\nWhile removing the old green wallpaper in the master bedroom, Gil discovered a window. The glass surface, flush with the surrounding plaster, had been perfectly concealed. If not for the renovation–specifically Vickie\u2019s desire to spruce up their room with an attractive floral print–he might never have found it.\n<\/p>\n
\nPerplexed, Gil scraped away the remaining wallpaper with a putty knife, revealing the oddly-sized pane: maybe three feet wide, eight inches high.\n<\/p>\n
\nOn the other side of the glass, obscured by a smear of wallpaper paste, a warm light glowed. Retrieving a sponge, Gil scrubbed the glass clean and looked inside.\n<\/p>\n
\nBeyond was a tiny lighted room. An open-plan apartment, furnished with a doll-sized dinette set, a sofa the length of his hand, a kitchen and refrigerator and a marble island with stools. Bright paisley wallpaper.\n<\/p>\n
\nSquinting, he could make out spines of books on the shelf, a saucepan on the stove. Off the kitchen, next to a coat rack, an exterior door with a bolt lock, a box for buzzing in visitors. The floor plan of the apartment seemed to extend farther back. A hall stretched off the living room. At the end, a door opened onto a bathroom in blue tile.\n<\/p>\n
\nThat didn\u2019t make sense. On the other side of the wall was Gil and Vickie\u2019s laundry room. There was no tiny bathroom in there.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe was puzzling over this when the apartment\u2019s door opened and a tiny woman walked in.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
\nThe old green wallpaper was just the latest eyesore in a renovation that had dragged on with no end in sight.\n<\/p>\n
\nA year ago, when Gil and Vickie bought it, the house glittered with possibility. A single-story rancher outside town on a two-acre lot surrounded by fields of hay. Two bedrooms, one bath, attached garage. Vickie had imagined a kid playing in the yard, a rope swing, barbecues and birthday parties. But now the house resembled the shit hole it was. Shingles curled up like picked scabs. The floors, perforated with rot, sometimes gave way underfoot. When they ran the kitchen faucet, water backed up in the tub.\n<\/p>\n
\nLast night, while Vickie was reading in bed and Gil deleted junk mail from his phone, the wallpaper–up in the corner, along the ceiling\u2019s edge–came unstuck, drooping down like a big leaf.\n<\/p>\n
\nVickie, looking at it, wondered aloud, \u201cWhy did I ever agree to buy this dump?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nGil glanced up, distracted. \u201cNo worries. I\u2019ll add it to the list.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe list?\u201d She laughed a little. “You\u2019re kidding, right?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nGil\u2019s to-do list was a sore point. After he lost his job with the county, he and Vickie made a deal: they could get by–just–on her teacher\u2019s salary, and he would fix up the house.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut renovating an old house is a big job. Gil, it turned out, simply wasn\u2019t up to it. He\u2019d start projects–the kitchen cabinets, lighting fixtures, a new floor in the den–and they\u2019d languish, half-done.\n<\/p>\n
\nVickie wanted to know where his days went. He didn\u2019t know what to say. The truth was, he mostly just watched TV. Talk shows, the Shopping Network, this program where contestants guessed the weight of farm animals. His favorites were the soaps. The TV\u2019s glowing surface became a portal into worlds in which beautiful and privileged people routinely faked their deaths, staged miraculous returns, plotted byzantine schemes–usually to gain revenge or acquire a fabulous inheritance. Sometimes to win love.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019ll get to it,\u201d Gil insisted.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThis isn\u2019t how things were supposed to go,\u201d she said wearily. \u201cWe had a deal.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cCome on. Let\u2019s not fight.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cFight?\u201d She looked at him–not angrily, not exactly, but with a kind of sorrow. This look frightened Gil more than if she\u2019d shouted, thrown a lamp. \u201cI haven\u2019t had the energy to fight in\u2014\u201d she lifted her eyes, thinking \u201c–in I don\u2019t know how long.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019ll replace the wallpaper tomorrow,\u201d he said. \u201cI promise.