Story Note: I'm in college now, but because of when I started writing this story (before I even posted here), there are characters between 13 to 18, so if you'd rather read a version where they're all 18 and up, there's an adaption on my DeviantArt where everyone's a senior in high school.
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Thursday, October 15
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Marcus Tilden drove home silently on Thursday morning. For the first time in his life, he had lost his job.
The local news agency where he had previously worked as a camera operator had let him go. But it wasn’t because of a workplace dispute, or another round of layoffs; it was because over the last several weeks, Marcus had shrunk to a height of only 9 inches.
The size change had occurred because of Hypocorpoplasia, also known colloquially as DSD (short for Diminutive Size Disorder). The disorder had three main differences to Achondroplasia, the genetic disorder that was responsible for most cases of dwarfism. Firstly, dwarfism usually resulted in people having shorter arms and legs, but maintaining an average sized head or torso, whereas DSD caused a size diminishment across the whole body. Because of this, people with the disorder might look smaller than a dwarf of the same height, because their body had less mass. Secondly, DSD was almost never present at birth, and didn’t typically appear in individuals until adulthood. Some people would go their whole lives knowing they had it, but would die of natural causes before it ever even took effect. But lastly, and to some the most important and noticeable difference, DSD would result in a lot more broad results in regards to its effects on those who developed it. Some people would shrink by less than an inch, and hardly even care since it didn’t noticeably affect their lives. But some would reduce to only several inches tall, far smaller than the world’s shortest person with dwarfism, and more dangerous to the individual.
After Marcus had already lost several inches in the first few days, he’d hoped like any reasonable person that it would at least stop when he was still several feet tall. Most people wouldn’t shrink any smaller than the size of a young child, which was obviously embarrassing, but not unmanageable. With some work and adjustment, they could still live mostly normal lives. So he’d told his employers that he needed to take sick leave until things evened out for him, and see where that left him. After he shrunk past the 5 foot mark, he wondered just how small he would be able to get while keeping his job. Obviously someone a few inches tall couldn’t operate a studio camera, but someone who was 5 feet tall still could. But then he hit the 4 foot mark. And then 3 feet. The shrinking still didn’t show any signs of slowing down. As he continued to lose his size, he soon realized his job as a cameraman was lost. By 2 feet tall, he couldn’t even head outside anymore without feeling like he was constantly in danger of a world that was three times larger than it used to be. If he had returned to work at that point, he wouldn’t even be able to reach the handles for the camera rigs, let alone see through the viewfinder. Eventually, his height reached only 12 inches. No more would he be able to measure himself in feet; for the rest of his life, he’d be comparable to the length of a ruler.
So when Marcus finally showed up to work again after the shrinking had finally stopped, he hadn’t been anywhere close to surprised to find out he’d been laid off. Coming in had really just been a formality. He felt like a monster as he walked through his old workplace, and every single person stared at their former coworker, timidly strolling by their ankles. He had to rely on other people to open doors for him, or press the buttons on the elevator. The entire experience was one of the most awkward and humiliating experiences of his life. After years of building up a career and working in an environment that he enjoyed, it was over. He wouldn’t even be able to get another job in his field, whether it was with another news agency, or any media companies that needed camera operators. It was a job that simply didn’t work for people of his size, so he’d had to file for unemployment. He had already applied for disabilities from the state, but the monthly stipends were different for everyone with a serious case of DSD because everyone’s situation was different. California wasn’t cheap, and he was worried he wouldn’t be able to keep paying the mortgage on the house and maintain a relatively comfortable lifestyle for him and his daughter.
Shit. His daughter, Jessie. At 13 years old, she was his only child, and he was her only parent. Her mother had skipped out on Marcus days after their daughter was born, leaving him to raise her solo since nearly day 1. Her mother’s absence wasn’t something that he dwelled on a lot. Being a single parent was a hard job, but it was the only way he’d ever known how to be a parent. And being a parent would’ve been a hard job already even if he had had a helping hand, so he didn’t really feel like he was able to know how much harder he had it compared to most couples he knew with children.
