This is a pharmacy in Shanghai. As you can see, Chinese traditional medicine has survived many historical droughts...including the one where science was proven fact.
In the back room, a local Han chick follows instructions, and composes a customer's medication. What they require, according to the instructions, is an infusion of jackass rhubarb and jackass hide gelatin.
In the wild, and on the farm, the jackass (and jenny, as well) secretes a certain fluid. It's not sweat. Humans attain it by taking the hide of the jackass, and either soaking or stewing it. In many millennia of history, the Hans have learned of its medical benefits...or rather, its PERCEIVED medical benefits...
She's just about done. All she's got to do is bottle them all. She bottles them one at a time. She takes some time...
She's almost done. In the other room, the phone rings. She abandons her job, and answers it.
Still under a thousandth her normal size, Zoe appears. She's still in revealing lingerie. To her, those infused pills are like boulders. And that bottle is like a cave...
At first, she's not sure what this is about. The only thing that's alive in this room is the pharmacy worker...and that doesn't make sense to her...
Alas, she hears thunder, as the worker returns. Impulsively, Zoe races, and hides in the pill bottle.
The worker returns. With her finger, she scoots the excess pills into the bottle, turns the bottle right-side-up, and screws the bottle on.
After getting buried under an avalanche of pills, Zoe is trapped inside. With luck, she won't run out of air before the customer swallows her by mistake...
FEAR NOT, LITTLE ZOE, President Underwood's voice says, from the jackass-hide gelatin, telepathically. I WILL NOT LET YOU DIE IN MY SEX DREAMS.
Zoe stands, unstably, on a pill, and looks around. Every now and then, she falls down, because the pharmacist picks her up, and does something else to the bottle that she's trapped in...except open it and let her out.
Zoe scoffs. "You're in the pills this time. Now I KNOW you're crazy."
AW; LOOK ME IN THE COCK, AND TELL ME THAT NO ONE'S EVER ACCUSED ONE OF YOUR QUIRKS OF BEING CRAZY...
She sighs. "I would...if I could tell where your cock was..."
AH, WELL... YOU DON'T HAVE TO MAKE IT THAT EASY!
Outside, the pharmacist takes the pill bottle to the front desk, where its buyer is waiting. Zoe would never believe who her buyer, and will-be consumer, is...
"My boss, back at the paper, thinks my dreams are too big. He also thinks I don't do enough."
I CAN SEE WHY. THEN AGAIN, THAT'S PROBABLY WHY I'M THE GIANT IN THIS RELATIONSHIP...
Zoe puts her hands on her hips...in a stance that doesn't last long, once the bottle she's in is picked up again. She digs her way out, and mounts another pill. She abandons that one, too, as it rolls over, threatening to crush her against another. She finds a more stable mount, and stays there.
"For the record, I do a LOT to stay fit for you. Most of it is in bonds, but then...I think I get what you get from watching me suffer. Sometimes, though, it feels like you're a Greek. Seems like only a Greek would do this to someone, if he thought they were Albanian."
AW, her dominus telepathically coos, ARE YOU ACCUSING ME OF BEING AGAMEMNON?
Zoe shrugs. "It fits. If only Agamemnon never had it in him to kill the women he kidnapped. Sometimes, I think he raped Helen of Troy, and the history books just don't have the ego to admit it."
PERHAPS. PERSONALLY, I DON'T KNOW IF AGAMEMNON WAS A LEFTIST. HE DID RULE ONE OF THE WORLD'S FIRST DEMOCRACIES, AFTER ALL...
Zoe scoffs. "He went to war with Troy. He thought that war was a good thing. He used it to dominate other lands against their wills. That doesn't sound very leftist to me."
Zoe suffers her worst thrill yet, when the customer throws her into the passenger seat of his car. All around her, the pills seem to do a tidal wave, and bury her, as the laws of gravity are temporarily suspended during her flight...
She ends up in the middle of the pill pile. She tunnels out, tops a pill, and stands. She fixes her own hair, and adjusts her top. Telekinetically, her dominus perfects both for her.
"Thanks," she says.
AGAMEMNON COULDN'T HAVE DONE BETTER. He hesitates. DON'T ASK ME HOW I KNOW.
"I believe you."
