The Burglar

With a sleepy yawn, Sean turned off the TV. He had seen the "Incredible Shrinking Man" many times, but still wanted to watch it, no matter what. With a stretch and another yawn, he padded around the living room, promising himself to get to bed soon. He put away some snacks and then, decided to peer at the stars before heading to bed.

The night was cold out on his back porch. He stepped on the dewy grass and took in the view of the millions of stars visible on this clear, cold night. He took a deep breath and then as deeply, exhaled, feeling the cold air enter his lungs, deeply. He shook his head and with sleep stealing over him, padded back into the house, ready for bed.

What totally escaped his notice were the millions of fine, dust-like particles suspended in the air, each slightly radioactive, each glowing with its own dim light, and the millions of them that Sean now inhaled.

Thru the night, Sean had weird dreams. He felt as if he were falling, falling into a deep pit. But it was no typical dream cave or pit. It was soft, yet dark, and warms, almost suffocatingly warm.

A few times Sean awoke, but there was just the dim darkness of the room around him, nothing extraordinary, tho it was darker than usual: no streets lights, and sounds seems terribly distant. But his mind was groggy with half-sleep and didn't comprehend anything unusual

Sean awoke with a start. There was no pre-dawn light, there was no sunlight, there was just darkness. He felt fine, fully rested, but couldn't understand why there was no light. He tried to get out of bed, and found he wasn't IN bed: he was on some soft surface, it was fuzzy, like a huge rug; and still there was no light. He stood up and could glimpse a huge cavernous roof above him, then there, dimly in the distane there was a light, dim and weak, as if sunlight were filtered thru many many layers of cloth. He made for it, walking and sometimes stumbling on the uneven ground. It was like someone had carpeted the inside of the cave with shag carpet.

It didn't take long get closer to the light when Sean passed out of the cave he was in to an even larger cave. Then he comprehended! He had shrunk! During the night he had shrunk and was now a miniature of himself, in his own bed. Those caves he just came out of were his own pajamas, and the roof over head was now simply the underside of his sheets in bed. He made for the light and quickly dug and tossed the sheets aside, with as much strength as his reduced body could muster. Crawling and even fighting his way, he finally made it to the outside of the sheets and breathed fresh air

He was standing in his own bed, but now he was only an inch, maybe an inch and a half tall! The pillows loomed like mountains, the sheets and blankets like a range of mountains. He'd shrunk overnight and was now his own incredible shrinking man!

Mustering his strength again, he started to climb upon the pillows, to make himself more visible and hopefully scan the area and think of a way getting down from his bed; and then crossing the carpeted floor was another challenge he faced.

His musings were interrupted by the crash of shattering glass from somewhere in the house, then the creak of a window being thrown open and the tread of heavy footsteps...

"What the devil?" thought Sean. Then the sounds of objects being overturned, things being thrown about: someone rummaging thru his house, looking for his valuables! The heavy tread of foot steps came closer. Then a man appeared in the room. He was tall, even by normal standards, with a beard and moustache of dark hair. He was wearing a dark green army coat and ragged black jeans. Sean didn't like the way he looked. He had a dirty look to him, like he'd been on the streets for a while.

Of course the man didn't seen Sean at first, being so tiny. But Sean anxious to make any human contact started to jump and way from his perch atop the pillows. At first the man didn't hear, he kept rummaging around the bedroom, overturning things, looking for the valuables of the house. Finally the squeak that was Sean's voice, and Sean's own tiny form caught his attention. The man's eyes bugged out and he came closer, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.

"Help, Help, help!" Sean shouted, waving his hands. "You've got to help me!"

The man scooped Sean up in his hand and held him at face level, peering and squinting at him, wondering what he'd found.

"Can you talk?" asked the man, more curious than anything.

"Sure I can talk! I'm just like you, but some accident last night caused me to shrink! I dunno what happened, but you have to help me!" Sean explained.

"Help you?" the man almost yelled, the force of his breath causing Sean to stumble. "How am I going to help you? I can barely feed myself!" the man declared. "Thinking of such," he said, getting a shrewed look on his face. "You must live here, this must be your house! And it'd be a lot better if I just took what I needed and left!"

Sean just nodded, not sure how to answer the man. "Sure take what you want, but you have to help me get back to normal!" Sean said, almost yelling to let the man hear him.

"But if you were to disappear, there'd be nobody to report this and I could get away Scot-free. it'd be days before any one investigated this and I'd be long gone from here!" The man declared, as if thinking his thought aloud.

The man looked at Sean with a gleam in his eye, a look that Sean didn't like at all. The man's eyes wandered around as if he were thinking, considering his options, deciding on his best course of action. "And if there's no body, I can't be called guilty of murder."

Suddenly, the man's mouth opened wide and Sean felt himself thrown forward, landing with a soft "plop" on the wet tougue of the giant man. Sean struggled to get out of his mouth, but the giant pushed him back in, head first, pushing and sucking and finally drawing Sean into his mouth. All that was left was Sean's feet, sticking out over his lips. And with another push with his fingers, Sean was in the darkness of the man's mouth, resting on the wide, pink tongue of the giant who had had just eaten him. He lay gasping for breath for a moment, unsure what to do. Apparently the man had the same thought, as nothing happened.

Then with a lurch, the man's tongue arched up and Sean was swallowed: swallowed whole, thrown down the man's throat head first. The muscles of the throat and esphoagus worked rhythmically and forcefully to carry Sean down into the dark pit of giant's stomach.

In a few moments, Sean was deposited softly into the floor of the man's stomach. It was utterly dark, yet warm here. Suddenly, there was a swaying, as the man went about Sean's house, still rummaging for something to steal.

Sean wasn't sure what what to do. He just sat down and listened to the sounds around him. The utter darkness of the man's body was all emcompassing. If Sean listened closely, he could hear the soft sigh of breathing and the heavy, thump-thump-thump of the giant's heart. Listening even more closely, he could hear the rushing of blood thru veins and arteries, the grumble of various organs producing bodily fluids and preforming their functions.

Sean wondered what was going to become of him, here in the giant's stomach. He waited and waited, and so, barely noticed his own body being dissolved, slowly but surely being incorporated into the very matter of the giant all around him. He barely noticed he's lost the sensations of his lower limbs, of his feet and legs, then his arms and hands, his torso, and finally his head: they were all slowly digested and became part of the giant man who'd eaten him.

Sean became no more. His essence and body became part of the giant around him, his body becoming part of the giants, his mind and consciousness becoming part of the giants. Sean was no more: he had shrunk away and became part of the larger world.

The End

 

12.11.07