If Marcus was being honest, he actually thought that Jessie was handling the situation pretty well. She had little to no problem accommodating most of his needs (which they were learning every day was an increasingly large list). Marcus had had to spend a lot of money buying new things to accommodate his size, from cooking utensils to toilets to clothes, and a dozen other things. There were specially designed ladders and stools throughout the house, so he was still able to make some of his own meals, fold laundry (just his own, obviously), use the bathroom. Whatever typical everyday chores and parts of life that needed to be done. There were some things, like taking out the trash, that were utterly impossible for him to do now. He had a couple of his own trash cans that Jessie had custom made for him out of cardboard, but she still needed to be the one to empty it into the large bin every week and take it to the curb. He had worried that her attitude might change for the worse, and that the chores would get too tiresome for her, or that she’d stop respecting him as a father now that he was only as tall as her calf. Marcus was aware that most teenagers had rebellious streaks or phases, and while she seemed to have maintained a normal, bubbly personality for as long as he’d raised her, he wondered what life would be like trying to parent a child that was 7x taller than him. Would he even be able to punish her? He hoped that it was just paranoia that clouded his mind, but his imagination still ran wild as he realized that there wasn’t a single thing he’d be able to do to her if she didn’t want him to. If he tried to take away her phone, there was nowhere he could put it that she wouldn’t be able to just take it right back. If he tried to ground her, she could just leave the house anyways and he’d be physically incapable of stopping her. Jessie was a good daughter, a great one, and thus far she wasn’t the kind of person to behave the way he feared. But it was something he kept in the back of his mind. He was still in charge of the finances for the household, and she was still a few years from being able to drive a car. So there were still a few things that gave him leverage. Hopefully, it was leverage he’d never need.
As Marcus was gently lifted out of the Uber that had taken him home from his work, he wasted no time in heading inside to his liquor cabinet and pouring himself a glass of beer from one of his special, tiny containers into one of his special, tiny cups. A definite upside to shrinking was that his portion sizes were magnitudes smaller, meaning he and Jessie would be saving thousands every year in reduced grocery costs. Although the downside was that it took a lot less alcohol to get him drunk now. His years of drinking beers solely to party with his friends and get plastered had ended over a decade ago. After Jessie had been born, drinking turned into a leisurely activity, a rare time to unwind with friends instead of go crazy with them. But now he could get pretty tipsy just from a few drops. As he swirled his drink around and headed to his recliner that felt like a giant’s throne when he sat in it, he reckoned he’d be pretty wasted within the hour. And for the first time in awhile, being drunk was just what he wanted.
* * * * * *
“Daddy?”
Marcus jolted awake, his empty glass getting knocked over on the cushion and rolling into the crack. His daughter, unnervingly huge, was towering over him, a mixture of confusion and concern on her massive face. At 5’5, his daughter was a couple inches taller than the average girl in her class, but far from being a standout height. Although to Marcus, that obviously didn’t make a difference. Everyone was a standout. And he already felt tired of having to look up at everyone he talked to. What I wouldn’t give to just look someone in the eyes, face to face, at a normal height, he thought miserably. One last time. And without someone having to carry me for me to do it. Jessie’s hair was a straight, golden brown, and she was wearing an off shoulder blouse with ripped blue jeans and checkered red Vans. He blushed a little, embarrassed at having been caught. But if she was home, then several hours must have passed since he fell asleep. “Did you pass out? Are you... drunk?” She said that last word like she was scared of it.
He laughed nervously. I’m not drunk now, but I definitely was this morning. “No, no, I only had like, a couple shots. My size shots, it’d just be a few drops to you.” He hoped she wouldn’t make the realization that alcohol was hundreds of times stronger to his body because of his size. But those couple drops sure went a ways...
“In the middle of the day? Why?” Man, why's my kid always so curious?
“Well, yeah, but I...” He trailed off, biting his lip as he worried about how to break the news. She waited patiently, still looking confused and with bated breath, as he wallowed in her shadow. “I got laid off today.”
Jessie gasped, then bent forward, nearly falling onto her dad as she picked him up and held his body against hers. It was what they’d decided would constitute as a huge between the two of them. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry Daddy. Were you fired?”