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOkay,\u201d she said, but really she meant we\u2019ll see.<\/em> Setting her book on the bedside table, she clicked off the lamp and rolled onto her side, her back to him. That was how she slept.\n<\/p>\n \nThe next morning, after Vickie left for work, Gil moved their stuff to the smaller bedroom down the hall, bending the queen-sized mattress through the door. Then he tarped the floor and, following an online video, prepared an adhesive remover, which had the texture of honey and smelled like gasoline.\n<\/p>\n \nHe\u2019d show her.\n<\/p>\n \n \nGil didn\u2019t tell Vickie about the tiny apartment, or the tiny woman, or her tiny husband, who showed up late in the day, tossing his briefcase on the counter and grousing about work. Or that\u2019s what Gil figured the man was complaining about. Through the glass, he couldn\u2019t actually make out what was said.\n<\/p>\n \nThe tiny people were three, maybe four inches tall.\n<\/p>\n \nThe husband fixed himself a drink in the kitchen. The tiny woman stood at the kitchen counter, listening, in heels, her hair done.\n<\/p>\n \nNeither of them once looked at Gil.\n<\/p>\n \nThat evening, Gil tacked a blue tarp up over the wall, covering the window. He\u2019d make up some excuse.\n<\/p>\n \nWhen Vickie\u2019s headlights turned into the driveway, he went to meet her in the kitchen–and discovered Otto\u2019s latest mess.\n<\/p>\n \nOtto had dragged a robin through the cat door, the linoleum speckled with blood and feathers. The bird\u2019s tiny remaining eye stared. Otto sat hunched, looking huge in his luxurious white fur, tail swishing back and forth. He studied the dead bird, as if divining the entrails.\n<\/p>\n \nVickie, swinging the door shut, surveyed the scene. \u201cDamn cat,\u201d she said good-naturedly. She unspooled paper towels from a roll while Gil broomed the carcass into a dustpan.\n<\/p>\n \nAfter mopping up, Vickie lifted Otto. He twisted around to kiss her lips with little flicks of his sandpaper tongue.\n<\/p>\n \nGil, repulsed, looked away.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMake progress on the bedroom?\u201d she asked.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYeah, but it might take longer than I thought.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLike how long?\u201d She nuzzled the top of Otto\u2019s head. \u201cA couple days?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cA week,\u201d he said, watching her. \u201cAt least a week.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nVickie looked unsurprised. With all the cabinet doors missing and their canned beans and cereal boxes exposed, it looked like someone had pulled their kitchen\u2019s teeth.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019m exhausted.\u201d She set Otto down and headed toward the bedroom. \u201cI better get to my grading.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nGil followed Vickie into the hall. From the ceiling, a bulb dangled on a wire and emitted a retina-burning glare. She paused at the master bedroom as if she might pull open the door and take a look, but she just moved on.\n<\/p>\n \nLater, when Gil climbed into bed, he knew Vickie was still awake from the rhythm of her breathing. Lately she\u2019d had trouble sleeping, and her not sleeping often kept him from sleeping. He\u2019d lay awake, trying to puzzle out what she might be thinking, what it might portend.\n<\/p>\n \nHe didn\u2019t do that tonight. He drifted off thinking about the tiny couple. He wondered what kind of job the tiny husband must have to carry a briefcase and wear a suit and afford that life, that apartment and that tiny, perfect woman. He wondered how the two of them had ever gotten together. Had they met in high school, like Vickie and Gil? How had the tiny woman known he was the one?\n<\/p>\n \nCome to think of it, how had Gil known that about Vickie? He couldn\u2019t recall.\n<\/p>\n \n \nRecently Vickie had been staying late at work. She had faculty meetings, teacher-parent conferences, grading, lesson prep. They had these new state exams, the whole thing was a mess. On top of it all, she\u2019d started tutoring to make a little extra.\n<\/p>\n \nThe tiny woman was a house wife, the type he\u2019d always dreamed of marrying, being able to support. He watched her dust, move the vacuum around, and clean the windows wearing a pair of yellow gloves. She went for groceries, returning laden with bags. Every night, she prepared an elaborate meal: broiled steaks, oven-baked salmon fillets, a whole chicken shimmering with a perfect brown glaze. She always put on a nice dress for dinner, did her make-up. No frozen oven pizzas, no frumpy plaid pajamas, like the ones Vickie practically lived in.