"Would Jodi come up, please?" Bill called out as he read the name on his paper.  "You've volunteered!"  He gestured out over the heads of his audience and a single woman came up to the stage.  "Hello, are you Jodi?"

"That's me!" the young woman replied as he helped her up.  The short brunette wore a very tight green strapless dress that showed off a lot of leg, over which was a light purple half-jacket that was cut far to open to close.  A green chocker and green slippers completed the ensemble.

"Hey Jodi," Bill greeted her warmly.  "How are you?"

"Oh, just peachy!" Jodi smiled as she hopped back and forth, eager to participate.  "Whatcha got for me?"

Bill approved of her eagerness.  "Well, how are you with closed spaces?"

"I'm good!" Jodi said as behind her, Bill's helper rolled a transparent case onto the stage, four feet high and two feet on each side.

"So then," Bill walked around the transparent container and flipped down the back side of it.  "Shall we?"

"You're awefuly eager," Jodi shrugged off her jacket and dropped it to one side.  "Is there something you're not telling me?  Usually when a man is in this much of a rush..."  She left the implication hanging as she kicked off her slippers, joining her jacket.

"Well," Bill drawled out his reply, "there's not much to patter on about a clear box.  And uh, you don't need to take off your clothes."

Jodi paused with her hands over her chest, ready to pull down her dress.  "Why not?"

The sound of Bill slapping his forehead with both hands was quiet audible.  "Because it's not needed?" the question was quite rhetorical, even as he peeked through his fingers to give her an incredulous look.

"What?  Are you saying I'm not pretty enough to look at naked?" Jodi challenged.

Bill was male.  He knew exactly the trap he had just walked into.  Thankfully, he also knew the right sort of answer.  "Are you telling me you think your dress doesn't make you look good either?"

Jodi glared at him, but relented.  She reset her top with a huff.  "Fine.  But you know, it's bad form when you just carted naked volunteers of the stage."

"Why?"

"Because it's a let down for the audience!  I thought you were supposed to, you know, keep escalating!"

"Ugh..." Bill wanted to bury his hands in his face again, but rejected the idea, no matter how much he wanted to.  "Any narrative, or performance, has it's ups and downs.  You can't just keep the action rising because you'll get stupid things like some idiot jumping over a shark tank on a motorcycle."

"Fine!" Jodi relented.  "Now, I just climb in?"

"Yep," Bill agreed, rotating the table with the clear container on it ninety degrees so that Jodi could enter from the audiences' right side.  She was able to get in without any help and she quickly found the best position for herself, sitting down with her knees folded up to her chest.  "You comfy?" Bill asked.

"Sure am!"  With that encouragement, Bill closed the rear panel and turned the entire thing around so that Jodi was facing front.  She smiled and waved at everyone.

"Now that I've got her in here," Bill said, "I can do several things."  He shook his arms and held out his hand, but nothing happened.  "Hold on..." He shook his arms harder this time, sleeves flopping around, but once again there was nothing.

"That's all right," Jodi said from inside her case, "Performance anxiety happens to everyone."

The look Bill gave her was more appropriate for a spiker than her current predicament.  Instead he then looked down his sleeves and shook his head sadly.  "Sorry everyone, technical malfunctions.  I'll have to go with plan B then."

"And what would that be?" Jodi asked on behalf of the audience.

Bill slapped the top of the transparent box.  It collapsed six inches, forcing Jodi to hunch over a bit more.  "It shrinks!"

"Hey!" objected the woman trapped in the box.  "Aren't there supposed to be air holes or something to let the air out?"

"No.  It's magic!" Bill confirmed as he put his hands against Jodi's left side and pushed it in a couple inches, forcing her to shift to the right and squeeze her legs together.

"So, it's totally safe, right?"

"Of course!  Would I do anything to harm any of my assistants?"  Bill went around back and pushed in the back of the box, forcing Jodi to press herself forward, her feet folding over herself as her legs became pinned to the front.

"Maybe?" Jodi replied as Bill put his hands on top of the box and slowly pushed it down.  Jodi quickly lost any further space she had, and before the audience, started to be pushed down with the top.  "Um, getting hot in here?"

"Hey, you're the one who thinks you look better with your dress on," Bill stopped pushing down, leaving the box only a foot across and deep, while two high.  "Definitely lost some weight there." He leaned over and looked down to see Jodi's face peaking out over her knees, her legs far too short as her feet were curled into the corners.

"Very funny," she shot back, the case muffling her voice now.  "Should I complain about your weight?"

"As a man, I reserve the right to put on a few extra pounds as insurance," Bill patted his stomach defensively. "Now, maybe I should finish this off before you make fun of me again," his tone of voice indicated that he really didn't take offence to the back-and-forth.

"But I..!" her attempt to keep talking was halted when Bill put his hands on the front and back of the box and collapsed it more, squeezing the woman inside until it was only six inches deep.  "I'm gonna need a massage after this," Jodi could be heard complaining.

"Not on my dime," Bill said as he moved to the top and pressed Jodi down further and further until only the crown of her head was visible above her feet.  With no response from inside, he took it by the sides, and pushed it even further until Jodi and her contain were reduced to a cube a mere six inches on the side.

Picking it up, Bill showed no signs that the small container held the full weight of his volunteer.  He turned it around to show all six faces to the audience.  The top was covered in Jodi's brown hair, while the back had more hair and a palm from one of her hands.  The bottom showed off the bottom of her dress, while the sides were a confusing mixture of what should be her legs and the sides of the green dress.  The front showed off her forehead and one foot, the other folding in behind somehow. "And this is why I wanted her to keep her clothes on," Bill explained as he put the cube back down on its side, "it's much easier to tell what is where."

"So," Bill clapped his hands together, "I have a small assistant now - though I think she won't be able to help me with the next."  He reached behind him, plucked the cube off the table and tossed it into the air with a flick of the wrist, sending it spinning in all directions.  It stayed up.  "Whose next?"