Ants

John walked through the woods behind his house, seeking out something to burn. His mother had kicked him out, told him to spend some time away from the TV before the summer ended. So, here he was, carrying a magnifying glass, hoping to find an anthill to analyze or terrorize; he had not decided which yet. Fourth grade was on its way, and he dreaded having a teacher ordering him around like an extra parent. For now, he would be educating himself, running his own personal science experiments.

He found the anthill in a clearing, several inches tall and teeming with ants, which streamed in and out of several holes in orderly lines of black bodies. It would have been so easy to just press his sandal down on the hill, crush it into dust, and cast that order into utter chaos, but he held off on it. For one thing, he knew that would just get ants crawling on his skin, which he could do without. Another thing was he was curious about the little creatures. He wanted to take some time to witness their behavior before killing them.

He crouched down above the hill, feeling like a giant compared to the life beneath him. He held up the magnifying glass and tested raising and lowering it, focusing sunlight on a leaf until it began to smoke, his own personal death ray. He held off on starting a fire and inspected the ants with the glass, getting a good look at their black segmented bodies, the probing antenna on their heads, their skittering limbs. He poked one with his finger, realizing that he could flatten it beneath his little finger tip. It would be so easy.

Just as he became bored enough to consider what form of destruction he would attempt first, he noticed a pair of ants that seemed out of place. They were just standing in place in a way that made him think they were looking at him. All the other ants had ignored him, treating him like another log. These two were different.

John swung the glass over to this pair to get a better look at them and was surprised to find that they had only four limbs instead of six. A closer look showed him that they were standing on only two legs. If he did not know better, he might have thought that they were tiny people.

The pair waved up at him, and he began to wonder if they really were people. Although he was young, he knew that shrinking was not a real thing that could happen. That was just something that happened on TV. Yet, here was a pair of ant-size creatures that looked and moved like adult humans wearing dark clothes. One looked male, the other female.

“Can’t be,” John said.

The pair stopped waving as if they had responded to his words.

“Do you understand me?” John asked.

Although it was hard to discern their movements, he thought he saw them look at each other then nod at him.

“Are you… people? Did you shrink?”

Again, they seemed to nod.

John felt as if the heat was getting to him. He must have been out in the sun too long. Still, the tiny human pair stood there, looking up at him, waiting.

The power he felt. He could flatten them both with his pinky finger, smash them into dust under his sandal, torch them with focused sunlight, and there was nothing they could do to stop him if he did. Feeling inventive, he even considered pissing on them, drowning them in a river of hot urine. He could do anything, anything he could imagine, and no one could stop him, no one would ever even know what he had done.

And yet, he did not want to end it so soon. He wanted to take his time with them. He wanted to explore them. He wanted pets.

“Come with me,” John said, lowering his finger down in front of them. “I’ll take you somewhere safe.”

The tiny pair hesitated and looked at each other. John thought he saw them speaking to each other, but the words were too tiny to hear over the sounds of the woods. After a brief conversation, the pair walked up to his finger and climbed up on it, so lightly that he barely felt them on his skin. He lifted them up and cupped his hand, palm up, and let his new pets slide onto his palm. All it would take then was for him to make a fist, and they would be done. Instead, he took care to be gentle with them. He would be a good pet owner. It would be so easy to end them. The challenge would be in keeping them alive. How long would they last? He wanted to find out.

He walked home slowly, imagining all the different ways he could play with his new pets.

***

“John!” his little sister whined. “Come play with me.” Sitting on the floor surrounded by toys, Jenny looked up at him, hopefully.

“No,” he replied, running past her and her silly dolls. He sprinted up the stairs, having no time for a 4-year-old’s games.

First, John needed a place to store his new pets. After some consideration he settled on a paper cup from the bathroom sink. With a gentle tip of his hand, he slid them inside the cup and set them on his desk. Then, using the magnifying glass, he checked on their well-being, making sure they were still alive. Sure enough, although they appeared a bit confused, they stood up normally and gazed back up at him. Satisfied that they would be safe within the cup, he set down the glass beside them and started to plan what he would do next with them.

However, before he got far with his plans, his mother called to him, “John, time for a bath.”

He sighed. “Can’t it wait for tomorrow?”

“You’re all sweaty,” she replied. “Time to clean up.”

He grunted in frustration. No control, no freedom, and school would be starting soon, which would mean even less control and freedom. “Fine,” he said, leaving his bedroom and heading for the bathroom where his mother waited for him, running the bath.

***

John contented himself with the fact that his mother let him bathe himself on his own, now, even if she did hover for a little while to make sure he got started. He had only begun feeling awkward being naked around her in the past year or so. It was nice that he had some privacy. Still, it was a sore spot for him, having to undress in her presence and prove that he would actually shampoo and soap himself up. Wanting to put that resentment aside, his mind turned to the tiny pet people in the paper cup in his bedroom. Their lives belonged to him now. They would do whatever he wanted. Maybe he would give them a bath.

