“Hello…how are you this morning?”, said the man as the attractive lady secretary entered the top floor office suite, the woman dressed in black high heeled shoes, stockings, a black slim business skirt, and a white tight fitting blouse.
With her dark mane raised up high in the Greco-Roman style, Helen replied, “ I’m OK Jeff…and how are you?”
The guy said, “ I’m OK too…make sure you get all those forms ready…I need ‘em today.”
“ OK…no problem.”
Helen went into her small office and went to work.”
A few minutes later, another man entered the nice looking suite and went over to his office. As he moved along, he past the first guy’s office and said, “ High Jeff…good morning.”
“ Hey…Ed…how’s it going?”
“ OK…I’m doing fine.”
After Ed entered his office, he hit the intercom button on his desk and heard, “ Yes sir?”
“ Good morning, Helen…get me some coffee.”
“ OK…I’ll have it ready in a few minutes.”
The brunette got up and went over to a coffee brewer in the adjacent conference room. She got the coffee ready and finally took a cup over to Ed’s office, placing the cup on his desk.”
One hour later, Jeff called both Helen and Ed over to the conference room for a meeting. As the top CEO, Jeff told Ed, the company vice president, that they had to work harder to get more productivity from all the people in the building on the floors below, the company involved in writing software for other companies and organizations. Since Helen was the secretary, she took notes and kept a record of everything said for future use, making sure none of the details were missed. Finally, the short meeting ended and all three of them went back to their separate offices and did whatever was required to keep the place going.
Having lots of work to do, Helen sat behind her computer screen and typed away for the next half hour. Eventually, she had a few forms ready. Needing to print out the stuff, she hit the print button on her screen and got up, walking over to another room next to her office, the room having a large copy machine inside it together with all kinds of other basic office supplies. When she got there, she suddenly found out that the machine wasn’t working, the forms she needed didn’t print. Seeing no error message, she nevertheless checked for paper jams but didn’t find any. As a result, she tried a few other things with no success. Finally, Helen ventured over to Jeff’s office and said to the man, “ Um…Jeff…that copy machine isn’t working again…can’t print out the stuff you want.”
A frustrated look on his face, the guy said, “ This is the fourth time this week that machine ain’t working…what’s wrong with it…you didn’t do anything to it…did you?”
“ No…I don’t know what’s wrong.”, replied the brunette, feeling a little insulted.
“ OK.”, replied Jeff, “I’ll look at it.”
She turned around and left, going back into her office, doing some other work.
Jeff got up and ventured over to the machine. He stared down at it, shook his head, and then walked away, going over to Ed’s office, finally saying to the guy, “ Hey Ed…that machine ain’t working again…you fixed it the last few times it stopped working…can you fix it again?”
“ Yes…I can probably get it working again…but it’s gonna go out again…we either gotta call someone to fix it or get a new one.”
“All right…just get it working for now.”
“ OK.”
The guy got up and followed Jeff over to the copy machine. Ed opened one of the side doors on the huge thing, made an adjustment, then shut the plastic door, finally pressing a few buttons on the display screen, the man saying to Jeff who stood next to him, watching everything, “This should do it…I’ll run a test page now.”
Ed hit the appropriate button. However, nothing happened, the machine didn’t make a sound.
“What’s wrong?’, said Jeff.
“I don’t know.”, replied Ed as he made a few more adjustments, playing around with the thing, trying to figure out what’s wrong.
A minute later, Ed said, “ It won’t respond.”
Irritated by the problem, Jeff kicked the side of the machine and yelled, “ Piece of junk!”
Suddenly, however, the machine began making all kinds of noise, sounds never heard before.
“That’s strange…what could be causing that funny sound…maybe you fixed it, Jeff…or you ruined it for good.”, remarked Ed.
Before they could say or do anything else, the machine suddenly began glowing a bright yellow, getting brighter and brighter.
“What going on?’, cried Jeff.
