Girl Who Came Shrinkwrapped

Panicked, I began to dog-paddle like mad, realizing way too late that swimming no longer worked in my present size. I broke into a full Olympic style breast-stroke, pleading desperately with the planet to slow down; it drew inexorably farther away. I was about to erupt in tears when I suddenly discovered that I had picked up speed, and the retreating globe was no longer retreating, but stayed steady in size. Then I slowly began to catch up.

Crying now in relief, I told myself it was the Hand of God, that only God could slow down a planet and make it wait, that only God could answer my prayers. Then I reasoned it that it was the steady pull of gravity that I actually felt, that the planet had "captured" me in its grip. This bit of deductive reasoning was a nice ego-inflator, but I continued praying nonetheless.

I swam in closer, and the attraction became a steady and stronger pull. But I was falling too fast. Shuttling around so that my feet were behind me, I let them enter the atmosphere first. Then I drew them back. If I dropped in now, I'd be chest high in the atmosphere, still way too big. (Envision what massive earthquakes I'd cause.) Instead, I swam in place, a nominal distance away.

Once I'd determined my height as about a quarter that of the atmosphere, I stopped my exertions, keeping my feet tucked. Hitting the upper atmosphere, I began to drag along, creating turbulence behind me. Coming in on a long, shallow arc, I put out my arms and legs and used them as rudders. I felt like a skydiver in free fall. Crossing over the equator and the large land mass below, I elected to pass it up, landing instead in the waters off shore. I might set off some pretty big waves, but it was better than stomping some poor town.

Crossing the continents "western coast," I extended my legs, flapping like a giant baby bird. I touched down a hundred miles out, landing knee deep in water. I pin wheeled a moment, struggling to keep my balance, trying desperately not create waves. I wasn't entirely successful. Looking back at the inundated land, I felt a tremendous guilt; Please, I thought, let them have evacuated the coast.

Three miles high, the planet's newest inhabitant began to wade ashore.

So tall was I still, that clouds drifted around my chest. The dazzle of the four suns made me shade my eyes. I looked back and saw my tapering shadows stretching far out to sea, the multi-colored reflections off the waves startlingly pretty. Groups of something long and slender moved beneath the waves, tracing my steps. They were the size of whales, but looked like minnows.

As I slowly approached the shore, lifting each foot carefully and then setting it back--I was still knee deep in water, having lost a few thousand feet off my height--I decided that next time, I'd take off my shoes. My flats were just ruined.

Still miles below and miles distant, a vast expanse of yellow beach stretched away, giving way to stretching vistas of bronze colored land, unbroken in every direction. On the curving horizon I caught a momentary glimpse of what seemed to be tall, silvery towers, but when I looked again the towers had vanished.

I came ashore. I stayed on the beach. I waited for something to happen. Nothing did. Just as I became convinced that the planet was uninhabited (did I like this idea, or not?) two tiny red specks appeared on the horizon, speeding across the golden plain. They grew rapidly in size into two blood-red spheres; I envisioned them instantly as some terrible weapon of destruction. I began to back up.

But as the spheres grew close, they decelerated, swerving up and away from me on either side. They were not solid at all, I discovered, but some sort of gaseous material, translucent and actually rather pretty to see. Behaving in a manner that hinted strongly at intelligence, they swooped and they swirled, circling about my head and flying up and down my flanks. Unaccountably, they stopped right before my breasts, hovering uncomfortably close. What? I thought. You like my boobs?

I remained motionless until they came dangerously close to my eyes. Then I instinctively raised both hands to shoo them away. They darted quickly out of reach and hovered.

"Sorry," I whispered. "Didn't mean to scare you guys."

They didn't approach me again, but remained where they were, pulsating in mid-air. I had the distinct impression that they were conferring together, and I, of course, was their object of discussion. Then they darted away in the direction from which they had come.

Uh-oh, I thought, that doesn't look good.

After some hesitation, I set out in the same direction. I must have covered half a mile with each step, but they soon outdistanced me and were gone from sight. I had no doubt their destination was the city--if indeed it were a city I had glimpsed--and wondered why I was making it mine.