He finished his less-than-thorough bath and drained the dirty water from the tub. He toweled himself dry and wrapped his towel around his waist, cinching it in place. Then, he hurried back to his bedroom, shutting the door behind himself. He checked on the cup and was relieved to find his new pets sitting in there where he had left them. As he looked down at the tiny people, wondering what to do next with them, his towel slipped from his hips and dropped to his feet. A burning shame made him crouch down to put it back on again, but he paused as he did, wondering who he was supposed to be hiding his body from. These little pets of his? They were his. He could do whatever he wanted around them… or to them. Who could stop him? Not them.

John smiled. Leaving the damp towel on the floor, he picked up the cup and carried it over to his bed, where he took a seat, his back against the pillow he had propped against his headboard. Knees bent, he set his feet down flat in front of him on the comforter. Then, he poured the two tiny people out in front of him, right before his toes.

He gave them a moment to get their bearings and figure out where he had placed them. They noticed his huge toes, no doubt realizing that even his pinky toes were big enough to crush them. To think that there were people looking at him, fearful that his little toes might flatten them… It excited him in a way he had never felt before. The power… The control… He wanted the little people to fear him even more. He wanted them to feel like helpless little ants.

“Kiss my toes,” John ordered the pair.

They looked at each other, appearing uncertain how to respond.

“You heard me,” he said. “Kiss ‘em.” It was a threat, but he had not considered what the consequence would be if they disobeyed.

Fortunately, that was no problem. After a moment of hesitation, they did it. They actually kissed his toes.

Feeling giddy and a little ticklish, John giggled.

Once he was satisfied that they had given in completely, he decided to escalate his teasing. He withdrew his toes from them and spread his legs slightly. Then, he straightened his legs and set them down on each side of them, trapping them in a canyon of his own flesh.

“Come closer,” he ordered them and watched as they made the relatively long walk from his knees closer to his crotch. “Like what you see?” he asked as they looked up at him.

John wished he had thought to bring his magnifying glass with him when he had sat on the bed, but he did not want to get up and interrupt his playtime with them. Squinting he could see the man staring up at the parts of his body that he was supposed to keep private. He wondered what the man was thinking. Was he comparing their sizes? Was he annoyed to see that a small boy was so much bigger than he was as a grown man? Was he scared to find that his whole body was smaller than some boy’s little bits? All of these thoughts excited John in a way he had never felt before, making his parts swell slightly.

John wanted the pair even closer, he fished them out from between his legs, scooping them up in his hand, and set them down on his nipples, the man on the right one and the woman on the left. Why there? He could not say for sure. There were two of them, and he had two nipples. Maybe that was reason enough.

“Kiss them,” he told them.

No hesitation this time, they started kissing his nipples.

John giggled, again. It felt amazing to have so much control. Thoughts of ways he might torment them filled his mind. He could do anything… anything at all.

“John,” his mother called. “Come down for dinner.”

He sighed. “Okay,” he yelled back.

Picking up the paper cup, he nudged both of them back into their paper prison and returned them to his desk, setting them down beside his magnifying glass. Then, he threw on his pajamas and hurried downstairs to eat, all the while preoccupied with plans for his new pets.

***

John’s mother washed out a jar for him. She even helped him poke holes in the lid. A quick trip to the backyard allowed him to collect a twig and some small leaves. He had told her he had a beetle in a cup upstairs that he wanted to keep in a jar. His mother had believed his lie and had been busy enough with cleaning up after dinner to not watch him take the jar upstairs. She had not noticed him adding some bread crumbs to the jar as well as a few drops of water, dinner for the tiny pair.

He ran upstairs, nearly colliding with his sister at the top of the stairs as she headed for the bathroom.

Jenny said, “Watch it,” but he ignored her, and rushed into his bedroom, shutting the door behind himself.

The tiny people were still in the cup where he had left them. He unscrewed the lid of the jar and tipped the pair inside their new habitat. Then, he screwed the lid back in place and watched them explore their glass prison, locating the water drops and crumbs, which they ingested in tiny sips and bites.

“Why are you so small?” he wondered aloud, but he suspected there would be no answer from them or anyone else. It would likely remain a mystery, but that did not trouble him much. Whatever the reason, he was happy with the situation just the way it was.

John yawned and set them down again on his desk. He rubbed his eyes, feeling a powerful sleepiness take over his mind and body. He retreated to his bed and pulled the sheets and blanket over himself as he got comfortable. Thoughts of his pets ran through his mind as he drifted off into dreams.

