Things are Not as they Seem

“Hon, you hoarding the spray in there?” I call from our client’s living room.  

“Yeah, babe hold on,” he says as he leaves the kitchen with the ant spray in hand. “What do you need the spray for? You’re vacuuming.” 

“I saw a bunch of ants crawling around behind the couch. Look there’s some on the floor.” John passes the ant spray and I coat the bottom of the windowsill as he wipes up the few on the floor. “Mind helping me undress the couch so I can vacuum it?” 

“Yeah, no problem. What time are the Chiperskis getting home again?” 

“We’ve got a couple hours to finish up.” 

 Dawning gloves, as the old grey couch has soaked up stains of many owners before the Chiperskis and their three kids. We pile the pillows and the throw blanket on the floor to the side, then remove its cushions and set them to the other side. I press on the vacuum while John disappears to finish cleaning the kitchen.  

Sliding the thin attachment of the vacuum hose along the creases of the couch, a weak spot in the fabric rips. The tip of the hose sinks in and initiates a sharp whooshing from the vacuum. I know this sound well; some hidden treasure has been lost in the couch and I’ve been the lucky looter. Brief disappointment hits as no gems or jewels suction to the end as I remove the hose. But a corner of the obstruction reveals itself from the hideaway.  

“Huh?” I say aloud.  

“Did you say something?” John shouts, trying to breach the sound levels of the vacuum.  

I shut down the vacuum and say, “John, come here. I found something.” I pull on the corner of the object, ripping the couch's inner lining during extraction. He walks up behind me, kisses me on the back of the head and places his hand around my waist.  

“Ahh, what have you found now?” He says leaning over my left shoulder.  

A small white square of paper with a film of plastic covering most of the surface. Both sides of it blank, except for a small hand-written message.  

“Things may be bigger than they appear,” I mumble, confused. I turn my head to John and he shrugs, just as perplexed as I. 

“Maybe there’s a secret message and we need a blacklight to see it.” 

“It’s an old undeveloped polaroid.” I look up to the ceiling, no overhead lighting. Only a few lamps placed in the corners of the living room. “Put your flashlight on it.” 

He removes his phone from his jeans pocket and hovers it over the photograph. “One second,” he presses the flashlight on.  

As it shines on the blank photo, an image begins to develop. Familiar shapes and colors appear. We can just make out a blur of the couch before us. 

Just as I’m about to point it out, the photo begins to tremble in my fingers. 

“Hold it still,” John says. 

“It’s not me Joh-!” As his name leaves my lips a flash of light from the photograph blinds us both.  

I rub my eyes until I can see John standing before me, no longer at my back.  

“Damnit, John did you see that?” 

“Yeah, god I can’t see a damn thing.” 

I regain enough of my sight to notice that the room has grown darker. The couch, coffee table, and vacuum are gone. John and I now stand below two unrecognizable structures. 

“Abby, where are we?” 

The larger structure to our right has a grey ridged textured surface. The smaller is wooden coated with a dark finish. 

“John.” I point behind him. At the end of the corridor stands the vacuum. The vacuum, once as tall as my hip, now reaches 10-stories tall. 

“No way,” he says in denial. 

“We-” I don’t know how to say this without it coming out ridiculous. My brain and words stutter, no real words forming. 

Then finally I utter, “We shrunk. The flash, the photograph,” I say breathlessly. I can feel my hands begin to sweat.  

“The photograph.” As john finishes his words. He looks around frantically. “Where’s my phone?” 

Like a ghostly echo, quick rap of footsteps coming from beneath, what we understand now as the couch.  

“Did you hear that?” Both of us unmoving, focusing our eyes into the dark dusty abyss. I break my stare and look to our left and see a loose strand of thread hanging down from the edge of the couch. With a whisper, “John.” I nod towards the strand. He follows my gaze and gestures for me to follow. 

Before we can make it to our climbing rope, a beast darts towards us from the shadows. Hundreds of legs flutter across the ground towards us. A shiver travels down my spine and to my extremities.  

