A Wonderful Curse

Chapter 01: Start of A Perfect Day

     Mallory is fast asleep in her bed, if one can consider a mattress on the floor as a bed, unaware of the fact that it is now morning. Her snoring can be heard throughout her home as she is sleeping contently and from how she is laying you wouldn't think that she is comfortable. Even though she is sleeping on a queen size mattress, her long legs are hanging over the edge; her large feet bare feet are parctically touching the floor from how far her legs stretch out.

     The young woman starts to stir, her body telling her that it is now time for her to get up, or rather it is her stomach waking her up. Her empty stomach is cramping and growling because it wants food. The still tired woman slowly sits up, her blanket falling off her body to reveal that she is wearing a long t-shirt with a silly design on it and looks as thought it was designed for a toddler. She opens her blue eyes and rubs them before she looks around her bedroom, seeing how small everything looks to her. She sighs at the sight, not surprised in the least about her current perspective. "Great," she says with a strong hint of sarcasm in her voice, "What a perfect way to start my day."

   She throws her blanket off herself, exposing her naked legs with her shirt being long enough to keep her modesty. Getting up from her mattress, and standing up straight, she feels a sharp impact on the back of her head. "OW!" She leans forward a slightly, rubbing the sore spot she now has since she hit her ceiling. "Over eight feet tall this morning. Again, a perfect way to start my day." Her stomach growls again, reminding the tall woman of her voracious appetite. "Guess I'll go ahead and eat before I decide to do anything else."

     She straightens out her black hair, which is an absolute mess from her tossing and turning all night long. Her hair, while straight, does have some thickness to it and hides her back because of how long it is. She had decided to grow her hair out years ago, only letting it reach the backs of her thighs.

     Mallory starts to make her way out of her room, crouching slightly so that her head doesn't make contact with the relatively low ceiling again. She ducks through the doorway and twists her body slightly so that she can fit through what is considered a tight squeeze for her. While trying to leave her room, her head hits the top of her door frame, hard. "Son of a bitch!" She looks down at herself, seeing that she is now even larger. "Stupid curse. Can't I go just one day without hitting my head on something? Just one day?" As if to answer, her body spurts up again, her head hitting the door frame a second time. The doorway is becoming a tight squeeze for her since she is starting to get a bit too large for it. "I guess not,” she says with an annoyed sigh.

     The curse that Mallory is referring to is one that she has had for a little over two years now, and she finds it to be both annoying and inconvenient. Her body now changes size whenever it feels like it; though, if she didn't know any better, she would say that it only happens when it is a big inconvenience for her. She thinks back, remembering the events that lead to her receiving this annoying curse.

     While on a vacation she had decided to stop inside a curio shop, with the intention of buying some kind of souvenir from her trip. The place itself was old and filled with merchandise that looked as though they were a lot older than the place itself. She had only stopped browsing the store's wares when she caught a glimpse of a small statue, or was it an idol, she couldn't tell the difference. Either way, she picked it up and started to examine it.

     The porcelain statue, like everything else, looked to be quite old and there was nothing really special about it. It looked like a woman wearing a toga and the only exceptional thing about it was that she had an overly womanly figure. Thinking back, she isn't quite sure why she even picked the object up in the first place. Before she could even set it back down on the shelf, it had slipped out of her fingers and fell to the floor, shattering upon impact. In a panic, she had tried to rush out of the shop but she soon found that she had become too big to fit through the door.

     Her life has been like this ever since ever since that event, either being too big or too small to even perform the simplest task. The only positive thing about this curse is that whatever clothes she is wearing would change with her, so any fears of being indecent at any given moment are not a concern for her.

     Sighing, Mallory finally frees herself from her doorway and starts to make her way to her kitchen. She can see a lot of plaster and spackle on both the walls and ceiling, from going through them whenever she would have a major, unexpected growth spurt. Her home is a bit on the small side, considering just how large she is for the time being, but at least it is something that she can afford with her low-income. With her current size she needs to hunch over so that her head doesn't hit the ceiling again.

     All of a sudden she falls forward, tripping over her own two feet. Instinctively putting her hands out in front of her, Mallory is lucky enough to catch herself before she lands flat on her face. With her face inches away from the floot she looks down at her feet, sighing at the just how big they are. Well, big might be a bit of an understatement, huge would be a better word to describe the size of her feet. In middle school, she was the only girl wearing men's shoes because she was unable find anything big enough for her in a women's size.

     Standing back up, carefully so that she does not hit her head on the ceiling, Mallory finally makes her way into the kitchen. Kneeling in front of her refrigerator and opening it up, she still neesd to lean down some just to see what she has. There isn't too much inside, since she is starting to run low on food so her options are somewhat limited, Luckily she placed an order for more groceries yesterday, which means that she should be able to restock her fridge today.

