Dominique had only been living in Melbourne for a few months, but she was starting to get settled in.

Born in Quebec to French parents, Dominique’s childhood and adolescence was fairly standard. Dominique enjoyed fashion, and after she left secondary school, Dominique decided to study design in Australia. However, due to her limited English skills, she also had to take English-language classes before she felt comfortable in an English-language environment.

To support herself, Dominique worked part-time as a waitress at the Jitterati, a cafe that was founded by French immigrants, and as such, many of the staff members were bilingual. Dominique was second-generation French, and as such, her accent was somewhere in between European French and Quebecois French, but the staff didn’t mind.

It was at this job that Dominique met her first Australian friends - a lesbian couple named Nora and Bianca. But unbeknownst to Dominique, Nora and Bianca had the power to change reality. As far as Dominique remembered, she took an interest in Nora because of Nora’s gothic fashion sense. But the couple saw it differently - at the time, they had altered reality so that Nora was invisible while Bianca was modular, and as such, from their perspective, Dominique was interested in Nora because she was just so…different.

One afternoon, Dominique came over to their house, where she was treated to tea and biscuits. The three of them made small talk, Dominique talking about her childhood in Quebec, and her love of fashion, Bianca bringing up her favourite books, and Nora making the occasional quip.



“So, Dominique,” Bianca asked. “You seemed rather…interested in my girlfriend. Is that how you roll?”

“Ah,” said Dominique. “I actually go in both directions.”

“Well, here’s hoping you find the right person for you,” said Nora. “You’ve got a wider net than most.”

“Well, just as long as they don’t mind my…kinks,” said Dominique. “I wear this preppy style, but it’s just an hors-d'oeuvre - I make my own school uniforms and wear them in private.”

“Did you go to a private school?” Bianca asked.

Dominique shook her head.

“Non, but I read a lot of manga, and just think the style is cute. Also, it’s surprisingly pretty comfortable.”

“Well, that sounds like a harmless fetish,” said Nora. “You’d be shocked by what Bianca and I are into.”

Bianca looked at Nora. Nora looked at Bianca. Bianca’s lips creased into a smile.

“Dominique, could you excuse us for a minute?”

—-

In their shared bedroom, Nora and Bianca discussed things.

“Should we tell her?” asked Bianca.

“Well, she seems a bit…eccentric. And not in a bad way.” said Nora.

“I suppose…but it seems like she became acquainted with us based on a lie,” said Bianca, picking up a sheet of the tattoos.

“Maybe she remembers it differently,” said Nora. “Why don’t we ease into it by showing her Bibi?”

Nora looked over the bedside table. At this point, she had set up a small bed for Bibi, her pet disembodied hand, made up of a hand towel and an old baby blanket. But the hand was nowhere to be seen.



“Uh oh,” thought Nora.

Suddenly, there was a loud cry of “Oh my god! C'est quoi ça?”

Nora and Bianca quickly rushed back to the living room to find Bibi, the disembodied hand, crawling up Dominique’s leg. Dominique, however, wasn’t scared, so much as surprised.

“C’est bin cute!” said Dominique, stroking Bibi.

“Dominique…I can explain,” said Nora. “See, Bianca brought home these magic markers…”

“Literal magic markers,” said Bianca. “I got a demonstration from the lady in the shop, but Nora didn’t believe me until I detached her hand and gave it a mind of its own.”

“That’s not my hand,” said Nora. “It’s a duplicate of Bianca’s. We call the hand Bibi.”

Dominique’s face was a mixture of excitement and incredulousness.



“You can detach body parts with markers?” she asked.



“I mean…detachment is kind of a weird fetish me and Bianca had,” said Nora.

“Where did you find these?” Dominique asked.



“Some weird shop that wasn’t on the mall’s map,” said Bianca. “It was some weird gift shop run by a lady in boho type clothes, and she gave me some markers, a pair of sunglasses, some temporary tattoos…”

“Tattoos?” asked Dominique. “What do they do?”

“If you give yourself a weird transformation, and stick one of these on your skin, reality changes so that you’ve been born with that weird transformation,” said Bianca.

“In fact, the first time we met you, we were wearing these,” said Nora, picking up a packet of the blue and yellow tattoos. “You seemed interested in me because I was invisible,”

Dominique’s jaw dropped.

“Putain! I thought I was just impressed by your dark fashion sense.”

“In this reality, yes,” said Nora. “Oh, by the way, make sure you stick the yellow and blue tattoo on after you’ve transformed - the purple and orange ones just invert it so that everyone is weird but you. Found that out the hard way”



“You can keep that sheet of tattoos, by the way,” said Bianca. “I went out and got some more of them today, so we’ll have plenty.”

“Well, that’s generous of you, but won’t they wash off in water?” asked Dominique.



“Nope,” said Nora. “The only thing that can wash them off are a special brand of wet wipes from the magic shop.”



“Might want to look into that later,” said Bianca.

Dominique smiled.



“I don’t know what else to say but…merci beaucoup.”

“We can transform you, if you’d like,” said Bianca. “Is there anything you’ve always wanted, but could never have?”

Dominique thought about it for a moment. “You know, I’ve always wanted to be taller.”

