06. ¼ inch. Aware. F/m.

I show up to my doctor’s appointment right on time. 10am. I’d been having sporadic pains in my chest for a few days now and figured I should get it checked out. I am eventually called into the back and sit in a chair in front of the nurse. She’s young and blonde and pretty, I’ll guess 23 and straight out of nursing school. “So, we’re going to give you a chest x-ray to see what’s the problem.” I nod in agreeance. “So what’s going to happen is that we’re going to shrink you down to ¼ of an inch and then we can figure out what’s wrong.” I inhale, clearly confused by her statement. “Yes, I know, it’s a new method of treatment. We have now so many medical devices here that, for us, it is necessary to reduce the size of them due to the space constraints here in the hospital. And therefore, we have to reduce the size of the patients.” Aghast, I nod consent, as I assume I had no choice if I wanted treatment. “Okay, good, it’s like getting your eyes dilated if you’ve ever had that done before. Pretty much we give you a pill, you shrink down, and then after fifteen minutes we can run the tests. After that, within an hour you’ll be back to your normal height.” The nurse points to the cup on the table next to me with a small blue pill inside. I grab it and swallow. She continues, “Alright, hop up on the counter, and we’ll begin the shrinking process. You will feel a tingling sensation as you miniaturize. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I do as she says and feel the world around me get bigger, and bigger, and bigger. I’m now a tiny speck on the desk I was sitting on. I jump back as the door to the room crashes open. The beautiful nurse towers over me as I now cower on the table in front of her. She looks down at me and smiles. “Okay, everything's going as planned. In about fifteen minutes, I’ll put a test tube in front of you. You’ll climb in, and I’ll bring you to the testing machines. For now, just stay right there. I need to finish filling out your paperwork.” She sits across from me at the desk and pulls out her pen to fill out her paperwork. I look up at her busily writing away, her massive fingers tearing across the page, her long unpainted fingernails moving above me at an incredible speed. I walk towards her left hand as it sits motionless holding the paper, while her right hand furiously moves back and forth. As I approach her middle finger, flat on the desk, her long nail extending above me, the nurse looks down at me and chuckles, “Alright, little man, be careful. You have ten minutes left. I’d hate to accidentally squish you. Go back over there. You’re almost ready.” The nurse leans in to me and winks, and then she nods her head back towards the other side of the desk. “Get your tiny ass over there. It’s almost time.”