It was 9:45am. Molly was headed out the door to get to her first class. Though her partner had died on their wedding night two days prior, she still wanted to attend her classes, hoping they could distract her from the overwhelming grief consuming her heart. Little did she know that her short-lived husband was actually alive and well at her doorstep. Though, as small as he was, she’d be forgiven for not noticing the speck of a man as her cataclysmic sneaker rained down onto him.

            “Petra! Help Me!” Renton shouted a millisecond before the rubber sole embraced his entirety. He felt the immense weight of his wife press down on him as she shifted her balance onto that foot. Nothing the man had experienced was adequate enough to describe the pressure he felt. He imagined this must be what it felt like to deadlift an elephant on Jupiter. He couldn’t so much as move his fingers as he was flattened against the doormat to his home. He squinted his eyes shut and waited for the pop, waited for the black tunnel with the bright light at the end, waited to wake back up in Petra’s lap, his second life cut pathetically short. But, there was no pop. The fingers he couldn’t move were still there, as was the rest of his body. And as suddenly as Molly’s tremendous weight shifted onto him, Renton felt it ease off. His puny body was lifted high in the air and hung for a second before it came crashing back down onto the floor, the unworldly pressure flattening him once again.

            “Yo, you good?” Petra asked, their telepathic connection unphased by the hundred fifty pounds of woman on top of Renton. The tiny man was wedged into the rubber sole like a stubborn pebble. It molded around his frame and held him captive as he was continually beaten against the apartment building’s rough carpeting. 

            “How Oomph! Am I Oomph! Still Oomph! Alive?” he shouted into the sneaker, his body at the complete mercy of his wife’s gait. Along with not being a bloody pulp, Renton realized he wasn’t in pain. It was extremely uncomfortable being sandwiched between his wife’s shoe and the floor, but it didn’t hurt.

            “Because you’re not ‘alive’ to begin with. I materialized your soul so that it could exist physically in the mortal realm,” Petra explained. “That’s what a sprite is. You can’t die because you’re already dead. You’re like a ghost that can touch things and get stuck under someone’s foot.”

            “Can you Oomph! Get me Oomph! Outta here!?”

            “It’ll be easier if you just speak to me through your thoughts.”

            You can teleport, right? Renton thought, hoping it was getting through to his angel. Can you beam me off her foot?

            “Nope, I can’t teleport physical objects, not even sprites. I can only move my own body and ethereal substances like a soul. Of course, I could go down there and pick you off myself…”

            Then do it! Molly walked out of the apartment onto the sidewalk. The cold, hard cement was even worse on Renton’s back than the cheap carpeting. The rough surface scratched against him as Molly kicked herself forward; it left no scars or injuries, but it was as irritating as scraping chalk against a blackboard.

            “How? She’s not going to listen to some stranger asking to pick something off the bottom of her foot. Besides, I’m not supposed to interfere with your test to get her attention.” It was only a ten-minute walk from their apartment to the inner-city campus’ main classroom, but the trek may as well have been an hour to the trapped tiny. Renton managed to pivot his head far enough to get a glimpse of anything besides rubber. For the brief seconds where he wasn’t pancaked into the cement, he could catch a glimpse of their surroundings: the people passing by, the cars on the street, the storefronts lining downtown. His view was interrupted when Molly unwittingly stepped on a soggy piece of chewing gum, mushing Renton into the soft, sickly-sweet confection. As her foot pulled up, the gum stretched with it, tearing from its foundation in the cement and plastering itself against Renton on Molly’s sole. Though it coated his back in a stranger’s lingering saliva, the gum at least cushioned his fall as it flattened beneath Molly’s step.

            Don’t suppose it can get worse than this, Renton thought moments before Molly stepped carelessly into a puddle. In all fairness, it was a shallow puddle, not high enough to discomfort the woman in any way; but at Renton’s size, it was enough to submerge him, water pouring in through tears in the gum. He finally noticed that he had no trouble breathing throughout this ordeal. In fact, he wasn’t breathing at all. Petra…

            “Yeah, you don’t need to breath. Not alive, remember?” she responded. “You don’t need to eat or sleep either, though you can still enjoy food if you want.”

            Neat, he thought as a particularly sharp pebble pressed up against his neck.

