I knew she’d bring home a new guy. When I’d shrunk to an 1/8th of an inch tall last year, I thought this would happen. We were married, in love, but wouldn’t she want the physical, carnal satisfaction that could only come from a man her size? When the front door opened and I could hear a man’s voice, I sighed and realized that it was happening. I listen to the two step through the two front rooms of the house, the loud steps of their feet crashing down onto my hardwood floors.
This I expected.
The two massive people, my wife and her male friend, enter the kitchen. I stand staring up at them as they approach the breakfast table I’m stuck on, massive goliaths towering over my small frame. They stop as my wife places her hand on the man’s chest. She leans into him to whisper into ear, but I can hear everything she says.
“So, Mark, I told you I’m married, right? And my shrunken husband still lives with me? I want you to meet him. He’s on that table in front of us.”
Mark’s eyes fly around the wooden surface I stand on. “Wait, really, where? Jesus, you said he was tiny, but I can’t even see him!” He laughs. I laugh too, but for a different reason.
My wife Amy bends over, and her face falls down above me. “John? Hey, where are...oh, there you are. This is my friend Mark from work. I’ve mentioned him before to you. He’s a really nice guy, he said that he wanted to meet you.”
Yeah, Mark. Funny Mark, your buddy at work. Sometimes you and your coworkers go get drinks after work, and he’s always there with you, and you think he’s funny. And you come home back to me, breath reeking of alcohol. I stay here on this table in this little plastic house you’ve found for me with a small bowl of water and sliced turkey breast pieces, spending my day staring out the window at the trees outside and the birds that inhabit them. And then you go into the bedroom to sleep, as your phone continues to go off as you receive texts from someone. You laugh sometimes. You like those texts. I retreat to my little house with its little bed and hope that scientists can eventually find a cure for the shrunken person disease that has hit 1% of the population.
But for now, I’m here. I look up at Mark. Dammit. He’s tall and handsome, taller than I was at my normal height, and attractive. Nordic features, a winning smile, shit. He could have won my wife away from me at my usual size.
Amy’s face flies away from me, and Mark leans down to see me. Jesus, I hate this. His perfect cheekbones, his black 5 o’clock shadow, his smile with enormous glistening white teeth. It’s so unfair. Life is so unfair.
A second later, Mark’s left hand rests on the table in front of me. He has perfectly trimmed pale fingernails, and long, strong fingers. His nail beds are massive, his hand putting out no particular scent. I stand in front of his middle finger, his others tapering off in the distance.
Mark turns his face from me to my wife. “This is your husband? Really?”
Amy smiles. “Yep, that’s John.”
Mark’s face returns to me, his giant mocking smile still above me. I think to run back to my little house, but why? Whatever these two want with me, they’ll get it. His hand rises up and comes back down to the table with his pinky finger directly in front of me. He tilts the finger forward, its massive pale nail a monolith rising up many times my size. There’s a slight white growth at the base of the nail touching the table within my arms reach. At my knees’ height his nail turns pinkish and is several dozen feet tall. Its surface is smooth and unmarred by blemishes. I don’t want to like this guy at all, but at least he seems to take care of himself.
Wait, scratch that. I hate him! Is he really trying to take my wife away from me? Fuck this guy. Get out of my house. I kick his giant pinky fingernail. It doesn’t move. And he doesn’t feel a thing. I forget my place sometimes. Luckily, I’m too small for him to see me attack him. “Attack” him, ha.
“Jesus, look at the little guy next to my pinky fingernail! I’m so glad I wasn’t shrunk. I’d hate being like that. Sorry, John, not trying to make fun of you or anything. Really, I hope they can figure out what happened to you people. My cousin shrunk too, and my aunt and uncle just kinda keep her in a little glass bowl. She was a successful lawyer, but now she’s just a tiny little thing waiting for a cure.”
No one is going to find a cure, you giant idiot. It was like a virus or bacteria or God knows what, it was something unknown to mankind that shrunk us. I go to angrily kick his nail again, but his hand rises up from the table and turns to put the tip of his thumb and index finger above me.
“Can I pick him up?”
Amy leans to him and grabs his wrist, and his hand jerks away from me. “No, no, he’s too small, you might crush him between your fingers! I told you to be careful around him.”
