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dec, 2020 1st place winner: q-rious by zach anderson

The 6PM police satellite umbrella had just orbited above the house. When she stepped outside she was 5 ft 4 inches tall. The pneumatic door hissed shut. She ran to the driveway. 6:01PM. She had lost 4 inches. By the time she reached the road she couldn’t see over the rows of corn.


After taking the injection she had left the syringe on the kitchen counter. The label was printed on Mars where the preferred language was Mandarin, but the English was clear enough: “In 15 minutes done. Arrange being safe place then.” By the time she had run to the last corn row she needed two steps to cover the same amount of ground. She turned left and into the open field. It took her a full minute to reach the middle.


She stopped and stood still, willing her thoughts to stop. The brown field grew like she was draining through the bottom of a sink. Quick images from the past weeks flashed.


Mom. Dad. Their final divorce hearing. The mini vodka bottles…empty and rolling in the back seat as the car swerved to 95 mph. Blond hair crossing the road. The kid’s head hitting the window. A strange slurry of blood. The police car. The judge’s words, “Juvenile strayance…5 years on Europa colony 17.” The wording of the web ad for Q-rious, the syringe drug, “You shrink…problems shrink.”


By the time she was steady it would have taken her 30 minutes to run back to the road. The web ad still swam before her, “Be whenever…wherever!” She was floating now as gravity released her reduced mass. Colors rushed toward the sky as she was compressed. Tears streamed down her face.


The last ad sentence read, “Skip the next few years…the future will be brighter!”



Zach lives in rural Minnesota and works for a non-profit international Christian organization. He has previously lived and worked in Hungary and China.

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1 Comment


Jamie Brindle
Jamie Brindle
May 23, 2021

Cool story. The details were good - the instructions printed on Mars in Mandarin, the early mention of the height and so on. great stuff :-)

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