Dan ran in mindless panic, the roar of the vacuum cleaner making his skull feel like it might come apart. The noise decreased and intensified in a strange pattern until Dan realized that his son was pushing forward and pulling back on the vacuum cleaner as he thoroughly cleaned the carpet of any debris he had tracked inside the house. What a time for his son to suddenly adhere to the rules of the household.
Dan felt the very air around him move, threatening to stop him in his tracks and suck him backward into a violent vortex being created by the monstrous vacuum cleaner. He saw the dark gloom beneath the enormous sofa, but he didn't seem to be making any reliable progress toward that possible shelter. All the while, his gigantic son with the huge vacuum cleaner got perilously closer and closer with each passing second.
He felt very much like a small, mindless bug, scurrying with adrenaline-fueled energy in the path of a gigantic, mechanical monstrosity. "No!" Dan cried as he lowered his head and shoulders and plowed across the carpet.
Tiny Dan heard a loud click and the deafening sound of the vacuum ceased. He paused, dared to look back, and just as his eyes fastened on Greg's looming body, he heard his son deliver a throwaway comment in a booming voice. "Huh? A bug, I guess."
Greg's head tilted forward. The distant eyes looked directly at him...
...and concluded, wrongly, that he was a bug. "No!" Dan leaped and waved. "It's me! Greg, help me!"
Greg looked furtively around the room before he lifted a leg and pulled off his right sneaker. While Dan continued to wave and scream, he took off his left sneaker, chuckling as the tiny bug made no effort to flee.
"Stupid one, too," he remarked as he peeled a sweaty sock from his right foot. He had the house to himself, so he might as well indulge his fantasy.
Dan ceased his frantic waving and craned his head back to watch the giant's every move. "What's he doing?"
Now standing in his bare feet, Dan lifted his right leg. "Let's see how you stand up to these," he said aloud as he let the sole of his foot smack down on the floor.
The impact knocked tiny Dan on his ass and filled him with sickening dread. "No! Stop!"
Greg watched, disappointed, as the tiny bug seemed to surrender. "Run, you little pest," he growled. "Don't make it too easy."
To induce some fear in the insect, he let his other foot lift and cast a hovering shadow over the tiny form.
Being plunged into an enormous shadow cast by his son's raised foot broke through Dan's denials. If he didn't want to die like a bug, he had to move.
The bug scurried toward the sofa. Greg chuckled again. "That's better."
The foot dropped. The largest of the toes caught a glancing blow to the tiny man's shrunken form. He sprawled on all fours, but rapidly flipped himself on his back in time to see Greg's big toe lower onto him.
Greg toyed with the bug. He tried to feel the bug's insignificance beneath his toe.
For poor Dan, the weight of the toe threatened to flatten him. He squirmed. He tried to wiggle his way free, but he couldn't move. He couldn't breathe as the giant toe of his giant son pressed only slightly.
The toe then lifted away. Dan, stunned, panted and tried to get to his feet only to discover the giant had him right where he wanted him.
"Uh-uh..." Greg said and lowered his entire foot over the puny bug.
"Greg!" Dan shouted as he threw up his arms. "I'm not a..."
The descending foot smothered him beneath a massive structure of warm flesh that might as well be as hard as a rock wall. Greg got a hand in his shorts to stroke himself as he strained to feel the trapped bug beneath his foot.