Eyes Shut and Other Stories by Danielle Epting

Author:Danielle Epting [Epting, Danielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The next day, Eve found her husband sitting at the kitchen table, with his legs swinging back and forth. He had shrunk again, to half the size of the day before.

She heard Nate’s footsteps on the stairs and watched his blond curls bounce up and down on his head as he skipped into the kitchen. He stopped short at the sight of his father.

“Daddy’s a little boy!” Nate yelled, pointing at his father.

“It’s that damn mattress,” Richard said. “My back has been bothering me.”

“We have to go to the doctor,” Eve said.

“No doctors!” he yelled.

Eve thought it better that Richard stay in the house, so he didn’t scare anyone who may see him like this. She went to work and dropped Nate at school, hoping her husband would be feeling better by the time she returned home.

“Richard!” she said when she got home. She searched the living room, their bedroom, the bathroom, and the kitchen where she had left him swinging his legs earlier that same morning.

She swore she could hear him calling her name, but she searched and searched and could not find her husband anywhere. She stopped and listened as closely as she could to the faint sound of her husband. She traced the sound into their bedroom where she found her husband in the middle of their bed jumping up and down.

She screamed out in shock at the sight of him. While she had been gone during the day, Richard had shrunk again, down to nearly the size of a pen. He was flailing his arms and legs and seemed to be shouting out but she could not hear a word he was saying.

She bent her head down and tilted her ear towards his tiny body.

“Pick me up!” he was saying.

She lifted her husband’s body into the palm of her hand.

“Watch my back!” he yelled.

She held him at eye level and he stood in the middle of her palm with his hands on his hips. He shuffled around a bit in her palm, leaving her with a tickling sensation.

“You really ought to moisturize more. It’s a bit rough up here,” he said.

“What happened?” Eve said.

“Nothing. I’m feeling just fine,” he said.

Eve heard the sound of the school bus pulling onto their street and tossed her husband back onto the bed.

“Hey! Careful!” he shouted, though he was no longer audible to Eve without being so close to her ear.

“Nate can’t see you this way,” she shouted at him.

She opened up the top drawer of their dresser that was lined with pairs of Richard’s socks, now twice his size. She picked him up off the bed and dropped him into the drawer.

“Where’s daddy?” Nate asked while eating a piece of toast with peanut butter and banana. He was sitting at the kitchen table, swinging his legs back and forth.

“Oh, he’s fine. He had to go to the doctor for his back,” said Eve.

The next day Richard demanded to be carried around by Eve.

“Put me in your purse. You won’t even know I’m there,” he said.

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