doesn'...” Julia began only to be cut off by her sister.

“Stop babying him.” Leslie's voice was straightforward and authoritative, her head snapping to look up at her older sister, “He is a thirty-six year old man. It is more than about time he got over this foolish fear of the doctor.” Leslie's face slowly turned back toward Dan and her eyes settled back on his small frame. “Now. How did this happen?”

Dan could feel himself shivering under his former sister-in-law's gaze. She had always made him feel so small and insignificant as a patient and now as he stood entirely exposed to her he felt even shorter than his few inches of height. “I...” he stammered, his feet unconsciously shifting him backwards from the enormous face in front of him, “I... I don't know.”

Leslie closed her eyes and released a heavy sigh so strong that it actually caused Dan to lose his already nervous footing. She rose back to her full height while Dan fell down onto his backside, completely forgotten. Leslie snapped open her chart and quickly scrawled something within it before looking over at Julia. “I'll have to run some pretty standard tests, I guess. I have a baseline from last year and he doesn't seem to have gained any significant weight since then,” her eyes looked back toward him before she turned back at Julia, “Not that it's particularly easy to tell.”

“Ok then,” Julia nervously chewed one of her flashy painted lips before asking, “Do you have any idea how this could even happen? I mean, he's what? Three or four inches tall at most?”

Leslie shrugged as she turned around, walking out of Dan's sight as she began to rummage through cabinets, “I have no idea. Frankly, last I checked this was physically impossible. And I don't mean, oh yeah this is extremely improbable. I mean Dan should be dead. So, there's your silver lining, I guess.” Leslie shrugged once more as she finally found the drawer she was looking for.

“Leslie, don't be so mean,” Julia frowned as she looked at her sister. Dan watched as his gigantic ex-wife turned around and leaned back. Her tight bottom stretched the fabric of her pencil skirt as she leaned back against the examination table. The whole thing shook for a moment but Dan found he didn't mind as he looked upon her gorgeous backside.

“It's not mean. It's the truth,” Leslie replied as she turned around, “Besides I never much liked the guy anyway.”

“Oh come on, he's sitting right here.”

“With an unheard of medical condition,” Leslie walked across the room, each of her steps another clap of thunder to Dan's ears, “Face it, Julia. If you want to keep this a secret, you better want to keep the incredible shrinking man here.” As she walked back into Dan's vision, the light caught upon the edge of the syringe she held in her hand and a deep fear welled up inside of the small man. Meanwhile, Leslie just stared down at him, her lips somehow contorting into something that was half-smile and half-frown, “I guess he'd make a nice pet. You could put him in a little cage or something.”

Julia laughed and slapped her younger sister on the shoulder, “Oh God, Leslie, that's terrible.”

Leslie just shrugged and began to lower the syringe toward Dan, he could see a large vial sticking out the end of it. Without even thinking, Dan scrambled to his feet and started to run away. He was moving so quickly it took him several seconds for his own screams to catch up to him.

“Really? Julia you're going to have to hold him down.”

“What?” Julia looked over her shoulder, barely noticing the screams of her miniaturized ex-husband. “Oh Dan...” she said pitifully before turning about.

A massive wall of skin appeared in front of Dan, and he slammed face first into it. The moment he fell over, Julia's index and middle fingers settled onto his chest, perfectly pinning him. Dan squirmed against her, flailing his arms and legs as best as he could while his ex-wife simply resumed her casual leaning against the examination table.

“He needs to stop squirming. This is already going to be hard enough with him being the size he is.”

“Dan. Stop.” Julia's fingernails dug into Dan's chest and he yelped in pain. Knowing there was no way out from beneath her fingers, Dan stopped trying to break free of her grasp. He could feel Leslie's cold icy finger pads grip onto his foot, stretching his leg out perfectly as she leaned in with the massive syringe. “Don't look at the needle, Dan. Look up here, at my face, ok?” Her index finger carefully rubbed against his skin and Dan found himself looking up into his ex-wife's smiling face.

“God, this is worse than when one of my patients insisted that I treat their two year old,” Leslie muttered as she finally pricked his skin. Dan let out a scream of pain, Julia's nails dug into him once more to secure him, and Leslie's enormous voice boomed, “Baby.”

