New Story: The Shrinking Bodybuilder

[JP71]

[COLOR=gray]The Shrinking Bodybuilder[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]A new story by JP71[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]A re-imagining of “The Shrinking Man” by[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]Richard Matheson[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]Foreword: I wish to try something a little different. This story is based on one of my all-time favourite novels, and, in my heartfelt opinion, one of the most tragic stories: The Shrinking Man, made into a film in the 1950s by Jack Arnold, but the film, despite having its screenplay written by the book’s author, really doesn’t do this tragic tale and masterpiece much justice. It’s horrific enough for an average man to suddenly start to shrink, one seventh of an inch, every day. But what if the same thing happened to a bodybuilder, a man whose very increase in muscular size and density is the mainstay of his identity and sense of self? How would he cope as the universe around him starts to get larger and larger, even as his physical reduction causes him to embark on an incredible but precarious journey? Perhaps his musculature will help him to adjust to this new life, and to overcome the many obstacles he must face as he struggles to survive.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]Please note that this is not a muscle-growth intensive story. It’s just something different I thought I’d try. There is a lot of exposition, and, like the original Matheson novel, is told in flashbacks, which, I hope, won’t confuse you. There will be some sexy stuff with muscles in it, obviously, for the main character is a huge bodybuilder. But it’s not like the more conventional stories you would find here. Still, I’m having fun writing it, and if you like this first chapter, I will post more. Please enjoy this story.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]1.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]At first he thought he’d been shot with a dart of some kind, when he felt the sting on the left side of his ample neck. He looked around, momentarily stunned. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]“Randy?” He called his hunky lover’s name more than once, as the forest around him seemed to be gathering momentum, spinning absurdly, as if on some giant centrifuge. William Grant was suddenly overcome with nausea, and for a time he swam in a black place, neither touching nor hearing or feeling a single thing. He saw only nothingness, and the inadequacy of a life – his life – that suddenly felt infinitesimal. Randy Scott bent down to smile lovingly at his partner, extending a reassuring hand in order to help him to his feet. Will’s survivor’s jacket was damp with leaf-mould and slimy lichens from the rock that his head had just narrowly missed hitting. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]“You could have been a goner, sweetie, had you fell a couple of inches to the right,” said a much-relieved Randy.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]Visibly ruffled, somewhat shaken from his experience, Will shook off the nausea and gathered his senses from the blackout. “How long was I out?”[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]“Well, you called out about four minutes ago. I was about a minute and a half away getting the firewood. Not long. What happened to you anyway?” Randy had never seen Will so pale-looking, so disturbed from an experience he couldn’t explain. As bodybuilders both they were used to being in control of their destinies. Will hated not being in control. He felt his neck where he’d been stung and brought it to Randy’s attention.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]“Wow, looks like an insect bite. I’ll get some antiseptic from the backpack,” said Randy. He went for the bag, paused and asked: “You’re not allergic to insect bites, are you?” It didn’t hurt to be cautious about such things.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]“Not at all,” said William. He pointed to where he thought he’d gotten the bite. “By that tree, the one with the burnt-looking bark. I think it happened there.” [/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]Randy went to get a closer look. “Well I’ll be damned. This is totally weird,” Randy exclaimed, a sudden look of deep interest forming lines of concentration across his brow. The tree looked as though it had been struck by lightning at some point. Along its trunk at about the height of a man’s head, was a fissure, or wound in the tree, issuing copious amounts of resin. Bizarre thorns stuck out of the resinous blisters, and no sooner had Randy touched one with one of his car keys, when the blister violently popped, firing more thorns into the air. Luckily they didn’t find a fleshy target. A faint white mist issued from the ruptured blister, the merest wisp of vapour, but it was gone in a trice.