I have a weird relationship with
authority.
If I had to guess why, it’s likely got
something to do with my upbringing. I read somewhere that often kids can become
the opposite of their parents. And as for mine, well, they’re meek and
obedient, born to be trod on and told what to do. They blend into crowds, stand
hunched over, stumble on their words, get nerves when they answer the phone,
say sorry for no good reason, don’t look you in the eye and for Christ sake,
they can barely hold a conversation. It’s no wonder they’re two feet tall.
For some forsaken reason, on what I
imagine was a particularly depressing day some twenty years ago, they decided
to put themselves in debt to have me. Me, of all people. I’m not
special, let me tell you, and even if I didn’t share their pint-sized stature,
I would be totally and utterly ordinary. Brown hair, brown eyes, pasty white
skin with nothing else to write home about in any department. I’ve been
described as ‘mouse-like’ by my peers, to which I say fair play but fuck you. I’m
sure I’m destined to fade into obscurity and die in an old house next to an old
sod who I never liked in the first place. But that’s beside the point.
As I was saying, my timid parents
put themselves in debt to have me. Which in a world where money quite literally
defines you, it comes across as rather bold. They were already struggling to
maintain a spot in the Third when they added me to the mix. A screaming baby packed
inside a miniature room that bordered the home of someone much larger. We moved
a few times since then, but it always ended in the same situation. Some garden
shed beside an enormous house, it was an unusual setup but my parents ran a
personal cleaning business and would provide their services onsite, like I
said, they were born to be subservient. On my fourteenth birthday, my dad
finally convinced me to join them. I don’t have much to say about that time in
my life other than I hated every minute of it. There’s something about a giant
hag telling me to clean the stains from her toilet bowl that doesn’t sit right
with me. I don’t know what it is with our bracket’s people and being okay with
living in their squalor. At least I hope you can see where some of my bitterness
comes from.
Seeing I had ambitions outside of a
personal maid, my parents enrolled me into a Public Threefive School. If
there’s one thing I learned there: status matters.
What do your parents do?
Are you going to Sarah’s party?
I’m pretty sure our family is
moving up!
She is so fucking tiny.
You’re in my way.
Why is she even talking to us?
Who let you in here?
Kiss my shoe.
Pathetic.
I’m small yes, there are people
smaller than me sure, but when we’re talking about society, like human society,
like with economics and justice and politics, you don’t get much smaller than
me. It wasn’t long before this became very apparent. For the beginning of my
schooling life I was ignored. To realise how unimportant you are at the age of
twelve, it does a number on you. Most kids have dreams of stardom, saving the
planet, helping people and animals and all the pure things children like to
dream and I’m sure it’s easy to believe when your family can afford to let you
believe it. Their thoughts while wondering the corridors were directed to the
future, whether mundane or not, it didn’t matter, but mine were focused on
skirting between denim pillars and giant sneakers as they uncaringly stomped
all around me. They were just like me, but so, so much bigger. So much more
important.
I used to be so scared of them.
It’s funny really, how my fear
shifted to something else. My senior quote was I like being short because it
means I spend more time looking at the sky, I was going for something cute
and it’s not entirely untrue. Though the main reason I like my height, and
there’s no real nice way of putting it, is because I’m a filthy, rotten pervert.
How could you expect me to not be? I spend half my time staring at the ass of
the person in front and stirring in the musk of genitals. No one really spoke
to me so I did lots of people watching and when everyone’s so huge, your eyes
tend to wander. And as the years wore on and I got more and more curious, I
begun to put myself into more and more precarious situations. I played it off
well though, I was mostly known as the quiet little mousey girl, so I have my
parents to thank for the disguise at least.
The first time I decided to act on
my impulses, was in my tenth grade English class. My teacher, Mrs Colehall, was
the object of my infatuation. She was eight feet tall, I barely came up to her
pudgy knees and Christ sake, she wore these tight checkered skirts that hugged
her round, fat ass. I could go on for days about the skirts she wore, I spent
far too many hours looking at them crying for mercy as they painted her
backside and daydreaming myself being smothered beneath that comparative tonne
of ass. Then there was her chest, a heavy bosom that stretched any blouse she
tried to conceal them with, the tight fabric wobbled with her movements. It was
a particularly hot day and I shamelessly snuck my hand down my skirt as I
imagined drowning in her tit sweat. I’m far beneath most people’s line of
sight, so long as I bury my face in my arm no one will ever notice my whimpers.
You have to understand that when there’s these objects that are ingrained in
our heads to be sexually appealing, when you see them blown up in proportion it
really grabs your attention, it’s hard to think about anything else, I
understand this more so than anyone else. At least I rationalised this to
myself, so I felt slightly better about my actions.
