Bryan pulled the frozen dinners out of the oven just as his father and brother Brett came into the kitchen. All of them were slightly troubled at strange events in the past few minutes, and each missed the changes in the others due to this introspection.
The change in Brett was the most dramatic so far. He'd shrunk ten inches and was swimming in his clothes. From the youngest DeSoto's perspective, everything had increased in size by about fifteen percent . . . noticable if one knew what he was looking for, but quite perplexing if one didn't, and only had a series of oddly clumsy episodes and bizarrely loose-fitting clothes to go by. All Brett knew is that he was shooting hoops in the backyard the same as he did every afternoon, except today, he kept missing. The baggy clothes were an annoyance that hadn't quite sunk in yet.
His father, Paul, had shrunk only five inches. Down to five-foot-five, the burly construction worker would still have turned heads in any singles bar, gay or straight. In the presence of his strangely preoccupied family, however, nobody noticed him or this strange lack of his former stature. Paul was wearing only his boxers and a tee-shirt, as he did every night after showering.
Bryan was down from six feet to the exact same height as his father, five-five. Normally two inches taller, he didn't notice that they were eye-to-eye when Paul had come in to sit down. He was still wondering about why everything was stored on shelves higher than he was used to. He'd had to use the old step-stool while making dinner and setting the table.
They ate the frozen meals largely in silence. Paul broke the ice a few times by bringing up school and other activities and asking how his sons were faring, but he got only monosyllables in reply.
Why was everything so strange tonight, he wondered?