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.