Manuel Gonzales - The Miniature Wife - and Other Stories

I will not be here for the more realistic ending, of course. How could I be? Though not yet the oldest person on the plane, I am not far from it, either, and it’s not likely that I’ll live as long as the Copilot, who seems to be in excellent health. We can hear him perform his calisthenics every morning after he wakes and every night before he goes to sleep, a regimen he must have learned from the Pilot. When we glimpse it, his face has a ruddy glow.

As I imagine it, everyone else will have gone by then, too. Even now there is only the one flight attendant left, and though younger than many of us, she has long since stopped taking her drops, and her once pretty face is gaunt and withered. Soon, then, no members of the original crew will be left, and there will be only the seven other passengers who remain. And once we have all died and there is only the Copilot, what then? It’s unlikely that he will land — I doubt he even knows how. But he might become lonely. He might tire of the Dallas skyline, which has changed not at all since we first took off, and seek some new skyscape. Flying straight ahead for some time, east or west, toward sunrise or sunset, perhaps finding himself soon over the Pacific Ocean, wondering what this world is that he’s flown himself to, blue above and blue below, until, following the sunset each day, he eventually finds the Asian continent, or perhaps Africa, and then Europe, and then the Atlantic, and the Eastern Seaboard, until he reaches Dallas again, at which time perhaps he will turn left, or right, or continue on straight again, circling the world the way he has for so long circled Dallas. I can’t see how it will or should matter to me, since I will have long since died by then, but at times I feel sorry for the boy, sorrier for him than for us. He will fly and fly and fly, until he one day slumps over in his captain’s chair, the dead weight of his body pushing the controls forward. I can feel my stomach lurch even as I imagine the nose dipping, the wings turning downward. The plane will break through the clouds, condensation beading up along the windows like rain. The world will rush past below, cars and buildings and trees and people becoming larger by the moment, as if they are rising to meet us, until at last, with great and terrible speed, the Copilot finally lands.

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.