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]“You were shot by a tree, Will. Just a defence mechanism whilst it heals itself... nothing to worry about.” Randy gave his boyfriend and fianc? a loving hug around his hugely muscled body. He kissed him for a long, long moment, and then they gathered up their belongings to continue the short hike to the camp site. William felt much better and decided not to think about the aggressive tree ever again. “I should send Marcia an email about that tree. She might know something about it, seeing as botany is her thing,” said Will, referring to his only sibling. Brief mists out of trees with angry thorns. What a thing indeed.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]It was the beginning. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]2.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]The spider-monster seemed to shrink down into itself as it settled even further into death, its deflating abdomen now oozing black fluid from several puncture wounds. Will was no expert on insects or arachnids, but weren’t these things supposed to come back to life for one final venomous attack, stirred to action by even the slightest tremor? Will gulped down vast lungfuls of air, hoping that the frantic beating of his heart wouldn’t be felt by the hideous creature. His body was pasted with sweat and grime from his exertions, his voluminous pecs heaving up and down with every breath he took. His body was pumped, at maximum efficiency, every sinew and vein across his rippling form clearly visible to him, now, as he gazed at his reflection in the shard of broken mirror he frequently used to pose in. Some of the spider’s viscera had splashed on to the glass, staining much of it. But Will could still see enough of himself in the mirror, and so he shot a few poses to celebrate his victory. He dropped the hat-pin spear he’d used to defeat the spider, and did a full-lat spread, forcing his pecs upward so that they formed meaty cushions beneath his dimpled chin.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=gray]He seemed more muscular, following his fight with the spider. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]“I’m definitely fuller,” he admitted, soon becoming engrossed in his posing, leaning into the flexing of his left arm and balling his bicep, squeezing the hell out of it. He capped it with his other hand and felt himself growing aroused as he marvelled at the size of the muscle. He was definitely bigger, as he hit a most muscular pose, but wondered what he would use to clean the spider filth off his shard of mirror. He had bigger muscles, yes. But he knew the reason why. It was the only reason why he seemed bigger, now. The effort of his battle with the spider had depleted his energy, accelerated the freakish, alien process that had been so much the dominant power in his life for more than a year, now. He was continuing to shrink.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]“Fuck this shit,” he screamed, when his mood went from one of elation to utter anguish. He looked upwards, as high as he could crane his neck. His only escape from the attic that had been his home for what seemed like months was through the portal through which he’d fallen in abject terror, when he managed to make the sparrow let go of him. It was a hole in a broken extractor fan, the blades and the mechanism long since fused solid by rust and decay. That was how Will had come to be trapped in the attic of his home, still containing his first weight-set, although he hadn’t used it in years. The extractor fan, the same way, he vowed, to leave this lofty prison of his. He knew he would be dead soon, once he’d shrunk away his last inch, but he had no intention of dying here. The spider may have been dead (he hoped), but she’d formed her egg-sack long before now. Tucked into one corner of the extractor fan’s casing, the egg-sack pulsed with stirring new life. Will had no idea how many spiderlings would hatch, but he reckoned the number would be in the hundreds. They might, in relation to his current size, be no bigger than cats, but enough of them would easily overpower him. If he was going to reach the web, and climb it to the hole beyond (and the freedom it promised), he was going to have to do it before the babies hatched.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]“I’m still a man. STILL A MAN,” he screamed, waving his balled fists in anger at that egg-sack of doom so far above him. He was hungry and thirsty and for a moment actually considered eating the spider. But as his gorge began to rise, he opted, instead for more of the same thing he’d been living on for the past several months since becoming trapped in the attic. He ran along the top of the shelf, his shelf, hating the way his loin-cloth felt longer on him, for he’d lost count of the amount of times he’d already adjusted it as his height diminished. The shelf had been his world for so long, now. How dare that spider bitch eventually sniff him out, after so many close calls – brushes with death – encroaching on his territory with mindless intent? The journey back home to his vitamin bottle seemed longer, now, because his limbs had diminished still further. He passed the only other bottle on the shelf, the mineral water Randy had been drinking when last the two of them had been up here together, picking out junk for the yard sale. Randy had insisted they get rid of the weight set, but Will wouldn’t hear of it. He simply couldn’t part with that piece of his past. And if he could just get over to the far stanchion of the bench now sheathed in dust, he might just be able to swing his grapple high enough to catch on to something near the extractor fan. