Meet me. Tyson. 15-year-old schoolboy. There’s something very unique about me that you’ll notice when you first look at me. I’m TINY. And by tiny, I don’t mean that I’m short (though you wouldn’t be wrong if you said I was) but I’m puny. I’m less than half the size of a grape. Nobody knows how it happened. My birth left both my parents and the doctors with a lot of questions. What’s more is that my size was made up for in durability. It would seem that I’m indestructible. Despite all the dangerous situations I have found myself in over the years, I’ve always come out of it on top. Unscathed, if mildly annoyed by the inconvenience. Just because I’ve yet to be hurt by something doesn’t mean that my life is free of hassles. It can be an outright pain in the ass at times. If I could change this condition and be a normal size like everyone else, life would be so much easier. I might even learn to appreciate the sensation of pain!

 

With all of these challenges my parents, Valerie and Tucker, decided to home-school me for most of my life. The idea of me being lost when I was so young and even smaller than I am now was their worst nightmare. When I was super young, I’d get lost in whatever room they brought me into. I was closed up in the pantry and the fridge; lost under table cloths; and even between the cushions of the enormous living room sofa! You could understand they wanted to be careful when I was young and, frankly, not very mindful of the dangers in being so small.

 

Perhaps more than anyone, my saviour has always been my big sister Ashley, and she was BIG in both height and personality! She’s also my best friend in a lot of ways. Ashley was 17 years old and had just started junior high. She had milky white skin, long brown hair and very thin. Her great body was definitely the outcome of both good genes and her healthy habits. Ironic that such a tall girl would have such a tiny little brother. She loved school more than anything as it was the place where she got to see her friends every day. Being the tiny kid I was, I never had such an opportunity and projected all of my needs for friendship on to her. She fulfilled this for the most part, but it didn’t help that when I was home-schooled, I craved to be around other people my age. Well, mom and dad wanted it now and I wanted it too. I’ll never be able to live like a ‘normal’ teenager so to speak, but I can certainly make an effort in the big bad world that is high school in America. Who knows, maybe I’ll form a little clique of my own and be the most popular freshman ever!

 

There was a real challenge with all this though. Ashley was always so damn clumsy and forgetful! If I had a dollar for every time I was stuck under Ashley’s enormous feet, I’d probably be the richest kid in the world. I don’t know what I hate more: Being stuck under feet, or the fact that Ashley was always so careless. She never did it with any malice of course. She loved and respected me like any sister should treat her brother. But when she was scatterbrained, I’d find myself in the most uncomfortable situations involving her feet. In her socks, under her sole and even trapped inside of her shoes. Sometimes for hours! It was a chronic fear I lived with every day and I made sure to make my presence known to everyone that was in the room with me. Especially to Ashley: the ditzy sister with the biggest and smelliest feet that you could ever imagine. Those feet of hers were truly a source of tyranny in my life. What was worse was that she knew this and sometimes teased me about it.
“Look out! It’s your big sister’s feet!” she would say, swinging them at me and full of giggles.

 

After talking it all out at the dinner table the night before with my family, the plan for my first day of school was in motion. Ashley would take me to school with her in her pocket, and I’d be observing all her junior classes and seeing the school from her point of view. I have absolutely no idea how I would ever navigate the school for my own freshman classes, not without being stomped on (unintentionally) by all my peers anyway.

 

Ashley was wearing casual clothes. Warm green coat, t-shirt and jeans. She was also wearing her black converse without socks, which typically spelled bad news for me. I really, really hope she keeps me away from them throughout the day. Last thing I need is her foot stink on my first day of school. She put me in a loose pocket down by the waist of her coat. She put her iPhone next to me. As Ashley walked, the weight of the phone caused the edge of her jacket to swing around. I have to admit, I was a little unsettled by this.

 

“Excited, little bro?” she asked me. “You’re going into a whole new world. Far away from mom and dad’s house!”

 

Despite whatever anxiety I had, I couldn’t lie about my enthusiasm. Home really did feel like a prison at the worst of times.