\n<\/p>\n \nOne night she did lobster, bringing it home from a market wrapped in wet newspaper. From a cupboard she produced a big silver pot, which she filled with water and placed over the stove\u2019s blue flame. She chopped shallots and carrots. She kept the point of the knife on the cutting board and moved the heel of the blade up and down, in quick sure cuts. Wheels of carrot smaller than pocket lint danced away.\n<\/p>\n \nThe water came to a high boil, sending up curls of steam. She set aside her knife and retrieved the lobster. It was helpless, the pincers rubber-banded. The tiny woman dangled the lobster head-first over the water. Through the magnifying glass, Gil thought he detected something teasing in her manner. She released the lobster into the pot.\n<\/p>\n \nAfter dinner, the couple watched TV. The odd thing was, they had no TV–at least none Gil could see. Their couch was positioned facing the pane that separated Gil\u2019s world from theirs. As if a television set only they could see hovered in the space beyond the glass.\n<\/p>\n \nWhatever they watched amused the tiny husband a great deal: he would slap his knee and laughter roared out of his fat red face.\n<\/p>\n \nThe tiny husband resembled all the bosses Gil ever had. The whole world at their call. The tiny woman fetched beers from the refrigerator. The tiny husband, without a care, tossed the empties to the floor.\n<\/p>\n \nWhat a brute, Gil thought.\n<\/p>\n \n \nGil woke in the night to the sound of Vickie weeping. \u201cAre you all right?\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n \nAfter a long moment, she said, \u201cI don\u2019t know how we got here.\u201d She reached toward him. \u201cI\u2019m worried about you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019m okay.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHer fingers were cool on his shoulder. \u201cNo, you\u2019re not.\u201d He could sense her shaking her head. \u201cThis isn\u2019t a life, Gil.”\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTry to get some sleep. You\u2019ll feel better tomorrow.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou\u2019ve stopped going outside. I\u2019ve noticed. You need to talk to someone.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nA memory surfaced, unbidden, of just a few weeks before he was axed: returning to his new house after three days at a conference in Olympia. The dusky valley was cold and blue, but the house\u2019s front window glowed lantern yellow. He sat at the top of the driveway, engine idling, just taking it in–until Vickie appeared at the glass, saw him, waved him home.\n<\/p>\n \nHer voice brought him back. \u201cI want to help you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe was quiet, the light of the window fading from his mind. He cleared his throat, but didn\u2019t say anything.\n<\/p>\n \nAfter a while Vickie\u2019s hand slid away.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe next morning, Gil looked thoughtfully at Otto, who was hunched over his cat bowl, lapping up the fishy food and gravy they spooned from a can. Gil\u2019s mind veered to the tiny woman, how helpless she was, and a shudder ran through him.\n<\/p>\n \nHe took his coffee into the garage. The space was crowded with supplies from Lowe\u2019s: gallons of paint, tarps, the cedar planks for Vickie\u2019s new fence. The kitchen cabinet doors were laid out out on old newspapers, waiting to be sanded and re-stained.\n<\/p>\n \nGil set to work with the table saw, double and triple checking the plans he\u2019d worked out on sheets of legal paper. He wanted to be sure the dimensions were just right.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe tiny woman stood at an ironing board and pressed a pair of slacks. She was in a frantic rush. The husband was late for work. He emerged from the bedroom in a dress shirt and boxers, hollering and pointing at the pants. He waved his hand in a gesture of \u201cforget it\u201d and stormed off to the bedroom.\n<\/p>\n \nAfter the husband left for work, the woman stood, distraught, gripping the hair on the sides of her head. Then she fled back toward the bedroom, maybe to lie down or cry.\n<\/p>\n \nLater that morning Gil pried off the glass. He worked a screwdriver under the edges of the pane and it came off with a pop.