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]He had been blessed and cursed all at once when Randy, now a tremendous colossus before him, had come up to the attic a few days ago, probably to take one last look at his lost, late husband’s past, before passing over the house keys to the realtor. He’d moved the weight bench when he dropped the coin he’d flipped into the air, probably using it to decide whether to take the weight set and equipment with him or leave it for the new owners. The coin rolled into a dark corner. Randy, huge and muscular, like a Titan of Greek myth, would have to move the bench in order to retrieve his coin. Will had watched all this, his heart filled with so much heavy regret, but desperation forcing him to call out to him, shouting for all he was worth from up high on his shelf. But his tiny size meant that he couldn’t be heard. Randy, as with the rest of the world, was beyond him, now. From his point of view Will still looked like one of the hugest bodybuilders the sport had ever produced, but with only two days to go before reaching Zero Height, the rate of his shrinking had accelerated severely. His muscles always seemed to shrink at a different rate to his height. So when he looked bigger, more thickly muscled than ever, he knew he’d again shrunk further in height. Hours following the height-reduction, the muscles all over his unique body would attune to his new height and contract permanently. This was how he had come to see it anyway. But without a proper means to measure his rate of shrinkage, he couldn’t be exactly sure just how fast he was reducing in size.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]He had to drink. He knelt down to the base of the mineral water bottle and removed the makeshift plug he’d made from stabbing the bottle with the hat-pin. This had been a constant source of water for him, since he’d first set up residence on the dusty shelf. The water had been about half-full when Will first began drinking from it. Back then his head just about drew level with the top of the bottle’s label, months ago. Now he was so small, the height of the bottle was equivalent to a six-storey building. His meaty, bulbous forearm could fit easily in between the black bars of the label’s barcode. Perhaps by late tomorrow, he would be small enough to fit his entire body between the same black bars.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]A water bubble oozed from the tiny hole, and Will caught some in his bare hands, first quenching his thirst with it, and then using it to wash the grime from his face and neck. He used to drink from the vitamin bottle cap, back when he could comfortably lift it and use it to collect the water in. But now it was big enough for him to swim in, although he had no way of filling it. A bath, even a cold one, was better than nothing. Alas, it was beyond his capability, as were so much of the things he used to take for granted. He carefully re-plugged the hole in the bottle, using the wooden splinter he’d managed to whittle into a shape not unlike a wine-stopper. The bottle still leaked, forming a permanent damp patch around the bottle. This accounted for more than fifty percent of lost water during the months he’d been trapped, certainly since he’d been living on the shelf. The bottle was now about one eighth full, more than enough to sustain him in his final days. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]Food, on the other hand, was at a premium, and it was quite a chore to get to. The protein powder was years out of date, but fortunately it had been sealed in an airtight container, so was surprisingly well-preserved. Will had managed to bore a hole in the plastic, back at a time when he was strong enough and big enough to manage it with the hat-pin. It had taken him the best part of a day to create a hole large enough to get at the vital substance within. It tasted foul, but mixed with water into a thick paste, he managed to force himself to keep it down. How he didn’t get poisoned from the ancient formula was something he often wondered about. Maybe his desire to live, to survive against seemingly insurmountable odds had bolstered his immune system. Maybe this, maybe that. There were so many “maybes” but not a shred of scientific or medical evidence to back them up. I am a shrinking man, a sideshow freak. The one and only.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]Recently exposure to the damp air of the attic, coupled with the severe drop in temperature since the onset of winter, had damn-near frozen the protein powder solid. As Will continued to shrink, and along with him his strength, the chore of carving out solid chunks of supposed strawberry-flavoured shake mix became more arduous. Over time he’d managed to enlarge the opening in the side of the container, and now a sizeably accommodating cavern had formed in the solidified powder, large enough for Will to step into. He went here now, crossing a distance similar to the length of two football fields between his water and his food. Using a smaller pin, which he kept hanging from his belt of thread at all times, he hacked out yet another block of solidified shake, always careful not to breathe in any of the stuff, for there was no telling what that would do to his lungs. Once he had his food, he then had to return to the water in order to make the stuff edible.