“More than you can imagine, Ashley! I’m gonna finally be around other kids. I’ll finally have the chance to make friends!”

Ashley looked down at me smiling. She said nothing back.

“…Oh, and I’ll get to learn lots of new things too, of course!” I continued. Gotta play the enthusiastic student at least a little.

 

As we were walking through the school’s gates, Ashley sighted her friend Courtney. I’d always had somewhat of a crush on her given how beautiful she was. She was a tan blonde, dressed not so differently from Ashley today. I also caught sight of a pair of Birkenstock’s sandals and Courtney’s slender long toes. How I’d hate to get stuck under her feet!

“I’ve missed you so much since Friday, gal!” Courtney exclaimed. She had a way of getting Ashley excited.

 

“Oh, me too Courtney! Also, take a look! My tiny brother is having his first day of school at the ripe age of 15!” Ashley replied.

 

Ashley loved to tease me, but it was in jest. As she opened her pocket up, Courtney peered in and gave me a smile. I think she could feel my excitement mixed with my anxiety.

 

Before the school bell rang, Ashley and Courtney chatted amongst themselves as they walked about the grounds. I swear they lost interest as me as their own private conversation went on. I held on tightly to Ashley’s phone like a security blanket and occasionally moaned out to her in the hopes that she’d remember me, her little brother that she was completely responsible for, was still in her pocket. This didn’t look good at all. An intense nervous feeling met my stomach.

 

Ashley waved her arms in the air in excitement. Courtney had said something to her that made her laugh so hard she swung her body around in excitement. The feeling of her pocket moving about in the air was like being on a rollercoaster. Before I knew it I was airborne and heading right for the cold, hard floor.

 

I landed on the ground. After I opened my eyes following the fright of the fall I saw the last thing I wanted to see right up close and personal.

 

Courtney’s feet.

So there I was. On the ground. Helpless. My sister and protector was totally unaware that I’d fallen from the safety of her pocket; and I was staring at Courtney’s enormous feet. I should have been used to the sensation of facing down feet in this way by this point; given that all my life I’d had to contend with Ashley constantly forgetting where I was, knocking me over and squashing me with her feet. Courtney’s feet on the other hand were something else though. She definitely wore those Birkenstock’s a lot, as the skin on her feet was just as tanned as it was on her pretty face. She had also painted her nails. Bright red. I paid additional attention to the movement of her toes. She was clenching them together and releasing them back and forth as though she was making a ‘fist’ with her foot, rubbing the skin on the bottom back and forth on the rubbery surface of her sandals. She would also occasionally a single foot off the ground and use her toes to clap the dangling rear of the sandal against the heel of her foot. One thing was certain; Courtney was a huge fidgeter and any opportunity to fidget with her own feet was taken, be it conscious or not.

 

Although I had no fear for my safety given my indestructibility, I was not in a rush to find myself in any uncomfortable positions based around feet. Oh please, anything but feet. I looked up, both of those giant girls standing together on either side of me and still engaged in conversation. They were laughing absent-mindedly and completely unaware of the predicament that Ashley’s negligence put me in. I had to get out of it somehow, but a sink feeling ran down into the depths of my guts. I’d screamed out in the past to absolutely no avail with Ashley at home. How was I supposed to get her (Or Courtney’s) attention outdoors, in the chattery jungle of a public high school?

 

“Ashley! Down here! You’ve dropped me and happened to leave me very close to Courtney’s feet! Would you mind picking me up before something bad happens?!”

 

With all my might, I yelled up at her. But it was futile. Those two girls were totally fixed on their own conversation about the guy’s they were crushing on. The fire alarm could have gone off and they would not have noticed. Then something happened that really caught my attention, triggering intense unease on my end.

 

Courtney had slipped the sandal off of her foot entirely, placing her tanned foot on the hard floor. She continued to fidget with her sandal by shuffling it about the ground and swinging it by the strap between her big and index toe. Those movements were frightening enough, but what truly terrified me were Courtney’s occasional stomps about the floor. Whether this was another part of her fidgeting or her unconscious maintaining of her balance, I didn’t know and frankly, it didn’t matter. All I knew was that the space between those two girls’ legs was open water and Courtney’s foot was a hungry shark on the hunt for prey.

