Jake crouched in the darkness beneath the couch, shivering, watching the dust particles float around him. He was still in shock of what has just transpired. He woke up shrunken, got momentarily lost in the rug, then almost stepped on by Martha and it was still just in the morning. He couldn’t imagine what the rest of the day would be like. And yet he still didn’t know how he became this small in the first place. He began to think of what happened in the past twelve hours, trying to put the fuzz bits of memory into a coherent picture. First, he came to Martha’s place, then they drank and talked, then he went to sleep. What happened next? He seemed to recall a vague notion of getting up in the middle of the night and he thought more about it. He got up, that he remembered, went to the kitchen and took something out of the fridge. Which he then drank. He now remembered the horrible acidic taste of that thing and the feeling of regret for drinking it without looking what it was. And what was it, anyway? He went back in his recollection to the conversation he had with Martha earlier on. What was that bit about bringing work home? A compound? Finally, it made sense. He drank whatever chemical Martha brought home and this was the result. Great, Jake thought. Trust me to get into trouble that could be easily avoided. He shook his head and began to think of what to do next. Obviously, he had to get Martha’s attention. She would know better about why the compound made him get smaller and, hopefully, how to reverse it. If it could be reversed. He shook his head once more to cast these thoughts away. He stood up and started to walk forward.

Martha nervously approached the living room. She knew she had to find Jake and quick, but what would she tell him once she did? For all she knew he could be now hiding from her after what she did. Had he not run away, he would now be a wet, red stain on her floor and she would be guilty of killing him. She decided she will apologize and present her excuses when she will have found him. She entered the room and looked around the floor for any sign of movement, but she couldn’t notice any. He could be somewhere down there and she couldn’t see him due to how tiny he was. Or, as she initially thought, he could still be hiding under the couch.

“Jake?” she called out to him. “Are you there?”

Stupid question, she thought. Where else could he go in such a short span of time? She decided to let her intentions be known.

“Jake, I know you’re down there. I’m coming over to the couch. Please don’t be scared”

She slowly walked towards that spot, looking down at her feet and watching her step. When she was by the couch, she looked around but couldn’t see him yet.

“Jake, please come out and I will help you, I promise”

Nothing. Was he hesitating? Or not trusting her?

“Listen, I- I’m sorry for almost stepping on you. I didn’t think clearly, I didn’t know it was you nor what happened to you. Please come out, I will take care of you” she pleaded with him, still looking down for any sign of Jake “I will not hurt you. Please, I’m so worried about you. Jake?”

She watched him emerge from under the couch, walking slowly, visibly still afraid of her. His legs were grey from the dust gathered on them as he walked back. He stopped about three inches from where she was standing and she saw him lifting his head up. Martha wondered whether he could even see her face from down there. She felt so sorry for him and so guilty for having reduced him to such an insignificant state, albeit involuntarily.

“Do you trust me?” she asked, watching him intently. She saw him nod, several times at that, a clear message. “Good” she added and she knelt on one knee. She slowly lowered her right hand towards where he was standing, her index finger and her thumb ready to pick him up. No, she thought. There’s no telling how fragile he is now. The last thing Martha wanted now was to accidentally crush him between her fingertips. Instead, she lowered her palm to the ground and asked him to climb on. She waited patiently as the little man approached her hand and slowly walked through her finger and into the middle of her palm, where he sat down. She could barely feel him; from her perspective he weighed almost nothing.

“I’ve got you” she said, slowly getting up and taking a seat on the couch, her eyes focused on Jake. She was relieved to see her hands were not shaking as she held the palm with her little passenger directly beneath her face. Martha had big hands and they made Jake look even more minuscule than he already was. This close, she also noticed he was naked and felt even more sorry for how embarrassed he must’ve felt.

“How are you feeling?” she asked after a moment and he replied. Or so she thought, as she couldn’t catch it. She asked him to repeat it, and he did, louder. And again, this time crying his answer out loud. She heard something that sounded like a high-pitched, barely audible ‘okay’ and she nodded in relief. Communication will be a problem, she thought. She will have to bring him closer to her ear to even hear him. “I’m glad you’re okay” she told him “I promise I will take good care of you. And we will find a way to bring you back to your size. I just need to wrap my head around it” she added in a comforting tone. And finally, with a hint of a smile, she said: “And something for you to wear”.

It was so bizarre to Martha. She held him whole, his entire life was literally in the palm of her hand. And yet this tiny creature, this shivering thing that was smaller than her fingernail was none other than her best friend. She felt a mixture of pity and responsibility, knowing his survival depended on her and she promised to herself she would do her best to keep him safe. She smiled down at him, a warm, comforting smile she seldom gave to anyone in her life, to reassure him and make him know she only had good intentions towards him. But even this close she had trouble seeing his facial features and she could only hope he returned her affection.

He watched Martha’s enormous face looming above him. So enormous, in fact, that it covered his entire field of vision. A moment before, he was carried into the sky on the floating isle of her hand. Now two brown moons were looking at him and through him, scrutinizing his entire being. She was everywhere. Above him, beneath him, around him. He could feel the heat radiating from the skin on her palm. A hot gust of wind would pass through him every time she spoke. And while he still recognized this colossal being as his dear friend, he also saw her as something entirely different. Something more, definitely more than him. He felt so utterly small and insignificant, even more so when he realized she can hardly hear him now. It was as if they spoke from the opposite ends of the world or from two different worlds altogether. But Jake knew better. It wasn’t the world or Martha that changed, only him. He fell off the world’s rim and into an entirely new kind of existence, one that was beneath everyone and everything else. Yet despite these thoughts, despite the differences in size between the two, he felt somewhat relieved to be there, in the palm of her hand. For the first time since he shrank he felt safe. The hard questions, such as how was he going to live now, when will he get back to his normal size, if he ever will… He pushed them aside for the moment. Such questions did not yet exist in the here and now of Martha’s warm hand and gentle words. He knew the time would come to ask them and face the answers eventually.

“You must be thirsty. Let’s go get you some water” he heard her say. And then he watched his world rise and move once more.