"Ask for trouble, why don't you, Joanna?"

Stopping to think this thing over, I had just decided that "north" was a better idea than "east," when the two spheres reappeared--accompanied by a score of companions.

Now that really didn't look good. I looked around for somewhere else to go. Could I really retreat? Into the sea?

All were about twenty feet in diameter and most of them were red. A few dozen radiated a scary looking bruised purple color, while others were dark green and blue. Very angry colors, I thought.

They broke formation a few hundred yards out and formed a perfectly straight line. They circled about my head, then a few of the bruised purple ones darted up and down my sides, studying me from every angle. They emitted long purple streamers that slowly merged, linking the spheres into a circle. The linked globes twirled about me like a hula-hoop, wobbling in and out. Although they never got closer to me than a few hundred feet, these purple ones had me worried. I really got scared when additional streamers appeared and reached slowly out toward my chest. That was enough. Flinging out my arms and yelling at the top of my lungs, I hit two of the filament strands and one of the purple globes; immediately they withdrew the streamers and fled. I stood there panting, ready to run.

"What do you want!" I demanded.

Gathered into a group a short distance away, they seemed to consider. One, whose color had changed to an almost fluorescent orange, broke away from the pack and pulsated wildly. Just as clearly as though he'd shouted it out in English, his color-tantrum yelled: "You fucking cowards! Where are your balls!"

I knew I was in trouble.

Led by the fluorescent orange sphere they again moved in closer. This time they had a surprise. A score of streamers flashed out just quick as lightning, and cold blue flames crackled where they touched my clothes. I staggered backwards from shocks as powerful as you'd get from a taser; my arms were numb and completely useless. Reforming their circle quickly, the sphere's emitted their streamers again and completed their joining, while other streamers reached out caressingly toward my head. I began to keen lowly and for a moment they flickered right at my face, then the streamers merged, enveloping my in some type of cold, red radiance. It didn't touch me and I felt no sensation at all, except that of cold.

Beginning to pulsate in the manner I had originally seen, the spheres lost some of their furious tone. Or so it seemed through the transparent red veil. Then I felt tiny pinpricks of ice in my brain, (a lousy simile, but I don't know how else to describe it), and a question formed there, more clearly than were it to be spoken:

"From where do you come?"

My first react was, Huh?

I tried hard to bring my astonishment under control. I had never believed in ESP, but here I was with a mental-Walkman on my head, and a bunch of see-through grapes asking me questions.

"I. . .don't know," I replied honestly. I flicked my head in the direction of the sky. "From out there, somewhere."

There was something almost like mental static, then more words: "We have received no answer, but your mind creates thought. Direct that thought toward us."

I tried it again, thinking out the words. Evidently, I was successful.

"You are an alien species we have never before encountered. A most peculiar species--one that becomes steadily smaller without apparent reason. Why are you here, and where do you come from?"

The icy pinpricks probed deeper and I sensed a feeling of pain. Then a sort of all over hotness. Then a bad need to pee. It was the weirdest feeling. "Cut it out!" I thought. "You're invading my mind."

Then I felt the events of the past few hours running through my brain like a strip of film through a movie projector. I watched as the Professor jab me in the shoulder with the needle, assaulted me as I stood helpless against the office door, (talk about an excruciating experience . .), saw him remove my lab coat and blouse and steal my brassiere, then set me up on the table. I particularly enjoyed watching myself get chased by the mite. But evidently the viewing was one-sided.

"You cannot bring your mind sufficiently to bear to communicate with us," the union of globes announced. "Our intrusion was only partly successful. Our apologies are sincere."

Fuck your apologies, I thought back. That was rape!

One of the spheres changed to that bright orange color and broke from the group. I could almost imagine his angry shrug. Then the streamers withdrew and as they did, I caught the globe's final synopsis: "Very low mentality subject. An experiment of some kind. Not worthy of our efforts here on the coast."

"You're not so fucking brilliant yourself!" I yelled.

But of course, they were.