REST ASSURED, INSIGNIFICANT ONE, I AM NOT AGAMEMNON. I'M A FUCKING TURKISH SULTAN, AND YOU'RE MY LITTLE ALBANIAN FAVORITE."
She scoffs. "A Turkish you. Why am I not inspired?"
THEY SAY THAT TURKS AND WHITEFOLK ARE DIFFERENT. SOMETIMES I DON'T KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT THAT.
"Of course you don't. You're leftist. You're not racist. And if you were, you sure as hell wouldn't tell the press."
I PREFER TO THINK OF MYSELF AS A BENEVOLENT RACIST.
Zoe scoffs. "Didn't know there was such a thing."
Outside, the consumer gets to his home. His garage door is going up, as Zoe and her dominus debate...
RACISM HAS TWO PARTS, President Underwood explains. THE FIRST PART IS THE PART EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT, AND HATES: THE ONE WHERE SOMEONE FROM A CERTAIN RACE USES HIS OWN RACE AS AN EXCUSE TO BELITTLE AND VICTIMIZE PEOPLE OF OTHER RACES. THE SECOND PART IS HARDER TO NOTICE, BUT THERE NONETHELESS. IT'S THE PART WHERE A MEMBER OF A CERTAIN RACE LOVES HIS OWN RACE...A LOT. HE DOESN'T MEAN TO DISRESPCT OTHER RACES; JUST TO RESPECT HIS.
The customer grabs his pills, and goes into his home. Once again, the waves of pills bury, shuffle, and nearly crush Zoe over and under themselves.
"I think I understand," Zoe says, struggling. "But this is irrelevant, seeing as we're both white."
YOU DISAPPOINT ME, A BIT. I'D EXPECT YOU TO HAVE CRUSHES ON TURKISH MEN...ESPECIALLY OTTOMAN NOBLEMEN...OR MEN WHO COULD'VE BEEN THEM, BEFORE WORLD WAR I...
"I do...about as much as I expect you to have crushes on Turkish girls."
WOULD YOU RATHER ME BUMP YOU OFF, AND I GO FIND A TURKISH SLUT TO REPLACE YOU?
Above, the pill bottle's lid opens. Zoe can feel her mount tilting...
"Uh," Zoe stammers, "something tells me you won't have to..."
THIS OPPORTUNITY TO BUMP YOU OFF, AFTER ALL...IS A LOT MORE CONVENIENT THAN YOU'D THINK...
Zoe squeals, as she slides down a rockslide of pills into a white man's hand. Once she's regained her balance, she peers between her upper legs...where her face is now stuck...and gapes, when she sees the face of her will-be consumer...
It's that congressional staffer, who she went on a date to the opera with. He doesn't remember; he didn't see her. She was too small. She probably would've gone home with him that night, and raided his briefs...if not for her ass's chance encounter with President Underwood's gaze...
YOU CAN BE HIS, IF YOU WANT, her dominus reminds her. ALL YOU'VE GOTTA DO IS WISH ME, THE PRESIDENT OF UNCLE SAM'S STATES, YOUR DOMINUS, AWAY...
For many hours, the staffer stares at himself, in a mirror. Sick or heartbroken, Zoe can't tell. Then again, in an alternate timeline where she never met President Underwood, she'd know...
Soon, the staffer's holding a pill up to his mouth, and chronically hesitating. His hand trembles. So does Zoe, as she struggles to balance atop the pill he holds. Zoe can become part of this staffer's cure, or she can remain as President Underwood's whole cure...
"You are my president," Zoe asserts. "I can't wish you away."
PERFECT. WE'LL COME BACK TO THIS LATER, THEN...
At last, the staffer drops the pill, and breaks down. The pill lands in the bathroom sink, and bounces off its hard surfaces. Airborne and falling, Zoe squeals, as she falls after...
She lands on the edge of the stopper of the sink drain. By her arms, she hangs there. Below her, her toes dangle over the abyss of the city plumbing. High above her, only the dripping sink faucet decides whether she gets to explore it the old-fashioned way...
"Fine," Zoe sighs. "Let's just...not go farther than this, okay?"
I'D TURN THE WATER ON...IF THERE WAS A WAY TO DO THAT WITHOUT SENDING YOU TOO FAR AWAY...OR BENEATH...
Zoe scoffs. "There's actually a limit to how far BENEATH you'd send me?! How come I didn't see it before?"