Lane slammed the door shut behind her, locking it and biting her lip with excitement. She had finally convinced her friend Carrie to let her in the backroom of the party supply store where Carrie worked.
“You know I could get my ass fired for this,” Carrie warned her.
“I’m not gonna tell anyone. Besides, it’ll be worth it, trust me,” Lane replied, rushing to the other side of the room.
Carrie looked around the dull, lifeless room she and her friend were standing in. There was nothing special about it, at least from what Carrie could see. The walls were a drab grey, lined with boxes upon boxes labeled with various scribbled words such as NAPKINS, PAPER PLATES, CUPS, BALLOONS, and other party-related items. And, on the right-hand wall of the room, there was a lone, dirty window that looked as if it hadn‘t been used in at least a few years. “What the hell’s so great about coming back here, anyway?”
Lane was working her way through a maze of even more cardboard boxes, apparently trying to reach something somewhere along the back wall. “You guys keep all your stuff back here, right?” she said as if she hadn’t heard her friend.
Carrie shrugged. “I guess,” she replied, “I don’t really know. I’ve only been working here a few weeks. What exactly are you--”
“Found it!” Lane exclaimed, now hidden behind the piles of boxes. Carrie waited a few seconds as her friend emerged, dragging a large metal tank and a long, tangled rubber hose behind her.
“Yeah, so what?” Carrie said indifferently, “It’s just helium…we got like two other tanks in the store. If all you wanted was some free balloons I could’ve got ‘em for you…we didn’t have to risk coming back here.”
Lane propped up the tank with a satisfied grunt. “I know,” she said, unraveling the hose, “I don’t want balloons.”
Carrie noticed the hose. “What’s the hose for, anyway? And if you don’t want balloons then what’s the point in getting helium?” Lane continued unraveling, as Carrie finally cracked a smile. “Don’t tell me,” she said with a chuckle, “…you wanna suck some up and make your voice all squeaky, right?” Lane stopped for a minute, glancing over at Carrie with a smirk. Carrie’s smile dropped into a look of disbelief. “You’re kidding me…right?” Carrie saw no sign of her friend confirming this. “I was joking. Hell, if you wanted to do that I would’ve just filled one up and not tied it for you.”
Lane rose to her feet, smiling. “That wouldn’t be enough,” she said, somewhat tickled with how Carrie was reacting to this.
Carrie’s look of worry vanished. “All right, let’s put it back,” she said passively, as if she were ending some sort of drawn-out prank. “Come on…before they catch me back here.” Carrie was clearly in denial of what exactly was going on…she refused to believe that her friend actually wanted to fill herself with helium.
Lane had finished unraveling the hose and was now fastening it to the valve on the tank, the other end clasped firmly in her hand. “Wait a sec…you still gotta see what I’m gonna do.” Lane took the end of the hose that was in her hand and plunked it deep into her mouth, resting her other hand on the tank’s squeeze valve.
Carrie was still in denial, but now had a sick feeling that Lane was serious. Nevertheless, she decided to play along with her friend’s game. “Okay, Lane…” she sighed, “What’re you gonna do?” Carrie folded her arms impatiently, with a bored look on her face to hide the anxiety bubbling inside of her. Within seconds, though, Carrie’s expression switched to a gawk, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open.
No sooner had Lane squeezed her hand down on the valve that a sharp hissing sound emitted from the tank. Lane’s cheeks rapidly swelled up like miniature airbags as the gas rushed through her mouth and down her throat. Carrie’s arms slowly unfolded, her face frozen in shock. She watched in disbelief as Lane stood in front of her, gradually inflating like a human balloon.