Grouping themselves in twin rows up and down my sides, the globes again emitted their streamers. They touched me from head to foot and the red radiance reappeared. Then, as effortlessly as you'd lift a feather off the ground, these gossamer puffs of gas lifted and floated a giant six hundred feet tall, hundreds of feet off the ground. They sped me upright toward their far away city, at a frightening speed. Despite my best efforts to keep it inside, my voice erupted in a high warbling squeal, and I scrunched closed my eyes. I peeked at the distant horizon like a girl peeking at a scary movie and continued to squeal. There was no sound except the sound of my rushing body disrupting the air. I nearly peed my pants.

Within minutes we began to slow and I sighted the city. It covered an area of a hundred square miles, near the shores of a rolling green, inland sea. I was placed lightly on my feet at the very edge of the city and once more the circle of globes formed around my head and once more the cold tendrils of ice invaded my brain.

"You may walk about the city at will," the voice announced, "accompanied by an escort. You are to touch nothing. Your tremendous size makes your presence among us somewhat of a hazard. When you have become much smaller, we will again explore your mind, to learn your origin and purpose. Your great size hindered us in our first attempt. We go now to prepare. We have awaited your coming for years."

If that little mental-invasion was "hindered," I thought, then I'm really in trouble here.

Leaving only a few of themselves as my escort--or guard--the rest of the globes sped away toward a great domed structure rising from a vast plaza at the center of the city. They pulsed and changed color as they went, leaving me with the impression of excitement. They had awaited my coming for years.

The city was beautiful, architecture-wise, but I marveled that such a race would ever conceive and construct it in the first place. They had as much need of buildings as I did for a fifty foot yacht. Tall as I was, the buildings towered above me by five or six heights, invariably ending in spires. There was no sign of a dome or a steepled roof anywhere, outside of the building at the city's center.

The design of the city was of vast sweeping curves and circular patterns and the effect was strikingly elegant. There were no streets or highways, nor connecting spans between buildings; there was no need of any. The air was the natural habitat of this race. Not once did I see one touch the ground nor any other surface.

Everywhere I went, they paused in their actions, spinning and pulsating slowly. Then they went on about their business, whatever that business was, and none ever approached me closer than a few dozen yards--except my escort.

I wandered like this for several hours, until finally small enough for their liking. Then I was herded toward the central plaza, and to the immense domed building there. It must have been miles wide. Inside, the others awaited my coming, gathered about a huge, central dais. The dais was surmounted by a huge transparent screen, oval in shape and of what looked like glass. I felt like Dorothy in the Land of Oz.

I felt a sudden, ice-cold thought: "Watch."

The screen became opaque; a vast field of stars appeared. The view was three dimensional.

"This is the great nebula in which this planet resides," the voice said. "All but an infinitesimal speck."

The nebula drifted almost imperceptibly across the screen, and the thought continued:

"As you see it now, so it appeared to us through our telescopes millennia ago. The view has been accelerated to make motion visible on the screen. Watch closely now."

The great mass of the nebula continued its slow rotation, but as I watched, the smooth movement became less fluid, more eddied at the edges and swirled. Tiny vortices appeared. Then a great white bulk appeared--me in my white lab coat I assumed--and filled the entire background of the image. I was ten times--a hundred--that of the galaxy. Then the animation increased in speed and I watched myself grow perceptibly smaller as the arms of the spiral galaxy went round and round. And always, the telescope remained focused on me. I entered the first spiral arm and then the second. Millions of stars were displaced or shoved outward of the arm entirely.

The voice came again: "This scene has been accelerated a million fold. What you see took place over several hundred millions of years. Our scientists watched this phenomenon in great wonder, until the phenomenon headed our way. Then we feared."

I watched myself dog-paddle in (I looked so thoroughly ridiculous, swimming in my clothes), approaching their system and finally the azure planet itself. Abruptly, the screen cleared.

"We watched and awaited your coming for years, not knowing what you were or whence you came. We are still very puzzled by you. You become unaccountably smaller and will soon disappear altogether. We must hurry, therefore. Relax yourself and do not interfere with the process by trying to think. It will all be laid bare to us in the recesses of your brain. Think of nothing and watch the screen."

