The Inflator's Curse

It’s finally done! I’ve spent some time making my  very own original inflator doll. It’s a small, wooden doll with a flashing hand pump that has the power to inflate and deflate anyone as much as they want. It can be activated with a simple thought and two words. When you think about blowing up like a balloon and then say “puff”, then your wish will be granted. The pump will flash green and you’ll balloon up. If you want to deflate and say “flat”, all the air inside you will be released, and it won’t stop until you’ve completely deflated, or if you say “puff” again. The doll even floats on a tiny cloud as a steed in order to stick by you and listen to your thoughts and verbal commands, no matter how big you make yourself.

I didn’t even skip a beat on this project. I’m so good at crafting and magic, it should be a curse.

“Curse”? That gives me an idea.

I invite you over to my house the next day, and just before you arrive, I use the doll’s magic to deflate myself. Then I make my way to the door. It’s the most difficult walking on an unflat world while being two-dimensional, but that’s the idea. The next step is to pretend I’ve been struck with the flu when greeting you.

“I’m so glad you made it”, I say in a croaking voice.

“Ooh, you don’t look so good”, you say to me. “What happened?”

“It’s this doll”, I reply, pointing to my magic doll floating behind me. “It came and put a curse on me in the middle of the night.”

“That’s terrible.”

“I’m gonna need some help getting to my couch.”

“Now, now, don’t say another word.” You pick me up by my shoulders and lay me on the couch like a bedsheet.

“I’ve had a feeling this would happen someday”, I say.

“What do you mean?”

“This is only stage one of the Inflator’s Curse, made to only curse people who find the most pleasure in inflating others. As atonement for my sins, I’ll soon experience what others felt when being expanded under my hands. You don’t even know when I’m about to puff up out of nowhere.”

“Puff”. That’s the doll’s cue.

To your surprise, I start inflating from my flat state to a round balloon-like state. My limbs are already too swollen to move anymore, rendering me immobile.

“Oh no,” I say, acting shocked. “It’s happening already! I’m puffing up so much!!”

I continue to grow, casting a shadow over you. My limbs become so swollen they disappear and become one with my sphere of a body, leaving my head, hands, and feet alone.

“Are you going to be okay?” you ask.

“Not for much longer. This doll will continue to puff me up like this,” I reply as my body swells up to the ceiling, “until all evidence of my normal self is rendered unseen and my balloonification makes me 100% perfectly spherical, even if it means bursting in the process.”

“Bursting?!”, you panic.You can already see that my body is as big as half the room, and still edging closer towards you. You can picture it now, all my insides flying all over the place from an overinflated explosion.

“Yep, I could be in for something really fatal,” I say with a smug smile behind my puffy cheeks. Now I plan to keep inflating until I actually fill up this room, with you trapped in a corner. Then I’ll fake my popping by turning myself flat again.

But you, thinking my life is actually at stake, are also thinking you need to do something.

So you do.

To my unexpected surprise, you grab my bloated cheeks and kiss me. Then you start to inhale, sucking up the air that’s inside me into yourself. I try to tell you to stop, but my voice is muffled from all your inhaling. You keep willingly expanding while I keep helplessly shrinking. It’s only when I’m able to use my limbs again that I manage to push you away.

“ENOUGH!! I was JOKING!!!”, I yell.

“Joking?”, you reply, taken aback.

“None of it is true! This doll doesn’t really inflate people to the point of explosion, and even if it did, I’m sure it wouldn’t be anything so fatal.”

“...”

“Honestly, who would actually believe a doll of all things would be capable of cursing people? You should really learn to take a⎼”

I stop talking once I see that look of guilt and disappointment on your face. Realizing that you were only trying to help, I decide to make it up to you the best way I can.

“If it’ll make you feel better,” I say to you, grabbing my doll in midair, “I can show you how it works.”

A moment later, the doll floats over your head, and after saying “puff”, your body blows up much bigger than it already is, much to your pleasure. In fact, you’re now so big, you’re moments away from breaking the walls of my living room. But just when I think you’re going to crush me under your big, soft, and squishy weight…

“Flat”

You deflate, blowing all your air right into my face. Once you deflate down to a paper thin state, you try to stand up to look a me, with a smug smile on your face,

“You itch my back, I itch yours.”

“Touche.”

We then both notice the doll doing figure eights with its cloud over both our heads. We both smile from ear to ear, knowing what the other is thinking.

And so, busting our way out of my house, we constantly urge the doll to blow us up more and more. We’re both determined to become huge, bigger than anything and everything imaginable. The bigger we become, the bigger we want to get. It’s just so much of an excellent feeling! We wouldn’t want to deflate even though we still can.