TRIO - PART ONE
FRANK IN TINY TOWN
by HUGO PROSPERIO

Frank found himself falling faster, and he closed his eyes as he felt the ground rushing up on him. When he hit the ground, he was shocked to find himself bouncing off it, like it were made of rubber. He watched the sidewalk wobble as it stabilized itself from the impact. He looked up at the strange colorful metropolis around him and wondered what the hell had happened. He looked around to see if he could spot Phil or Emily, but neither were in sight. On the street corner across from him, he saw a large clown giggling as it patted a normal looking guy on the back. They both looked like they were laughing themselves to tears. The clown held up a cup and the man drank from it, then nodded. The clown grabbed the man and held his lips to the man and blew into him, and Frank gasped as the man began to shrink and twist as his body became a translucent green color. The man was smiling wide as his body became  like liquid rubber and reshaped itself. With another blow from the clown, the man's body re-shaped into what was clearly a balloon animal. A dog, from the looks of it. The clown then took a string and tied it around the neck of the balloon and placed it on the ground and began to walk it.
"Holy shit!" Frank said aloud, not realizing just how loud he had spoken.

The clown turned and looked at him. "Oh! Hello there! Another fresh human!"

Frank didn't wait for the clown to continue. He turned and ran down the nearest street.

"What the fuck? Where am I?" He gasped as he ran as fast as he possibly could. He then tripped over something and landed flat on his face.

"Ow!" came a voice that wasn't his own. He sat up swiftly and saw a foot tall girl standing there in front of him. She was a clown too, down to the colorful skin and red nose.

"I…sorry." Frank said, shocked to see such a tiny person.

"This always happens when the bigguns come into Tiny Town." She said with a huff. "I have feelings too you know."
"Oh god, you talk." He said.

"Of course I can talk, I'm not an animal." She said indignantly. "You can talk, and you are a great big thundering buffoon, but you don't see me complaining."

"What are you?" he asked curiously.

"Oh, you normies, all the same, especially the bigguns. I'm a clown. I'd think that'd be obvious." She said, hands on her hips. "You know, I bet you can hardly hear me. Follow me, big guy." She said.

He didn't know why, but he was compelled to follow the tiny lady. As he did, he noticed varying people of all sizes in the area, but all under the size of three feet tall, and they were all clowns. Bright smiles and strange makeup made them look so bizarre as he walked by them. The all waved at him as he followed the doll sized woman through the streets. Soom the came to what looked like some sort of telephone booth.

"Step inside, and when you get out, I can explain things to you a bit more clearly." She said.

He looked at her oddly.  "I have to find my friends. I don't know where they went."

"Come on, it'll just take a second." She said pointing to the booth. He sighed and turned and walked in. As he stepped in, the door slammed shut behind him. On the outside, it said CONVERSION BOOTH

"Howdy there!" said a friendly voice. In front of him was a small box hanging on wall of the booth, held up by string. There stood another small clown, this one was only about six inches tall. He was talking into a microphone of sorts. "Another biggun! Nice to see so many of you as of late. Tiny Town is a cool place, you'll love it here."

"Tiny Town?" Frank asked.

"This part of the city. We call it that because everyone here is tiny! Speaking of which, let's get started. I think taking half off should do for the moment, and we'll see where to go from there. How tall are you. You don't have to be exact."

Still confused, Frank simply looked at the clown. "Uh. It's 6 foot, 3 inches"

"A real big biggun. Nice." He said. "This should be fun.  It's not an exact thing, so hold onto your butt!" he laughed as he slicked back his red hair and pointed his gloved fingers the man.

"Ala-ka-zoo!" he said. Blue energy sparked from the tips of his three chubby finger and they shot towards Frank, who hardly had time to dodge them. As the beams of energy hit him, the entire booth seemed to vibrate with the energy, it's glow glowing larger. Frank couldn't speak, just stare in awe at the oddness he was now surrounded by.

"Ala-ka-ZAM!" the tiny clown said pulling his hands out, and the energy stopped.

"There. Now the REAL fun begins."

Frank suddenly felt a chill wash over him. In seconds he felt tingles growing over inch of his skin. "What is going on?"

"You are being prepared to explore Tiny Town the only way one should…by being tiny!"

Frank's eyes opened wide when he felt his whole world shift. He was getting shorter, smaller. He watched as the walls of the booth stretched higher and as his clothes began to get baggy on him. He looked on in a mixture of fasination and horror as his sleeves slipped past his hands. He lost inch after inch, and felt dizzy as the inches vanished from him, like steam from a pot of boiling water.

"Hey, stop it!" he shouted, his voice sounding different as his height stopped shifting. He looked down at himself and saw that he looked like a kid playing dress up. The little box began to move down the wall. The clown pulled on the strings as he hoisted himself down to a better vantage point.

"There we go. A half reduction. You are now 3 feet tall, and about 1 inch. Like I said, it's not exact."

"Turn me back. This isn't cool!" he shouted.

"Yeesh, no need to yell. Turning you back would require another burst of my size changing energy. I can handle it, but it might cause some…problems since we just did one."

"I don't care! Turn me back!" Frank shouted.

"Okay, you asked for it!" he said as he rubbed his hands together and shot the electric energy towards the 3 foot tall Frank, and the same process began. It sparked through him to every inch of the booth, and then died down. Frank waited for the tingles, thrilled that he'd be able to grow again, and then he'd get the hell out of this place and go find Phil and Emily.

The tingles did begin, but it wasn't what Frank had wanted. His arm stretched, growing longer and larger, but the rest of him was getting smaller again.

