After settling our affairs and dropping off my dog at a friend’s place, Anna and I drive to USSPS for our trip a few days later. She seems very upbeat about the whole thing, making Honey, I Shrunk the Kids jokes, saying that maybe she’d tell her sister to only unshrink her, and they’d use me for pedicures.
“Yeah, we’re thinking that we’ll give you a tiny little broom and some nail polish, and you can go from toenail to toenail, painting our toes while we watch Downton Abbey!”
“Haha, you’d wish,” I jokingly respond. But, holy hell, that sounds sexy as hell. I’d never had that kind of thought before. I’ve been into my girlfriend’s sexy feet, her long toes, and also her sometimes dominate nature. And her younger sister, 20 years old, tall and tan with an athlete's build. But now, if I was that tiny... I’d better play it off. Especially the whole sister thing.
“You seem pretty upbeat about this trip, more than I would expect. Why is that?”
I nervously pause myself. “No...no reason. It’ll be good to go on a vacation, even if it’s only three days.”
Anna looks at me suspiciously. “But you hate visiting my family. Wait, do you want to be shrunk, is this, like, a thing of your’s? I saw how excited you got talking to that Lindsay girl at the front desk.”
“Yeah, okay. Sure.”
I would never admit it to Anna, but yeah, this whole shrinking thing has got me going. This morning in the shower, I thought about being 1/8th of an inch tall around other people I’d known. My last ex with the large breasts, me attempting to climb her giant nipples. A tall professor I had had in college, her standing miles above me, me at her slick black high heels. The young red-headed barista at my nearby coffee shop. The goth girl that works at the bookstore. So yeah, now it’s a thing of mine.
We park in a lot behind the USSPS, exit the car with our bags, and head inside.
Lindsay greets us again. “Hey, you two are ready to go it seems. Let’s get you on your way.”
They take us and our two suitcases to the back, and we meet Monica.
“Okay, it’s very simple. You both stand on the square on the floor right there with your luggage, and then you’re shrunk. You’ll be very disoriented right after. That’s no problem. But please, as soon as possible, grab your belongings and walk into the capsule next to you so we can close it and send you on your merry way. Once you’re in, I will close it and place you in the package to be sent to your destination. You will arrive at a USSPS near your destination and be unshrunk. Any questions?”
I ask, “Is there food or water or…”
Monica quickly responds, “There is food and water and Internet and tv and everything. The small capsule will be like a single subway car with artificial gravity boosters, so when you’re flipped up and down through normal postal delivery, you won’t feel it. Also, there will be a GPS tracking button in case of emergency.”
“What kind of emer….”
“Things can happen,” Monica swiftly responds. “You’ll be fine.”
I looked at Anna. “You ready?”
“Let’s go”
We both walk onto the square in the center of the all white room, holding our suitcases. We look at each other while holding hands, and….
I come to. I look right at Anna, she’s shaking her head, rubbing her brow. She looks at me and nods that she’s okay. We both finally slowly look in front of us, and it’s a shoe. The giant white sole of a tennis shoe I don’t know. A high-top Converse, maybe. I crane my head higher and see Monica leaning down and placing an open capsule next to us. It’s like a Tylenol pill opened up, with Monica’s gigantic thumbs holding open both sides, waiting for us to get it.
“Hey, tiny bros, get up in there, time to ship you away. Nothing personal, but I got shit to do today.”
I stand up and lean down to grab Anna’s arm and help stand her up. She rises and turns with me to see the two enormous French manicured thumbnails resting on the ground on both sides of us, holding the capsule open for us to enter. The white nail is many times our height and suddenly rises and double taps on the ground. The sound of the nail is nearly deafening. I turn and look up, seeing Monica’s face seemingly miles above us.
“Anytime, little ones.”
I am quickly tugged by Anna towards our home for the next couple days. Carrying our luggage, we walk past Monica’s smooth white artificial nail into the pill. We are met by a small but stately furnished room: a couch, a bed, and a small refrigerator, all bolted to the ground of the pod.
“Finally. Have fun!” Monica’s fingers slam the capsule closed, her massive fingerprints pressed against the clear container that we are now imprisoned in. There’s a loud buzz that I assume is the artificial gravity kicking in.
“Holy shit, I hate this!” Anna stands next to me, looking around, completely unhappy with what has just transpired. “We’re Goddamned prisoners here, we’re fucking bugs stuck in this thing! This was your idea, wasn’t it, what were you thinking!?”
My girlfriend clearly doesn’t like our current predicament. And neither really do I. We’re helpless. Monica could toss us in the trash right now if she wanted. They have our money.
“Look, Anna, it’ll be fine. They wouldn’t have given us food if they wanted to kill us. This is their business. We’ll just have to suffer through this, and then in a couple days, everything will be back to normal. Monica could have squished us with her pinky finger if she wanted.”
That was the wrong thing to say there. Anna was freaking out.
“Fuck you, what the fuck, yeah, anyone can do whatever they want with us, we’re fucking specks of dust!”
As she says this, Monica picks up the capsule we’re in, her fingerprints pressed against the translucent container, and we’re lifted in the air. She walks over the the package prepared for us and lowers us into the packing peanuts. The box seems gigantic, but maybe it’s small, I can’t tell, because I’m only 1/8th of an inch tall.
We look up. The last thing we see is Monica’s face as she nonchalantly closes the box we’re in to be shipped away. Darkness covers us, until seconds later when the fluorescent lights of the capsule kick on.