 

“Ashley!” I yelled up again, “Pick me up, please! This really, really, REALLY is not the place I want to be right now!”

 

Like before, this was a pointless act. They kept talking, almost unaware of the masses of other students passing them in the halls; the impending ring of the school bell to signify the beginning of the learning day; or me on the ground between them. Then… it happened.

 

SLOMP

 

Courtney’s bare foot came down on top of me. I was squished between the ground and her metatarsals. Although the pressure of the hard bones in her knuckles were intense, I couldn’t help but take notice of the smoothness of Courtney’s skin. Even at what should have been one of the roughest and most calloused parts of her body, it was surprisingly soft. None of this was any relief for me however. Then the foot lifted up. It was a fairly warm day and Courtney’s feet had been sweating a great deal. The sun offered little in terms of evaporation for all the sweat that she was producing. It stuck me to the bottom of her foot like glue. She lifted me up and I watched despairingly as the ground got further and further away. Then Courtney swung her foot around, positioning it above her sandal. Then I started to move downward again, at an intensely accelerated pace towards her sandal. It was like being in a speedy car without windows.

 

BOOM

 

I landed face down in the shoe. Although the sole of the shoe was much softer compared to the ground, it did nothing to relieve the intense pressure that functionally kept me immobile. The sweat was real. The weight was real. But I felt no pain. I only felt anguish over my total lack of control over my own body. I was involuntarily put under the mercy of Courtney’s monstrous foot. To think that this foot now dominated my entire world, Courtney remained totally ignorant of it all. Courtney lifted her foot up again slightly and waved it around. The flickering movements shifted me around. I was able to breathe properly again for a brief moment. This was shortlived, as Courtney curled her toes over and over. The lubricated sweat and these movements reoriented my entire position. Before I knew it, I was nearer the end of her foot by half an inch and my face was pressed deep into the crevice between her second and third toes. There was a foul and accumulated deposit of toe jam in their that was soaked in the growing ocean of sweat coating Courtney’s feet. I couldn’t believe I’d found myself in this position. Despite all my bad experiences with Ashley’s feet, none of them compared to this. Courtney’s feet were unbelievable. Literally! How could a girl with some smooth skin and polished nails have been able to overlook a rank pile of toe jam growing right in front of her like this?!

 

Courtney looked down at her foot. Her toes were still scrunched together, holding little Tyson in place. She couldn’t help but take notice of the odd sensation down there. “I must have picked up a pebble” she thought to herself. It felt really nice and would no doubt serve as something else to play around with in math class. Anything to lightly massage her beautiful feet and stimulate her amid the grand boredom that was schoolwork was welcome to her.

 

“I’ll see you at recess!” Courtney exclaimed to Ashley.

 

“Love you, girl!” Ashley replied with equal enthusiasm.

 

The two girls hugged. In doing so, Courtney lifted her opposite foot up, placing all of her body weight on the other for a few seconds; totally unaware of the immense pressure she imposed on Tyson.

 

Tyson couldn’t help but feel as though all his senses were being violated by Courtney’s foot. It was so wrong. He tasted and smelt nothing but sweat and toe jam. He was blinded by the wall of foot. Every sound was either muffled like he was underwater, or a loud boom. Every foot step echoed in his eardrum like thunder. The worst of all was what had happened to his sense of touch. Every neuron for this sense was in overdrive right now, urging him to get out of this sticky situation. A situation he was powerless in correcting.

 

Courtney’s walk to math class felt long to Tyson. Every step added and reduced pressure on him as her foot went up and down. When she finally got to class and settled, he remained trapped at the base of her toe. Though the bulk of her weight was taken off him, she continued to play with him like the nice pebble she believed him to be.

 

It would be a long lesson.