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]It was getting dark in the attic. He looked up at the skylight, the attic’s only light-source, and saw dark clouds forming. “Great, more thunder and lightning, as if my day couldn’t get any worse.” He would have to plug his ears, for his tiny eardrums would surely be destroyed from such a destructive cacophony. Back at the water, Will once again removed the splinter-stopper and waited until a sufficiently large bead of moisture formed. He then began to soften the chunk of shake by rubbing the water into it. It was a terribly messy job, but he soon had his life-sustaining paste. He had long since gotten used to the terrible taste, but at least it gave his body the protein it needed, something that helped to sustain his muscles, but not his height or weight. There was no cure to his disease; so many scientific tests had already determined that.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]When he was finished eating, he washed himself in more water to get the smells of ancient strawberries and rancid dead spider gunk off him. He began to shiver from the cold, wishing he had more than just the skin on his back to help him stay warm. Fortunately the vitamin bottle, lying on its side with its lollypop stick entry ramp, not only had two pills left inside, but a hefty wad of cotton wool. Thanks to the chewable pills, Will had been able to receive a near-daily dose of his body’s vital requirements. It was just a matter of hacking through the exterior shell of each pill to get at the medicine beneath. There had been five pills in the bottle when Will first landed on the shelf. He’d since come to believe that he might have been long dead by now, had it not been for the pills and the fact they kept him from getting sick. In relation to his size the cotton wool could be compared to three or four large bales of hay, more than enough to become quite warm and snug in, for the wool was excellent insulation. He’d long ago compressed some of the cotton wool into a pillow, using a surplus scrap from his loin cloth (the remains of his Ken doll pants from before the sparrow nabbed him on that most ill-fated of days gone by) to make a pillowcase. It had served him well for so long, but recently it had started to feel a little stiff. As William Grant became smaller still, his head would sink into that pillow less and less.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]He was dead on his feet by the time he shuffled exhaustedly up the lolly-stick ramp, by itself a distance comparable to a grown man climbing a half-kilometre upwards at roughly a forty-five degree angle. But the destination was worth it. He walked into the neck of the bottle and then abseiled down from the neck using a piece of thread tied around the screw-threads on the outside of the bottle-neck in order to make it secure. Knots periodically formed in the thread gave him points of purchase to help him descend and climb up again when it was time to leave. Every day this task became harder to accomplish, and he was worried that further shrinkage during the night might mean he was too small to leave the bottle by morning. If so he would die in the bottle, unable to escape to the outside before Zero Height day arrived. But he’d still be able to climb the knotted thread, wouldn’t he? What if, by morning, he’d become so small he could stand up easily on one of those knots in the thread?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=gray]He curled up snugly in his cotton wool, asleep as soon as his head hit the ever-stiffening pillow. Like most nights he dreamed, his mind’s way of coping with the traumas of day-to-day living as the shrinking bodybuilding man. He missed Randy so much, wishing he could be asleep in his massively muscular arms, night after night, but the reality was such that they hadn’t done this for almost a year, stopping at a time when it often disturbed Randy to think that his spouse of four months, despite still being heavily muscled, had proportions similar to a six-year-old kid. And this disturbed Will, too, knowing that his shrinking was driving away the people he loved, not only Randy, but his sister Marcia, and their parents in Long Beach. And as for that cat – that fucking hissing, spitting nightmare of tooth and claw – it was a nightmare indeed, but thankfully one that didn’t haunt his dreams tonight. Will dreamed of a different time, shortly after the camping trip vacation in Canada, that Monday in the gym, when something about Will didn’t feel altogether right...[/COLOR]


[COLOR=gray]To be continued....[COLOR=yellow]Part 2:[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[rogsats]

I think it is great idea, and really interesting story