A Wonderful Curse

Chapter 03: The End of a Perfect Day

     Mallory is at the table having just finished eating her dinner, her plate completely clean. Looking at the short woman, one would think that a very small child has just finished a delicious meal. This is because she is actually standing in the chair. Her furniture isn't oversized or anything like that. Mallory is standing in the chair because of how short she is at the moment. She is only two feet tall, if that.

     She looks at her plate then back towards the kitchen, knowing that it is going to be quite a task placing her dishes in the sink. being so short a lot of thing are beyond her reach, and this includes countertops. Grabbing her dishes off the table, she slowly climbs down off the chair.

     It is difficult for the small woman to do take care of her dishes, needing to take extra steps just to complete what should be a simple task. She makes sure that the stool from the closet is still in the kitchen. She does need to stand on it so that she can reach the kitchen sink. Even with the height boost the stool gives her the short woman still needs to lean forward to turn the sink on so that she can rinse her dishes off.  These kinds of inconveniences have become a normal part of life for her. Inconveniences that she still finds highly annoying.

     Hopping down off the stool, she places her dishes inside the dishwasher before she walks out of the kitchen, deciding that she should go ahead and change out of her outfit and get dressed for bed. After all, she isn't going anywhere or doing anything else so she might as well get comfortable for the evening. Due to her curse she hardly even goes anywhere due to the possible inconveniences that can occur.

     Before she moved, she did try to maintain a normal life the best she could, but her curse just would not allow that to happen. She was either constantly growing to large to fit inside a building, or becoming so small that someone could easily step on her. After so many incidents she had no choice but to give up any hopes on leading a normal in any way.

     Entering the spare bedroom, which has effectively become a walk-in closet for her, she starts to undress while she looks at all the piles of folded clothes that are scattered about the room. Some women might be jealous of the fact that Mallory has an entire room dedicated for her clothes, or even the fact that the cursed woman has so many to choose from. But the excessive collection of clothes isn't by choice, but rather by necessity. Each pile of clothes is organized by size. From clothes that are small enough to dress up a doll, to ones that are large enough to  where they could function as a tent. Because of how Mallory's size can change at any given moment, a wide selection is necessary for her should she decide to change.

     Getting undressed, starting with her shirt, Mallory is already looking at a pile that contains clothing that should fit her short stature. The moment she removes her underwear, her last article of clothing that she has on her body, she heads for the pile that she is eyeing and starts to go through her available options. She is getting dressed for bed so picking out what she is going to wear is going to be relatively quick since she only needs one article of clothing, a shirt. She then comes across a shirt that she is happy with, holding it out in front of her as she examines it. It is a long shirt, which will reach past her knees and cover her intimate area, with a graphic of a sleeping crescent moon that is wearing night cap on it. She doesn't bother looking for any underwear since it is a preference for her not to wear any while she sleeps.

     Just as Mallory starts to raise it above her head, she can feel the shirt shrinking in her hands. Rather the shirt isn't shrinking, she is growing. It doesn't take long for the article of clothing to look like it belongs on a doll, becoming small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. As it continues to get smaller, she feels a light tap on the back of her head, prompting her to lean forward a bit. The annoyed woman doesn't need to look just to know that it was the ceiling that she had just hit, making it the umpteenth time today that her head has made contact with it today. She has to lean forward a bit more to keep from hitting the ceiling again until her curse decides that she is big enough, leaving her too tall to stand up right in her own home.

     Mallory takes a deep breath then exhales slowly, doing her best to keep calm. There is no point in getting upset, it won't change her height. Though she will admit that it does make her feel better to vent. Within seconds she has gone to feeling like a doll to an adult stuck inside a child's playhouse. "It's okay, I have clothes that can fit me still." With that she drops the small shirt to the floor as she moves on to a different pile of clothes. It doesn't take the statuesque woman to find a size shirt that will fit her new size and she slides it onto her naked body. She doesn't care for this one too much, the material is black and features a design of some comic book character on it. She has no idea who the heroine is supposed to be, but she couldn't care less about it. Like the first shirt, it is long enough to cover her intimate area since the hem is well below her knees. It is a bit baggy, meaning that she was a bit bigger than she is now when she had last worn it.