“Wha…what in the…” Carrie could hardly speak at the sight of her expanding friend. Lane’s once-fit figure was becoming rounder by the minute; Her boobs had each grown to about the size of her head, pushing her shoulder-length, bleach-blonde hair to the back of her neck. Her stomach, which had never before shown the slightest hint of a bulge, was now nearly the size of a beach ball, pushing her already tight-fitting black t-shirt up to her inflated chest. The seams of her jeans were trying their hardest to sustain her rapidly growing body, until finally both the buckle on her belt and the button on her jeans gave a loud “PING!”, making way for her rotund stomach and butt to fill out even more.
Carrie was paralyzed with a mixture of fear and curiosity of how this could even be happening. She managed to slowly step backward as Lane’s ever-growing body stretched out further and further, until she was roughly the size (and shape) of a weather balloon.
“Th-this…” Carrie said breathlessly, “this…is insane…how can--”
But Carrie cut herself off in mid-sentence with a loud gasp as she noticed something else about her ballooning friend…Lane was beginning to lift up off the ground. Carrie looked up and noticed a ceiling fan, set on full power and spinning rapidly. Afraid that one of the fan blades would smack Lane in the head, Carrie frantically searched for an “off” switch on the wall. But this was to no avail, and Lane was rising higher and higher up off the ground. In an instant, as if it had never been there, Carrie’s state of panic disappeared, and she darted across the room to help her friend. Despite her admirable ambition, though, Carrie was fairly short, and only managed to grab hold of Lane’s shoelaces. Carrie felt Lane’s body bob up and down, tethered only by Carrie’s body weight.
While it was enough to keep Lane from floating upward, Carrie’s body was still very small…and due to her slim figure, she didn’t weigh very much. Carrie felt her feet lift up slightly each time Lane bobbed upward, but she continued holding on to her friend’s shoelaces for dear life.
“Carrie…it’s okay!”
Carrie looked around for the high-pitched voice that had just called out her name, but only when she looked up did she realize who it was. Lane was smiling down at her, her cheeks still bulging as if she were holding her breath, and the hissing rubber hose clasped tightly in her hand.
“What do you mean ‘okay’?” Carrie retorted, remaining firm in her grasp, “You’re about to get knocked out.”
Lane reached out a swollen arm and tugged on the hose, demonstrating the strength of its hold. “Don’t worry,” she said in the same comical, high voice, “this’ll keep me down.” Carrie, still very perplexed, loosened her grip and let her friend drift in midair. Lane’s round body floated around as if it were in slow motion, occasionally bobbing slightly when the hose ran out of slack.
“How are you still able to talk, anyway?” Carrie questioned, trying to make whatever sense she could of this surreal situation. “I mean, shouldn’t that make you…like…deflate, or something?”
Lane made a vague smirk beneath her puffy face. “Not if you know how to control it.”
“Hmm,” Carrie said indifferently. She walked around her hovering friend, as if trying to make sure it wasn‘t some sort of illusion. “So…you‘re saying you can just let it out whenever you feel like it?” she asked, now showing a faint hint of interest.
All of a sudden, Carrie felt a huge gust of wind nearly knock her off her feet. Lane was no longer hovering above her, but now shooting aimlessly around the room like a released balloon. Carrie jumped back as Lane’s deflating body nearly ran smack into her, inadvertently causing Lane to crash into a pile of disorganized cardboard boxes. Carrie gasped and ran over to where Lane had landed, unceremoniously tossing boxes every which way, until she found Lane lying among the crushed cardboard with a satisfied smile on her face.
“Yeah,” Lane belatedly replied to Carrie’s question, “I’d say so.”
Carrie shook her head, smiled, and helped Lane to her feet. “Come on,” she said, acting as if nothing had occurred, “I gotta get back.”
“Wait,” Lane said, awkwardly holding up her button-less jeans. She reached down for the hose laying on the floor--which was still rapidly spewing helium--and held it up, beaming at Carrie.
At first Carrie just scowled, not quite aware of what Lane was getting at…but her expression soon fell serious. “No,” she said declaratively, “…no way.”
“Aww, come oooonnn!” Lane playfully insisted.
“Nuh-uh.”
“Pleeease?”
