Sophie Lynne Creations

It mocked me: a pill, half the size of my pinky fingernail. Neon blue, at that.

Her voice still rattled up my spine. “I feel very optimistic about this Thomas. I think you will notice a real difference in your sleeping. Make sure to fill out that journal for me.” Dr. Nelson held the door open for me, a polite “get out” (and that I did). Walking home from school, I kicked a pebble the whole way.  

That night, toothbrush overworked, I cranked the heat and climbed into bed. The tiny blue fingernail made its way down my throat, washed down with day-old, nightstand water. Then I shut my eyes– only to find them wide open. 

My lids remained shut- heavy garage doors. But my eyeballs pressed against them like cars parked too closely, smushed up against the metal. Light rushed into my head, blinding me with sunshine and yellowness and way too much of it. I’ve been told my whole life that my head is bright.  

My breath felt clinical. Sanitized and sterile, I longed to brush my teeth again. My mouth was too blue, the air too recycled. It was a familiar stale. I rubbed my feet together, like a fly that cleans, and began to overthink my breathing. None of it was right: how was I supposed to know when to exhale? How long do I hold it at the top? I began to feel dizzy and tried to force my brain to hyperfixate on something else. I tried to count backwards from 100. 

It wasn’t until I hit 50 that I noticed something was off. My t-shirt swallowed me whole and my sheets weren’t far behind it. I was shrinking, and quickly. 

“47, 46…” 

My skin started to itch, and I noticed white hair spreading over my arms. Panic set in, and yet I couldn’t stop counting. 

“40, 39…”

Small, pink hands made their way to my face and were met with growing whiskers. I tried to scream but couldn’t do much to that effect. My nose twitched as I felt a tail flick out from behind me. 

Then, a flashlight clicked in my eyes. “We have some motion, guys.” 

I tried to squirm, but felt trapped. All around me were people in white lab coats. A man with a clipboard hovered closest. He had glasses that threatened to slip off, so he’d scrunch his nose just as I would. A sheen above me separated us, a sort of clear cage. Gloved hands tapped on the glass and commentary swelled like tides that tugged at my thinking. Whispers seemed to bounce around the walls of my cage. They murmured as if I didn’t know, as if I couldn’t hear or understand them.   

“Is he falling asleep yet? My wife wanted me home earlier tonight.”

“He’s getting there, still fidgeting though.”

“He better fall asleep within the next hour, we have to start running the tests…”

Pens clicked around the lab. Each sound was magnified, ricocheting around my brain, echoing. I was confused and completely overwhelmed, but my questions were overridden by my fear of disappointing others. (I guess that carried over into the rodent world.) I needed to fall asleep, and I knew how many people were waiting for that. I licked the back of my hands, instantly soothed and yet embarrassed to be. The lab coats watched closely for the moment I’d slip and fall into sleep. We all wait. I know I’d fall asleep faster if they’d stop clicking their pens. 

My breath fogs up the walls and no one gets what they want. Hours pass as guilt dances with frustration: I want to sleep just as badly as the researchers want me to sleep. As I find myself in the cage each night, I begin to note the familiarity of their voices. I hear my intonation in their questions and find my tone within their whispers. I squirm under the irony of being the  whisperer who waits for whispering to end.

The next night I brush my teeth twice, and then I flip over and lick my hands before the shrinking starts.