Paige walked up to her front door, knelt at the flower pot where she kept her house key hidden, and was surprised to find a tiny little man there on the ground, naked, jumping and waving at her.
Paige was in her very early twenties, and wore a green jacket over a white shirt, tight jeans and white low-top Converse. Her hair was short and dyed with pastel colors, and she had a small nose ring. After the initial shock of finding a tiny person, she leaned forward to look closer. When she recognized the little man, she wrinkled her nose. It was her neighbor.
She didn’t like her neighbor much. He was around fifty years old, balding and pudgy. She always caught him staring at her through his window, and he sometimes made creepy small talk with her even though he had a wife and a daughter that looked the same age as she was.
“I can’t hear you,” Paige said. “You sound like a squeaky little mouse.” She could hold him up to her ear, but that seemed kind of gross. She didn’t want to touch her naked shrunken neighbor man, much less have him up near her ear. Instead she pulled out her phone and opened her messaging app, and laid it on the cement landing for him. “Write it out for me.”
She watched him crawl around on her touch screen, palming the keys like it was a game of Twister. When she read it, she rolled her eyes.
“Help shrunk” it read.
“No shit,” Paige said.
Of course, he had caught the shrinking virus that had affected most men in the world. Guess he didn’t try the vaccine, or couldn’t afford it.
She grabbed him between her finger and thumb, wrinkling her nose again, and went inside her house. She dropped her bookbag on the floor, sat on her living room couch and placed her neighbor on the glass coffee table.
“So now what?” She said, and put her phone beside him.
He typed it out. “Meg Kim shrunk 2”
Paige vaguely remembered those being the names of his wife and daughter, although which was which eluded her. Guess they all caught the virus. That was rare, but it happened sometimes. She never liked them either. They were all shitty neighbors.
“What do you want me to do about it?” she asked.
“Get them”
She frowned. “In your house?”
“key on lintel”
She thought about it. She didn’t really have time for this, she had to work on her papers for university. Why did she have to help her stupid neighbor now?
Then another though struck her.
“Wait,” she said. “You were waiting for me by my house key.”
He nodded, seeming proud of his ingenuity.
Slowly, she said: “How did you know where it was?”
He stopped nodding, seeming to almost shrink further. Eventually he kind of shrugged and looked away from her.
Then another thought struck her and her eyes widened.
“Waiiit,” she said. “Have you been in my house? Have you taken stuff from me?”
The little man raised his hands and shook his head.
Paige cocked her head at him. “It was you,” she said. “I fucking knew it, you creepy little shit. You’ve watched me, you know where my key is, and my stuff has definitely gone missing.”
He was backing away now.
“You’ve been in here, in my house like some kind of pervert- ew, God I don’t even want to think about it. You’ve been stealing my panties and shit?” She slammed her hand down on the table and he literally jumped and fell to one knee.
Paige picked up her phone and sat back on her couch with her arms and legs crossed. “You thought you could come here and get away with it?” She leaned forward, her face looming over him. “Look at you. I could just squish you here and nobody would know. You know that right?”
He went on both knees, one hand held up pleadingly, and the other pointing toward his house. His head was down and he was rocking back and forth, terrified, but still begging her for something.
“You still want me to save your family huh? Oh, how selfless of you.” she said.
Something occurred to her then. She thought about it for a while, an idea forming. Eventually she said: “Fine, I’ll bring your little family here. But first you have to atone for coming into my house and being a pervert.” She pulled on her shoelaces and slipped off her converse, and slammed them both on the table, making him jump again. Then she left, only to return a moment later with some Wet Wipes, a travel-sized toothbrush, and a toothpick. She dropped them on the table and said “I’m not going until you clean every inch of these shoes. Understand? Is that a yes? Then what are you waiting for?”
* * *
Paige showered and changed into black, ripped tights, white ankle socks, and a pastel yellow sweater. She made herself a snack and worked on her paper at the kitchen table for an hour before she lost concentration. She poured a glass of water and went to check on her neighbor. He was trying to pry a pebble out of the distinctive diamond-pattern tread using the toothpick. “Do you want your family to be rescued or not?” Paige said, one hand on her hip.
The man wrenched hard, and fell on his ass when the rock came out. He scrambled up to his knees and extended his arms out to the shoes, displaying his finished work.
“Hmmm,” Paige said, leaning down and looking past her nose at it. He had done a thorough job. “I guess that will do,” she said. She drank the rest of her water and upturned the glass, placing it carefully over the little man and trapping him on the table. Then she put on her shoes, tied them tight and enjoyed their clean new look for a moment, before grabbing her handbag. “Don’t go anywhere,” she said, smiling.