I did as I was told--or tried to--and the cold probing tendrils entered my mind. This time a deep-rooted lethargy took hold of my body and I watched sleepily as shadows flashed across the screen--then suddenly there was the Professor's lab. Then the Professor. Then I must either have fallen asleep or passed out, because the next thing I knew the globes were all jabbering at once and pulsating madly in colors.

"We know it all now!" the voice yelled in excitement "He--the one you call the Professor and who invented the serum--is a very great man! Yours has indeed been a marvelous experience--and one which has hardly begun. We envy you, Joanna Hesse! And at the same time, we are deeply sorry for you, for you had no choice in this matter. We are immensely glad, however, that you chose our planet on which to alight. Soon you will pass away even as you came, and that we cannot, and would not, prevent. You will once more became of infinitesimal size and pass into an entirely new universe. We shall watch your further progress into the unknown with our microscopic devices, until you are passed from our sight forever."

I was now very much smaller than the spheres around me. I tried to flash the following thought:

"You say you watched my approach and prepared for my arrival. Please tell me if I did permanent damage to your planet or to your race."

The voice came back immediately: "You have seen our humble city. It is by no means the largest, nor the most important on the planet. Once, our civilization spread entirely across the land, but upon the discovery of your arrival, we consolidated ourselves into strategically placed locations and let the land revert back to its normal state. We wished no one to be crushed and no culture lost. Yet, when you showed such compassion in the method of your landing, we determined you were empathetic, not hostile. Our most important scientists hurried out to the shore to meet you, instead of our armies. We sincerely hope, Joanna Hesse, that you will continue to show such courtesy and restraint."

I wanted to ask a great many more questions, but I had become so very small that further communication was impossible. I was whisked gently up by their streamers to a laboratory and placed upon a dense metal tab. Above me, a microscope of some strange and of intricate design--don't ask me how they looked through it--sat poised to observe my continued race down toward oblivion.

A the creatures became immense and indistinct, I waved my goodbyes and eventually the surface of the metal turnedporous and ravined. Except for the paralysis, it was exactly the same. I hoped the gaseous creatures were better at disinfecting my new landscape, than the Professor had been.

I floated in space. I needed to eat.

Bringing my legs up into a "sitting" position, I removed the backpack and set it in my lap. Inside were a dozen foil-wrapped, freeze-dried meals and seven, one quart bottles of water. It was Dasani, my favorite kind. Popping off the plastic cap and putting it in my pocket (wouldn't due to have that floating around in space), I raised the sliding cap and took a long drink. I was very good. Replacing the bottle carefully in the pack, I removed one of the foil-packed meals. Property of the U.S. Army was printed in black on a bold yellow label.Spaghetti and Meatballs Brisket.

"You must be kidding," I muttered. Replacing the pack, I pulled out another which read: McDonald's Big Mac and Fries Meal. Seven hundred and eighty-five calories.

Now that was more like it! Laughing, I ripped the bag open--carefully--along the dotted line, and looked inside. It was a compressed rectangle an inch thick by three inches wide. Pulling it out, I took an experimental nibble. It wasn't bad. I ate the whole thing, wolfing it down.

Resisting the urge to open another pack and wolf it down also, I placed the empty foil pack in my coat pocket and re-zipped the pack. I put it back on my shoulders.

Now down to super-cluster size, I began looking for a host. One particularly attractive galaxy spun by my right knee and I backpedaled up to it. The size of a teacup saucer, it looked just like the Milky Way.

"Hello, you," I said in greeting as it twirled slowly around.

Myriad stars twinkled back and super-novae popped. A pair of smaller satellite galaxies spun lazily about the big galaxy's equator.

Waiting as I shrank, I practiced various facial expressions and pantomime moves. Some of the more advanced and longer-lived species might be amused by my carryings-on, and I needed some amusement myself. I also needed to take my attention off the fact that I had to go pee.

When sufficiently small, I dog-paddled alongside a passing spiral arm, and swam my way inside. I immediately stopped all movements. When a single, bright yellow sun with eight tiny planets made an appearance before my nose, I felt a pang of intense homesickness. It looked just like the solar system back home. I made it my next temporary home.