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Ever since the whole documentarian thing settled in, and the Charlie Brooker man stopped doing those wipes every year, Philomena Cunk suddenly has a lot more time on her hands, besides the few hours a week she contractually has to dedicate to research and studying. Barry Shitpeas lives with Philomena, they've been living together since 2016 at the latest, but they've been close friends since 2013, 2014-ish.
Today's just an average weekday, Philomena is going out to get groceries, and Barry went out to buy a gift for a friend.
Philomena gets their groceries mindlessly. It's the usual, bread, some fruit, another bag of baby spinach, a singular bell pepper, “Oh, a sale on croissants, I won't pass that offer up,” “Er… Shit, what kind of yoghurt did Barry want? Was it apricot? Better call him,” and so on.
On the walk back, Philomena couldn't help but feel something was wriggling around her purse. Weird. She did notice it started doing this while she was out looking at yoghurt. But she couldn't be bothered to check till she got home. It's probably nothing.
Philomena is back at home, putting away the groceries. “Ah, shit. I forgot to buy mayonnaise. I mean… It's only been one day after what's printed it can't be that ba-” A hollow, plastic-y thud sounds. Philomena's head swings over to the general direction it came from. A plastic container of croissants was now on the floor and… Is she seeing that correctly? She walks toward the counter to put the container back. All while staring at… A mini her? A tiny Philomena? A Philomini? What in the…
“Mena!” It beeped out, like a weird Pokemon. It sounds exactly like Philomena, if Philomena was on copious amounts of helium. Like one of those chipmunks.
“Huh. So something extra did come home with me,” Philomena uttered.
“Mena.”
Philomena scoffs, “What do you mean, “just throw it out,” it's a best-by date, not an expiration.”
“Mena.”
She sighs, “Yeah, no, you're right. I don't like mayo anyway- Hey, wait, who are you? How do I understand you? How do you understand me?”
“Me... na, Mena.”
Philomena squints, “You're literally named Philomini-tan? And you don't know either of those things? Who the… where the hell did you even come from?”
“Mena.”
Philomena reacts with a questioning expression on her face. “What? A lab experiment? Who the fuck makes miniature people for a lab experiment? This is why science is bullshit.” Philomena turns away casually while talking, as she puts away the spinach. She hasn't fully recognised how crazy she would look to anyone else, talking to a tiny version of herself that can't say anything coherent to anyone except her.
“Mena.”
“See, that's what I'm saying. They'll tell you you're crazy but that's literally the truth. I saw it in a YouTube video once.”
Suddenly, the front door sounds open, and soon enough, a loud voice soon beams from behind the counter. “Honey, I'm HOOOoooome? What the?” Barry Shitpeas has walked in on an engaging conversation between Philomena and Philomini-tan. They are now both staring at him.
“Mena.”
Barry is struggling to understand. “Me…na?”
“Mena.”
Barry looks at Philomena. “What's it saying?”
“She says ‘Hi’.”
Barry looks back“How come you understand it? Is it because it looks like you or what? And why is it even…”
Philomena shrugs. “Dunno. It came home while I was out getting groceries.”
“Well, I guess it makes sense, it being a tiny version of you.”
Barry held out a finger to pet the Philomini-tan, which she thoroughly enjoyed. “Mena!” It beamed.
“I think she likes you,” Philomena observed.
“Just like you do, eh?” Barry teases.
“Shut up, Barry.”
“Make m-”
“I'm not going to let you pull that here in front of a new resident. Put away the yoghurt.” Philomena throws a small container of apricot yoghurt at Barry, which he caught, but not without a smug look on his face.
“So like, is it going to live here, or...?” Barry is feeding the Philomini-tan individual leaves of spinach, which she is thoroughly enjoying while some television show plays on the TV. Some sort of nature documentary.
“I mean, we don’t have a choice, really. She has to stay here, and I really don't like the idea of a tiny version of myself wandering around. It's just weird.” Philomena opens a cabinet. “How about here?” Philomena points to an empty shelf in the cabinet, and Barry gets up to see. “What, the cabinet shelf that I cleaned out last week?”
“Mena,” the Philomini-tan said, barely audible as her mouth was full of spinach. “She doesn’t seem to mind,” Philomena says as she turns to Barry. “Either that or she takes your room and you sleep here.”
“I think I’ll let her take the cabinet.”
“Great.”
The three then scattered around the house to find stuff to put in the cabinet and make it feel a little more “homely”. Philomena dove into the back of her closet and found a few tiny cushions and a bunch of other miscellaneous doodads that she will deal with “later”. Barry found some small soft towels at the bottom of a drawer, still in packaging. Philomini-tan found a small electronic tealight that was laying around the kitchen counter, which Philomena nicked from a party at a friend-of-a-friend's house a few months ago.
Quickly put together, Philomini-tan now had an appropriately sized futon-esque bed and night-light. Not a lot, but it works for now, and Philomini-tan quickly tucked herself in and dozed off to sleep as Philomena closed the cabinet door.
“As long as she doesn't do anything weird while we’re asleep, then we’re good.” Philomena turns her head toward Barry. “I never thought I’d have a child, but this has got to be the closest I’ll get, right?”
“I guess?” Barry scratches his head then turns away. “I’m going to bed.”
Philomena yawns, “Me too.”
Barry teases, “Wow, Philomena, I didn’t think you’d-”
Philomena hits Barry in the back of his head, playfully. “You know what I meant, get your pretty little mind out of the gutter.”
“...I wouldn’t mind it though,” She mumbles, head turned away. Philomena is blushing very slightly, something unlike how she usually is, but Barry wouldn’t notice either way.
“What?”
“Nothing.”