The Miniature Wife: and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

thrashed at her panty hose, and broken the heels off her shoes. Then she grabbed her purse again and dumped out everything in it and, there, found a lighter, and, before I could move to stop her, she set the small pile of clothes on fire, then stamped at them, and then kicked them off the edge of the table.
    It was quite a display.
    Needless to say, her clothes were ruined.
    And my wife, who was very small, was now naked as well.

     
    The thing is: My wife’s condition has begun to affect my work.
    On two occasions, colleagues have remarked on the sloppiness of my appearance. Generally, I am a very neatly dressed, well-shaved man.
    I want to but can’t tell them that my wife is a strong climber. That she is resourceful beyond my imagination.
    I want to tell them that she has fashioned ropes. That she has forged small tools.
    I want to tell them:
    To be honest with you, Jim, my face is unevenly shaved because my three-inch wife has climbed up the porcelain sink, hoisted herself up to the medicine cabinet, opened the heavy mirrored door, and has dulled all of my razor blades.
    Truth be told, Paul, my miniaturized wife removed every other button on each of my work shirts yesterday while I was in the office. And if we look closely, I mean really closely, with one of our best magnifying glasses, we could probably see her tiny teeth marks in the thread.
    I want to tell them this, but I cannot. Instead I spend more time in my office.
    And I’ve had to suspend my open-door policy.

     
    She is not unattractive, my wife, in her miniaturized state. Her best features—her waist, the round curve of her hips, her shapely legs and fine eyebrows—are there still, undiminished by her diminished size. But what’s more—and more surprising—her harder, more difficult to reconcile features have softened. The hard, reproachful look in her eyes. The often angry or disappointed set of her jaw. Her rather large feet. All of her should have reduced proportionately, and maybe it all has and this is but a trick of the mind, but one night, as she slept in the small makeshift bed I made for her—matchbox, tufts of cotton, stitched squares of felt—I crept up on her and spied on her with a magnifying glass—I own quite a number of very good glasses—and it seemed to me that something in the process of miniaturization had enhanced the look of her.
    As much as I hate to admit it, I felt some pride in this. One of the many complaints we face in my office is that in the process of miniaturizing a thing, we rub out the details of it. For the past two years now, we’ve been working diligently to develop—across all of our miniaturization processes—an ability to retain the sharp and necessary details, the inherent beauty, the power of a thing’s function even when shrunk down to the size of a cup, a blade of grass, a grain of sand.
    Gazing down at my wife through my magnifying glass, I could see that we had finally found some measure of success. I must have made some sound, then, or perhaps the simple presence of me looming over her with my magnifying glass was all it took, but regardless, she woke and looked up at me and offered me a disdainful shake of her head before gathering the pieces of felt around her and stomping away. I looked for her but she had disappeared—more quickly than I would have thought possible—and I did not see her again for another two days.

     
    In the construction of the dollhouse, I have not relied on a kit. Instead, I have leaned heavily on blueprints. A kit, so I assumed, would not allow for enough customization. Dollhouses made to order do not account for room size, doorjambs, ceiling heights, are not designed to be inhabited. Not to mention that what I had to build, in order to coax her into it, to persuade her that some kind of life, a temporary life inside it would be an improvement, for it to do what I required of it, the dollhouse needed to be, in miniature, a much better house than our own.
    In all, the