Waves of dizziness overtook Dan almost instantly as the blood emptied from his femoral artery. His head began to loll involuntarily as fatigue overtook him, his eyelids becoming far too heavy to lift.

“Oh my God,” Julia's voice though thunderous sounded distant, “What's happening?”

“Julia, he's slightly bigger than your finger, what did you think was going to happen when I drew blood...” Leslie's words seemed to expand and drift off into space as Dan lost consciousness.

Dan's vision returned slowly. At first all he saw was light and then enormous blurry shapes that started to slowly come into focus. His hearing returned next and it was entirely assaulted by sounds Dan could barely understand. Eventually with his vision clearing, Dan began to recognize the sounds of a street; people walking by, the occasional car, conversation.

What was all that clinking noise?

A loud slurp from above caught his attention and Dan's vision finally cleared. He watched as what at first looked like a red hot air balloon with white stripes took the shape of a giant glass, held between long and slender fingers. Julia's face came into focus next, her bright red lips pursed around a straw as she sucked up the contents of her bloody mary. The glass settled down onto the table top where Dan apparently lay with a powerful thud.

“This is such a nice little place,” Julia's voice echoed.

“Mhm,” came another voice, Dan turned to see Leslie chewing and swallowing, “I always mean to come and then just never find the time, you know? I feel like the last time I was here was probably almost four or five months ago at this point?”

“Oh, if we had places like this near my office, I would eat there all the time.”

“What is around your office? I feel like it's in such a dead zone.”

“It is, unless you want poorly done steak.” Julia sighed as she lifted another forkful of some enormous salad up to her mouth.

Dan wobbly brought himself to his feet, steadying himself against a... pepper shaker? Dan shook his head in a vague attempt to clear it but all that managed to do was bring on another wave of dizziness.

“Oh, Dan's awake.”

“Told you he wasn't dead.”

Dan looked up just in time to avoid being pelted with a few chopped up pieces of orange that Julia's huge fingers pushed off the end of her fork. The large chunks of fruit landed with a sad plop at his feet, their juices and some kind of vinaigrette oozing off of them onto the table cloth. Dan just stared at them, uncertain of what to do before Julia's voice filled his ears, “They'll help, Dan. Eat them.”

Crossing his legs beneath him, Dan sat down on the table, picking up one of the meatier orange chunks and biting into it. It was juicy and fresh, instantly making Dan question why more fresh fruit wasn't part of his diet. Hunger then overcame him as he began to sloppily tear into the oranges, the juice sliding down his chin and dribbling upon his chest and lap.

“So, when will we know?” Julia asked before spearing more greens onto her fork.

“Well, no one will be at the lab till tomorrow but I'll tell them to rush it and prioritize it so hopefully a day or two at most. There's a chance that the tests might not tell us anything though. I mean, if he's not dead who knows how he works now. The tests might come back completely normal.”

“How?”

“I don't know. How does a man shrink from over six feet tall to less than half a foot?”

Dan frowned as he listened to the conversation. He felt like a child as he sat there, eating his own special meal while he was talked about without anyone asking his opinion. It didn't help that even craning his neck and twisting his head in every direction he couldn't even make out the faces of either woman. They were too big and they were directly above him. All he saw was the underside of their jaws.

“Can I just be honest for a second?” Leslie suddenly asked. Dan watched as Julia nodded, her mouth full. “What did you ever see in him anyway?”

Dan blinked and even though he could barely see her face, Julia also was clearly shocked. “Um, I don't... necessarily want to discuss that, Leslie.”

“Why just because he's sitting there?”

“No, Dan... I would think Dan knows why we got married and why we got divorced,” Julia's head shook back and forth, “I don't want to discuss it because my taste in men is none of your business. I liked Dan, and he's still a friend. I shouldn't need to explain myself any further.” Dan then watched as Julia's finger came down and lightly patted him on the head, then ran over his back. “I will even say this, because I have no problem with him knowing it, there are sometimes when I even miss him.”

“Really?” Leslie asked dubiously as she slid more food off of her fork and past her lips.

“Yes,” Julia answered, her finger still lingering on Dan's body though this time as it traveled down his back, it curved slightly and then wrapped around his hip. The very soft pad of her finger settled down onto his crotch, ever so gently fondling his shrunken member.

It rested there for the rest of the meal.