And it wasn’t just her physical
appearance, it hardly ever is for me. Mrs Colehall hated my guts, which was all
according to plan since from the moment I laid eyes on her, I wanted to be on
her bad side. I never handed in homework or did assignments and she caught on
fast, she was a stickler for the rules. And when she pulled me up, I didn’t
speak and continued to do so until she snapped.
“You little brat.”
She sounded like such an old
nagging bitch. I loved that.
My desk was moved on top of her
much larger one, next to a big binder and a stack of exams. I immediately
complied with her after that, as to convince her that her plan had worked and I
would now be a diligent hard-working student. It wasn’t hard to put in a little
effort when my view for an hour each day was her magnificent tits. Sometimes
they would knock into the desk and the whole thing would rock, it sent shivers
down my spine. I had to step out of line occasionally otherwise I wouldn’t have
the pleasure of hearing her demean me, the best way to do this was by showing
up late, this one was particularly great because she would wait by the door and
I’d have to crane my neck (and rake my eyes) up and over her body to meet her
steely gaze, her arms crossed beneath her bosom. What a fantastic way to start
the day. The rest of the year continued with that back and forth, my days
usually ended with sexual fantasies about her.
I would dream of her taunting me
until I shrunk even smaller, down the brackets I went, my school uniform
swallowing me, becoming smaller and smaller as she grew to a monstrous size,
she’d raise her gigantic loafer above me and slam it down, she’d let me crawl
across her humongous tits like I was navigating a landscape or suffocate me
beneath her pillowy ass as she settled in to watch TV for many, many hours. She
knew how pathetic I was and she hoped I’d never forget it, that’s how I
imagined it.
Side track aside, I’ll ease on the
tales of my perverted past. I was a horny teenager, what else is there to say.
I use my brain now, and my words when flirting with those larger than I.
Though, now you see, this is where my relationship with authority had
officially crossed over into being strange. On one hand, I hate that I could
one day end up like my parents, having to say yes to whatever is asked of me,
scrubbing the floors of some rich family but on the other, I yearn for that,
being told what to do because I’m worthless, a pet to someone who believes
themselves superior. I’m a Gemini in case you were wondering.
I finished school two years ago and
I’ve been racking my brain trying to decide what I want to do with my life.
Your options certainly narrow when you’re two feet tall but I wanted to make a
name for myself, defy all the expectations. Especially with my 21st
birthday coming up, I could no longer rely on my parents income for my size and
it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I had nothing. I heard that the key to
success for the lower brackets was learning how to code, the size barrier was
non-existent, you only had to use your brain, and well, own a computer. Which I
didn’t, but I tried studying Java at the library and to my credit I did spend a
few months at it, though by the end I couldn’t code shit, it’s a lot harder
than it looks. Not studying in school was coming back to bite me in the ass. Who
would’ve thought.
Most of my free time in school, the
little of it that I got when I wasn’t scared or horny for my life, was spent
reading, so I decided I should try to write. That was another profession that
didn’t require a certain size to be successful. But I could only produce derivative
garbage, it was worse than bad fan-fiction, I was never going to make money
doing this without improving. I set that to the side for a while and worked for
my parents business again, the family we live with at the moment are tolerable
and the mum’s a total milf so I can’t complain. But at the same time, I didn’t
want to settle, my ego outweighs my desire.
I needed a part-time job that could
help sustain me while I tried to improve my writing. So, I scoured the internet
to find somewhere worth my time. And finally, I found one. A call consultant
position for a firm in the city and they were looking for people in the Third,
experience not required. We’re cheap workers I’d say.
I tell you this as a precursor to
my life now. Something very problematic happened because of something very
stupid and it’s all my fault. Though, it’s not entirely awful, something worth
talking about finally happened to me.
After I applied, I received a call
from a man who briefly took me through the position, I was cold-calling people
to try and get them to sign up with whatever service they were offering,
soulless for sure, but to be fair I suspect mine had been damned a long time
ago. He offered me a trial shift and told me to come to the office on Monday.
Honestly, it was a far easier process than I had anticipated, I spent the rest
of the weekend watching Big and Small, there’s this lady called Ruth on this
season. She was on my mind a lot.
When Monday rolled around, I made
my way to the city. It’s a scary place for someone like me, I mostly stick
close to the wall and sneak glances to the giants above. As I past by a busy
café, a lady crunched down on a fresh croissant and shower of crumbs rained
over me. It’s times like these where I truly feel like I’m a rat. Yes I did eat
a few of the crumbs. I caught the train to the inner business district and as I
hopped up the subway stairs, I set eyes on the skyscrapers.
Glossy monstrosity’s of glass and
reinforced concrete, fit for titans and nestled together to form one dominating
skyline, the streets below constantly shrouded by shadow and as I walked
closer, my neck craned all the way back, I was in awe of their size. I was half
an hour early so I sat on a bench and watched the buildings for a while. Maybe
I could be an architect one day I thought to myself.