“ I don’t know…but it’s doing something…I feel funny…let’s get outta here.”
“ Yea me too…I feel strange too…like that thing’s emitting radiation or something.”
However, before they could react and move away, they were overcome with something even more strange, everything around them seemed to change.
“What’s going on?”, yelled Ed, “ It’s like everything is getting bigger and bigger!”
“ Yea…I don’t get it.”
Finally, the machine went quiet and the screen went dark. The guy looked around until Jeff said, “Oh no…I think I know what happened…we shrank…that’s why everything looks so big.’
“ Oh no…it just can’t be!”, cried Ed.
Just standing there, the two frightened guys realized they were only an inch tall, too small to do much of anything to help themselves.
As they stood there, Ed yelled out again, “ Look…there…it’s Helen, and she’s walking right toward us!”
The two little guys ran to the side as the “towering” lady entered the copy machine room, walking up to the machine, saying to herself, “ Now where did they go?”
Jeff and Ed looked up at her in terror as Ed cried, “ She looks like a giant…she almost stepped on us!”
Standing before the copy machine, Helen looked down at it and tried to turn it back on with no success. She turned around and yelled out from the room, “ Jeff…Ed…where are you?”
Two little men looked up and watched as the giant looking lady left the room, again walking right past them as the sound of her high heel shoes hit the floor’s tile, sounding very large to the little guys.
Helen walked throughout the entire suite looking for Jeff and Ed, finding no one.
Confused, the lady returned to her office and took up her phone, thinking they may have left the suite and sent her a message or email telling her where they went. However, she found nothing. As a result, she shrugged her shoulders and finally sat back down into her chair, saying to herself, “ Oh well…whatever…I’m sure they’ll come back…maybe went downstairs or something.”
As she sat there, getting back to work, Jeff and Ed eventually worked up the nerve to venture away from the wall and leave the copy machine room. They strolled out to the conference room.
Jeff looked forth and said, “ There…let’s go there…see…she’s in her office again sitting there…we have to get her attention somehow…she can then get us help.”
Not knowing what else to say, Ed replied, “ OK…sounds like a good idea.”
The two little guys moved forth along the floor, walking out of the huge conference room over to the secretary’s modest office. As they moved along, everything seemed large to them. They looked around in awe at the doors and the office furniture, a strong feeling of despair and fear hanging over them. Finally, they made it to Helen’s office and stopped at the edge of the doorway.
“What are we gonna do now?”, asked Ed.
“ Let’s just walk up to her and start yelling…see if that works.”
“ OK.”
They strolled up to the side of the lady’s seat and came to a halt, looking up at her.
Jeff yelled forth, “ HELEN…DOWN HERE…IT’S US…ME AND ED…PLEASE HELP US!!!”
Nothing, the lady continued staring at her computer screen and typing away.
Again, Jeff yelled up at the attractive brunette, Ed yelling as well, screaming, “ HEY…DOWN HERE…PLEASE…HELEN…CAN’T YOU HEAR US…WE’RE DOWN HERE…LOOK DOWN HERE…HELEN!!!”
Like the first time, there was no response from the lady, the two little one inch tall men could not get her attention with their tiny weak and squeaky voices.
Frustrated, Jeff said, “ She’ll never hear us…let’s try to tap the side of her foot…that might do it.”
“ OK…but we gotta be careful.”
“ I know.”
Little shrunken Jeff and Ed ventured over to her left foot and stood right before her black high heel leather shoe. Jeff went directly up to the side of her shoe and began tapping at it with no effect, the guy was just not strong enough to do much of anything at his size.
“ I think we gotta crawl up on top of the front of her shoe and then go over to the opening where her foot goes in…tap on her skin…she might feel that.”, suggested Ed.
“ Yea…OK…makes sense.”