     Now dressed comfortably, she makes her way out of the room, needing to crouch through the door frame due to her now large stature. She is twisting and contorting her body just to squeeze through the small entryway. As she is exiting her head ends up hitting the top of the door frame as she shoots up by at least another foot, causing her to crouch down even more just so she can leave. Mallory mutters to herself while she rubs the sore spot on her head, blaming this common event in her curse.

     She starts to make her way to the living room, crouching as she is moving about her own home.  She wants to avoid hitting her head on the ceiling again. Not only is it annoying, but there are already so many dents and cracks in the ceiling from her doing it. Not to mention several holes from when her curse would make her shoot up by several feet and cause her head to just go through.

     She sits down on her couch, the piece of furniture creaking as it is protesting against all the weight that is being put on it. With her feet flat on the floor and her knees raised as a result, her current position is a bit uncomfortable for her. So she decides to make more room by taking her foot and pushing the coffee table out. She does push it away a good distance, yet not too far. When she is satisfied with where the piece of furniture is at, she props het feet up on it and crosses her legs.  Now feeling a bit more comfortable she starts to lean back.

     At this point Mallory's mind wanders off to Ehren and how he did react to her earlier today. When he first saw the cursed woman he only saw a really tall woman, having no indication that she has just grown to such a huge size seconds before she had opened the door for him. He could have just dropped off her groceries then left, but he didn't. He had actually stayed to put them away for her, which would have been a difficult task for her to perform. Then when she shrank and explained her curse to him, he didn't freak out or anything of the sort. If anything it was like he felt sorry for her. He had even offered to come back and visit her tomorrow.

     Mallory smiles a bit as she remembers how Ehren treated her. Talking to her like she was normal. Her curse makes her far from that, but it did not seem to bother Ehren like it would anyone else, even when she did tell him about the potential hazards of being around her. If anything, it made him more determined to return tomorrow.

     Mallory smiles at the idea of Ehren returning, looking forward to his visit. She isn't quite sure why she is so excited about him returning tomorrow. Though she can only assume that it is due to the lack of socializing. She is a recluse due to her curse after all. Yet, Mallory can't help but feel that there is another reason that Ehren's visit has her so excited, but she can't quite figure out why.

     She decides push these thoughts out of her head for now while she goes to grab the remote and watch some tv, deciding to try and pass the time before she heads to bed. The remote is so small in her hand that she has trouble pushing some of the buttons, her large fingers pushing multiple ones no matter how hard she tries. Eventually she can hit the power button, but she also hit so many others that she had inadvertently changed the channel. Right now a movie is playing and it doesn't seem like it is a good one either. The movie focuses on a shark that is too lazy to move. With a plot that bad Mallory decides that she does not want to watch it, she decides to fumble with the remote to change the channel.

     She can feel the remote shifting in her hand, getting bigger, while she can feel her feet sliding off the coffee table. She already has a feeling what is about to happen so she is fumbling with the remote in her hand as it is getting larger by the second, until it is too big for her to hold and drops to the floor. Looking down at the floor, she sees that the drop is too far for her to make without sustaining a major injury, stranding the tiny woman on the couch. She stands up on her couch, desperate to find a way down. But being smaller that a child's doll does not leave her with many options.

     With no other options available to her, she starts to watch the bad movie. Bad doesn't even begin to describe it, terrible being a more accurate word to describe. In addition to the shark being lazy and looking very cheap the characters are do dumb, so incompetent, that any attempts to fight against the shark or kill it backfire on them and results in them being eaten. You know you are watching a bad shark movie when you find yourself rooting for the shark, which is what Mallory has been doing the entire time.

     With the movie now over, which Mallory is glad about, she leans back on the couch trying to figure out what to do. She is too small to hop down off the couch and it isn't like there is anything else she do to pass the time. Should she go ahead and call it an early night? Her question is answered for her when she sees a preview for the next movie that is about to air.

     "They actually made a sequel to that stupid movie?!" It was bad enough having to sit through one terrible movie, but to sit through a sequel that she believes never should have happened? "Come on curse," the desperate woman starts to plead while looking down at herself, "I just want to be big enough to get off this couch. Is that too much to ask?" She continues to look down at herself, waiting for any indication of growth. With no signs of her curse changing her size, she sighs. "Why do I even bother?"