            The relief he felt upon entering the main classroom building’s tile floors was palpable. The only thing to contend with there was dust which was mostly caught by the gum coating him. The deafening squeak of her soles scraping the floor got old fast, though. But then, it was preferable to the vexing noise approaching.

            “Molly, wait up!” a dulcet voice called out. Molly stopped and turned, grinding Renton against the tile flooring. A young man jogged up to her. At 6’5”, he stood half a foot taller than her.

            “Oh hey, Chaz,” she greeted him. Chaz was an acquaintance of Molly’s, and an “acquaintance” of Renton’s. The perfect balance between lean and muscular, Chaz was a dreamboat in every respect and the antithesis to the frail and infirm Renton, even moreso now that the former cancer patient was dirt stuck to a shoe.

            “I heard about Ren. Sorry for your loss.”

            “Thanks,” was all she could muster. She realized people weren’t going to stop reminding her of him today.

            “No prob. If you need a shoulder to lean on, I’ll be there for you.” His magenta tank-top showed off his perfectly toned shoulders, and his grey gym shorts put his herculean calves on full display. It was a wonder to everyone but Renton how the handsome, personable stud could still be single. “In fact, I’m free all day today. Maybe after your class we can go out for coffee and chat.” The secret was that he was obsessed with Molly. He saw himself as the inebriated Renton’s rival; Renton saw him as a jealous bull. In life, Renton was more concerned over what he was having for breakfast than he was over some nice guy hitting on his girlfriend, but the idea of Chaz weaseling his way into Molly’s heart after his death made Renton’s skin crawl.

            “I appreciate the offer,” Molly responded politely, “but coming here is draining enough. I’m probably going to head straight home after class.” It’s not that he didn’t have faith in his partner, Renton simply feared that Chaz wasn’t above taking advantage of his grieving crush’s emotional vulnerability.

            “That’s fair,” Chaz replied. “The offer stands for whenever you need it.”

            “Thanks,” she muttered and made her way to her classroom. Her once peppy personality began to waver a year ago as Renton’s condition worsened; for the past couple months, even he had rarely glimpsed her smile. As she entered her class and took her seat, the eyes of those close to her turned her way.

            “What are you doing here?” Becca, the girl seated behind her, asked.

            “I get this is the capstone, but the professor’s not going to mind you missing a day to mourn,” Lindsay, the girl in front, said.

            “I just wanted to think about something else for an hour,” Molly explained. “So far, it hasn’t worked.”

            “When’s the funeral?” Becca asked.

            “Two days.”

            “That’s good,” Lindsay confined. “The ceremony will ease the pain you’re feeling.”

            “If you say so.” As usual, the professor walked in on the dot, scrambled papers bursting from his briefcase.

            “Morning class. Today’s an important lesson, so let’s…” He looked up from his standing desk towards Molly and approached her as discreetly as the head of class could. “You don’t need to be here,” he gently whispered. “Go. I’ll make sure you’re caught up when you get back.” Molly wasn’t sure how he knew. Maybe Becca emailed him, or perhaps there’s a faculty memo that gets sent out for this sort of thing. Either way, Molly decided to heed his offer.

            “Thank you,” she mumbled, getting up and returning home. The trek back wasn’t any better for poor Renton, but this time he wasn’t fazed. Unable to feel physical pain, his mind was instead consumed with emotional agony. He had to get Molly’s attention, not for his sake, but so she could be happy once again.

            Upon entering the empty apartment, Molly kicked off her shoes and walked over to the cramped living room. No longer being walked on, Renton tried to free himself, but his candy binding held him firmly in place. Molly sat down on the couch and grabbed the TV remote off the coffee table. She pointed it at the small TV and froze, staring at her reflection in the black screen. The room was silent, so devoid of sound that Renton thought maybe his inaudible voice could be heard, but a sudden desire stopped him.

            Reflected off the TV was Molly, sitting on a love seat made for two. Her finger trembled over the power button; it’d be so simple to kill the silence, to fill the void in her heart with the company of talking heads, but that empty love seat stared back at her, the indent of its former occupant beckoning her to despair.

            The remote fell from her hand onto the floor, followed closely behind by tears. Molly bawled, clutching her contorted face as her blubbering howls echoed across the room. Her pained weeping drowned out the only other sound in the room: a faint whimpering beneath the sole of her Converse.