     Reaching inside, Mallory has found somthing that she can prepare and grabs a carton of eggs. The carton does feel like it is on the light side, though this can be attributed to her current stature, and she hopes that there are enough for her to have a decent-sized breakfast that will sate her appetite.

     As the tall woman is pulling the eggs out, she can feel that the carton is starting to become larger in her hand; or to be more precise, she is beginning to get smaller. The shrinking woman is struggling to keep the eggs in her grip while her hands are shrinking around the eggs. She knows that if she drops them she will effectively lose her breakfast, something that she desperately wants to avoid. When she finally stops shrinking, she pulls the eggs close to her, almost as if she is hugging them. With the egg carton itself being about as long as her entire torso, she knows that she is pretty small now.

     Mallory stands up, feeling lucky that her curse did not cause her to break the eggs which she is intending to make. She takes a moment to look around at her surroundings, she can get a good idea of just how small she is right now. She is barely taller than the cabinet doors, placing the countertops just out of her reach now.

     "That's how you want to play it curse? Fine!" With that, she places the eggs on the floor and heads out to the living room towards the broom closet. She feels like a child with how large everything is in comparison to her, but this is nothing new to her. She actually has been a lot smaller before on multiple occasions.

     Now standing in front of the closet, Mallory reaches up for the doorknob with both of her hands. She has to stand up on her tiptoes just to reach it, barely being tall enough to grab it.  Wrappingher fingers around the doorknob, she manages to turn it and open the door. She looks inside the closet and finds exactly what she is looking for, a step stool. The step stool is only a tad bit shorter than she is, but it will still give her enough of a boost to allow her to reach the stove so she can cook her eggs now.

     Carrying the stool to the kitchen is difficult for the small woman. The weight of it isn't the problem for her since it is made out of plastic, the difficulty actually comes from how awkward it is to carry. She is having a hard time wrapping her arms around it just to lift it up. Not to mention that she does have a hard time seeing around it too. She has thought about getting a stool with wheels on it. You know, the kind that can roll freely but locks in place when weight is put on it. The only factor that is holding her back from purchasing one is if she would be heavy enough to keep it stationary when she does need to stand on it.

     After setting the stool down in the kitchen, the short woman goes back to grab the eggs before she climbs up on step stool. Even with the extra height that the stool gives her, the countertop still feels a bit high to her; then again, she is very short. Placing the eggs on the countertop, she lifts herself up onto the counter. She walks down the length of it towards the stove, grabbing the skillet she needs to prepare her breakfast before placing it on one of the burners.

     She has very little problems frying her eggs, kneeling on the counter as she is doing this. If anyone was watching her do this it would be an odd sight for them. But for Mallory, this has become somewhat normal for her since this isn't the first time she has had to cook at her current size. If anything, she would rather be small when cooking as opposed to being very large. Trying to cook in a cramped space is very difficult. Not to mention the annoyance of handling cooking utensils that are too small for one to manipulate.

     By the time her breakfast is finished, she quickly grabs a plate, needing to stand up on the counter once again just to reach her cabinets. Her eggs fried up nicely for her, being nice and runny which is just how she likes them. Well, all but one since the yolk popped. Placing her plate on the counter, she starts to climb back down onto the stool, making sure her footing is stable before drops down. She doesn't want to fall to the floor at this size since it can be painful, or so she would imagine

    She finally carries her plate out of the kitchen and heads for the dining room table. The plate she is carryingis a small one, but in her hands, it is about the size of an actual dinner plate. She places her breakfast on the chair, getting ready to climb up and take a seat. Just as she reaches for the seat to pull herself up, she watches as the seat of the chair is rising higher and out of her reach. The now even smaller woman places her hands on her head, about ready to rip her hair out as she screams in frustration now that her breakfast is out of her reach.

     Mallory tries jumping, hoping to be able to reach so tge seat of the chair so that she can climb up. Finding no success in that endeavor she tries to climb up the chair's leg, but with it being made of stainless steel it is too slippery for herto climb. She is looking up where her plate is at, her stomach growling as she thinks about how her food is going to get cold and the runny yolks hardening up as a result, but there is nothing she can do about it right now. Being under six inches tall, there isn't much she can do until her curse makes her large enough to grab her plate.

     Mallory looks down at herself, seeing the childish shirt that she is wearing. She decides that she can at least get dressed for the day. Turning on her heels she walks away from the table, pushing any thoughts about enjoying her food out if her head until she is large enough to grab it.