He looks at her and laughs. She smiles back at him. He asks, “Well, how do you pick him up?”
Amy used to pick me up, not so much recently. She would put a piece of paper on the table in front of me, and I’d step onto it. Then she’d pick up the paper and slide me onto her palm. Sometimes, it felt comfortable in her hand. I do not want to be in Mark’s hand.
“He really doesn’t like to be picked up. Would you?”
Mark smirks. “God, no. I wouldn’t let anyone pick me up, fuck that.”
Amy nods and says to Mark, “Exactly. Okay, I’m gonna freshen up in the bathroom super quick, then when can head out to the movie. Be right back. You and little John play nice, okay?”
Mark smiles, “Of course, glad I could finally meet your tiny husband. Hey, maybe me and him can go golfing next weekend?”
Yeah, a real funny guy. Amy heads out the room into the bathroom, leaving me and this giant asshole alone. Why, Amy, why? I know she still loves me. I know it. But I guess her living her life is starting to take precedent over me.
I look up at Mark as he watches Amy close the bathroom door. He immediately turns back to me. I’m at eye level with his crotch as his two hands fall on the table around me, palms down, his massive pale thumbnails stationed to my left and right.
His humid breath covers my body as he leans in to speak to me. “It must suck that you’re so fucking tiny that you can’t stop me from stealing your wife, huh?”
His left thumb taps the table next to me, and I reflexively take a few steps back. Fuck.
Mark leans in closer. “So I’m going to take her. And you’re not going to say anything, and then I won’t accidentally crush you, got it? I was thinking about smushing you under my thumb like a bug right now to get it over with, but I don’t want to make Amy sad. I guess she still cares about you. So here’s our deal. Whenever you talk to Amy, you like me, you think I’m a great guy, you don’t protest us hooking up. And in return, I don’t crush your pathetic, tiny little worthless body.”
Mark’s left hand thumb swiftly rises and falls on top of me, the ridged skin of the enormous digit press down on me. I try to fight my way out from under it, but it’s useless. He’s got me pinned down.
“Okay, little John? I can’t hear your consent, but I’ll assume we’re in agreement. Excellent. Now, come onto my thumbnail.”
His thumb rises from me as I attempt to recover from the shock, still lying on my back. The giant thumb rests next to me, the smooth thumbnail rising high above me.
“Stand up.”
I stand, as told.
“Good little man. Now, jump onto my thumbnail.”
Mark turns his thumb slightly, just enough to give me the possibility of getting onto it. I’m too afraid to protest, so I lunge forward and place my palms onto the flat surface of his thumbnail. He quickly flips his thumb so that I am level.
“Now, walk to the center. Do it.”
I stand and walk to the center of his massive thumbnail. Jesus, this is humiliating.
He raises his thumb to his left eye. I stand petrified gazing at his giant blue eye. “I’m glad we understand each other. You’re a little speck, and you’ll do what I say. Cool. Don’t make things bad for yourself. I can make things very bad for you. God, you’re so fucking small. You treat me like a god, do what I say, and you don’t get crushed. I’m going to get your wife drunk tonight and fuck her in your bedroom. Or mine, who knows?”
The bathroom door opens as Amy walks out. Mark quickly lowers his hand to the table, and I slide from his thumbnail onto the table, falling down on my back.
“You and John best buds yet?” my wife asks.
“I think he likes me! He tried to climb up one of my fingers. I think he wants to be picked up. Maybe he just doesn’t like when you hold him.”
Amy rolls her eyes. “Uh, yeah, I doubt that. Ha! Anyway, let’s go, we’re gonna be late for the movie.”
My wife walks over to me and leans in. “Be back soon, John.” She puckers her lips above me and makes some kissy noises. “I think you have enough food and water right now. I’ll check again when I get home.”
Amy rises up and puts her hand on Mark’s back. As they exit the room, Mark turns his head back to me and smiles. They leave our house.
If anyone ever asks you if you’d like to be 1/8th of an inch tall, say no. I stand defeated on the table and slowly walk back over to my little plastic house. I cup into my hands a few mouthfuls of water and drink, then sit down dejectedly. This is no life.