“And where the hell is your friend that was standing here a second ago?” the officer added, glancing at the empty room.

“How dare you come into my house like that?” Rhodora demanded, her eyes blazing.

“Well, maybe you lock your door next time.”

“Lock my… You’re a police officer!  You know that’s illegal!”

“I’m not coming in as a police officer.  I’m coming in as a concerned neighbor!”

I watched Rhodora curl her hands into fists, and I wondered if this loving, sweet woman could have a bad side.  She would never hurt a fly; she was always out tending her garden, feeding the birds, healing sick and wounded animals…Hell, I saw her bring a house fly back from the brink of death and then free it out the kitchen window.  But I knew this man was constantly watching her, and I wondered if she might break…

He pushed past her, studying the tank.  Not making heads nor tails of it, he began to look for Jake, combing each room carefully.  Now deathly quiet, Rhodora merely followed him, and the expression on her face worried us all.  Except for Officer Scottson.

When the officer’s sweep of the house was complete, Rhodora, hands on her hips, asked darkly, “Are you happy with your illegal search of my home?”

He turned to her.  “What are you doing with them, Rhodora?  Are you murdering them?”

“In the two seconds you were gone, yes.  I murdered Jake and put together a very large fish tank.”

Unfortunately, I let a laugh slip out, and, the officer glanced around the empty room, shaken.  “Who…what was that?”

Rhodora glanced at me, then studied him for a moment.  “That was the chair,” she said matter-of-factly.

The officer’s face twisted into an angry sneer.  “You bitch.  What are you hiding?  What the fuck is this tank for?”

Something snapped.  I seriously could feel it from across the room.  “It’s for you, you bastard!”  She concentrated on the man, and he gave a cry as she seemed to grow larger.

“You’re getting…huge!” he gasped, but probably as he felt the wind rush past his ears and the floor growing increasingly closer, he quickly realized…he was shrinking.

“What the hell have you done?” he shrieked in fear.  Staring up at the giantess before him, he could only shudder uncontrollably.     

Rhodora looked quite pleased as she picked up the small man in her hand.  “You tiny little bastard.  Jake is too good for you, but he’ll do for now.  Jake, you mind if I put Officer Jerk in you until I figure out what to do with him?”

“No problem.  Walking around inside me will be like walking through an enclosed football field for him,” Jake laughed eerily.

I joined in the laughter, and Rhodora looked at me disapprovingly.  Her face twisted into a loving smile, then, and she said, “I don’t know, Doug, if you can’t control yourself when strangers are around, that’s not good.  You might be in for your first punishment.”

I froze – well, being wood, I couldn’t quite freeze, but…well, figuratively, I froze.  What kind of punishment would this woman I loved dole out to me?

“You lucky bastard!  You’re getting a punishment that soon?” mumbled the  picture frame.

Well, maybe this ‘punishment’ was something to look forward to, then?

Meanwhile, tiny Officer Scottson, still in Rhodora’s fist, had been simply gaping at the fish tank.  When I laughed, his gaze fell on me and remained there.  “They’re talking…and I’m small…” he stuttered.  “Oh, my God, Rhodora, what are you?”

Rhodora squeezed him slightly, and his eyes bulged in fear.  “I’m a very nice person who gets angry when people don’t mind their own business.  Now get in here!” she tossed him inside the fish tank, and he hit the bottom with a cry of pain and a ‘thud’.

Jake cackled, and the sound echoed through him.  “Aw, did she hurt you?”

“You can talk.  A tank appears from nowhere and talks.”

“I’m Jake, you idiot.  The guy you saw.   She turned me into a tank.”

“Wh…wh…why?”

“Because I volunteered to be it!”

The tiny man curled up in a corner.  “Oh, my God.”

“Feels good when you walk around in me.  Can you do more?”

The officer glanced up in shock.  “Feels…good?  That’s just…insane!”

“Why?  It’s awesome!  Soon they’re going to fill me up with water.  I bet Joey, that picture frame, will want to turn into the water.  Then a bunch of them will turn into fishes and swim around in me.”

“Holy freakin’ shit!  Let me out of here!” Officer Scottson banged on Jake’s wall in response.

“I can hardly hear you, Officer! You’re too tiny!  Talk to Jake if you want!” Rhodora called in a singsong voice.

Being near enough to Jake, I decided to add my two cents’ worth.  “You really should leave her alone.  She’s a wonderful woman, and she’s harmless.”

After examining me, the talking chair, Scottson swallowed.  “Harmless?” he looked down at his tiny form.  “Look what she did to me!  Look what she did to you!  You’re a fucking chair, for crying out loud!”

“He wanted to be,” said Jake.  “And I wanted to be this.  Didn’t it feel good to be shrunk?”

“I don’t know, I was too scared.  And being squeezed in her fist wasn’t so great either.”

He ran his hand down Jake’s glass.  “So she didn’t trap you?”

“No!  We’re free to go whenever we want!  It’s just so nice to be transformed, most of us don’t want to leave.”

The man looked at us with amazement, obviously unconvinced.  “You’re crazy.  And she’s fucking nuts.  She has to be stopped.  And I’m the one who’s going to do it.”

Jake chuckled derisively at the small man.  “Right, and you’re in just the right shape to do it too."