This couldn’t be good.
Admittedly, not much had gone well for Chris lately. He’d fallen victim to Generalized Reduction Syndrome. (The less rigorous news sites called it, unimaginatively, the shrinking virus, even though biomedical researchers were at a loss to explain its actual etiology.) He lived in a jurisdiction with extremely limited protections for those with the condition. State-run facilities, like the one where Chris now lived, had been set up with the idea that a charitable citizen could come and take over support for an “affected individual,” thereby reducing the burden on the state. At best, they were glorified animal shelters, and this one wasn’t the best.
Chris had been fairly unsettled ever since he’d realized that he was merchandise in a kafkaesque conception of a jewelry store.
Now that he recognized, from his clear plastic enclosure behind the front desk, one of the facility’s clients looming a distant ten feet away? Unsettled had been joined by apprehensive and befrazzled.
She had been one of his classmates at university. Same major – psychology – but she’d been in the cohort immediately below his and they’d only shared a few classes. He couldn’t remember her name, but he recognized her, and worse: if she saw him, she might recognize him too. The thought of people from his old life knowing (or worse: sharing) what had happened to him was mortifying. It was probably academic, though; he was in this situation no matter what people knew about it.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t help watching his old classmate with trepidation. She was scrolling down some document on a tablet, but he couldn’t see what it was from his little terrarium. The plastic muffled the conversation between her and the receptionist. He could only guess what it meant when her expression suddenly flashed through half a dozen emotions in the space of two seconds, too quickly to parse, but the receptionist’s purposeful movement in his general direction triggered some less than pleasant ideas.
This couldn’t be good.
* * *
Alli almost couldn’t believe it when she saw the name on the list at the tiny people shop. Christopher L. Fletcher! That was Chris from college! She’d come here because she’d gotten a promotion at work; she wanted to treat herself to some arm candy, and she had a firm opinion on what sort of man would look best dangling from a bracelet.
But Chris!
Her unrequited crush from school!
This had to be fate. He couldn’t ignore her now. Maybe she could even make him feel the way that he’d made her feel: ignored, embarrassed. Turnabout was fair play, right? Something in her mind clicked into place. Alli looked up and addressed the receptionist.
“That one, please.”
* * *
It could’ve been worse.
Chris kept telling himself that. It could, indeed, have been worse: he hadn’t realized Alli had been carrying a combination torch-chip on her shoulder for him. That was a nasty blend of emotions that could easily have translated into a gory death for him at her hands, but she’d been content to merely humiliate him. She’d been careful to avoid physically hurting him, even, so that was a small mercy.
But here he was, bound hand and foot to a silvery ring, worn on a former acquaintance’s second toe and forced to look upwards at her like the colossus she now was. And here was, telling himself it could’ve been worse because he was only staring at gargantuan gladiator sandals instead of being fed to the lions (Alli’s cats, Nala and Jiji, were unfortunately very interested in their owner’s new toy; the metaphor seemed uncomfortably realistic.)
So, frankly, it also could’ve been better.
That thought was rattling through his mind while Alli idly did the same thing to his whole body. Her foot rapped and tapped and twitched while he rode the motion as best he could. As far as he could tell, she wasn’t even doing this to him on purpose. Sure, she’d probably made him the jewel of her toe ring with some vague idea of the dizzying movements she’d be putting him through, but right now she was sitting at a table with a very much normal-sized man.
She was more focused on the pasta in front of her than on her date across the table or on Chris, thank god. Being her toe ring was embarrassing enough as it was, but if she decided she wanted to play footsie with this dude right now? Chris cut that thought off before his imagination got too far. She absolutely was capable of psychologically torturing him with a move like that, but there wasn’t much good in worrying about it unless it happened… he hoped.
From underneath the tablecloth, he couldn’t make out how Alli’s date was going. It was just muffled noise indistinguishable from the rest of the restaurant cacophony. Chris was grateful not to have enough experience going on her dates like this to know if the lack of under-the-table foot play was significant, but it didn’t take a psychology major to figure out that the giant foot’s increasing tempo was a sign of stress. All it took was someone along for the ride.
So when Alli abruptly put her weight down and fled the restaurant, it didn’t surprise him to see that she was alone, pacing and waiting impatiently for her rideshare to show up. Every other step thudded angrily through his whole body. What did surprise him was when she leaned down – her giant face suddenly looming over him made him flinch – and pried him out from his position on her toe. She lifted him up; he shut his eyes tightly as he zoomed upward. It wasn’t until the acceleration stopped that he felt safe enough to open them.
He was hanging inches – it felt like a couple of dozen feet to Chris – in front of two enormous, cinnamon-tinted eyes. They sparkled and twinkled with the depressing orange of the nearest lamppost.
Those were tears in her eyes, he realized. Apparently her date had gone worse than he’d thought. Strangely, he felt, more than anything else… sympathy. There was someone in pain staring him right in the face. Sure, she was the relative size of a skyscraper (a big one, too). Yes, she’d been doing her best to make his life, if not a living hell, then at least into an infinite experiment in humiliation without IRB approval.
But she was still human. And, critically, no matter what anyone else said, he was still human too.
The blast of air when she spoke rocked him like a leaf on the wind, but it was just a whisper. “I just… I need someone to talk to right now. Can I— could you…?” Her voice trailed upward before roaring into silence. He’d noticed another half-dozen emotions in her question, but this time he knew what these ones were. Sadness. Embarrassment. Regret. Pain.
Chris hesitated but only for a second. “Of course.”
Alli’s expression froze too, but in confusion. She couldn’t hear him. “Oh, um. Let me just…” Another rushing flight later, his eyes locked down to minimize the nausea, Chris found himself sitting above a giant hoop. She’d placed him in her ear.
So weird.
She didn’t say anything, so he figured he’d go first. “Can you hear me now?”
It would’ve been hard for anyone looking to notice her flinch, but Chris had a first row seat. The slight jerk of her head was enough to send him grabbing for any secure handhold, and he was grateful no one could see him hugging her antitraggus for dear life.
“So weird!” Alli choked out. Even through her mood, a tiny hint of a laugh snuck out with the words.
Good.
“So, do you want to vent? Or just talk about literally anything else?”
“Anything else. Please.”
“I can work with that.”
* * *
Chris was still jewelry, as far as the world could see. Nonetheless, his new position as earring was a decided step up from where he’d been before.
“So, what do you think so far?”
Alli was taking a quick break from this evening’s date to go to the restroom. She was also taking the opportunity to get a discreet second opinion on the man waiting for her back at the table. Chris, secured by chain to Alli’s new snug piercing, had come along to keep her company in case the dude turned out to be a dud. This wasn’t the first time; Chris had accompanied Alli on her dates for a while now, serving as a general-purpose friend, advisor, and – if the man in question deserved it – shoulder devil. Over time, he’d developed quite the expertise on her dating life and, Chris was proud to say, she put it to good use.
The man tonight was fine: a bit bland around the edges, but at least he was an okay conversation partner. (Having spent so much time as a quasi-professional listener – he was literally in an ear, for god’s sake – he very much understood the value of that.) Honestly, Chris thought she could do better, but he’d recently become a fan of extra chances in all sorts of relationships.
“Well, you know what they say: it could be worse.”
That set them off on a rapid-fire breakdown of her date’s pros and cons. By the time she had to go back to the table, she hadn’t reached a final position on him yet, but that was fine. The point was that she’d heard him. And when she quietly said, “Thanks,” he could feel her facial expression change from his perch. He could feel her smile, genuinely, for his help and companionship.
It could’ve been a lot worse.