     Mallory lays down right where she is standing, doing her best to get comfortable for the night. She rolls over onto her side, placing her hands beneath her head. She doesn't have anything to lay her head on for any support so her hands will have to do. Closing her eyes, she tries to relax so that she can fall asleep. Hopefully she will wake up at a decent size tomorrow, though she highly doubts it.

      Sleep is not coming easy for the woman, the noise from the tv keeping her awake. Normally she can sleep through anything, but the dialogue from the movie is just so bad that it is actually annoying. At one point the annoyed woman rolls over just so she can yell at the tv. "Just kill them all off you stupid shark!" Mallory yells in a very irritated tone. "Get off your lazy ass and kill them so this stupid movie can end and I can fall asleep!" Huffing, she rolls back  over and closes her eyes, once again trying to fall asleep.

     All of a sudden, Mallory is startled awake by the sound of an explosion. She is quick to sit up and look towards the source of the noise, seeing that it did come from her tv. A mushroom cloud is on the screen, making it pretty obvious what had just happened, but it isn't the same movie. In fact, the sky outside her windowShis now dark indicating that a considerable amount of time has passed. She can only assume that she must have fallen asleep without realizing it.

     She then notices something, everything looks smaller now. Her legs are hanging over the edge of the couch, far enough to where her knees can bend with her bare feet touching the floor. She had grown considerably, which isn't a surprise to her. She is now large rnough to where she can actually go and lie down in her bed. She quickly grabs the remote and tries to turn off the tv, after multiple failed attempts. Her fingers are so large that she is hitting a multitude of buttons. She is doing everything from changing the channel, adjusting the volume and even opening the menu. After minutes of failed attempts, the tv finally recognizes that she has hit the power button and finally shuts off.

     Yawning, Mallory swings her legs around to the front of the couch as she is starting to get up. With a sleepy expression on her face she smiles slightly, the idea of laying in her bed sounding pretty good right now. Her smile doesn't long since he lightly bumps her head on the ceiling while still in crouching position. With her mind still being tired she had almost forgotten that she i in her own home. This leaves her with only one option right now. She has to crawl.

     Having to crawl throughout her home is nothing new for the large woman. She has been too large to stand upright, or even duck, inside her own home on multiple occasions. It is a bit of a minor inconvenience for her. So long as she can move about, she doesn't mind it too much. The only real issue she has is fitting through doorways. She has to twist onto her side just to fit her shoulders, then repeat when it comes to her hips.

     Once inside her bedroom, the tired woman looks at the mattress that is on the floor, just waiting for her to lie in it for the rest of the night. The mattress may be undersized for her, with it only being half as long as she is tall, but she can manage. All she has to do is fall asleep with her knees tucked up to her chest for a comfortable night's sleep. Crawling closer to it, she can already feel it's softness beneath her body, providing her with a comfortable night's sleep, or at least one that is comfortable enough. Just as she is getting ready to climb in, the room around her begins to seemingly expand and her mattress moves away from her.

     "No, no, no," Mallory repeats, seeing just how much she has shrunk. She gets up to her feet quickly and starts to head over to her mattress, hoping and praying that she is still tall enough to climb up onto it. But as she approaches it, she now sees that what she is hoping for is too much to ask. The side of it looks more like a wall her now, one that she is too short to reach the top of.

     "You think you're stopping me, curse?" Mallory says with determination. "Well you have another think coming!"

     Mallory grabs a hold of the sheet, making sure that she has a good grip on the material before she tries to lift herself. She is using her feet to help herself climb up, even using her long toes to get as firm a grip as possible on the cloth. "Come on, I can do this." Just as she tries to pull herself up, the poor woman loses her grip and falls to the floor landing right on her back. Still determined, she tries once again, aiming to reach the top of her mattress. Unfortunately she is met with the same results.

     Feeling defeated she sits up, still looking up at the comfortable mattress longingly. Sighing she begins to tell herself, "Not like my mattress is that comfortable anyway." Which is true. After many a night of sleeping on it while at such large sizes the mattress has lost some of its firmness over the past couple of years. Despite this fact, she would still rather be on it than the floor.

     Laying on the floor, Mallory lays on her back while staring up at the ceiling. Her eyes start to close, her mind wandering to Ehren once again. If he was here, would he have lifted her onto her mattress? She imagines that he would, he was very helpful when it came to putting her groceries away. These thoughts continue to go through the tiny woman's head as she starts to drift off to sleep.