I’m dead at the moment. Haven’t been for too long but I’m already bored. There’s nothing here in my void except a pair of weathered sandals the previous tenant left and a typewriter. I used to do pull-ups on the sandal’s straps for a few weeks, so now I’m able to type. X There is no return from this void, they take this quite literally with the no-return-thing, there isn’t even a return button on the typewriter that’s why I’m using an X (formerly Twitter) to indicate new paragraphs. X My father is dead too, I accidentally killed him with a broom. X I had the same disease he had but I died in an accident on my way to work when I fell off a silverfish. X When I was younger I used to work in an underground facility, pushing buttons but then the disease started to grow, taking all my strength. X It’s a rare disease, it’s genetic, they call it Minisculosis. My father gave it to me for my birthday. X He started losing height in his forties. I began shrinking when I turned thirty-two. X When my father got tinier, they put him in a machine. They put me in the same machine when it happened to me. They placed a strap around my chin and tied my feet. Then they pulled. Not too hard, it never hurt. Just enough to keep you at the same height. Strapped to the machine, we both quickly grew bored and gave up. X The disease worked on my father rapidly. On his fifty-second birthday, I remember that day, he was almost as small as the candles on his cake. A year later, for his birthday, I bought a magnifying glass to see him. X I was always cautious, avoiding sneezing or speaking too loudly. Never breathing downwards. When I walked through our house I used to sweep carefully in front of me with a broom to not step on him. I read about that: Jain monks in India do the same not to hurt insects. X I was looking for him for a long time then, it’s hard to find someone the size of an ant. The nightly scratching on the floorboard, too, had vanished. X A few years later, when I had just grown below one centimeter, I found him impaled on the broom’s bristle. X At that time I was already too small to work in the button-pushing business, they were more than twice my size. I started working in the bathroom because it wasn’t too far away. I helped with the cleaning. X I commuted to work on a silverfish every morning except Sundays, Carl was his name, nice guy, but a bit talkative. Most of the time it was about his wife, Margarete, and her obsession with shoes. X They invited me to dinner a few times, never had children but accepted me as one of their own, feeding me old pieces of flour and sugar my father had stashed away between floorboards. X One morning, it was my own fault, I was careless, I slipped while climbing Carl’s wet back, fell on the floor, broke my neck. Didn’t hurt actually. They immediately brought me here, to the void. X I dug a hole in the sandal’s sole when I arrived. First I did it to shelter myself from the soundless rain that never stops falling in my void. Now, I like how it feels, it resembles old soil, dried soil after a brief rain shower, when I dig into the sole, I recall being a child, playing in the garden in summer. The taste, too, is like soil. It’s the only thing here that reminds me of my father. I take a small bite every day. X We will be gone soon.
@systaime