"Well that was weird," Laura said as she hit the power button. She sat on the edge of the phone and looked over at Ray. "I wonder what she meant by that?" Ray awoke and stretched, yawning softly as he slowly opened his eyes. For a moment, he gazed up at the ceiling and thought how small the light fixture on the ceiling appeared. Maybe I should change it once I call those folks for the antidote for Laura, he thought. A cool breeze touched his skin and Ray shivered, "Brrrr! I must have forgotten t-to turn off the A/C l-last night, it's f-freezing in here!" Just then, Ray remembered that he'd gone to sleep wearing the clothes he'd worn the previous day . . . but now he wasn't wearing any clothes.
"Wha-What the hell?" he gasped, standing up and looking around. Glancing behind him, Ray's eyes grew wide as he saw the "Polo" tag attached to the back of his shirt . . . a shirt that he now found himself standing inside of because he was . . . shrunk?
"Oh n-no!" he said, realizing what had happened. "I left th-the perfume with Laura l-last night. She m-must have used it t-to shrink me!"
"Now you know how it feels," he heard Laura call out from above him.
Looking up, Ray could see Laura sitting on the arm of the couch, the perfume bottle sitting nearby. Blushing at his sudden lack of clothes, Ray pulled the heavy fabric of his shirt in front of himself to cover his nakedness. Laura giggled softly, obviously amused by his embarrassment, and hopped down to the cushion beside him.
"Pl-Please, don't come any c-closer!" he called out.
"Or what?" Laura said menacingly as she walked around the bundle of clothes that Ray had shrunk out of, and was now trying to hide inside of. "Are you enjoying this, Ray? Is this fun for you now? I must admit, I actually enjoyed watching you shrink last night. Pity that four inches appears to be the smallest you can get, because if I had my way, I would have shrunk you so small that you'd have been lucky if I could have seen you."
Ray sank down and hung his head. "I-I deserve th-that after what I d-did," he said sadly. "If I'd kn-known what the perfume would do, I d-don't think I would ha-have given it to you."
Laura climbed to the top of the clothes and looked down at him, "Oh really? You sure seemed to enjoy the results the first time, not to mention using it three more times to shrink me smaller."
"I-I know," he said, feeling smaller than he really was, "I go-got excited and l-let it get the best of me. And wh-when you were struggling and tr-trying to call for help, I didn't know wha-what else to do." For a minute, Ray was silent, and then he looked up at her, his eyes filled with an honesty that surprised her, "I'm s-sorry, Laura. I was g-going to call the com-company today and ask them to send an antidote or so-something. There's g-got to be a wa-way to reverse this; I mean, why would th-they make something that sh-shrinks someone if there was no way to reverse it?"
The anger that Laura felt for Ray suddenly disappeared, and she found herself looking at him in a different light. "Ray, are you serious?"
Ray nodded, "I-I tried calling them la-last night before going to b-bed, but they're lo-located in Michigan, so they were already c-closed. I figured th-that if I agreed to pay for some sort of express sh-shipping, they would have gotten it h-here in a day and I could have r-returned you to normal, that w-way, you would have only had t-to endure one more day shrunk. Although I wo-wouldn't bla-blame you if you turned m-me into the cops or something when you returned to n-normal." Sighing softly, Laura heard him say, more to himself than to her, "I only wa-wanted you to notice m-me."
Dammit! Why do I feel so bad for him, Laura thought as she looked at Ray sitting with his head in his hands behind the curtain of fabric that he'd used to cover himself. He started this mess in the first place, so why do I feel like I've kicked a puppy or something?
"Look," she began, "let me spray some of this stuff on your clothes so you have something to wear, then we can try and call them, okay?"
Ray looked surprised to hear her talking to him civilly, "B-But how? We're so-so small that they probably wouldn't even hear us."
"Ray, we've got to try," Laura said firmly. "If we don't, we're gonna spend the rest of our lives this small, and I don't know about you, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life this way. Besides, when we started to miss payments on our places, the creditors would probably come in here and sell them, even while we were still here, right?"
"You-You're right," he admitted. "Ca-Can you . . . I mean, wo-wo-would you turn around for a m-minute?"
Laura grinned, pleasantly surprised at Ray's modesty and turned around as she heard him rustling in his clothes. When he indicated it was all right, she turned around and saw him standing inside his clothes. "Do you realize how ridiculous you look standing there?" she asked, giggling softly.
"Pr-Probably a lot more than you d-did when I shrank you," he replied.
"What do you mean?" When he didn't respond, she asked again, "What do you mean, Ray?"
"We-Well . . . it's j-just that . . . you lo-looked . . . well, you looked s-so cute," he admitted from under his shirt.
Laura gasped softly, surprised by his compliment, "Thank you . . . I think. Look, stay still, I'm going to spray your shirt first, all right?"
"Okay."
It took her a minute to drag the perfume bottle in place, but after a few squirts of the perfume, she sat back and watched as the fabric began to shrink. Gradually, she could see one of Ray's arms poking through the sleeve, and after a couple more squirts, the shirt fit reasonably well, although she avoided shrinking it further in order to give him a measure of dignity. A few more squirts and his pants gradually shrank down until he was able to button them up and look presentable, although the cuffs still covered his feet.
"Th-Thank you, Laura," he said quietly as he bent over and rolled the cuffs. "I kn-know it's more than I deserve."
"Look, let's just focus on getting back to normal, okay?"
After stowing the perfume away, Ray helped Laura climb up to the top of the couch and leapt over to the coffee table where the phone lay in the charger. With Laura's help, Ray was able to push the phone over and dialed the numbers from memory. After all, it wasn't hard to remember a number like 1-800-SWSHRINK.