“Forget it.”
“It’s fun though!”
Carrie began walking toward the door. “I’m sure it is. But we’re gonna get in trouble if we stay back here any longer.” She turned back to face Lane. “Come on, let’s g--”
PLUNK!
The next thing Carrie knew, the hose was deep inside her mouth, slowly filling her entire body with helium. Lane stood in front of her, holding the hose firmly in place and trying hard not to giggle. Carrie instinctively attempted to pull the hose out, but the gas had inflated her arms surprisingly fast, making it extremely difficult to move. Realizing that it was no longer necessary, Lane let go of the hose, standing back as her friend gradually pumped up bigger and bigger.
“This is unreal…” Carrie thought to herself, “I’m blowing up, like…like a balloon…”
It wasn’t long before Carrie had reached the size Lane had at her peak, and she had even gone a little further until the constant hissing of the tank suddenly ceased. Lane turned to the tank, noticing that the gas level was at “E”.
“Damn, Carrie,” Lane chuckled, “you sucked it dry.” Carrie couldn’t say a word. Her mouth was obstructed with the rubber hose, which she was still unable to reach. Lane circled around her friend, grinning with satisfaction at how big she had gotten. Unlike Lane, however, Carrie’s body wasn’t used to being filled with so much gas, and the pressure started to become more and more apparent, until finally…
PFFTT!!
There was a long, awkward moment of silence…and then Lane burst into hysterical laughter.
“Heh ha-you…” She stammered, almost crying from laughing so hard, “you…you juh-ha ha ha…just…FARTED!”
“Great…” Carrie thought to herself, her puffy face now a deep shade of pink, “…as if being blown up wasn’t humiliating enough…”
Lane was hunched over, her arms wrapped around her stomach as her laughter continued to consume her. Staggering backward a little, Lane stumbled upon the rubber hose that trailed from the tank to Carrie’s mouth. Already a little disoriented from laughing so much, Lane lost her balance and tripped over the hose, causing it to be yanked right out of Carrie’s mouth.
Just as Carrie was caught off-guard with Lane’s blowback, Lane found herself dodging and ducking as Carrie flew around the room in random directions as well. But just as Carrie was beginning to return to her normal size, Lane accidentally drifted into Carrie’s line of fire. Smashing into Lane from behind, Carrie knocked them both into the tanks and stacks of boxes that lined the back wall, breaking most of the boxes open and scattering their contents all over the floor. They both got to their feet, a little shaken from the impact…and then there was a sharp knock on the door they originally entered through.
“What the hell’s goin’ on back there?” a muffled voice bellowed, “Carrie? That you in there?”
“Dammit,” Carrie muttered, her heart now in her throat.
“Who is that?” Lane asked, even though she already had a pretty good idea.
“My boss,” Carrie replied, looking around at what a disaster they had turned the room into, “I’m so screwed.”
Just then, a faint metallic sound could be heard as one of the helium tanks they crashed into rolled over and came to a halt just in front of where the two girls stood.
The pounding on the door continued. “Hey!” the voice shouted, now a little more agitated, “Open the damn door!”
While Carrie stood with a sick look on her face, Lane looked around for anything they could use to get out of the sticky situation they were in. She searched the entire room, and nearly gave up until she noticed the dirty window on the right-hand wall.
“Got it,” she whispered, running back over to Carrie. “Help me get this out that window,” Lane instructed, pointing at the helium tank that had rolled in front of them, “We’re gonna get outta here.”
***
Carrie looked at the vast view of the city, amazed at just how small it seemed to her at that point. She then laid on her back, looking up at the even vaster blue sky. It was incredible how far away everything seemed to her now, when earlier that day she had worried so much about the very same things.
“So, what now?” Lane called up to her, in a familiar sort of high-pitched voice.
“Don’t know,” Carrie replied, resting on the rubbery surface of Lane’s wide, expanded stomach, “…but I should probably start looking for a new job.”