I could not tell how long it had been. 10 minutes. 20 minutes. All I knew was that math class went for an hour, and I was feeling every second of it down to my bones. Courtney’s feet had become a prison for me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. Every now and then she would scrunch her toes together, pulling me in tight and pushing my face every so deeper into the chasm between two of her toes. The only thing I was thankful for throughout all of this was not feeling any pain, but that didn’t stop the ongoing violation of my other senses by the tanned blonde’s feet. Sight lost, scent overpowered. I could vaguely make out what the math teacher was talking about, but it was well beyond my own skill in the discipline.

 

Would high school be like this forever? Questions like this occasionally passed through my mind before the sensation of being completed trapped and pressed down on by Courtney’s feet reminded me of where I was. It was anxiety-inducing to put it lightly. How was I gonna live this way? God, I really wish I was a big person. Just, if for no other reason… just to be away from FEET.

 

Then I saw some light. Courtney had started playing with her sandals again and was dangling them by the strands off the edge of her toe. I was able to slip away down the length of the sandal. I landed on the ground, but Courtney’s heel remained above me, menacingly threatening me. No words were needed. I was scared.

 

“Wait… is that a tiny boy?!” the teacher yelled out, “It must be Tyson! The new student that was born tiny! What’s he doing in here? He’s a freshman! His teacher must be worried sick! Courtney! Did you bring him in here?”

 

Courtney looked down and saw me. A look of embarrassment crossed her face. A look that said everything I needed to know. She got careless, absent-minded and didn’t look at what the nice-feeling pebble was. She was blushing. In fairness, this is more Ashley’s fault than anything.

 

“I’m… I’m really sorry, maam.” Courtney said to the teacher.

 

“Don’t apologize to me! It’s the little guy there you owe your sorry to!” she replied. The word ‘little’ really echoed in my mind.

 

Courtney looked down again, still looking overwhelmingly apologetic. She scooped me up in her hands.

 

“I’m really sorry, Tyson. I’ll take you back to Ashley right away.”

I was too frustrated with the whole situation to reply to her in a more dignified manner. I exhaled a sigh of relief that was just as much for me as it was to let Courtney know how glad I was to be free of her toes. She put me in her handbag and secured it carefully to keep me from falling out. It had to be the first sensical thing the silly girl had done all day.

 

Courtney walked through the halls. I felt every footstep as her bag swung back and forth. When we got to the next classroom, she knocked on the door.

 

“Can I see Ashley for a moment? It’s about her brother, Tyson?”

 

Ashley was let out. It seemed every teacher in the school was aware of mini-Tyson and was in no mood to get in the way of my first day.

 

Ashley was full of smiles. “What brings you to my neck of the woods?”

 

Courtney took me out with an embarrassed smile. “I think you dropped him. Little guy ended up stuck under my toes.”

 

Ashley couldn’t help but laugh as she took me back. “My little brother HATES feet!”

As true as this fact was, Ashley was making a huge joke out of it. The day just got longer.

 

I couldn’t tell if it was deliberate, or this was purely subconscious on her end, but what Ashley would end up doing would not be what I needed. My first day of school had, so far, been an absolute mess. Rather than learn something, I was exposed to gigantic feet and lost my autonomy. Instead of putting me on her desk and letting me tune into a class that was already a few grades above me, she stuck me down on the floor. BY HER CONVERSE SHOES WITHOUT SOCKS.

 

I could smell the sweat of Ashley’s feet even from outside the shoe. It was especially disturbing to me, considering that she had been walking about and had really gotten them grimy. Was she this careless? Or was she trying to rub in what happened with Courtney? Irrespective of her intentions, I did everything I could to make it clear to Ashley that I wanted to be up at the desk with her. I pounded and pounded on her shoes, hammering my fists down as hard as I could into the tips of her shoes. I know that I felt the hard toenail on her big toe many times and she had to have registered that it was me protesting.

 

She remained silent as the class went on. Ashley started to swing her foot around carelessly, failing to consider that I was down there. The movement flicked me off the end of the shoe and I landed on the classroom floor with a quiet *THUD*. Not loud enough to be heard by anyone; in fact, Ashley’s shoe coming back down with a mildly loud *THUMP* was like ten times the volume of my fall.