As they heard the ringing of the phone, Ray looked over at Laura who stood by the top of the phone, "Y-You tell me what they s-say, and I'll t-tell them what we need, okay?"
"Got it, oh! They just picked up," she said.
"SW Perfume, how can I help you," a tiny voice came over the receiver.
Laura prompted Ray to begin. "Yes, he-hello?"
"Yes, I hear you, can I help you?" the female voice replied.
Ray sighed in relief as Laura indicated that the person on the other end could hear him, "Y-Yes, I have a problem. Ummm, my fr-friend and I used too much of the perfume and we're kinda sh-shrunk down to four inches. Is th-there an antidote or something t-to reverse the effects?"
"Absolutely sir, we realized that sometimes these things happen."
The next few minutes were spent with the woman taking down Ray's address, but something sounded weird as the woman asked, "We'll have someone out there immediately to help you out. You should expect them in the next five or six hours."
"Th-That fast?" Ray asked in surprise. "I-I thought you all w-were located in Michigan?"
"Well, we have sales representatives across the country, sir. We just let the closest one know that you need assistance and he arrives in a few hours," she replied.
"Wow! That's a relief! I-I thought we would be s-stuck this way for a day or two."
"Not at all, sir. Luckily, we made sure to limit the size to which people would shrink to four inches. Initial tests were somewhat unexpected and we had trouble finding some of our volunteers when they overdosed."
Ray looked over at Laura, his eyes widening as she repeated what the woman said, "Oh m-my gosh, that's horrible! I hope nothing ha-happened."
"Not at all," the woman answered casually. For a minute, the only sound Laura indicated she could hear was that of keyboard keys clicking. "Ah, there we go! You should have a visit from one of our representatives by the end of the day, say 8 p.m. your time at the latest. He has a few other stops before he arrives, but I can guarantee you that he'll arrive by then."
"Thank g-goodness," Ray sighed. "We're lo-looking forward to returning to normal."
"Well, he should be there soon," she said.
"H-How will we be able to l-let him in?" Ray asked.
"Oh don't worry," the woman said with a giggle, "he'll be able to get in. Thank you for calling sir."
<CLICK>
"Well that was weird," Laura said as she hit the power button. She sat on the edge of the phone and looked over at Ray. "I wonder what she meant by that?"
"I-I don't know," Ray admitted. "I guess we'll f-find out, but at least we'll b-be back to normal again." Between the two of them, they were able to put the phone back in the charger.
Once they finished, Laura turned to Ray and asked, "So what do we do in the meantime?"
Shrugging, Ray said, "Well, th-there's a room I go to whenever I-I want to spend time just thinking. If y-you'd like, I could show it t-to you."
"Sure, why not, it's not like I'm doing anything else," she said as he helped her down off the table.
Once Ray had jumped down, he led her across the carpet to a room just off from his bedroom. Laura was surprised when Ray admitted, "This u-used to be the bedroom, but I found I n-needed more room for my work." As he pushed the door open, Laura gasped in surprise.
The room was an art room! Each wall was filled with paintings of various scenes, some from around the neighborhood, of a couple walking hand in hand, of children playing in a sandbox, even of the great oak tree at the end of the street. Canvases lay in a corner, waiting for whatever images Ray wished to paint. Some of his paints sat on a desk nearby, along with brushes and sketches of various images that Ray must have seen that he wanted to paint. At the other end of the room, a great bay window gave an unobstructed view of the neighborhood, obviously how he had been able to see so much.
For hours, Ray led Laura from painting to painting, explaining what each one was, how he had painted it, and some of the inspiration he drew from each one. As they continued around the room, Laura was amazed at the beauty Ray had captured in each painting, the emotion that he had infused into each character. As she turned to the painting of the great oak, Laura felt a peace settle over her and she turned to Ray in awe. It also seemed that the more they talked, the less he stuttered, as if he grew more comfortable speaking to her as they went along. In some cases, he was able to complete whole sentences without one stuttered word.
"I get the most pleasure out of this one," he admitted softly, smiling at her expression. "I-I guess you like it too?"
"Ray, it's . . . it's beautiful," Laura looked at him with a sense of wonder, realizing just how little of him she had actually known. She felt bad as she realized that maybe it wasn't that he was weird, she just hadn't been willing to give him a chance.
"When they get us back to n-normal, you can have it . . ." Ray ducked his head, "th-that is, if y-you even want it, since it was something of mine."
"I . . ." Laura's mouth hung open as she stared in disbelief. How could I have missed getting to know this guy, she thought to herself. "Ray, I couldn't," she whispered, "I . . ."
"Pl-Please," Ray begged, his stuttering growing more pronounced, "con-consider it m-my wa-way of apologizing for being a j-j-jerk. I c-can paint another one, r-really. After all, i-it's what I d-do for a living anyway."
"You're a painter? I . . . I never knew," Laura began to regret how she'd treated Ray all this time. Three years and not one time did I ever set foot in his house, not one time did I ever say a kind word to him. Look what I've been missing. Turning away, Laura saw a huge tarp hanging over a painting in the corner, "Oh! What's this one!"
Ray's face turned white as she rushed over to the tarp, "N-No, please Laura, do-don't p-pull the tarp! It's no-nothing, really, just a silly drawing I'd been working on."
"Nonsense!" she giggled, reaching for the tarp, "C'mon, let me see. I promise I won't make fun of it." With that, she pulled on the bottom of the tarp and it slipped off the painting.
"No!" Ray cried, even as the tarp fell to the floor and Laura looked up and gasped at what she saw.