So the smallest man in the world is driving along. He just hit a patch of ice so he’s taking it easy. The windows are fogged up a little, in the corners where the vents don’t get them, and encrusted with salt on the outside. As they pass the sugar refinery his daughter asks him what he’s chuckling about.
The look on my… hair stylist’s (he always has to pause to consider what they’re called nowadays) face were I to tell her to “make me look cool” when I go in for my haircut tonight, he says.
Oh, his daughter says.
Lose twenty pounds first, says the smallest man in the world. Then we can talk about trying to look cool. For a small guy, he could lose a lot of weight. And he is small. He’s under eight inches now.
He can barely see over the steering wheel.
He tries to remember if he just told his daughter how awesome she is, or if he only thought it.
He pats her on the leg and tells her, just to be on the safe side.
What is with these people who can recall every day of their life and every thing that ever happened to them? That would totally suck, even if you had a charmed life.
The smallest man in the world is more at the goldfish end of the memory spectrum, at least when he thinks about his life as a whole. But when he tries to recall certain things, he generally can in great detail. Like, he can’t remember, offhand, going to Greece with his family, or keep the individual trips they made there on vacation seperate. But he can remember the rat that jumped as high as his face when he cornered it with a blue push broom in their bungalow in the middle of the night while his wife and daughters danced on their bed, and the way it could navigate their holiday bungalow like an expert in the dark, but couldn’t find its way out the front door when he opened it.
Like that.
The smallest man in the world is meeting his wife for Christmas punch after his haircut.
When he thinks that, he is no longer driving, he’s all, where am I?
I am the Ghost of Christmas Future, says a voice.
The smallest man in the world observes that the Ghost of Christmas Future is totally fucking hot but doesn’t say anything.
I am here to show you the upcoming Christmas.
I’d rather be surprised, says the smallest man in the world. Just surprise me.
I have to show you something, says the Ghost of Christmas Future.
Show me tonight then, says the smallest man in the world.
Doink, something went, “doink” and they were watching the smallest man in the world’s wife standing at a punch stand, talking to one of her many friends who she happened to bump into while waiting for her husband to finish his haircut.
“She cut it pretty short,” she says when her husband arrives.
He shrugs.
She picks him up and he sits on a gold chain around her neck like a swing so he is more at eye level. He looks like gangsta bling.
What’re you having, she asks.
Something strong. Turbo punch if they have it, something along those lines, he says.
She tells him about her day, he tells her about his day.
They drink punch.
The smallest man in the world thinks about abundance and utopia. He is convinced the world is an abundant utopia that we just happen to be ruining because we are so stuck on how to get to heaven that we don’t notice we’re already there.
Except for one thing. In his utopia, the smallest man in the world would be the boss. And he’s not the boss here. But that’s just a personal thing. His personal utopia. In a real, general utopia, he could handle not being the boss, and this is actually pretty close. Especially with this punch, wow.
He stands close to his wife and puts his arm around her. He can do this and hang from a golden chain around her neck at the same time.
Then, doink, he’s back in his car with his daughter. Wow, I almost just missed the turn and took you to work with me today, he says.
People do that a lot, says his daughter.
Look at that asshat, he says. If he comes to a stop in the parking lot entrance to let his kid out and blocks me out here in the fucking street I’m fucking honking.
Don’t you dare, says his daughter.
He lets her out and stays there watching her until she’s safely across the street. Then he goes to work. Then he has lunch, then he goes home.
And so on. There, in his abundant utopia.