 

I was still down on my back, looking up despairingly at my sister’s titanic shoes. Her left leg was swinging back and forth like a devilish pendulum. Ashley had lifted her right heel off the floor and rolled it left and right from the ankle. It was as though she was grinding a bug into the ground. Was she thinking about squishing me? Was I only a bug to her? Or was this another part of her absent-minded fidgeting. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to stay in this situation.

 

I thought that if I crawled up the leg of her chair, I could catch her attention. But before I had such luck, Ashley’s shoe came down right on top of me. I was thankful that she was only sitting down in class. Had she come down from a big jump as if in gymnastics I’d have been in a true hell of pressure from her body weight. Even if the chair took the weight on, I remained helpless. I was staring up at the bottom of Ashley’s left converse shoe. If there was any positive to this, the rubber of the sole masked some of the scent flowing from her sweaty foot. But the rubber came with some unappealing challenges of its own.

 

It smelled somewhat burned from all the grinding Ashley was doing. My nose was pressed right between one of the chasms of the shoe’s grip. In that very spot, there was a large accumulation of mud that she had picked up walking across the lawn on the way to school. It smelled exactly as it looked. Like utter muck. Ashley seemed to press down even harder suddenly, and I couldn’t tell what exactly it was. All I knew was that, despite my invulnerability, I was really feeling the squeeze like nothing else. This had to have been one of the worst encounters with feet I’d ever had so far. It really put the horrific experience with Courtney only minutes earlier to the test.

 

Seconds had passed and the pressure was lifted. I was left with my answer to what it was. Ashley had taken her shoe off and pushed it off to the side. Although I was free from that rubbery hell, I faced down a new terror.

 

Ashley’s bare, sweaty foot floating in the air only inches off the ground.

 

Inches away from me…

My sister Ashley’s foot came down fast. Like lightning speed.

 

*BAM*

 

Before I knew it, I was once again being tormented by bare feet. If I was forced to choose between them, I’d rather contend with Courtney’s feet again. At least with her Birkenstock’s there was an avenue for the sweat to evaporate and they’d remain somewhat clean. There was no such relief with my sister’s feet. The sweat just accumulated more and more as time went on.

 

I was utterly petrified by what lay ahead. Ashley pressed her foot hard into the ground, hard into me. My face was embedded deep into the knuckles of her sole. Right between the big toe and the index toe. An inch more I may have been allowed some degree of air by breathing in the space between the toes, but I was allowed no such luxury. Sweat coated my face, lubricating it to such an extent that I was able to shift my face around. All turning my head did, unfortunately, was obstruct my hearing and coated the side of my head in even more sweat than any human could ever need. Could this lubricating effect allow me to grease my way out from under Ashley’s foot? Fat chance. Her pressure was far too much to allow any escape.

 

Ashley started curling her toes against the ground. She must have noticed me, because she picked me up. I was held mid-air by her toes as if I was a fish hooked on a fishing line. She slowly angled her foot and went back down. That was when I saw it and things took a turn for the worse.

 

Ashley’s shoe.

 

It was then that Ashley spoke to me, quietly so the class couldn’t hear. It must have been when she picked me up that her absent mind finally took a break and she was able to go back to thinking; however brief that would be. I knew how this story went.

 

“I’m sorry you’re not having the best first day at school, Tyson. But I’m really afraid of losing you again! You’re my little brother and mom and dad would kill me if you lost in this huge school! Well, I’m not about to let that happen…”

 

I gulped, trying to brace myself for what I knew was coming. More torture.

 

Ashley continued. “So as a precautionary measure, little Tyson, I’m gonna keep you inside my shoe. For the rest of the day. Now, you’re very small and can go in a lot of places, but you’re also prone to slipping out. We weren’t even at school for an hour and I lost you! So, I’m gonna put you inside my shoe. I’ll only let you out when we get home. Now, it may be a little smelly in their Tyson! I may not take the greatest care of my feet, but I remember that time I found you in my sneaker. You managed to survive going for a run with me! And if I didn’t know better I would make the bet that there’s a side of you that enjoys this! So there’s no talking me out of it! In you go!