"Hey! No! Wait!" he shouted.

"Oh, I was afraid of this." The clown said, shaking his head.

Frank's arms stopped stretching, but his body was still shrinking swiftly. He was now under two foot tall and shrinking. Then he felt even more tingles wash over him. He looked down as his clothes fell to the ground of the booth and watched as his skin turned bubblegum pink. His fingers, still larger than they should be proportionally, began to meld together, the ring finger shrinking and melding with the pinky.

"What the hell?" he shouted as he shrank again.

"Too much exposure to clown magic in a short amount of time has it's own clowny effects." The clown giggled as he watched Frank's nose swell up into a round blue ball.

"No! Stop it!"

"Can't. I used up my magic for a bit. Just have to watch!" he giggled.

Frank felt his arms shift again growing a touch longer, making his hands almost touch the floor as he went through another large bout of shrinking, this one seemingly the last.

He then looked down and watched his feet grow larger, stretching out across the floor of the booth, pushing his discarded clothing further away from him, His ears began to strech and double in size and his teeth shifted as the front two became larger, giving him a buck tooth look.

On his head, his scalp tingled, and all the hair on the top simply vanished, sucking back into his head, while the ring of remaining hair turned orange. He felt the bald spot and shrieked.

"This isn't real! WAKE UP FRANK!" he said as his voice got deeper yet sillier, like Goofy or something like that.

He was now under a foot tall, around 10 inches, with arms long and dangling, bald, and a clown.

"Oh, you look great!" The clown said, looking far bigger than he had before as he lowered himself down again. "Now then, how do you feel?"

"Feel, I feel like k…k…" he stuttered. He wanted to say kill. He felt like strangling the small clown, but suddenly his head felt lighter.

"Oh, I think the magic is working itself not just on your body, but on your mind. Of course, it won't change things totally…just make you easier to deal with. I think you are done for now. Thanks for stopping by the Tiny Town Conversion Chamber. Hope you like your new home." He said as the booth door opened, letting in the sunlight.

"Home?" he said, his mind reeling. He was no longer angry, but very confused.

"Oh wow! The booth sure did a number on you!" The girl from earlier said. He was shocked to see she was an inch taller than him now. He waddled out, not realizing he was naked as could be, which made her giggle.

"Come on, let's go back to my place, and we'll get you some clothes." She said.

They walked down the street. A two foot tall clown smiled. "Welcome to the Tiny world, my friend. It's the best."

"So I said I'd explain things, so here goes." The girl said. "This is Tiny Town. We are a little offshoot of Clowntopia, a world full of magical clowns. Here it isn't makeup or costumes, as you can now see via your silly body." She said. "But here in Tiny Town, this is where all the small clowns go. Sometimes the magic makes someone short, and this is where they call home. We have the conversion booth in case people want to try the small life for a bit. Of course most who do that never give it up. It's too much fun."

"So I'm tiny and a clown now. Can I change back?" he asked.

"Your height might be changed, but the clown thing, that's a lot harder to undo. I didn't think Freckles in the booth would clown you too."
"Oh, well, I don't think he meant to. I demanded to be changed back, and the extra energy did this to me."

"Ah, too much clown magic in one go. That happens all the time. Well, live and learn. I am just up here." She said as she walked up to a small hole in the wall. She ducked down and Frank did the same. Inside the hole was a huge space filled with doors. "I'm just over here." She said.

She lead him to her "apartment" and inside, he saw that it was a perfectly fine apartment, and if he hadn't known he was shrunk, he'd have been none the wiser that it was not normal. It was rather colorful, he noted. He felt sillier as time went on, and realized that the magic must be creeping into his mind. He tried to not think about it, but it certainly weight on him.

"Now, I have some clothes from when my brother last visited. He's about your height, but the arms, well." She said as she fitted him into qhat looed like a three piece clown suit, with a nice fancy blue jacket, a red vest, and a orange shirt. The pants matched the vest. It was a perfect fit, except the arms. The clown girl took  pair of sissors and snipped away at the sleeves at the elbow, and then smiled. "There, it's a bit weird, but I think it suits you. I'm Bedelia, by the way. You are?"

"Frank." He said.

"That isn't a very silly name, is it Frank? Tell me, do you feel a new name coming on?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, Frank, I hate to break it to ya, but the clown magic is gonna make you a full clown. No stopping it. In just a little bit, you won't remember being human at all. Just the way it works, so you have to deal with it. Now, is a new name coming to mind, because that's the best way to accept it. Makes things go faster."

He thought hard. His thoughts drifted a bit to Emily. Would she love him as a clown? Would she ever find him? Phil, would he laugh about this, or would he try to save him. In the midst of these thoughts, he started to giggle. A name was growing in his mind. He stood up.
"I got it!" he said with a Hyuck of a laugh. He then went to move forward and tripped over his large bare feet.

"Clumsy!"

"Sounds perfect."

In a rush of energy, Frank felt so strange and odd, but so right. In moments, he felt every inch of Frank washing away. His college football career was gone, his education didn't matter, and who were those two he was with before he found this wonderful place. Poof. Gone, all those thoughts were gone.

"So, Clumsy, how do you feel?" Bedelia asked.

"So silly and fun!" he chortled.

"Now, you enjoying being tiny?" she asked.

"Of course! It's Aweeeesome."

"Do you want to be big again?"

"Heck no. Tiny Town is where it is at." Clumsy giggled. Frank was gone. One bored college kid down, two to go.

NEXT UP: PHIL ON THE PLAYGROUND