Short Stuff

[6 word request: Olivier Richters struggles with being short]

Olivier Richters started screaming and writhing with only eleven minutes and forty-nine seconds on the clock. The initial brain scan had barely completed when he shrieked and fought against his restraints. One of the lab techs got his visor off, but when the freaky bodybuilder looked down at himself, he got even more agitated, like he didn’t even recognize his own body.

He may have been an accomplished bodybuilder, but at 4’6” tall, there wasn’t much body there to build. The thickly built guy was still a foot and a half shorter than everyone else, so his little muscles didn’t hold that much strength. Still, it took three lab techs to hold him down while a forth hit him with a sedative.

He lay there, moaning as it took effect, shouting, “What did you do to me? I’m tiny!”

“He’s always been tiny,” one of the lab techs said as Olivier was carried from the room. “What, did he forget how short he was?”

Psych evals began immediately while the director of Psyglow Paradigms came in on his day off to get to the bottom of what was going on. Olivier had been brought in as a celebrity client. The public at large was still very unsure of the safety of creating whole cloth memories and implanting them in fully-functioning brains. Olivier was a beloved athlete, like a little mascot for the sport of bodybuilding, an icon of physical achievement without the intimidation and narcissism that most of the bigger bulkier guys had. For him to stand in front of the Psyglow sign giving a thumbs up would have done wonders for the brand.

“We hadn’t even begun implanting the scenario,” Dr. Reubens, who had overseen Olivier’s processing, explained to Director Mathers.

Mathers took a look through the folder. The scenario that Olivier had agreed upon featured the little guy as the “World’s Biggest Bodybuilder”--the ridiculous, impossible height of 7’2” tall. Had things gone according to plan, Olivier would have woken from the process completely aware of who he is and always had been with very vivid memories of these crafted memories.

“We thought it would be kind of a confidence booster,” Reubens explained as Mathers sifted through the documentation. “Like, he’d remember being gigantic and could fold those memories in to his attitudes toward his self, his approaches toward self-improvement and his concept of what’s possible in… the world…” The Director wasn’t warming up to Reubens’ explanation. “Anyway, it’s one of the self-actualization initiatives we agreed on. The Potential Booster package.”

“That package was supposed to motivate fat people to get skinny or empower injured people to work toward rehabilitation,” Mathers said with a sneer. “What’s the point of taking some freaky muscle midget and making him remember being a giant?”

Reubens took a deep breath, aware his job was on the line. “Well, you see, the psych department could probably answer those questions better, and… just for clarity’s sake, Mr. Richter’s isn’t technically a midget since his body maintains the exactly proportions of an adult of average height, just on a smaller scale.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Mathers said, tossing the file at Reubens. Papers fluttered across the room. Reubens let them fall. “We didn’t design this system to let weirdos live out fantasies,” he said. “Little guy roids himself up but still feels small? Tough titties. This entire thing was a bad idea from the start.”

“But--” Reubens interjected, taking a step forward, “the problem isn’t with the scenario. We could generate anything--memories of being, I dunno, an old tire baking in the sun or a 500 year old tortoise. The system flawlessly blends the memories in with the subject’s brain patterns. There’s no chance of dissociative identities or anything.”

The Director got up from his seat and gripped the desk angrily. “I helped developed this program,” he explained. “Don’t fucking explain it to me. I’m aware of what it’s supposed to do. Explain what it actually did.”

“Well,” Reubens said, tilting his head to the side, “if, for example, the process were interrupted before the end--well, the new memories could potentially be written over the old ones. It’s a delicate system, the brain, and… well, no matter what, that’s not what happened! The scenario was never implanted! He had only just been scanned and he ended up screaming!”

*

Still in a daze, Olivier struggled to answer the questions the psychologist asked him. He remembered his name, his parents’ names, his street address and his job--competitive bodybuilder, personal trainer and actor--but he remembered being unbelievably tall instead of unbelievably short.

“7’2” tall!” little Olivier shouted at the man.

The psychologist noted that the subject was increasingly agitated, despite sedation, whenever he looked at his own body, moreso when it was in relation to others.

Olivier maintained that at his gargantuan, inhuman height, he had come to Psyglow for an implanted experience of being short; clearly, he had reversed the intended scenario with reality in his mind.