 

I meekly replied, not knowing if she heard it. “Ashley, please…”

 

Before I could start the next sentence, I was deep in the shoe. Trapped under Ashley’s toes near the tip. The real horror of the day had just begun.

 

My expectations were right. Ashley’s toes were completely drenched in sweat! And the toe jam was mountainous! It was as if she had not cleaned her feet in days. Her converse shoes were subject to some pretty major abuse by her feet and it was showing. The sweat had caused so much color bleeding inside the shoe that the soles of her feet had turned a very dark blue. And the smell was hardly better; a mixture of her natural bad foot stink and the decaying cotton and artificial paint inside the shoe.

 

I still was unsure if her behaviour was deliberate, but she continued to torture her me with her monstrous toes. With her index toe, Ashley pushed down on my face. The back of my head pressed into the sole of the shoe, while my nose was embedded deep into the skin of her toe. I swear I was able to detect the different layers of skin, some of it dry and flaking into my mouth and nostrils. I was struggling to breathe, and perhaps I’d have died if not for my invulnerability. I did my best with my arms to push the toe up in a desperate attempt to relieve my own discomfort. It was useless.

 

I heard Ashley giggling from the outside.

“Ohhh, little bro, come on! It’s not THAT bad in there! You just need to grow up!”

 

I screamed out at her in reply, but I don’t think he heard it. If the material of the shoe didn’t muffle me, then the thick flesh of her sweaty toe absolutely did.

“Ashley! Please! Let me out of this place! It’s hot! It’s stinky! Your foot is so heavy! Worst of all, it absolutely REEKS in here! Reeks of sweat and dead skin! I just wanna go back into your pocket!”

 

My initial excitement at going to a public school had left me. At this moment, as I faced down the tyranny of my sister’s toes, all I wanted was to go home and be free of it all.

 

As the day went on, in between my struggled inhales, I recalled so many moments where I found myself in situations involving Ashley’s feet. The carelessness of this girl was truly staggering.

 

Ashley is a really fit girl, and her feet could really take some abuse. One time she decided to go running. Too lazy to put on socks and sweating in anticipation, she stepped on me with her bare foot. I stuck to her like an ant in tree sap. She put on her sneakers and went from a run. I didn’t need to hear any stories from Ashley later about how good this run was. I FELT it. It was over an hour and she ran like lightning, if the pounding I endured said anything about her average speed.

 

There was another time that, while not quite as abusive that time she went running, offered a unique battle of its own. We were sitting in the living room watching a movie together. I usually sit on the nightstand far away from the couch, lest I become once again a victim of Ashley’s chronic lack of awareness of anything around her. She had her feet up on the armrest, and I made sure to keep my distance. On this particular day luck was not in my favor. Ashley got up, kicking me off the nightstand by accident and I fell into her sweaty uggs. I tried to yell for her attention, and briefly made an attempt to climb the cotton and get out. As usual, things didn’t go my way. Ashley put her uggs on and then went to Courtney’s house for the entire day! I lost track of the time and ended up spending more time in those uggs than I really needed to. What happened when she found me? Half-hearted apology!

 

When we finally got home from school, I had been inside Ashley’s converse shoes for over 5 hours. I missed every single one of my classes! Mom and dad will have to contend with the fact that this was all HER fault! Fortunately, she actually took her shoes off immediately after getting to her bedroom. I was able to breathe clean air! Did she have a change in attitude? Nope.

 

“Sorry about that, Tyson! I know you hate feet, but it’s for your own good! Now that I think about it, it might be for the best that you ALWAYS travel to school with me this way! In my shoe! I can’t afford to lose you to Courtney again… or worse… someone less trustworthy! Don’t worry, I’m going to take really good care of you!”

 

I sighed in exasperation. This was no comfort at all. Would I have to go through the rest of high school being dragged around inside of my sister’s shoe? Why go to school at all if I’m never going to go to my own classes?

 

None of it made any sense, and Ashley could not see the anguish that I was going through. But I suppose this is what my life would be now.

 

My life shrunk in high school…