***

Cool air blowing by his exposed toes woke John up. He sensed sunlight shining from behind his window blinds, brightening up his room slightly, but he kept his eyes shut, hoping to get more sleep. He reached around to try to pull his sheets and blanket over himself, but they seemed to have fallen off his bed completely.

John sat up and opened his eyes. What he saw seemed… wrong. He shut his eyes again and rubbed them with the heels of his palms as he felt that he was not seeing clearly. However, when he opened his eyes again, things seemed just as wrong.

Although John recognized his familiar bedroom around him, everything seemed absolutely enormous now. The door seemed to be a mile away from him now and stood taller than the tallest skyscraper he had ever seen. He sat upon a soft hill, which he recognized as his own giant pillow, and looked down on the landscape formed by his blanket, and estimated that he could lay two football fields across the mattress with space to spare.

“Oh no!” he said, rising to his feet. “I shrunk… just like they did!”

How could that be? Had his pets been infected with some kind of disease that they had passed on to him? There had to be some connection, but with no idea how they had shrunk, he had no idea how it had happened to him as well… or how he could reverse it. He might just be stuck this small forever.

This horrifying revelation was softened by his curiosity and sense of adventure. He wondered what it would be like exploring this city-sized bedroom, but a short walk to the steeper-sloping edge of his pillow filled him with trepidation about going any further. He feared getting lost and worried that he might never be found if he went too far from his bed. Despite knowing that he was in the safety of his home, he knew that it would be a challenge to traverse it with him the size of an ant. Just getting downstairs to get something to eat could take a day or more. Then, he would have to contend with enormous furniture. It would be like climbing a mountain just to reach the countertops where he might find some meager crumbs.

As he tried to think of what to do, there was a thunderous knocking on his bedroom door.

“Hello!” he yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth, trying to amplify the volume of his relatively quiet voice. “Help me! I’m on my pillow!”

There was no reply, just another series of huge knocks. Then, the massive door swung open, sending a breeze blowing across the room that nearly knocked him over with its power. When he recovered his balance, he was shocked to see a giant girl enter his bedroom, his 4-year-old sister, Jenny, looking bigger than any movie monster he had seen.

The size of her scared him silent. He fought back the urge to run and hide as she walked toward him, but the idea of calling her attention to him was more than he could handle. He just stood there, watching and waiting as she approached, seeming even larger as she came closer. Again, he was reminded of skyscrapers as he stared up at her, his mind struggling to accept that there could be a living being as big as this young girl was.

His giant sister looked around in confusion. “John?” she called for him in a deafeningly loud voice, making him cover his ears. “Where are you?”

“D-down here!” he shouted up at her and waved his arms to get her attention. “Help me, Jenny!”

She showed no sign that she had heard him at all, but it was hard to read her expression as he could not see much of her face other than the bottom of her chin and her nose.

“John?” she said again.

“Down here!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

Jenny turned to look out into the hallway before looking down at his bed. Her eyes glanced in his direction for a moment, but then she looked away. However, after a pause, she turned back to look at him more closely.

“What’s that?” she asked. “A bug?”

John waved his hands. “It’s me!” he yelled. “It’s John.”

She leaned in closer, her enormous face as big as a house, eyes like oversized windows, a mouth like a garage door. The nearer she moved, the harder it became to even recognize all those features as a face. He could not take in all of her at once, but he became uncomfortably aware of every blemish and microscopic imperfection in her skin, freckles like broad splotches of paint, short white hairs covering her cheeks, crusty eye sand at the corners of her eyes, boulder like boogers in her nose. It was a repulsive and terrifying sight. Still, he would much rather be discovered by his monstrous sister than be lost forever as an ant-sized boy in his huge house.

Those enormous eyes focused their deep dark irises on him, and he felt her smelly morning breath blow past him like a steamy breeze.

“Wait,” she said, in barely more than a whisper, which still was painfully loud to his tiny ears. “That’s not a bug. John? Is that you?”

He waved his arms up at her. “It’s me!” he said. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

A hand the size of a barge swung down to him and was set down on the pillow beside him.

“Get on my hand,” she said. “I can see you better if I can hold you up.”

He hesitated.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t hurt you.”

He knew that she meant him no harm, but he was reluctant to trust a giant 4-year-old to keep him safe, clumsy as she could be. Still, he had no other options. He climbed the rough skin and took a seat on her palm. He had to steady himself with both hands as she rapidly lifted her hand like an express elevator and swung him around. When he stopped moving, he realized that Jenny had taken a seat on his bed and was holding him up to her face, just above her mouth.

“What happened to you?” she asked him.

He started to shout out the whole story of finding the tiny people by the ant hill, but before he had gotten more than a few sentences into it, she stopped him, saying, “Sorry, I can’t hear your voice at all.”

His shoulders slumped as he realized that he would need to figure out some other way of communicating with her.

