Cordelia came down the stairs. “I said don’t break my house down! What are you doing down there?” She walked into the kitchen, saw the blender still plugged in, the gross liquid goop still sticking to its side, and none of the leftover fruit put away. Andy was nowhere in sight.
“Sure, leave me your mess,” she muttered. “I love to pick up after you.” She took a step forward, completely unaware of the small buglike creature on the black and white tiled floor in front of her.
The thundering footsteps around him caused Andy to roll over, lazily rubbing his eyes as if he were just waking up in the morning. But his back was on a much harder surface than his bed and he pried himself up on one elbow, looking out over the cold black sea in front of him. He stood up, realizing it wasn’t a sea, but a hard surface—the size of a room—with a hundred rooms just like it connected to his own, with no walls between them. The floors in each room alternated from black to white, in a checkered pattern, just like…the tiled floor in Cordelia’s kitchen. Andy rubbed his eyes again. This was her kitchen.
“Well, this can’t be good,” said the king of obvious. He looked up to his gigantic girlfriend on the other side of the kitchen, her back to him, as she pulled the trashcan over to the counter and began scooped the leftovers from his drink into it. He watched her, mouth agate, as her breasts were now as big as cars under her gray hoodie sweatshirt. “Then again…”
“I’m going to kill that boy one of these days,” Cordelia muttered as she unplugged the blender and dropped it unceremoniously into the sink.
Realizing her words were now about as easy to say as to do, Andy wisely decided he better get her attention. But being reduced from 6’1 to what he could only estimate as three inches in height, compared to his girlfriend at now a towering 5’7, that wasn’t going to be an easy task. And Andy was no MacGyver when it came to figuring out a solution to his problems.
“Hey, Cordelia!” he cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled. “Cordelia! Cooooooooooordeliaaaaaaaaaaaa!” But his efforts were in vain. Cordelia was humming softly as she wiped off the counter with a paper towel, but her hums easily drowned out his squeaky voice and he doubted she could hear him anyway. She had to be about three football fields away from him.
Andy began running across the kitchen floor, watching the tiles change from black to white to black again under him. His eyes stared glue to Cordelia, watching her every sudden move which he knew could be vital to his survival. Luckily, he had left a bigger mess than usual for her to clean up, so he didn’t have to worry about her finishing any time soon and walking towards him—or worse, on him. He bought her those Adidas shoes, after all; not that Andy would understand anything about irony, but somehow dying under them didn’t seem too pleasing of a way to end his life.
“Cori, come on, baby, you have to hear me!” he yelled between gasps of breath as he reached her shoes and pressed his hands against their firm, white surface. She didn’t seem to acknowledge him. Grunting, he looked around for something to use and his eyes landed on her shoelaces. He seized one of the dangling ends between his hands, checked to make sure it the slack was tight enough, placed his tiny feet onto Cordelia’s sneakers and began his ascent upwards. It wasn’t a long climb, but he wanted to make sure to get to the very top of her sneaker, where it was tied in a cute little single knot with bunny ears, so that he didn’t fall off either side.
Gripping the tongue of her sneaker for balance, Andy stared upwards, his head spinning. Past her jeans, the holes torn at her knees, the oversized gray sweatshirt with its giant pocket in the center, past her luscious breasts that he wanted now more than ever, to her still face, expressionless as she cleaned up his mess. He licked the side of his lips. Her blonde hair streamed over her face and shoulders like a golden waterfall that she kept brushed back when it dangled over one of her eyes.
“This would be so awesome if I wasn’t wetting my pants,” Andy whispered breathlessly. “Okay, baby, how am I going to get you to see me without squashing me like a bug?” Looking down at the shoelace still in his grip, he got an idea. He took a better stance with it, holding the plastic end straight out in front of him, and pushed it into Cordelia’s ankle. Her socks were short enough that he could reach her skin, but the impact wasn’t strong enough. Pulling the shoelace began, he carefully climbed the tongue of her sneaker, stood atop, and pricked her skin as hard as he could with the plastic end.
She responded simply by bringing her other foot up to scratch at the irritation—a simple reflex that she didn’t even notice, but it was enough to squash Andy between her leg and the toe of her sneaker. She began to rub the sneaker against the irritation, but Andy luckily managed to slide down her leg first and wind up under the tongue of her shoe. He stared up, watching her foot lightly rub away at the scratch and then return to its spot on the floor.
“Okay, baby, that wasn’t nice,” he said, pulling himself back onto the tongue of her sneaker. He looked down at his jersey, now soiled by the dirt on the end of Cordelia’s shoe, and he scowled. “Now I’m going to have to wash this and practice starts in less than an hour! And…dur, Andy, you’re not going to make it to practice if Cordelia squashes you. Come on, think! Year of the Wolves.”
He looked back down at her shoelaces. Sliding down the tongue of her shoe, he dug his hands into the shoelace knot and undid it. He gripped both of the laces, tightly binding them together, and shimmied down the other side of her sneaker, towards her other foot. Then he proceeded to do the same thing with the other shoe—repel up the side, undo the knot, and shimmy down the side with both laces underarms.
“Sorry about this, babe,” he said as he began tying the shoelaces, which were as thick as ropes to him, together. He looked up, to make sure she didn’t see him—and then almost wanted to slap himself for thinking that. Of course he wanted her to see him. This wasn’t the first time he had tied her shoelaces together, but it was the first time he wanted her to catch him in the act. And yet, how was he going to get her to see him if she didn’t look down? He couldn’t let her think he was a bug—a bug that could tell knots, but a bug nonetheless.
Cordelia shifted her foot slightly to reach something a bit further down the counter and the knot came undone. Andy quickly grabbed both ends, each opposite shoelaces in opposite hands, and got an idea. He tied them together once again, working quickly because he knew she was almost done, and made sure to secure the knot around his own body as well. It was like a restraint—the shoelaces working as seatbelts—but he hoped it would work. He only gave her feet about seven inches of slack, and sure enough, the moment she spun around and took her first step forward, she cried out. The knot tightened. Andy lost his lunch. Lurching forward, Cordelia fell, her shoelaces unknowingly tied together, and barely got her forearms up in time to brace her fall. She hit the kitchen tiles hard.
Andy winced. The knot was too tight, strangling the life out of him, and he strained to pull apart the knot with his hands. But it was no use. He could only stare over Cordelia’s back as she saw her head crane over her shoulder, staring in wonder at her shoelaces.
“How the hell…?” she muttered to herself, lifting her legs to see that her shoes had somehow tied themselves together.
“Andy…” she sighed, letting her legs drop and then swinging them out in front of her as she sat upright to undo the knot. Her fingers brushed it for a moment and then stopped, her mouth open, and her eyes unable to shut, as she caught sight of what was tied between the laces.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Andy said, gazing up at her. But whether she heard him or not, it didn’t matter; she just broke into a scream.