\n<\/p>\n \nAround noon, the woman emerged. She didn\u2019t act any differently with the glass missing. She made a call on the kitchen phone. Gil still couldn\u2019t make out what she said, but he could hear the rise and fall of her little voice. She sounded sad. Lamenting with a girlfriend, probably.\n<\/p>\n \nShe made a simple dinner, some kind of pasta. She didn\u2019t dress up. While she and the husband ate, they hardly spoke.\n<\/p>\n \nAfterward they watched TV. Sinking into the sofa, the husband clicked the remote, cuing the brash music, the exaggerated inflections of an announcer\u2019s voice, the fly-like buzz of an audience applauding.\n<\/p>\n \nThe woman, seated beside him, worked her hand onto his knee, wanting to make amends. With his magnifying glass, Gil inspected her small manicured hand.\n<\/p>\n \nThen a movement caught his eye, like a waving white handkerchief. A cat walked with deliberate steps around the couch and leapt onto the sofa, curling up beside the tiny woman. Idly, she stroked it.\n<\/p>\n \nGil, taken aback, stared. It was Otto.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe next day, Vickie and the tiny husband left for work, leaving Gil and the tiny woman alone.\n<\/p>\n \nGil watched her a long time. She slumped on the couch, flipping through channels with the remote, still deflated from yesterday\u2019s fight. She painted her nails. The tiny Otto walked in, rubbed against her leg, and strolled out. Gil peered through the magnifying glass, taking in her shock of blonde hair, her despondent, youthful face.\n<\/p>\n \nGil reached in and grabbed her.\n<\/p>\n \nHe wasn\u2019t sure he could. He\u2019d considered the possibility that it was all a figment of his imagination, an illusion that would vanish, gone, a puff of smoke.\n<\/p>\n \nBut she was real: the tiny woman, screaming in terror, lay in the palm of his hand.\n<\/p>\n \nGil carried her into the garage. He pulled the canvas drop cloth from the work table.\n<\/p>\n \nThen, carefully, he deposited the tiny woman in her new house.\n<\/p>\n \nGil assembled the three-room house from cedar, cut from the planks intended for Vickie\u2019s fence. He painted the interior walls with several coats of the eggshell Vickie had picked out for the den, and he stained the floors with the burnished walnut intended for the kitchen cabinets. He paused to admire the high-gloss sheen.\n<\/p>\n \nThere were no exterior doors, of course–the tiny woman couldn\u2019t just walk out.\n<\/p>\n \nThe work pleased him. The whole structure was light enough he could carry it around, no problem, but sturdy enough he could hurl it across the room and it wouldn\u2019t bust.\n<\/p>\n \nGil had considered taking furniture from the tiny apartment, but he didn\u2019t want to remind her of that old life. So he\u2019d ordered a set of Victorian-style doll house furniture online: a red-and-white striped sofa, matching arm chairs, a dinette set, a lavish four-poster with a foam-like mattress. He set the table with the tiny cups, dishes, flatware. There were even kitchen appliances: a handsome refrigerator, an electric stove with little whorled heating elements. Of course none of that stuff worked.\n<\/p>\n \nFor now, he would store the house in the master bedroom closet, under the drop cloth. In a day or two he would finish a removable roof. Until that was done, he\u2019d have to keep the door shut all the time.\n<\/p>\n \nHe\u2019d considered killing Otto, though the idea made him ill. But then the cat appeared in the tiny apartment, and it scared him, meant something, he just wasn\u2019t sure what.\n<\/p>\n \nThe tiny woman, looking about the house, seemed confused.\n<\/p>\n \nShe would be better off with Gil. She hadn\u2019t been happy. He didn\u2019t know the laws or religious mores of her tiny world: perhaps she wanted to divorce, but it wasn\u2019t possible. He may have saved her.\n<\/p>\n \nBending down, Gil peered at her though a window.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe tiny husband came home early. Swinging the door shut, he dropped his briefcase and called for the woman. He pulled a tumbler from the kitchen cupboard and filled it with ice. Turning his head, he called for her again. After a moment, he set the glass down and went looking.\n<\/p>\n \nGil held the miniature house in his hands. The tiny woman sat on the kitchen floor, surrounded by fake appliances, hugging her knees. She looked up.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHungry?