The key turns in the lock, and I brim with excitement.  Allison is going to be in for such a surprise when she sees me.  Even though I had been waiting behind her table all day with nothing to do, it will all be worthwhile when I see the look on her face.  I had gotten my size drastically reduced – I ought to be an inch tall or so, if the lab was any good – and I eagerly anticipate all the fun we’re going to have with my new size.

Allison strides through the door, her heavy brown knee-high boots thudding on the wood floor hard enough I feel the ground move beneath me.  Tight black leggings are practically formed to her thighs, and a loose wool sweater hangs from her body.  She adjusts her glasses and tosses her keys on the end table, making the ground tremble with each step.  Her dyed blond hair is loose so her bangs fall over her forehead, just short of her light brown eyes, and bounces with her movements.

I whip out my phone and pull up our text messages.  “Can I call you?” I send, and an ear-piercing ding fills the room.

Allison checks her phone and grins when she sees my message.  “Sure, I just got off work :)” she replies.

I hit the button to call her, and her upbeat ringtone blares for a moment.  She answers it quickly and says, “Hey there, cutie!  What’s up?”  It takes every bit of willpower to not say “you are” and stick with the plan.

“Don’t get creeped out,” I start, “but I can see you right now.”

Allison laughs nervously and looks around her apartment.  “That’s funny, because I’ve got my blinds drawn,” she replies.  “Where are you?”  Whenever she speaks, I hear two versions of her voice.  From my phone comes the familiar voice, full of energy, that I had spent hours in conversation with before.  A much louder, deeper voice comes from her mouth, more akin to the booming of a giant.  This is how she would sound to me from now on.

“Walk over to the right of the kitchen table,” I instruct her.  In just a few seconds she would be towering over me, and I get increasingly giddy.

“Okay,” she responds, drawing it out as she starts walking toward me.  Her footfalls grow louder and stronger with each slow, ponderous step she takes.  “Why can I hear myself walking?” she asks, her boot crashing onto the wood again.  “I’m getting my own voice back, too, but it sounds all low and distorted.  What’s going on?”  Damn, I forgot to cover the microphone when not talking.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s probably just some weird pick-up,” I assured her.  “Keep going, you’re almost there.”

Each of her steps makes the ground tremble, and I make sure to cover the microphone this time.  I am absolutely awe-struck by her at this size.  The soles of her boots are as tall as I am, and their heels are the size of townhouses.  They support towers of leather, themselves boosting the black spandex skyscrapers clinging to her thighs.  Her sweater would be the perfect climbing wall for me, and her thin glasses are wide enough to be my morning mirror.  She is even more majestic from the ground than before, and I wonder why I didn’t do this sooner.

I film a quick video running from her right boot all the way up to her face, but she says something that makes me freeze.  “Hold on, there’s some sort of weird bug over here.”  In a panic, I go back to the texts and send her the video while she raises a boot.  She moves it over me, and the scuffed brown sole blocks my view of her face.  A ding comes from her phone, confirming she got the video just as she starts lowering her boot toward me.  It gets bigger, blocking out everything else now, and I can see the faded remains of the manufacturer’s marking.  Allison’s boot makes contact with me, shoving me to the ground and pinning me beneath it.  Now I wonder why I ever thought this was a good idea.

The boot stops pressing down on me and withdraws back beneath Allison.  She watches the video I sent her several times, her mouth wide in disbelief.  Finally, she puts the phone back to her ear and looks down at me.  “What the hell, dude?” she shouts, and I have to shield my ears from the volume.  “Why are you so small?”

“I shrank!” I enthusiastically answer, as though that were the only explanation necessary.

“Yeah, I can see that,” she replies.  “But why?”

“I wanted to surprise you with something fun!” I tell her.  Though I can hear her clearly, I still have to speak into the phone.  The people at the lab warned me that at this size normal-sized people won’t be able to hear me.

“Well good job, you surprised me,” Allison shoots back.  She does not sound happy to see me.  In fact, she sounds furious.  “I almost smashed you not even fifteen seconds ago, it would’ve been a big fucking surprise if I found your squished, tiny corpse after watching that video.  What possessed you to do something like this?  And don’t say ‘surprise;’ I need a real answer.”