On the corner of Bloomfield and
Vale was an enormous building and its rather interesting intertwining pattern
of coloured metal crawling up the frontside. This building housed the firm I
was trialling for. I’ve been waiting for the right time to mention it because
this is no regular company. It’s part of the reason why this was all so
exciting to me. Because on floors 32 through 42, lay the most successful consultancy
firm listed on the ASX, Stannard.
After the size brackets
introduction, an overwhelming surge of financial issues hit the market, what
was someone to do when they found themselves too short to reach the peddles of
their car or too large to fit in their cubicle at work. For a scheme that was
meant to solve the issue of over-population, it sure did create a sprawling
list of inconveniences. Yet, as all things in society are, it was exploitable.
And after one ambitious businesswoman gathered a team of savvy managers and
targeted their focus at easing the financial burden of those less fortunate, Stannard
rose to the heights of success over a thirty-five year time period, and now each
department, the inner-workings of one greater system, proudly divided themselves
into five well-oiled machines. So I was told when I first arrived.
The introductory tour was
extravagant, especially for someone of my stature. The buildings constructed
nowadays were vast and expansive, a single floor now double the size of what
they used to be. Mostly, to allow the giants who could afford to rent them the
ability to move without effort. To speak of the floors, it would be remiss of
me not to mention the inhabitants.
Floor 32 & 33: Human Resources.
Head of Department: Eileen Bellinghart. Colloquially known as the heart of the system. There
were smaller workers running between desks, handing off resumes, complaints and
benefit forms to the co-workers who could fill out a seat. Their efforts never
went unappreciated, for the process would crumble and burn without their utmost
performance. Eileen foresaw the process from behind a large oak desk, one that
had an unobstructed view of the office, she much preferred to be directly
involved and her subordinates didn’t mind, they saw her as somewhat of a mother
figure. I could understand why. There was a set of rules Eileen had forged in
the early days of Stannard, what she had donned as the Stannard Standard,
a set of rules that prioritised professionalism, diligence and respect. And
while she maintained a bubbly persona at the best of times, if anyone ever
deviated from these rules, hell hath no fury. Employees knew this, and rarely was
there an occurrence where Eileen would raise her voice. Later, I had found out
that over the course of her tenure, only four employees had ever been fired
from Stannard, but whatever you do, don’t ask me about them.
Floor 34 & 35: Information Technology.
Head of Department: Stuart Greer.
He and his mega-sized team of tech wizards operated over two floors of dimly
lit cubicles. He believed in relaxing the mind, blocking out all other
distractions until lines of code embedded themselves into his pre-frontal
cortex. To assist with this, the floors had incense burning around the clock,
and calming ocean ambience to accompany the click-clack of keyboards. They were
considered to be the most smoothly run department in Stannard. In fact, there
hadn’t been a single server hitch over the entire thirty-five years the company
had been in operation.
Floor 36 & 37: Operations. Head
of Department: Aubrey Porter. She
took running the business a little too seriously, a total cardio junkie. The
only employees who ditched the standard office dress code and instead were clad
in a variety of gym shorts and tank tops. With no chairs in sight, each desk, a
standing desk of course, had a treadmill beneath it. There was a noticeable
rumble shaking the foundations of the floor and a swampy blanket of body odour.
Floor 38, 39 & 40: Finance and
Marketing. Heads of Department: Dana Conrad and Greta Stannard. A funny dichotomy of labour where
two vastly opposite sized groups worked in harmony. Dana Conrad had lead the
charge in boosting Stannard’s stock price a further 7% in the last quarter
alone, all while ignoring the ankle-high marketing team scurrying between her
heels, a stroke of genius just in time for the upcoming Census Date. And the tele-team
wrangler, Greta Stannard, ruled over rows of tiny cubicles built into the wall,
their droning murmurs an inaudible hum to the 20-foot hot head.
Floor 41 & 42: The CEO: Leona
Stannard and her office.
Amongst an all-star line-up, or
rather, far, far beneath them, crammed into a cubicle on the bottom floor of
Finance & Marketing was where I was. I got the job and I worked there for two
weeks. It wasn’t terrible at first, I made friends with the girl next to me who
was only a bit taller than me, it was a nice change of pace to not be so much
smaller than everyone else.
But I must be honest, I had
ulterior motives, plans that begun to form as soon as I was given a tour of
this place.
I did a very stupid thing and a
very problematic thing began.
23/06/2039. 10:43AM.
To employee #29219 SYLVIE BISHOP.
Please be advised that I am aware of the
series of photographs and messages sent over 15/06/2029 – 21/06/2029.
This will not be tolerated. The subject shall
be discussed in my office as soon as this email reaches you.
Eileen Bellinghart, Human Resources Manager.
Stannard Standard.