A house centipede. 

It tramples over us and knock us to the ground. A few legs smack me in the face, whipping my head to the floor. Seeing stars from the impact, I look around to see where it skittered off to. Behind me the shade of a torpedo leaves the other end of the coffee table, heading in the direction of the kitchen.  

Hastily we lift ourselves up and reach to grasp the thread and climb.  

The dizziness and moisture in my palms make it hard to climb 

A tear in the fabric where the thread originates from serves as a hammock, a nice reprieve from climbing, and asylum for the possible return of the centipede. We tumble in and lay back to rest.  

Between big breathes, John says, “Was tha-” 

“A house centipede,” I visibly shudder at the image of them skittering across the floor beneath my feet before we were this small. 

He shudders as well, and pulls his arms to his chest.  

“You okay?” I ask. 

“Yeah, he smacked me around a bit,” he says. 

“Same.” 

After catching our breath, we take a look around to gather our surroundings. There is nothing on the floor except for crumbs and hair.  

My mouth dries, and water starts to well in the corners of my eyes. “What are we going to do?” 

John lays back in the hammock, hands over his face.  

“The polaroid,” I say. “We have to get to the polaroid.” I scan the ground for the phone and the polaroid.  

Nothing. 

“They’re not down there,” he says from behind his hands.  

“They have to be on the couch.” I grasp John’s leg, “get up, we have to move.” 

“Move? Move where,” he stops short and pauses for a moment. “I have an idea.” His hands removed from his face; now facing down another chasm stretching deep into the couch. 

Thinking on this path, it could be the safest route.  

“Alright let's try it,” I say, wiping a tear from my cheek. 

We make our way from the hammock to the thick trampoline-like utility fabric stapled to the couch.  

The inside of the couch is brighter than expected. Removing the cushions has allowed light to flood over the surface of the crumb catching fabric layer above. Light filters down and bounces off a web of metal rods and springs. Dozens of holes riddle the layer and shine like stars in a brown night sky. 

Making our way into the center of the utility fabric, we turn to see our entrance. The tear that we entered from stretches the length of the couch. Not seeing an easy way up from there, we focus on the back of the couch.  

The holes in the fabric have ruined the integrity. As we walk, what should be small pieces of food, knock against our feet. We kick a few to the side, except for a wide pink disk that John decides to collect and take with him. 

“Could use a snack after the climb, eh?” Trying to make light of the situation.  

The exposed wooden frame has splinters and ridges that jut out across it. This should make for an easy climb. While surveying the wooden face, I feel a vibration in the fabric we stand on. 

“Wait, wait, shhh.” I put my hand on John’s shoulder. “Did you feel that?”  

We both crouch to place our hands on the surface. Not moving, we look around, and wait. 

A moment passes, nothing. 

Another, nothing. 

My knee slips, hitting the fabric. Instantly, the surface awakens. A parade of thumps and pats make their way toward us. 

“Abby, climb!” John shouts.  

We leap at the wall and start climbing as fast as we can. Weighed down by the candy, John slips and struggles.  

“Drop it!” 

He lets out a disagreeing grunt, and makes it to the top before a gang of ants appear at the base of the wood face.  

Like vultures to day old roadkill, a gang of twenty to thirty ants file in and cluster below. 

“Go, go, go!” I yell, and we run the length of the frame to the center of the couch.  

In the shadows and panic we did not see the frame obstructing our path with a central joist. I run into it face first and fall to my back. John kneels down to keep me from falling off the edge. 

More stars, more dizziness.  

Still laying on my back I crane my neck to look at the path behind us. They’ve climbed the wall and are coming towards us. I hurriedly scramble to my feet and look around for a route. 

A slat of wood, nailed vertically into our runway.  

It’s not nailed in very well. The manufacturers left a small space between the joist and the horizontal frame.  

I sit down and lower myself to hang from the wood with my hands. There is just enough room for our hands to fit. I shimmy by my fingers past the monument of poor craftsmanship, and John follows.  

