Dr. Leon was exhausted. Happy hour was coming up, and he was anxious to end his work day. Unfortunately, this last therapy patient would not shut up. True, she was cute, a lithe, thirty something blonde named Lesley. It was patients like this that made him want to forget the Hippocratic Oath. But as she yammered on and on about her personal issues, Leon realized he was not going to be violating patient/doctor privilege tonight. It was time to end this session.

“You know, Miss Charles, I think you might do well with some medication.” He rifled through his desk for a bottle of sample pills. “Take a couple of these tonight, see if that does the trick.”

“Wait,” replied Lesley. “What do these pills do? Are there any side effects?”

Leon was already ushering her out the door. Side effects? He remembered something about the pills sometimes causing weight loss. Personally, he didn’t think Lesley needed to lose anything, but he’d never met a woman who didn’t want to drop a couple of pounds.

“No side effects to speak of.”

*

Leon was surprised when he heard a knock on his door that night, and even more surprised when he looked out the window and saw Lesley. He quickly checked his hair. He’d heard other doctors talk about situations like this, but it had never happened to him.

Lesley burst in the second Leon opened the door. Funny, there was something different about her. He remembered that she was short, but right now it looked like she was not even five feet tall. And while she was wearing the same skirt and blouse as earlier (Leon remembered when she had bent down to go through her purse), they both seemed a size too large. Probably his imagination.

“Miss Charles! To what do I owe the...”

“I’m shrinking!” she screamed, in a strangely high pitched voice.

This was the problem with being a psychologist. You never knew which ones were really crazy. “Surely you’re imagining...”

But then he stopped. He stared, unbelieving. She was getting shorter! It was almost imperceptible, but as he watched, his patient decreased by nearly a quarter inch. And she wasn’t stopping.

“What’s happening?” she yelled. Leon noticed she wasn’t just getting shorter, she was getting smaller. Already, one shoulder popped out of the neck hole of her top.

“It must have been those pills. Though I honestly didn’t think...”

“You didn’t think?” Lesley stepped forward, leaving her shoes behind. “I don’t know what you’ve done to me, but you better fix it now, you quack!”

“Let me think...” Leon wracked his brains. Would his malpractice insurance cover something like this?

“Don’t just stand there!” Lesley’s skirt fell down around her ankles, but to Leon’s annoyance, the bottom of her blouse now covered down to her knees.

“Look, this is all new to me, Miss Charles. We may have to wait and see what happens. We’ll know how bad the situation is in a few days at the most.”

“Wait and see?” Her voice was distinctively high-pitched now. The bottom of her blouse  touched the floor. She clutched it to her body to keep it from falling off her shoulders.

“What if I don’t stop shrinking? What if I disappear?”

Leon gently lifted Lesley and placed her on the counter. “Then we’ll know that too.”

*

Two Days Later

Lesley sat morosely on the edge of the bed. Her feet no longer touched the ground.

“Well,” said Leon, “It looks like you finally stopped shrinking And not a moment too soon!”
Lesley grunted.

“I was worried there for a while, but I think you’ll be okay now.”

She grunted again.

“It was touch and go, but all’s well that ends well.”

Lesley said something, but Leon couldn’t hear it.

“Talk into the microphone, please.”

Lesley sighed, got up off the doll’s bed, and walked over to the edge of her aquarium. She stretched up the mike that Leon had wired to the side of her cage.

“End’s well?” she shrieked. “I’m barely half an inch tall!”

Leon squinted through his magnifying glass. “Well...at you’re big enough to still see. I was concerned there for a while.”

“You were concerned? I’m stuck like this! This isn’t how I pictured spending the rest of my life!”

Leon sighed. He felt bad. He really did. “I do have some good news.”

She brightened. “You found a cure?”

“Um, no.”

“This is just temporary?”

“Doubtful.”

“Well, what then?”

“I got a research grant! I’m going to be famous!”

Lesley was so angry she forgot to speak into the microphone, but Leon still heard her. “What about me?”

“You’ll be famous too! The incredible shrinking girl. I owe it all to you. If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you...”

“How about some clothes, you jerk?”

Leon just stared at her through his magnifying glass. “I, uh...I’ll work on that. In the mean time...”

Leon turned up the cage’s heater (a device made to keep pet snakes warm). He smiled, and then left the room.

Lesley sat down angrily on the doll bed. She glanced at her naked form in the mirror (a toy made for pet birds).

Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. Less than an inch tall and basically the pet of this lunatic.
She lay down on her bed and tried to get some sleep.

She had half a mind to cancel her next appointment.