Sweet Revenge (Part I)

It was infuriating, really. When Laurie looked at her high school pictures, she really had the perspective of an older, more mature woman. The slight chub the callow youth sported really wasn't too much, why had she been so self-conscious about it? In retrospect, the answer was obvious. In high school, charisma really is everything. One boy in particular stood out from their graduating class. Class president -- a popularity contest, of course -- Alex Smith. And what a forgettable name, too. Was there a more generic one in the world? It seemed almost silly now, but a guy like that commanded the respect of their very small class of some five hundred graduates some half decade ago. It was easy to tell why, of course. Tall. Handsome. Athletic. Not the sharpest, but top half of the class. That could've won hearts and minds in the big city, but this was a modestly sized town no one moved out away from. And she could only wish that "didn't even know she existed" was the extent of their relationship. In his sophomore year, Alex had run for class president on the campaign "no more fat chicks". Guess who was the involuntary poster girl in that campaign? One bad picture - ONE. She had been bending over and admittedly, it could have looked like a fat roll. Well, it was enough to demolish not only her social life but her self esteem for years to come. So while the world was panicking over the latest fad epidemic like swine flu or bird flu, she was hitting the gym. Two mile walk every morning isn't much, but it adds up. And absolutely no more cake. Five years of discipline had chiseled away a soft belly into a respectable abdomen. Her only wish was to get even. Alex hadn't been very active on his social media for a few months since a bout with a bad cold put him in the hospital in January, but he had updated his living accommodations. It wasn't too strange that neither of them had moved away: this town was kind of one of those dead ends where everyone tends to end up working locally. The weird thing was that his address was over on the east side, which was supposed to be kind of a bad area. She resolved that if he had ended up a poor schmuck, that'd be even more to lord over him.

The place was kind of unusual. Admittedly, the area had gentrified since she visited: there as even a sporting goods shop and a trendy smoothie place. Trying to track down his address was a nightmare, though. He was listed as 3280 Walnut Road, but Walnut was a very short road squeezed between two larger thoroughfares. As far as she could see, there was only one building, a sort of post-office looking place. Eventually, she resolved to ask the clerks inside for directions. It was humiliating to need advice in such a small town, but it would be worth it to wipe that smug high school grin from her memory forever. Finally, it all made sense. At least, to a degree. Immediately inside the front door of the post office, there were huge columns and rows of P.O. boxes built into the wall. Each of them had a number, all the way from 3001 to 3500 - ten rows of fifty boxes, it stretched far down the hall - with a clerk's desk at the far end. She figured she'd have to bother them sooner or later, but out of curiosity, Laurie poked through the numbers until she located the one she was after. Sure enough, 3280 was right there. No slot, not even a key hole, she wondered how it was supposed to be opened. Playfully, she gave the door a rap with her knuckles, commanding the thing: "Open Sesame!"

She wasn't prepared for the door to actually swing open. Standing before her at eye level, no more than a few inches tall, stood a doll-like Alex Smith. The little man seemed surprised, confused, and a little lost, standing there in a cross section of a replica room inside the box. Deeper within it no doubt opened to a half kitchen and bedroom, just like all micro apartments. Laurie couldn't contain a guffaw.

"No. Way. Alex, that cold? You got the Shrinking Flu?"

The stock-still figure suddenly burst into animation, upset - and making it clear he would not be easily trivialized by the smirking face in front of him: "So what if I did? I pay NOTHING for real estate. This hasn't set me back at all, I'm a bigshot in website design."

A grin slowly spread across her face. The stupid kind of insatiable grin that doesn't need any words. She just choked out: "You're precious."

"Just who the hell are you, anyway?"

Suddenly snapped back to the reason she came, her grin deepened from a wide smile into a shiteating smirk, "You don't recognize me, Alex? I'm the 'OG Fattie' as you used to say. Laurie. It's me. Although, I guess from your perspective, you can't get much of a look, can you?"

"Laurie? Tha-- Woah, wait!" He weighed almost nothing, suspended there from the nape of his shirt, as she picked him up so gently with two fingers. "Let me down you psycho bitch!"

"Alex, come now, we've got so much catching up to do." With glee, she lowered him into her purse, and closed the door to his room, depositing the tiny man between her lipstick and tampons. "I'll bring you back, right as rain. When I'm done."