‘I’m sorry, but your performance in the past few months has been incredibly lackluster. Effective next week, you’ll be stepping down from your position.’

‘Doesn’t it suck when you’re a lower class? The recent hires have been more useful than him so it’s only a matter of time before they take his job.’

‘You can’t even do that right? That’s it. I want you out by tomorrow! I don’t care if you're going down a Class!’

We live in a meritocracy. As much as we’d prefer to say that it wasn’t, that was the truth. This was a world where if you couldn’t show results, your position in society was lowered.

“Hey, I haven’t seen you around before. You only just got re-Classed?”

“Ah, I… um… Yes. I lost my job and the debt was too much.”

Upper Class, Middle Class, and Lower Class used to be the castes that they knew of separating the rich from the normal from the poor. Now, there were actually many more classes from the top of the pyramid A-Class to the bottom of the dregs known as the L-Class.

“That’s the same with the rest of us. Tell us your story, though. Where’d you work?”

“It was a company called Summersi-”

“Hey Tony, stop bothering Liz. The customer’s getting impatient. If you’re gonna move your mouth, move your hands too, or we might be in trouble!”

Classes were determined by wealth and career. However, in more recent decades, those were only two factors that influenced one’s position in society now. There was a third that was much more important. And while the third factor was affected by Class, it was also true that one’s Class affected that third factor. What was that factor?

Our size.

“Hm… I guess that’s passable for a shoe-shining. Here. Take this!”

Flick!

Whaaaaam!

“Uwaargh!”

A 5’6” woman dropped a coin onto the floor. This was not accidental. It was intentional. Those of us by the toe of her high heel scattered as quickly as we could, but an unlucky guy found himself knocked out by it when it bounced, landed on him, and bounced off.

“Oh god, Adam,” the newest shoe-shiner who had joined us gasped when she ran up to see the man’s twisted leg. The impact of the coin must have broken it.

“Hey, come on, Liz. We need to get our money,” I pulled her arm. The 5 of us who were still fine had to go pick up the coin. That was our spoils for our work for the day. 

“What?” Liz was reluctant. “Shouldn’t we get him to a doctor?”

“Do you think there’d be any doctors for tiny little Class L’s like us?” I asked her a question to answer her question.

“I guess not, but…” 

“There are five of us left. The fewer people to split it between, the better. You want to get up to the next Class, don’t you?”

“... I do. Fine, you’re right, Matty,” she finally agreed with me, but she didn’t like it. “This is terrible.”

Together, all 5 of us 1” tall shoe shiners lugged the quarter to the coin box beneath the bus stop we were working at. It took a solid 15 minutes, but we managed to insert the coin into the slot in the ground. When we did, the display on the coin box displayed our names and our classes.

[$0.25 earned. Please confirm distribution]

[Adam Jones - Class L + $0.00]

[Caroline Dahl - Class L + $0.05]

[Elizabeth Bennett - Class L + $0.05]

[Matthew Langley - Class L + $0.05]

[Owen Conroy - Class L + $0.05]

[Tony Kim - Class L + $0.05]

[Is the distribution correct?]

[Yes]

[Distribution Confirmed. Thank you for using the Lusilee Class Credit Converter.]

A couple cents was what we earned for shining the shoes of one normal sized woman. That was all our labor was worth when we were 1” tall Class L’s. Those of us who lost our jobs or went into debt ended up at this size that fit our standing in society, and sadly, our ability to do anything that could get our standing back up had been diminished along with our heights.

“Alright. That’s 5 cents for each of us besides Adam,” I heard someone cheer.

“And much more to go before we can get up to M Class, huh?” a pessimistic man sighed.

“Owen, shut up. Don’t be such a killjoy,” an annoyed woman shouted, smacking the man.

“Yeowch! Don’t hit so hard. What’s with that strength?”

“Hey, it looks like the next bus won’t be for another two hours, so we won’t be getting many customers. Does anyone want to head back?”

“......”

“You alright, Liz?” ignoring the others, I approached Liz who had her gaze aimed towards the opposite side of the shoe shine square. She was still worried about Adam.

“No, I’m not,” she was honest. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen to him. He was still unconscious in an open area at 1” tall. “Shouldn’t we go bring Adam over here now?”

Sigh.

“He’ll be fine. This shoe shine station’s covered with glass, isn’t it? Those normal class folks had to lift their feet to get their shoes in here. He’s not going to get stepped on before he wakes up.”

“Are you sure?”

I wasn’t. That was because I had lied to her completely. It was also likely for the next person to come by wanting a shoe shine to not spot him and end up stepping on him. Still, I wanted to reassure her.

Thankfully, Adam did wake up. Although he was dazed, we saw him get up and start stumbling over to us. He had definitely broken his leg, but he was able to move.

“See? What’d I tell you?”

“He’s still not okay, though. We need a doctor.”

“Are you offering?”

“I’m not one. I don’t even know first aid.”

“Then there’s not much we can do. Sorry to say this, Liz, but we Class L’s are pretty incompetent.”

“Incompe…,” I could see tears start to well up in her eyes. For a second, I regretted my choice of words because that definitely hurt her. “S-Sorry… I know I shouldn’t cry, but I’m still not used to all of this yet…”

“It’s only been a week since you were put here, right? You’re still getting adjusted.”

“I know, but it’s really starting to hit home. Everything’s so different now… and I’m so scared… I… I… ”

I said nothing, but I offered her my shoulder to cry on. It wasn’t that helpful to her as she probably would’ve preferred because I wasn’t good at keeping my balance. Even so, I didn’t do anything else - not even apologize for making her cry.

Liz was someone I knew long before either of us had shrunken down. Although we lost contact with each other since I was re-Classed, I was honestly surprised when she was brought to the Class L facility. I had been shrunken down for over a year now, and I never thought I’d be able to see anybody I knew ever again because of that. Of course, our reunion was a bittersweet one. Because we were meeting as fellow Class L’s, that meant that she also had lost everything too for her Class to be reduced to Class L..

“I don’t know if I can do this, Matty.”

“This is your first time going out with us on a job. You’ll get used to it.”

“No, not the job… Being this size. Why did this have to happen to me?”

“......”

I said nothing. I let Liz do what she needed - which was hug me tightly and cry. She was still having a hard time accepting that her entire world had changed from how it was before. To lose her job at the Summersight Corporation and fall into debt, the happy life she had been living at normal size was now gone. She was now a lower class insect along with me and the others. It honestly hurt to think that I now had to teach her about this new life she was going to have to live from now on.

Unfortunately, this was our world.

While wealth was an important aspect with determining one’s class, our size was now the biggest (literally) deciding factor, but both went hand-in-hand. The richer you are, the bigger you could be and the poorer you are, the smaller you would be. 

Unfortunately, once you’re small, it’s hard to be able to work your way up again. If we lost our money due to our own incompetence, we were made even more incompetent by our new stature so we couldn’t simply earn it back. Who would want to hire us? How could we get back on our feet? In this meritocracy, once you shrank, it wasn’t easy to grow again.

Looking up, I noticed that the bus stop the shoe shine station was at had a new advertisement poster - a help wanted ad. ‘We hire individuals of all Classes!’ I wondered if that was true for even us. There weren’t that many jobs a tiny person could do after all. It was wishful thinking to hope that the ad was real.

“Come on. Let’s get back to the facility. You need a rest.”