The View From Below (Chapter 2)

The discussion topic was grim, regarding the displacement of Beta entire cities by rich Alphas building mansions, but Olive still enjoyed herself. After all, she was out among her fellow students, sitting cross-legged on the grass, having academic conversations like it was the most natural thing in the world. Granted, the five Alphas and seven Betas with whom she was meeting had to speak into their phones so the sound could be projected through Olive’s earbuds just to be heard, and yes, even if they’d all stood on one another’s shoulders they wouldn’t have been as tall as the Omega’s pinky toe, but nevertheless, they were making a connection. During her first week at the university, most Alphas below froze in place to gaze up the length of those half-mile-long legs, most in shock and awe (and certain frat boys in perversion), but now only a few dozen people a day reacted in that fashion.

            All of this, the Omega decided, really did cement that she’d successfully integrated herself into the school, and though she did feel bad for the unreal-seeming historical Betas in the lesson, her mood today was as sunny as the weather. As the discussion hit a lull, then, Olive felt a sudden and selfless compulsion resulting from her assuredness that she’d achieved equality with her shorter-but-just-as-good peers, and whispered into her phone:

            “Hey, everyone?”

            “What’s up, Olive?” Harley pleasantly replied on the others’ behalf.

            “I was just wondering how… easy would it be for me to see things from a Beta’s point of view?”

            “How do you mean?” a goofball Beta named Charlie questioned just as happily, while perched on Harley’s shoulder.

            “You know, like… just what things look like down there. The things, and… people around you,” Olive continued, cautious of phrasing her request without demeaning her friends. She cleared her throat and smiled affectionately, aware that everyone on campus now could see her amiable expression, but was perfectly fine with that, calm as she was in the knowledge that she was no more special than the shortest Beta. “Talking about all this, plus everything else we’ve heard in the class, I just thought it would be good for me to, you know… try to see things from a different perspective. I hope that’s not… offensive to anyone?”

            “Are you kidding? Not at all!” Charlie laughed.

            “That’s exactly the kind of outlook everybody in the Inter-Size Justice club needs!” Harley enthused, having been hinting for months now that she wanted to get Olive more involved in the club, especially with regard to the rights of the world’s smallest citizens. “Who wants to help out our favorite Omega?”

            Olive’s naked eye couldn’t pick up the activity of Betas, even if she leaned over until her nose touched the grass, so she patiently waited for an answer through her receiver. Instead, she saw a video chat on her phone coming through from Charlie, which she accepted immediately.

            “Hi!” he cheered, holding the camera at arm’s length.

            “Hey there,” the Omega said, comforted once again at the reminder of just how alike every size class looked when viewed from the right perspective. In fact, Charlie was sort of cute. She’d only ever seen close-up Beta faces via these video chats, for obvious reasons, and looked forward to the visual learning experience. “So, are you going to give me the tour from… your view?”

            Olive bit her tongue, nearly saying from down there instead.

            “Sure thing,” Charlie said, panning the camera around now, at which point Olive noticed he was standing in the grass, surrounded by fresh-cut stalks that rose above his waist. By contrast, of course the lush greenery felt flat as concrete to the Omega, so she enjoyed seeing the jungle of grass swaying in the breeze, rare a sight as it was for someone like her. “Now you can see why I prefer getting a lift instead of having to hack through all this, huh?”

            “Understandable,” Olive politely giggled.

            “Then right over here… hey look, is that you?” Charlie joked. He turned the camera higher now, until from afar, Olive could see a pair of crossed feminine legs wearing the familiar university skirt, but no higher. While the camera couldn’t quite focus on the shape of those legs nor the bare feet poking from under the cloth, they indeed looked like they belonged to the Omega, and what’s more, it was plain Charlie was a shrimp next to them. Though Olive remained aware that height differences were just superficial social constructs, it was still a novel experience to see a being so much bigger from the ground-level view of a Beta.

            “Oh, wow. That is me,” the Omega answered, trying not to sound too awed at the fact that she was essentially a living monument in comparison to Charlie. She was immediately tempted to ask him to step closer to her so she could better observe the difference in scale, fascinating a thought though it was, but again was nervous of coming off as the mile-high girl ordering around the three-inch minority for her own amusement, so she kept her mouth shut.

            “Ha-ha, got ya!” Charlie guffawed. He swooped the camera up again, revealing that it wasn’t Olive sitting nearby, but “only” an Alpha named Kiki, who rolled her eyes and shook her head at the little guy’s antics. “Don’t even know your own two legs, huh, Olive?”

            “I… I got confused, because… the same outfit, and-” the Omega stammered, blushing with embarrassment.

            “Relax, he’s just goofing around,” Harley chuckled. “Why don’t you show her the real her though, Charlie?”

            “Absolutely.” The Beta turned his camera around once more, and for an instant Olive saw flashes of intimidating fortress-like buildings she didn’t even recognize at first until realizing they were the same quaint little brick-made cubes that didn’t even come up above her ankles while standing. Images of other Alphas, equally as huge looking as Kiki, zoomed by in his view as well, and for a moment the Omega wondered if she wasn’t being tricked with some kind of lens distortion effect that made the middle-size class look bigger than they were, until Charlie paused the view over something Olive thought at first to be the wall of another building. That might’ve been the case, except for its peculiar pinkish hue, which gave it away as something different, and indescribably bigger.