“Well, remember the other week when you were saying all that stuff about how I’m so small you could put me in your pocket and walk around?” I begin.  “I thought it’d be fun if you really could do that!”

Allison’s jaw drops and she stares at me, dumbfounded.  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she yells, and my ears ring from the sheer volume of her voice.  “I was just joking about being taller than you, I thought you were joking too!  I never asked you to get shrunk, and I certainly didn’t think you’d do it!”

“So, you don’t want to put me in a locket?”

Allison rolls her eyes and takes a deep breath.  “When does this shit wear off?”

“But –“

“When?” she booms, cutting me off.  “I need to know when you’re going to stop being puny, and I need to know it right now.”

“Um, it doesn’t” I sheepishly answer.  “It doesn’t wear off.”

Allison lowers the phone from her mouth.  “Un-fucking-believable,” she mutters, apparently unaware I can hear her just fine, then raises it back to her lips.  “Okay, fine.  How much is it going to cost for them to grow you back to your original height?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Then Estimate.  Now.”

“Well, it probably costs as much as shrinking does, so…”  I trail off, but Allison’s glare tells me she won’t accept anything but a concrete number.  “Ten grand.”

“Ten gra-“ she sputters, and flecks of spittle land around me.  “How in the world did you have ten thousand dollars for something so monumentally stupid?”

“I’ve been saving for a while,” I explain.  “I thought it would be a good–“ her expression tells me that I should avoid the word “surprise” again –“present.  I also figured that since it’s a one-way trip, I might as well clean out my savings.”

Allison looks about ready to explode and begins tapping her toe.  Each time it lands it creates a tremor accompanied by a crash that nearly drowns her out, and I stumble against her boot.  “I want to make two things abundantly clear,” she roars.  “First, there is no way I’m paying ten fucking grand to grow you back.  This is your own dumb mess, so you can get yourself out of it.  Second, we’re fucking over as of right now.  I’ve got enough problems without taking care of your tiny ass for the rest of your life.”

“But… what am I going to do?” I whimper.  All my enthusiasm had just been sucked away.  “How am I even going to get out of your apartment?”

“I don’t even know how you got in!” she cries out.  “You don’t have a key, and you sure as shit can’t reach the doorknob!”

“When they hit me with the shrinking beam they set it for a 12 hour delay so–“ Allison growls, and I figure it’s best to stop.

“I could not possibly care less,” she says.  “For something so moronic it sounds like you put a lot of planning into this though.  I don’t care how you do it, just be out of my life by the time I go to bed.”

“You don’t want me to join you, just one last time?” I offer, practically begging.  “It could be more fun than you think.”

Allison scoffs.  “How are you not-“ she starts, but can’t even finish the sentence.  She pulls the phone away from her ear and angrily mashes the end call button.  Her thumbs keep working, and she narrates as she goes.  “I’m blocking your number, removing your contact info, deleting our texts, and I’m making sure I deleted that stupid fucking video you just sent me.”  When she finishes, she angrily slams her phone down on the table, then turns back to me.

“Oh, and one last thing – surprise!”  Allison raises her foot high, bringing her sole all the way to her waist.  It drops faster than I could have imagined, and the scuffed sole of her boot obscures my vision.  Her boot slams into me with incredible force, and after a brief flash of pain as my body collapses down to my feet, crushed under her boot in an instance.

Allison repeatedly stomps on her ex-boyfriend’s pulverized remains, grinding on the ball of her foot to mash them even further.  Though quite sure he’s dead already, she needs to vent some frustration after his remarkably stupid and selfish surprise.  She concludes with a trio of powerful stomps, then hops on one foot to the sink.  Diligently she scrubs the sole of her boot with a sponge, washing away the smashed remains of the smallest, dumbest man she had ever met before grabbing a paper towel to pick up the smear he left on her floor.  A comfortable pair of boots is hard to come across, and she refuses to let this one get ruined by a little smashing.