\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n \nGil carried the house into the kitchen. He inspected the deli meat in the fridge: it had a slight iridescent sheen, but was probably fine.\n<\/p>\n \nHe shared his sandwich with the tiny woman, tweezing crumbs and bits of ham into her serving dish. With an eye dropper, he deposited a jewel of water into a cup.\n<\/p>\n \nGil wanted her to know him, but he didn\u2019t want to talk about his parents, his childhood. Certainly not about Vickie. So he talked about his old job processing grant applications for the county, doing clerical work. Boring stuff, mostly, but it wasn\u2019t so bad, and most of the people were nice. He even had friends. Sometimes, after work, they\u2019d meet up at the bar across from the courthouse and unwind: gossip, play darts. Gil was good at darts.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI miss it,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI wasn\u2019t getting rich. But it was a job.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nGil looked down. He expected her to be listening, perhaps visibly moved. Instead, she was on her feet, shouting and waving an angry fist. She wasn\u2019t scared anymore. She grabbed one of the doll-sized chairs and heaved it toward him, but it didn\u2019t come close: the chair arced up, fell, skidded across the floor.\n<\/p>\n \nAt first, this fit of anger perplexed him. But he realized maybe his intentions hadn\u2019t been clear. Maybe she didn\u2019t speak English. Or maybe she simply couldn\u2019t make out what he was saying. That was probably it. To her tiny ears, he imagined his huge voice booming out like an unmuffled truck engine.\n<\/p>\n \nThey needed to communicate. He cut a piece of paper into small squares. On one of the squares he wrote in tiny script: I am Gil ur friend.<\/em> He dropped the note into the house and the tiny woman snatched it up. He dropped several blank slips of paper into the house. Then he broke off the fine lead tip from his mechanical pencil and dropped it inside, too. Now she can write me a letter, he thought.\n<\/p>\n \nLate that evening, Gil checked on the apartment. In rolled-up shirtsleeves, the tiny husband paced back and forth, a drink in his hand. If a call came in, he\u2019d run to the phone, catching it on the first ring, sagging as he realized the caller wasn\u2019t his wife or anyone with news. Her mysterious disappearance was probably all over the tiny news. A pretty, young, upper middle-class woman, her picture flashing over the shoulder of an evening news anchor. Law enforcement\u2019s wide-ranging search, no resource spared. But it was no use. She was gone. The tiny husband collapsed onto the sofa, his face in his hands.\n<\/p>\n \nWatching him, Gil felt a strange thrill.\n<\/p>\n \n \nVickie came home earlier than usual. Gil, hearing her key in the lock, rushed to hide the miniature house in the bedroom closet, covering it with the drop cloth.\n<\/p>\n \nShe was in the kitchen, pouring a glass of water. \u201cYou\u2019ve been cutting the cedar,\u201d she said, and he looked at her in surprise. \u201cI was in the garage this morning and I could smell it.\u201d She leaned against the counter. \u201cWhat are you working on?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nNeurons fired, but slowly. \u201cYour fence.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cReally?\u201d She sounded unconvinced.\n<\/p>\n \nOtto padded into the kitchen on dainty feet. Vickie bent and his back curled up to meet her hand.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou\u2019re home early,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMy tutoring appointment canceled. Upset stomach or something.\u201d Otto purred loudly. \u201cI thought we could order pizza.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSure.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe looked at him hopefully. \u201cWe could watch TV. Just relax, the two of us?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIf you want.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLet me change out of my school clothes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nGil followed her to the hallway. She stopped at the master bedroom. She touched the knob.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBetter not,\u201d Gil said. \u201cIt\u2019s dirty in there.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHeedless, Vickie opened the door.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNot much progress, huh?