Dan entered the vast expanse of Berber carpeting, but he could not keep pace with his enormous, athletic son, who soon disappeared into the deep interior of the home. The living room plunged into silence, which made the shrunken and naked man nervous as he crossed the wide empty space. The furniture that he and Pat had picked out looked like enormous architectural structures, perhaps something one might glimpse on a visit to some alien civilization.
Only the sofa, arm chairs and coffee table were his own furniture! It didn't help that his imagination began to also conjure up any number of gigantic alien beasts he could recall from movies and television. He laughed. "Hell, at my size, an ant would be a monster!" Not that he wanted to meet an ant. As he dwelled on the possibility, he also realized that much more fearsome insects were a possibility. Thank god Pat kept the house so clean and tidy, not offering much hospitality for insects wanting an easy life indoors.
Dan speculated about Greg's location in the house. Most likely, his son had headed to his bedroom or to the kitchen. The kitchen was closer, so he continued his trek across the carpeting. He found the journey taking longer than he expected. Even travel across a short distance took him much longer at his tiny size. In the monotony of his journey, he began to replay the sight of his massive son towering over him like some unbelievable titan. The sight had been nothing short of awe-inspiring.
He passed a leaf and twig on the carpet, but the examples of discarded debris looked like a vast canopy and a fallen log, reminding Dan once again how small he had become.
Thus preoccupied with his thoughts, he was even more alarmed when a horrendous mechanical screech shattered the silence. It sounded like a fleet of helicopters starting their rotors in unison.
"What the hell?" Dan screamed and tried to cover his ears with his hands.
The noise arrived ahead of Greg, and the source of the almost painful roar became immediately obvious.
"Oh hell!" Dan screamed.
His son was pushing a towering vacuum cleaner across the carpeted floor. Dan stopped in his tracks and realized he was caught in the open, far from cover.
Greg, who had realized he had tracked some leaves and other litter into the house in his treads, had gotten the vacuum from the utility closet to do some quick tidying before the rest of his family returned home.
The closest cover was the sofa. If he could get beneath the sofa, he would be safe...