Determined to get attention, Jeff walked over to the very front of her shoe and with some effort crawled up on the toe area. Once he was on top of the black leather, he slowly went up and finally stepped on top of her foot’s flesh covered only by the dark stocking. Quickly, he began jumping up and down, using all of his tiny strength.
Sure enough, the lady froze for a moment, and then looked down and over to the side. When she saw Jeff, Helen quickly got up from her seat, causing the little man to fall back down to the floor and tumble over. However, he finally got back to his feet and together with Ed began waving his arms and yelling, “ HELEN…IT’S US…ME AND ED…HELP…PLEASE HELP…PLEASE!!!”
At this point, the lady’s expression was twisted by shock and confusion as she slowly went down to her knees, and cautiously moved her face closer and closer to tiny little Jeff. It took her a few seconds to finally realize what she was looking at.
“Jeff…is that you?’, asked the lady.
“ Yes…Helen…it’s me…me and Ed…we both got shrunk by the copy machine.’
She turned head for a moment and looked in the direction of the copy machine, quickly returning her attention to the little man in front of her, the woman saying, “ Um…OK…that explains why I couldn’t find you guys…but that’s strange…how could the machine do that.”
“ Not sure…but you gotta get us help.”
As her expression turned to curiosity, Helen slowly stood up, her figure towering over the little men, making her look powerful and controlling to them. She ventured over to the copy machine and came to a halt before the thing, staring down at it.
“What’s she doing?’, asked Ed.
“ I don’t know.”, replied Jeff, “ I just hope the machine doesn’t go back on and shrink her too…then we’ll never be able to get help.”
After she stood there for a few moment’s Helen walked away from the machine and entered the conference room, where she took up one of the sturdy metal chairs and returned with it to the copy machine room.
“ Now what she’s doing…”, asked Ed again, “…what does she want with a chair…that don’t make sense…what could she be doing?”
“ Something is funny here.”, said Jeff.
Before the little guys could say anything else, Helen used all her strength to raise the chair up over her head and then quickly brought it smashing down on the copy machine, busting up the top of it. And again, she raised up the chair, again smashing it down to the machine, doing this several times, making sure the thing was all busted up, even reaching inside of it and ripping out all the electronics, destroying as much as she could, making it impossible to determine what went wrong with the thing in the first place.
When she was done, Helen returned the chair to the conference room and strolled back to the tiny men, coming to a halt right before the two little guys, shifting her weight and placing one hand on her hip, looking down at them now with a very sinister expression on her face, all the fear and confusion gone.
She stared at them for a few moments and then reached down for Jeff, placing him down on the palm of her right hand, the lady standing straight again.
“Why did you do that?”, asked the little man on her hand.
“Because…I don’t want anyone to find out about this shrinking thing…no one will know…you two are just gonna disappear and that’s it.”
“What do you mean?”, insisted the man.
“ I mean I’m gonna take over this place…that’s what…the company charter has it all laid out…if the executives are gone for some reason, the secretary takes over.”
“ You can’t be serious!”, yelled Ed up from down by her feet.
“ Oh yea I am…and I’ll show you how serious I am.”
Before Ed could run or move out of the way, Helen raised her black leather shoe and quickly brought it down, stepping on the man, killing him in a second!”
“ No…I don’t believe what you just did!”, cried Jeff up at the woman, the guy still in her hand.
“Yes…that’s right…I’m the boss here now…I spent all this time doing what you asked all the time without enough pay and recognition…now as the boss, the CEO, I will have it all…I’ll shatter the glass ceiling in this place!”
“ Please…no…don’t do this!”, cried Jeff, trying to reason with her.
Like it was nothing, Helen turned her hand to the side and allowed him to fall to the floor. After he hit the tile, the man just laid there injured. When he looked up, he saw the horrific sight of her right shoe sole come down at him, the man finally crushed to death like Ed.
Full of conceit and eager to get the company running the way she wanted things to be done, Helen entered Jeff’s executive suite. She sat down, smiled to herself, and went to work running the company!
The End