\u201d The blue tarp covered the tiny window. Vickie looked from the room to him. \u201cWhat’s with the tarp?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAsbestos, I think, I\u2019m keeping it covered,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s shut the door. Otto could get in there and track it through the house.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe seemed about to comply, but hesitated. Something caught her eye. She stepped in and knelt in the middle of the floor.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat am I looking at?\u201d Vickie stood, something on her palm. Gil stepped forward, squinting. It was a miniature paper airplane.\n<\/p>\n \nGil made to grab it, but she snatched it away, unfolding the paper. \u201cThere\u2019s something written on it.\u201d She held it up. \u201cWhat is this?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nIn light pencil marks, the note said: help Gil took me.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d Gil shook his head. \u201cThat\u2019s very weird.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe cocked her head, eyes narrowed. \u201cYou don\u2019t know?\u201d<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nBehind her, on the other side of the blue tarp, a faint, sobbing cry: the tiny husband. Vickie turned and, before Gil could stop her, pulled down the tarp.\n<\/p>\n \n \nVickie didn\u2019t figure out everything. She didn\u2019t learn about the tiny woman, or discover the miniature house under its drop cloth in the closet. Gazing into the apartment, and holding the tiny note of distress, she assumed the morose little man was the prisoner. When Gil thought she might try to reach in and save the husband, he stepped between her and the window.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat awful thing is going on here?\u201d she asked, her voice very quiet.\n<\/p>\n \nHe opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI thought you were just depressed, Gil, and selfish. I didn\u2019t know you were\u201d–she searched for a word–\u201ccruel.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cVickie.\u201d He stepped toward her.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDon\u2019t touch me.\u201d She held up a hand and raised her voice. \u201cI shouldn\u2019t be surprised. You\u2019ve been so careless with your life, with mine, why would you care about a little man?\u201d She looked at Gil, as if trying hard to recognize someone. “Do you feel anything, anything at all?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nWhen she left, she didn\u2019t bother packing a bag. Just grabbed her purse and banged through the door, her face wet with tears. Before climbing into the car, she promised she\u2019d be back, and it sounded like a threat.\n<\/p>\n \nGil watched her drive away, then went to the closet and pulled away the drop cloth covering the miniature house. The tiny woman was gone, too.\n<\/p>\n \n \nFurniture had been piled against one of the exterior walls, so she could climb up, hop over, and escape.\n<\/p>\n \nGil stood and called out. \u201cWhere are you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nIn the hall, he turned on the light, looking back and forth, watching where he stepped. He moved into the kitchen. \u201cHello?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nA flash of movement caught his eye. The tiny woman, running across the kitchen linoleum. She limped–perhaps she\u2019d hurt herself dropping over the house\u2019s cedar wall. Gil was annoyed. Where\u2019d she think she was going? This was no world for her. Didn\u2019t she know she needed him?\n<\/p>\n \nFrom around the kitchen counter, Otto appeared and pounced, snatching up the tiny woman in his jaws. Gil moved to grab him, but Otto slipped away, darting out through the cat door.\n<\/p>\n \n \nOtto shot off into the field and disappeared in the tall grass, Gil chasing after.\n<\/p>\n \nCupping his hands around his mouth, he called Otto\u2019s name, over and over. A breeze moved over the valley and soon it was almost dark.\n<\/p>\n \nGil felt light-headed and couldn\u2019t catch his breath. His tiny woman was gone. He felt a pressure build in his chest: a vise tightening on its threads. He was having a panic attack.\n<\/p>\n \nOn weak legs, Gil walked home. Moving through the blue light, he half-expected Vickie to be standing in the warmth of the kitchen window, watching for him.