     She makes her way back to one of the bedrooms. The trip back taking her much longer than it would have this morning. Then again, she is a lot smaller now than when she first woke up. The room's door that she is heading for is cracked open, giving her enough space to squeeze herself in. She is in the habit of leaving any door she can open, just in case she is ever too short to reach the doorknob like she is now. A lesson that she had learned the hard way when she found herself too small to be able to do so, leaving her trapped in the bathroom for several hours.

     When she enters the room, she looks at the multiple piles of clothes that are strewn about. No, she isn't messy, which is evident by how the clothes are folded neatly into piles. The piles are separated by different sizes. Her clothes do indeed change size with her, but only when she is wearing them.

     She makes her way over to a pile that is relatively small with clothes that look like they may fit her. She starts to go through the pile, looking for something that will be a good fit for her. Even though all the clothes look like they could fit her, they still do vary in size. This is due to her being different sizes when she took them off. She finally decides on a pair of tan pants and a tee-shirt that has a smiley face on it. These aren't her first choice from the pile, but they are the closest fit for her. She removes the shirt that she is currently wearing, revealing that it is the only thing that she has since it is her preference when she is sleeping.

     Now fully dressed she leaves the room, trying to figure out what she is going to do while she is at such a diminutive stature. There is only so much she can do. Watching tv is out of the question, she too small to climb up on the couch. Not only that, but she highly doubts that she could even use the remote anyway.

     Just as she steps through the door she feels a sudden, sharp pain at the top of her head. "Ouch!" She leans her head forward, rubbing the spot that is now sore. She already knows what happened and her current perspective is making it quite obvious for her. Her curse had caused her to shoot up until she made contact with the top of the door frame. "Trying to give me a concussion today?" She ducks a bit as she exits the room, muttering to herself still. She does find that she is tall again. Not so tall that she needs to crouch go avoid hitting the ceiling, just tall enough where doorways are a problem for her.

     Mallory immediately heads back to the table, where her now cold breakfast is still sitting in the chair. Picking it up she notices how the yolk has hardened due to her not eating her eggs while it they were still hot. The plate looks so small in her hand, looking like it is for an infant, but she knows that this is not the case, because she is so tall now. She grabs the fork and quickly eats her eggs. They don't taste that good to her because of how cold they have gotten but it is better than going hungry. She is just lucky that she did decide to make three eggs, any less and she would still be hungry.

     Looking at the wall clock, she sees that she has at least another fifteen minutes of free time, after that she will have to get on the phone so she can do her job and earn some money. Because of her curse, she can't go out and work a normal job, her sudden changes in her size are too unpredictable for her to work efficiently in a normal work environment. At least at home, she is only an inconvenience to herself.

     She does find her choice of profession to be a bit ironic. Working as a travel agent and sending people to all these exotic locations, she wishes that she could travel as well. Unfortunately, due to her annoying curse, she is effectively stuck at home. It isn't by choice though, with transportation being one of many possible problems for her. It us possible for her curse to make her so  small that a seat belt would be unable hold her and she would be thrown about the vehicle as it accelerates and stops. Going by plane is out of the question since there is the possibility that she could become large enough to cause a panic and fill up the cabin.

     Though she has considered the idea of going on a cruise ship since it has a nice open space on deck. She wouldn't have to worry about being cramped due to reaching a large size. Even if she shrunk down to an inch tall, she could easily find a safe spot to retreat to. The idea sounded perfect to her until she realized that there is a possibility that she could grow to the point where she sinks the ship. So much for that idea.

     She sits down on her couch, propping her large feet up on her coffee table with her feet hanging over the edge. Malloey is doing her best to get comfortable despite how undersized everything is for her right now. She looks out the window, seeing just how beautiful this morning looks and she actually contemplates going outside for a bit later today so that she can enjoy the day.

     Mallory decides to get up, able to stand at her full height since she is under eight feet tall, even though she knows that this could change at any givem moment. She makes her way over to her office space, deciding that she should go ahead and start making calls; her clients are dependent on her to help with planning their trips, just as she is dependent on their money to support her lifestyle.

     She quickly ducks through the doorway to enter her office space, cringing as she is anticipating another bump on the head from hitting the door frame. The moment she is through, she breathes a sigh of relief, one of the rare times her curse has decided not to make her hit her head on the door frame.

     The room looks to be quite empty not even having a desk or a chair in it, Mallory did learn early on that those things were more of a hindrance to her because of how she is constantly changing sizes. Working at a desk that you feel cramped at because it is too small can hinder one's productivity, or being too small to reach the desk can bring it to a full stop altogether.

     She sits down on the floor cross-legged with the only items in front of her being her cell phone and a laptop. As she gets ready to make her first call she wonders just how many times she is going to shrink and grow with each client that she calls.