Seeing his disappointment, she said, “It’s okay. I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry.”

Curling her giant fingers slightly above him to protect him, she stood up and walked out of his room, causing a strong breeze to blow past him as she moved. Again, he focused on steadying himself on her palm.

“Mom!” she called, her voice booming loudly above him.

Their giant mother was in the bathroom, pumping a plunger into the toilet bowl.

“Did you put something in here?” their mother asked. “It’s overflowing.”

Jenny shook her head, but John knew that her silence was a good sign that she was withholding something.

“Mom,” she said. “It’s John. You see-”

“Not now,” their mother said, not looking up from the toilet. “Is your brother awake?”

“Yes,” Jenny said. “But, he’s-”

“Go upstairs and play with him for a little while. I need to focus on unclogging this. I’ll come get you both when I’m ready to make you breakfast.”

“But, Mom, he’s-”

“Just go play with him,” their mother repeated as she started pumping the plunger again. “I can’t deal with you right now. Tell him he has to take care of you for now.”

Jenny sighed. “Fine, we’ll go play upstairs.” She turned and started the long walk back upstairs.

John groaned in frustration, having been so close to rescue only to be overlooked and ignored.

“It’s okay,” Jenny said as they reached her bedroom. “You can have lots of fun with my toys while we wait for Mommy.”

Jenny set him down on the second floor of her dollhouse. Looking around, he was depressed to realize that he was still tiny even in comparison to the toy-sized furnishings of a dollhouse. Jenny stood a doll up next to him, to which he stood only as high as its ankle.

“Look, Barbra,” Jenny said to her doll. “I found a new doll for you to play with.”

The doll was laid on the floor on its stomach, its head just above him, as if the doll were going to play with him as a doll.

“Let’s play,” Jenny said, cheerfully.

***

Some time later, John was panting and sweating through the fabric of his pajamas. Jenny had demanded he jump and climb and run around to entertain her doll by play-acting as its own doll. After growing bored with that particular game, Jenny had relocated him and her doll to the carpet at her feet, where she had ordered him to climb her toes and hop from one to another like an obstacle course. It was a challenge to make these leaps as her toes were as large as vans compared to him. Still, he feared what she might do if he disappointed her. He doubted she would want to hurt him. However, being the size of a small mountain, she could easily crush him by accident. Even her pinky toe could squash him. So, wanting to keep her happy, he ran and jumped and tried to ignore the smell of her enormous feet, all the while he grew more exhausted, feeling more and more like a tormented bug than a sibling. Jenny paid no mind to his suffering, she just cheered him on and giggled when he stumbled on her twitching toes.

“Jenny?” their mother called from the hallway. “Where are you two?”

“In my bedroom,” Jenny replied, standing up without considering how that would affect her brother. He tumbled from her toe to the carpet where he lay for a few moments until he could get his bearings again and stand up on the uneven fibers of fabric beneath him. The floor shook again and again as if momentary earthquakes were rolling past him over and over. When his mother appeared in the massive space of the doorframe, he realized that the earthquakes had been her footsteps. Jenny stood there, a slightly smaller giant than their mother, looking up expectantly at the larger giant.

“Where’s your brother?” their mother asked.

Jenny looked worried as she realized she had lost track of him on the floor. “He was just over by the dollhouse.”

Their mother walked towards the dollhouse, cargo-ship-sized feet stomping down closer and closer to John as she looked around for a human-sized boy. He stood there beneath her, trembling as the world shook, waving his hands above his head, desperately trying to get her attention.

“Mom!” he cried, although he knew his voice had no hope of reaching her. “I’m down here! Stop!”

Her foot landed nearby, sending both an earthquake and a breeze his way, powerful enough to knock him over. Then, he watched helplessly as her other foot swung forward and hung in the air above him for a moment before lowering down on top of him, pressing him flat beneath her sole. The weight increased until the air was squeezed from his lungs, and he lost consciousness, believing as he did that he would not wake up again.

***

John did wake up. Blinking his eyes, he looked around and realized that he was lying on his bed again, which seemed to be back to its regular size. The rest of the room around him seemed to have shrunk down to its normal scale as well. He tried to make sense of what he had just experienced. He vividly recalled the whole ordeal from waking up on his pillow to being crushed beneath his own mother’s foot. How could that be, though, if he was unharmed and grown up to his regular size again?

He sat up and got out of his bed to check on his tiny pet people in the glass jar on his desk. Gazing through the glass, he was surprised to find only a pair of ants inside, crawling around on the leaves and twigs he had placed within. There was no sign of any tiny humans. John struggled to explain this. He felt awake now, but he had felt awake when he had found the tiny humans and when he had been tiny as well. Had any of that really happened?

“Was it all a dream?” John asked, wondering if he had ever really been awake his whole life.