\n<\/p>\n \nThat night it took him a long time to fall asleep, but he seemed to open his eyes almost as quickly as he closed them. A glance at the clock told him it was mid-morning. In a daze, he got up. Otto had not returned.\n<\/p>\n \nThe tiny husband hadn\u2019t left his apartment. He lay on the sofa, the rotary phone beside him, black cord snaking to the wall. The husband was disheveled, unshaven, gray. Wearing the same clothes as yesterday, staring out into space.\n<\/p>\n \nAn angry impulse bubbled up–to reach in and grab the tiny husband, just squeeze, put him out of his misery. Make him pop. Gil half-wished someone could do that for him.\n<\/p>\n \nHe shook his head and went out to putter in the garage, trying to clear the idea from his mind. But it followed him, like something stuck to his shoe.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThat evening, when Gil looked in on the tiny apartment, he was startled by what he saw. The tiny husband was trashing the place: throwing furniture against the walls, ripping books apart, smashing appliances. Tufts of white stuffing spilled forth from tears in the couch.\n<\/p>\n \nThe tiny husband kicked over a side table, smashing a lamp. He sent china sailing into the wall. With a golf club, he broke the leg from one of the kitchen stools. It teetered for a moment, fell. He retrieved long knives from the butcher\u2019s block and cut gashes in the paisley wallpaper.\n<\/p>\n \nGil, taking a cue from the tiny husband, destroyed the miniature house. With a claw hammer, he beat it to pieces, gathering the wreckage in his arms and stuffing it into the wood stove. The fire burned orange through the stove\u2019s tempered window.\n<\/p>\n \nBy now the tiny apartment was a ruin. Even the lights were out, the bulbs shattered. Swatches of paisley wallpaper hung in torn strips. The tiny husband stood with his back to Gil, at the far end of the apartment, just staring at the wall.\n<\/p>\n \nI won\u2019t kill him,<\/em> Gil thought. Just take him. Stick him in a bottle.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nThe tiny apartment\u2019s buzzer rang and the husband went to the door.\n<\/p>\n \nRed scratches covered her skin, and her clothes hung, just rags, but she was alive.\n<\/p>\n \nIn walked the tiny woman.\n<\/p>\n \nThey embraced, the husband\u2019s body heaving with sobs.\n<\/p>\n \nOtto sauntered in after her, rubbed his body against the back of her legs.\n<\/p>\n \nThe tiny woman pulled away from her husband. She was speaking frantically and gesturing toward the window, toward Gil, who stared back, still in shock. The husband, taking her hand, led her toward the back of the apartment, pointing at something–but Gil couldn\u2019t quite tell what.\n<\/p>\n \nHe ran in search of the magnifying glass, waves of relief coursing through him, the shock wearing off. This time would be better. The tiny house was gone, but so what? He would build another.\n<\/p>\n \nBy the time Gil returned, the tiny couple stood at the far side of the apartment. From the kitchen, the husband had retrieved the big silver lobster pot and removed the lid.\n<\/p>\n \nThey were peering into a miniature room that had been concealed behind the wallpaper. Already they had popped away the window pane. While the husband held the pot at the ready, the tiny woman reached inside.\n<\/p>\n \nGil turned just as her giant hand appeared and caught him in its grip.\n<\/p>\n Keith Proctor works in international development and humanitarian aid. He has published fiction in Novel Noctule and Zahir, and non-fiction in a variety of outlets. He is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While removing the old green wallpaper in the master bedroom, Gil discovered a window. The glass surface, flush with the surrounding plaster, had been perfectly concealed. If not for the renovation–specifically Vickie\u2019s desire to spruce up their room with an attractive floral print–he might never have found it. Perplexed, Gil scraped away the remaining wallpaper …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107297,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20081],"tags":[20082],"class_list":["post-137979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-37-autumn-2020","tag-the-colored-lens-37-autumn-2020","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107297"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137980,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137979\/revisions\/137980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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