Before I could move to stop her, she set the small pile of clothes on fire, then stamped at them, and then kicked them off the edge of the table. Then she grabbed her purse again and dumped out everything in it, and, there, found a lighter. In a matter of seconds, she’d torn off her skirt, ripped through it with her teeth, ripped the shirt off her back, thrashed at her panty-hose, and broke the heels off her shoes. Unable to hit me, then, and with nothing else in reach, she attacked herself, or, rather, her clothing. She threw it hard, so it seemed, but a person the size of a coffee mug can only do so much damage. Then she took her purse off her shoulder and threw it at me. So: She screamed, but I couldn’t hear her. I have also fashioned small ear-cups that fit nicely around my head and allow me to pick up softer sounds. I’ve learned, since then, to listen for a different register of voice. She screamed-I could see her scream but I couldn’t hear her, though, in my imagination, it was not so much a scream as a startled yelp. I should like to get rid of the bird entirely, but I know that such a loss would upset my wife, who is, at the moment, upset enough already. I have also, claiming allergies, given the cat to a friend and have refused to let the bird out of its cage. The enormity of our real house and its furnishings-craterous bowls, cavernous pockets, insurmountable table legs, and bathroom counters slick with puddle-sized droplets of water-fill me with a great anxiety. Hence the dollhouse: something solid, fashioned of wood and constructed with her in mind. Would that I had an ally in my office, with whom I could brainstorm solutions to this problem, then, surely, she would be returned to normal by now, but I have no one of the sort, and have made no progress on my own. The irony of this is not lost on me, rest assured. But, as there are many different means of making things smaller-the Kurzym Bypass, ideal for reducing highly complex pieces of machinery, for instance, or Montclaire’s Pabulum, which is the only process by which one might safely reduce inorganic foodstuffs, to name only two-and since this reduction was accidental and I don’t know how it was performed, I am at a loss as to how to bring her back. Otherwise, I would gladly reverse the process, as I have done time and again at the office. What bothers me most about the current situation (not her size, as I am quite used to seeing normal objects reduced to abnormal sizes, even to the point that I wake up some mornings overwhelmed by the size of everyday objects, alarmed even by the size of my own head), what bothers me most is that I don’t quite know how it happened. There it is: my wife, shrunk to the height of a coffee mug. I rake and pile and bag the autumn leaves like anyone else does. I have never made our winter wardrobe small in the summer or our summer wardrobe small for the winter. I do not make the boxes in my attic smaller to make room for more Christmas decorations. I can hardly afford to be seen as the employer who abuses his power. I have set strict rules for myself, the same rules I enforce on my workers. I can only say that I am quite good at my job, and I have moved quickly through the ranks and now head an entire department of miniaturizers.Īnd let me say this, too: I never bring work home with me, tempting though it might be. I cannot disclose to anyone, not even to my wife, exactly what I make, or how small I make it. We do not actually make hats or hat boxes. They will, let’s say, make a smaller hat box in order to test the process that I used to make a smaller hat. I have developed a number of processes, which members of my staff then test. I work in miniaturization and it is, therefore, my job to make everything smaller. The truth of the matter is: I have managed to make my wife very, very small.
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