* * *
About fifteen minutes later, Paige returned. She lifted the cup, and sat down on the couch with a contented sigh.
Her neighbor was practically hopping, his hands held together nervously.
“Oh I got them,” Paige said, tapping her handbag. “But,” she said, “I got my shoes all dirty and I need you to clean them again first. Ok?”
He stopped, his shoulders slumped. Paige leaned forward and put her face close to him, and he backed up. Slowly she said: “You clean them again, you get your family back. Deal?”
He nodded.
“Good,” Paige said, and she lay her foot sideways on the table top, the sole facing him.
Sadly, he started gathering up supplies.
“Start at the heel this time,” Paige said.
He did so, brushing and wiping at the brown rubber wall twice his height. It really didn’t seem to need much work, and he looked a bit confused as he worked his way towards the toe.
But then she said, “I stepped in something there see? Be sure to clean that really well ok?”
Sure enough, the grooves of the sole were full of something dark red and dust clung to the wet rubber tread. He sighed and picked up the toothpick, using both arms to stick it in and dig out the thick goo. When it came out and slopped onto the table he wrinkled his nose and gagged a bit at the smell. He gave her a sad look, but pressed on.
Paige watched as he scooped out the next groove, and he stared, unsettled, at the lumpy stuff that came out. “Keep going,” she ordered.
He did, hesitantly, and this time as he dug something chunky out of her tread, it fell onto the table and he stumbled back in horror. A human arm.
“Ohhh,” Paige said with an intake of breath, feigning surprised sympathy. “Is that who I think it is?”
He shuffled toward the arm, and then fell to his knees. He turned and looked up at the wall of her sole, at the huge patch of gore stuck in the tread of her shoe, and then vomited. She waited for him to finish. When he did, he was shaking his head and throwing his arms out in disbelief.
“Is that your daughter?” Paige said, almost in a baby-voice. “No? You don’t believe so? Cause I’m pretty sure it is. Check the nail polish on those fingers.“
He did, and threw up again.
“Yeah so that happened,” Paige said. “Now, here’s the new deal you little perv: Finish cleaning your daughter out of my shoe, and I won’t step on your wife. Ok?”
She lifted her leg up, bringing her gory sole down over her neighbor. After he disappeared from view for a while, she thought he might actually be doing it, but then he crawled out from beneath, sobbing and dry-heaving.
“No?” Paige said, in fake-surprised voice. “Aw, well now I'm gonna have two dirty shoes.”
She picked up the little man, got a role of Scotch tape from her purse and deftly fixed a piece to each of his limbs, squeezing him tight so he didn't struggle too much. Then she reached down and taped him to the underside of the glass table, facing upwards. She went into her bag again. “Now where did you…? Oh, there you are, you little thing.” She pulled out the shrunken woman, who was in a total state of confusion, and taped her face-down on the table, directly above her husband.
Then, she stood and rested the heel of her cleaner shoe on the table, her sole above the little woman. “How’s the view under there? Good? Okay, then you better say goodbye to each other…” she said, and slowly lowered her foot.
When Paige felt the tiny bit of resistance under her foot that was the woman, she paused for a moment to let the couple endure this last moment, before she pressed down. Paige felt the woman smush under her foot and heard the crunch bones ring across the glass, and she added a slow twist back and forth, grinding her into mush.
She lifted her shoe and turned her ankle to inspect the damage. She could still make out a head and some limbs that had been pressed into the grooves of her sole and dangled now from the mush, still intact, so she pressed down again and really ground out the remains.
Eventually, slowly, she put her foot back on the floor. Then she reached under the table and unstuck her little neighbor. He was pale and wailing in anguish. She observed him flatly as he writhed in her open palm for a while.
When he showed no signs of quieting down, Paige said: “Okay, last deal. Lick my shoes and I might let you live.” She put him on the ground between her feet, but he simply collapsed into the fetal position, sobbing. She even lifted one shoe and gently prodded his face with it, but he didn't change. She sighed. “Okay then, I’m just gonna step on you too, pervy little neighbor. Which foot do you wanna die under?” There was no response other than crying. “Wife foot?” she said, lifting that one slightly. “Daughter foot?” she said, repeating with the other. Hmm? No? Okay then I guess it’s... both.” She shrugged and brought her feet together, balancing on her heels, the little man laying underneath. She stood like this for a long while, balancing, until she shifted forward and pressed down into her toes. Her little neighbor burst, a jet of blood spewing up from between her shoes and intestines uncoiling onto the smooth white tips of her converse. She stood up on her tiptoes then and twisted booth feet, grinding his body until there was barely anything left.
Then she walked away. She had a paper to finish.