He rubbed his temples as she set him back down on the recliner, sitting criss cross in front of it so they could talk on the same level. “No, people get fired if they did something wrong, being laid off just means they don’t have work for you anymore. I’ll get a few weeks pay at least, and I can get on unemployment, but...” He breathed in slowly and sighed, collapsing onto the cushion and staring at the ceiling. “Honestly, I’m surprised that you’re surprised. I can’t just get another job at some other news company, I’m too small. I’ll need to find a new career, and finding a new job is hard enough, I don’t even wanna know how hard it’ll be when I’m like... this.” He motioned his hands along his body, bringing attention to his size. Jessie assumed a sorrowful look on her face, unhappy to see her dad distraught.
“Ohhh, Daddy,” she whispered, picking him up for a second hug, this one with him against her shoulder, near her collarbone. She teared up at seeing her dad so miserable and depressed. In just a few weeks, he had gone from the chipper, loving father she loved more than anything in the world, to a despondent wreck that was too discouraged to even get out of bed some days. He couldn’t even hug her without her help. She didn’t know how to soothe her father and her father didn’t know either, but Jessie still wanted to make sure her dad knew that he was loved, and that she’d be here for him to help him through. After a tender moment together, Jessie released him from her bind, and he withdrew his head from her shoulder as she set him back down on the recliner. “Let’s do something together,” she said as he held her fingers with his hands, blinking her tears away and forcing a smile.
As Jessie displayed her signature grin at such close proximity to Marcus, he felt a bit uneasy about her shining white teeth and her shining blue braces. Whenever he saw them close up, he couldn’t help but be reminded of how small he was—small enough to fit inside someone’s mouth, a mind-boggling realization. But he did his best to return the smile, truly thankful for a loving daughter like Jessie who was trying her best to help and cheer him up. “I appreciate the gesture, honey, but I don’t feel much like going anywhere today.” He glanced longingly at the bottle of beer in the kitchen, seemingly hundreds of feet away from his perspective. “OK, then we’ll stay in,” she replied cheerily, not losing a beat. “How about watching some movies together?”
Marcus wrinkled his face at the idea. Didn’t she just come home? “At what,” he said, turning to look at the clock on the oven, “5:15 on a week night?”
Jessie shrugged, “I’m just trying to get your mind off of things. We can have a marathon. What’s your favorite movie?”
“Jurassic Park,” he answered, fondly remembering his dad taking him to see it when he was a kid.
“Great! That’s a series, how many are there?”
“Well, five I guess, but I mostly only liked the first three.” He paused, remembering what day it was. “And it’s a school night, I don’t want you staying up. And don’t you have homework?”
Jessie sighed, she felt like even when she was trying to help her dad, he would fight back without even realizing it. “Yeah, just math. I can do it while we watch. And if we’re only watching three movies, I’ll still be in bed by 9.”
“I don’t know, the movies are kinda long...”
Jessie rolled her eyes, beginning to grow impatient but trying to keep her cool. All this back-and-forth was at least distracting her dad from his troubles. She’d rather see him be uptight and a bit annoying than moping around though. “Three movies aren’t gonna last til midnight Daddy. I can handle going to bed at 10 or something for one night.” She shuffled forward, dawning a caring expression, and made sure to fight her urges to pet his head or fondle it like he was a child. It was something he was very vocal about disliking as he was shrinking. “I know losing your job sucks.” How could she know, she’s never even been old enough to have a job, he thought stubbornly. “But there are plenty of people with DSD who are still able to work. You’ll find something else. And having DSD sucks, but you’ll always have me, Daddy. You’ll get used to it. Maybe we can get you to see a therapist. But for today, let’s just have a relaxing movie night. Normally when I have a bad day, I just go to sleep and honestly, a lot of the time my mood’s better in the morning.”
They looked at each other for a few seconds, as Marcus thought about what she had said, before turning away to gaze around the house in thought. She’s right. I’ll feel better in time. And I need to be better for her. If I’m a mess, she’ll eventually be a mess, and she doesn’t deserve that. “OK,” he conceded, “you’re right.” He looked back up at her and did his best to smile again. “There’s a frozen pizza in the freezer, we can have that for dinner later.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement, and just seeing her light up was already improving his mood. “I’ll see if I can rent it on this weird new phone, and then we can play it on the TV,” he said, heading to the couch in the living room. “Oh, and go get your book bag and homework. I’m not gonna let you forget about that,” he told her, and she smiled and spun around to fetch her backpack before settling in for a night with her dad.