By the end of the day it was clear: somehow the set of memories the lab techs had generated based on Olivier’s specifications had become Olivier’s reality. The little guy remembered only being gigantic, no matter how much others told him he was small and had always been so.

He was released by the end of the day to his assistant, Jimmy, whom he remembered, although Olivier was shocked to realize, as Jimmy approached in Olivier’s Lexus, that the bodybuilder was expected to ride in the passenger seat. He struggled to climb into the car, his eyes wide as he looked at its entire as if it were gigantic--but it was just the Lexus Olivier had purchased himself, the one he had hired Jimmy to drive.

“I hired you to handle my marketing and paid appearances,” Olivier explained in his strong Dutch accent. “You’re not my chauffeur!”

Jimmy had been told by the guys at Psyglow that his little employer was having an episode. They said to contradict him as little as possible, but to gently ease him into the reality that he was nearly half the height (and a quarter of the weight) that he believed he should be. With that understanding, everything was due to be shocking--a fine line to tread between damaging his psyche and feeding into his delusions. 

Jimmy decided to call Olivier’s accountant and ask for a bonus. He wasn’t paid enough to manage Olivier’s mental health.

At Olivier’s house, Jimmy watched as Olivier stared at the ground with every step, almost like he couldn’t believe how little ground he was covering. The house, at least, seemed to calm the little guy down. It had been built to fit him, specifically--door handles and cabinets low to the ground, furniture that fit his little body. As he wandered around the house, he seemed to calm down.

“It’s decorated the way you remember it, right?” Jimmy asked.

“As long as I don’t look up,” Olivier said. “But you. You look like a giant in here!”

Jimmy shrugged. At 5’8” tall, he had always felt a little on the short side, but working with Olivier had helped him deal with his insecurities about feeling small. What was more impressive than being the guy who helped a thickly-built, powerful guy who needed help reaching the counter in public places?

“I can’t handle you here,” Olivier said as Jimmy walked through the house through the back door--the only entrance sized to fit Jimmy specifically. “It’s too crazy.”

Jimmy shrugged. All of this was crazy, he thought. He took a moment to try to imagine Olivier towering over him--imagine how big that body would be! Those muscles would be MIND-BLOWING. Olivier wouldn’t need anybody. He would strut through public places confidently, rather than huddling close to Jimmy for fear of being hurt or kidnapped as he did now. All eyes would turn when a giant like that entered the room--rather than staring down at the diminutive little dude with the built-up body with eyes that said, “Aw, how cute!”

Jimmy asked Olivier if it would help to compare notes about how he remembered things versus how they were. Olivier asked if he was still a bodybuilder.

“Sure are!” Jimmy said, pointing to the framed cover of Men’s Health that hung above the main staircase. Olivier stared at the headline, shocked: “World’s Smallest Bodybuilder” on a set of a giant-sized bowl of fruit to make Olivier look like he was literally tiny. The little bodybuilder flushed with shame at the sight of it.

“I’m a joke,” he said weakly.

“No way, man! Honestly, you’re well-respected!” Jimmy insisted. “Girls go nuts over you. Honest. They love a guy with muscles like yours they can hold down with one hand. When we go to bars it’s like I don’t even exist!”

Olivier shook his head, imagining what that meant about the future of his love life.

“Plus you’re still an actor. You’re gonna start shooting a summer blockbuster next month--HUGE movie, and Patrick Stewart is a wizard who curses an ogre to turn into--well, you…” Jimmy patted his shoulder. “You’re making SERIOUS money though, with massive exposure.”

“I want to go to the gym,” Olivier said. He wasn’t thinking beyond the moment. He just wanted to be away from Jimmy, away from the Alice-In-Wonderland-style house and away from the shocking life his assistant was explaining to him. The tiny bodybuilder with his bulky bulging muscles climbed the stairs to his room (refusing to use the chair-lift Jimmy assisted he used all the time, especially on leg day) and packed a bag. When he got outside, his stomach fell out again as he realized he didn’t have the keys for his own car. Luckily Jimmy was behind him, taking the driver’s seat without a word.

“You want me to go in with you?” Jimmy asked as he pulled into the front door. In truth, Olivier did want his assistant to join him, but struggled between the fear of having to ask another grown man to accompany him, and the fear of being half the size of average gym-goers grunting and sweating and lifting more than his bodyweight with ease.

