Inspired by my last story here, Little Expenses, set in the same environment as this one, although you don't need to have read it to understand this new one
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I was coming home from work that evening, quite annoyed by the attitude of one of my co-workers, named Connor. At 27 years old, life was good for me. I was working in one of the largest insurance companies in the country, I had a good position and a very generous salary, which had allowed me to have my own apartment and a fairly comfortable financial position, despite my youth. However, this Connor, convinced that I had obtained a promotion that belonged to him, had been making my life miserable ever since, always giving me problems and telling everyone in the office that I was incompetent and didn't deserve the position I was in. I didn't pay much attention to that (no one really paid much attention to him), but there were times, like that afternoon, when he really got on my nerves.
I was walking quietly, that day I was following an itinerary that was not my usual one, because I had gone out of my way to buy something, when I saw a store where little slaves, tiny men, were displayed in cages for pets. I approached, curious. Since the implementation of the "Little expenses" program in the country, there were many citizens who volunteered to reduce their size in order to save costs and not be a burden to their families. But stores like that one intrigued me: who would volunteer to be sold to anyone who had enough money in such a vulnerable state?
Unable to overcome my curiosity, I entered the store. A middle-aged man, about 50 years old, stocky and bearded, immediately attended to me.
-Good evening -I said-, I'm sorry to bother you, but I wanted to ask you a question: are these men -I pointed to the little ones in the cages- here voluntarily? I understood that the reduction process required the full consent of the recipients.
-Yes, that's right, to be shrunk a person has to sign documents attesting that they are doing it fully consciously and voluntarily. And by the way, don't look at these beings as human beings. They are... mice, objects, mere toys -I felt a slight shudder when I heard the big man talk about them like that.
-And... so... they are here voluntarily?
-Well... no, most of them are not. You see, when a person undergoes the shrinking process, he completely gives up all his rights as a human being. He becomes a possession of the person he has chosen to own him. The owner can from that moment on do absolutely whatever he (or she) wants with him (or her). Normally the shrunken is given to a person of maximum trust: his partner, his child, a sibling... The problem is that, with time, the owners begin to see them less and less as human beings, they spend less time with them, the feelings are diluted..., think how difficult it is to interact with someone of this size, even if there are means to facilitate it. In the end, couples end up falling in love with someone of normal size, the children get tired of taking care of the parents...