We pull ourselves up and peek around the corner. The ants reach our previous location and peek their heads around each side of the wooden pillar, seeking a path to us. Looking back down at the utility fabric, more ants have clustered and start climbing.  

We keep running. 

Looking around the inside of the couch, an idea flashes across my rattled brain. 

The metal springs.  

“John, the metal.” I shout. They’re attached to the wooden frame at our feet. 

He stops and examines the surface of a nearby metal rod. Places first his hand, and then his shoe on it.  

“Genius, babe.” 

Surely the ants couldn’t climb on such a smooth surface. 

Like a tightrope, we start up the metal rod. It’s anchored into the wooden frame and woven through the other springs and rods. Like a network of catwalks above a theater stage, we maneuver about like seasoned theater crew members. Running the curves and corners of this metallic labyrinth. We’re both so focused on not falling we don’t dare look back to see if it’s following us.  

The maze ends at a puncture in the crumb catcher left by a broken spring.  

Finally taking a moment to look behind us, they're still in pursuit. 

I grab the candy off of John’s back and toss it down from our tower of metal. As it falls, we watch the ants make their way toward us. Legs moving as fast as the house centipede’s.  

Fast, erratic, hungry.  

A thumb resounds within the couch interior as the candy bounces off of the fabric below. The ants freeze for a moment. Dozens of them are climbing to strike us down for a piece of sugar. Then slowly, they turn around and make their way back down to collect their prize. 

“You owe me for that.” I say with a slap to his shoulder. 

A shared sigh of relief and a hug brings us down from the panic. The light emanating from the top of the lampshade shines as a beacon of hope. 

“Thank god this crappy thing has so many holes in it.” John says as he pokes his head through the opening. 

“Well, this family has three kids. I’m sure they use this as a trampoline and tear it apart.” I poke my head out beside his and claw at the fabric to pull myself up. John pulls himself up behind me. 

The phone, now much larger than us, lays face down on the couch with its flashlight still on. Beside it lay the polaroid photo, also face down.  

“So, we’re here,” John says. “What now?” 

“Well,” I start without a follow up. Thinking for a moment, how we got here. “The polaroid’s message says ‘Things may be bigger than they appear.’ When you flashed the light on it, it started developing. It shook, and...” 

“That’s usually written on car mirrors.” 

“Can we flip the photo over?” 

A few failed attempts to flip the photo later, we realize we aren’t tall enough.  

“Can you pick up one side so I can look underneath?” I say, hoping something on the photo is different, and may be able to help.  

John picks up the top of the photo and walks it up to his fingertips, as high as he can hold it. 

Nothing on the developed photo has changed, but the writing below has. 

I read the new message aloud, “Things are smaller than they appear.” 

“What?” John mutters through his teeth.  

“Put it down, take a rest, I have an idea.”  

As John rests I relay my plan of repeating what happened earlier. If we can shine the phone light onto the polaroid, maybe it will turn us back. 

We both take an end of the photograph. Lifting it high above our heads, we carry it to the phone's flashlight. We are just tall enough for the light to shine on half of the photo.  

But it works.  

Similar to the normal size photo that sat in my hand earlier, it begins to shake. But this time it feels like an earthquake. Bouncing and seizing above our heads.  

Straining, I shout to John, “Just a little longer!”  

We collapse, blinded by another flash from the photograph. Worried that the photo would crush me, I cover my face with my arms.  

Soft as a feather, a small square of plastic and paper falls on my forearms. I swipe it off me, then rub my eyes again until I regain sight.  

Looking up from the floor at a blurry ceiling, I rub my eyes for a few more seconds. I look behind me to see John just coming to on the other end of the couch. The vacuum cleaner no longer towers above my head. The house centipede flies across the floor the couch, and disappears. 

John jumps from the couch, bangs his knee on the coffee table and turns towards me. Hands out to his side, befuddled, he lifts them above his head and says, “You’re amazing.” 

I smile joke, “Want to take a picture to remember this day?” 

He stares at me blankly, and leaves the room with a shout, “Nope!”