The Miniature Wife
The truth of the matter is: I have managed to make my wife very, very small.
This was done unintentionally. This was an accident.
I work in miniaturization and it is, therefore, my job to make everything smaller. I have developed a number of processes, which members of my staff then test. They will, let’s say, make a smaller hatbox in order to test the process that I used to make a smaller hat. That is simply an example, of course. We do not actually make hats or hatboxes. I cannot disclose to anyone, not even to my wife, exactly what I make, or how small I make it. 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.
And let me say this, too: I never bring work home with me, tempting though it might be. I have set strict rules for myself, the same rules I enforce with my workers. I can hardly afford to be seen as the employer who abuses his power. I do not make the boxes in my attic smaller to make room for more Christmas decorations. I have never made our winter wardrobe small in the summer or our summer wardrobe small for the winter. I rake and pile and bag the autumn leaves like anyone else does.
Still. There it is: my wife, shrunk to the height of a coffee mug.
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) is that I don’t quite know how it happened. Otherwise, I would gladly reverse the process, as I have done time and again at the office. 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.
The irony of this is not lost on me, rest assured. 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. Hence the dollhouse, something solid, fashioned of wood, and constructed with her in mind. 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. I have also, claiming allergies, given the cat to a friend and have refused to let the bird out of its cage. 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.
We were in the kitchen when it happened. It happened and then 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’ve learned, since then, to listen for a different register of voice. I have also fashioned small ear-cups that fit nicely around my head and allow me to pick up softer sounds.
So: She screamed, but I couldn’t hear her. Then she took her purse off her shoulder and threw it at me. She threw it hard, so it seemed, but a person the size of a coffee mug can only do so much. Unable to hit me, then, and with nothing else in reach, she attacked herself, or, rather, her clothing. In a matter of seconds, she’d torn off her skirt, ripped the shirt off her back, thrashed at her panty hose, and broken the heels off her shoes. Then she grabbed her purse again and dumped out everything in it and, there, found a lighter, and, 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.
It was quite a display.
Needless to say, her clothes were ruined.
And my wife, who was very small, was now naked as well.
The thing is: My wife’s condition has begun to affect my work.
On two occasions, colleagues have remarked on the sloppiness of my appearance. Generally, I am a very neatly dressed, well-shaved man.
I want to but can’t tell them that my wife is a strong climber. That she is resourceful beyond my imagination.
I want to tell them that she has fashioned ropes. That she has forged small tools.
I want to tell them:
To be honest with you, Jim, my face is unevenly shaved because my three-inch wife has climbed up the porcelain sink, hoisted herself up to the medicine cabinet, opened the heavy mirrored door, and has dulled all of my razor blades.
Truth be told, Paul, my miniaturized wife removed every other button on each of my work shirts yesterday while I was in the office. And if we look closely, I mean really closely, with one of our best magnifying glasses, we could probably see her tiny teeth marks in the thread.
I want to tell them this, but I cannot. Instead I spend more time in my office.
And I’ve had to suspend my open-door policy.
She is not unattractive, my wife, in her miniaturized state. Her best features — her waist, the round curve of her hips, her shapely legs and fine eyebrows — are there still, undiminished by her diminished size. But what’s more — and more surprising — her harder, more difficult to reconcile features have softened. The hard, reproachful look in her eyes. The often angry or disappointed set of her jaw. Her rather large feet. All of her should have reduced proportionately, and maybe it all has and this is but a trick of the mind, but one night, as she slept in the small makeshift bed I made for her — matchbox, tufts of cotton, stitched squares of felt — I crept up on her and spied on her with a magnifying glass — I own quite a number of very good glasses — and it seemed to me that something in the process of miniaturization had enhanced the look of her.
As much as I hate to admit it, I felt some pride in this. One of the many complaints we face in my office is that in the process of miniaturizing a thing, we rub out the details of it. For the past two years now, we’ve been working diligently to develop — across all of our miniaturization processes — an ability to retain the sharp and necessary details, the inherent beauty, the power of a thing’s function even when shrunk down to the size of a cup, a blade of grass, a grain of sand.