“I don’t think we can quite do that with the markers,” said Nora. “Is there anything at the shops that shifts size?”



“Actually, there is,” said Bianca, rummaging through her handbag, pulling out what looked like a metal basketball hoop attached to a metal wand. On one side of the wand was a dial, and on the end of the wand was a red button. Bianca flicked the button on the hoop wand, and suddenly, the area within the hoop became opaque, glowing a light blue. Bianca then rotated it, to show that, on the other side, it was glowing orange.

“One side makes things larger, one side makes it small,” said Bianca.

“Ah, and the ones that your mother gives you don’t do anything at all?” said Dominique.

“Thing is,” said Bianca. “It can only make things double or half their original size. How tall are you, exactly?”

“In metric?” said Dominique. “About a metre and a half. I think that amounts to just under five feet tall.”

“So, if we used it on you, you’d be huge,” said Bianca. “Like, 10 feet tall.”

Dominique thought about it for a moment.

“You say that these tattoos can change reality, yes?”

“Well, yes, they can, but you’d still know you were transformed,” said Nora. “The only people who’d be aware would be those who were also wearing tattoos”

Dominique stood up.

“Let’s go! But let’s do it outside; I don’t want to be a rude guest and destroy your house.”

—-

In the backyard, Dominique observed what Bianca and Dominique had put together. There was an apple tree that had grown quite large.

“That’s a beautiful tree,” said Dominique. “Do you get much native wildlife around here?”

“Mostly magpies, and the occasional possum,” said Nora. “Noisy little buggers keep me up all night.”

“Alright, Dominique,” said Bianca. “Are you ready?”

Dominique stood in a clear area, with enough wide space. “Yes, I’m ready.”

Bianca, who was four inches taller than Dominique, adjusted the dial, and suddenly, the wand extended to twice its original length, while the metal ring connected to it expanded to the size of a hula hoop. Bianca pressed the button on the end, and the familiar blue and orange glow of the wand lit up the backyard.

“Alright,” said Bianca. “Keep still while I slowly lower the wand over you.”

Dominique tensed up, crossing her hands over her chest as Bianca lowered the wand over her head. But as Bianca lowered the wand over Dominique’s head, she noticed that Dominique’s head looked positively tiny, like the size of a tennis ball. Bianca quickly jerked the wand back upwards.

“Sorry, wrong end” said Bianca, rotating the wand around. Nora chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” asked Dominique.

“Sorry, it’s just…you’re already quite tiny…also the image of your tiny head.”

Dominique rolled her eyes.

“Yes, yes, I’ve heard plenty of jokes about my height before. Please, let’s just get on with it.”

Bianca rotated the wand so that the blue energy was making contact with Dominique’s head. Dominique closed her eyes as she anticipated what would happen. Slowly, Bianca lowered the wand over Dominique’s head. As she did so, Dominique’s head emerged from the orange side of the wand, squeezing out. Once Dominique’s head had fully emerged from the other side, it was about the size of an exercise ball.

Dominique opened her eyes and looked down. Her torso was squeezing out of the hoop, and her arms were free. After about a minute, she saw her legs emerging from the hoop. When Bianca reached Dominique’s ankles, she paused.

“Okay, I need you to take a step aside,” said Bianca. Dominique obliged, pulling her feet out of the orange energy and taking a side step.

“Whoa, that felt weird,” said Dominique. “Wait…my voice.”

Dominique’s voice was rather squeaky and high-pitched prior to this moment. After her growth spurt, it hadn’t changed all that much, but it sounded a tad more resonant, and had gained a bit more volume.

Dominique looked over at the tree. The tree seemed smaller to her now, as she was eye-level with the branches.

“Hey, how’s the weather up there?” said Nora’s voice. Dominique looked down to see that both Nora and Bianca were eye-level with her crotch.

“This is amazing!” said Dominique. “I’m tall!”

“To be precise, you’re the tallest human being who ever lived,” said Bianca. “Though, I don’t know if Guinness would recognise it since, well, this thing is what made you big”.

Suddenly, both sides of the ring on the end of the wand glowed red. Then, the energy flashed until the wand turned off by itself. Bianca tapped the button.

“Oh no.” she said. “It’s broken!”

“Crap!” said Nora. “Now we can’t get her back to normal!”

Dominique started to feel guilty about what had happened.

“It’s alright, Dominique!” said Bianca. “The woman at the shop told me it was a prototype, so she’s probably not going to be too angry at me. Maybe she’ll make another version that won’t be so overtaxed by something like this.”

“In the meantime, why don’t you just take a tattoo and stick it on?” asked Nora.

Dominique knelt down to meet Nora at eye level.



“Actually, could you stick it on? I’m not sure I’m ready to handle anything delicate just yet.”



Nora took a blue-and-yellow smiley face tattoo from the sheet, and tore off the plastic protective backing. Before she pressed it against the back of Dominique’s large hand, she looked up at the giant.



“Now, once this tattoo sticks to your skin, reality will change, and that includes old photographs” said Nora. “So, if anyone is casual about your size, just play along. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

“Right,” said Dominique. “So, until reality is warped again?”

Nora smiled.

“I guess so.”

And with that, Nora pressed the back of the tattoo against the back of Dominique’s hand, causing yet another shift in the space-time continuum.