Outside the glass doors he’d confidently strutted through hundreds of times (which now looked shockingly tall and intimidating), Olivier’s phone buzzed. It was Martyn Ford, his training partner!

“You almost here? I’m ready to crush some serious poundage!” Martyn texted. Olivier spun around, ready to bail on the scenario entirely, when he saw Jimmy pulling away. Martyn was undeniably a gargantuan man but he’d always been Oliiver’s “little buddy,” just coming up to his shoulders. Olivier’s short, meaty legs felt weak as he pictured his gigantic, bald, tattooed friend, muscles flexing out in all directions, towering over him while Olivier stood with Martyn’s bouncing junk at eye level.

“You’re the biggest man in the world,” Olivier reminded himself. Whatever he looked like, he remembered being huge, living a life of enormity in all ways. Just because he had to shout and jump for the woman at the gym’s front desk didn’t mean anything. It had never been his size that had defined him before--it had been his spirit!

Without stopping at the locker room, little Olivier headed toward the dumbbell racks. He had no idea how much he could lift. As he walked there, a gentleman hopping off a bench knocked into Olivier. The little musclehead tumbled to the ground, struggling to his short legs before staring UP at the giant man--who was an average-sized guy with a pot belly who apologized and patted him on the head.

Oliiver wondered if he would ever get used to the idea that HE was the tiny one.

He dropped his duffel bag and waddled on his massively developed legs toward the 20 pound dumbbells. He grabbed them off the rack--and almost toppled over. Shamefully, he put them back (one at a time) and eyed the tens, afraid to look further down at the rubber 5 and 2 pound pink weights on the ground.

“Excuse me sir,” said a huge man who patted Olivier on the shoulder. The little bodybuilder was shocked when he turned around, drenched in a giant shadow, to see the person casting it was a reedy elderly gentleman and not the hulk he had expected. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be working out here,” he said.

“Why? Because I’m too small?” Olivier said, a fire rising in him. Who cared how tall he was? He was still HUGE--and thrust his chest out proudly, putting his hands on his hips, ready to defend his right to be there.

“No, because bodybuilders have to lift in the back of the gym. It’s a safety thing.”

Olivier narrowed his eyes--what the hell was this guy talking about? He grabbed his duffel bag and followed the signs he had never seen there before: “Bodybuilding Area This Way”--what did that even mean?

“Hey! Big man!” He heard Martyn’s voice and his whole body clenched. Olivier was afraid to look at his friend--but he knew he had to at some point. He felt a thick hand land on his shoulder and turned around with a lump in his stomach.

It was Martyn, but he was only a few inches taller than Olivier. The dutchman’s eyes went wide as he examined Martyn’s body--still massive and muscular, tatted up as he remembered, but nearly as short as Olivier was now.

A 5 foot tall woman walking by paused to snap a picture of them. “You guys are SO cute!” she said with a grin. Olivier sneered at her but Martyn was unfazed.

“You ready to go crush some heavy weights, superstar?”

Martyn and Olivier headed toward the appropriate area of the gym while “normal-sized” people walked past them, some barely even noticing they were there.

Olivier couldn’t believe his eyes when they arrived at the bodybuilding section: not a single built, massively muscled man stood taller than 5’! Olivier was still by far the shortest, but it seemed to be a mark of honor with the other bodybuilders. Olivier watched as Flex Lewis, probably around 4’10” tall, waddled by.

He looked up--only a little, though--at Brandon Curry, stacking another set of 25 pound plate on the leg press built for men their height. He was about to leg press about 400 pounds! Mindblowing. Olivier hopped to the side of the machine to cheer him on.

Olivier would never remember it, but this is how all bodybuilders were. Tall men just couldn’t put on muscle. These little guys were built to put on mass, though. It had always been that way; Olivier’s memories, of these men being towering giants, seemed silly now.

A couple curious teenagers ventured into the area, anxious to see the tiny jacked up little guys, but a staff member grabbed them and escorted them out. A few years before there was a bad incident with a mouthy Nick Trigili and a slightly overweight college student that ended up with Nick duct taped to the wall with the word PUSSY spray-painted over him. Now, they made sure the bodybuilders at Global Gym could do their thing undisturbed.

Psyglow spent the next few months trying to rehabilitate Olivier (and get to the bottom of what went wrong) but they were never able to regenerate his memories of living as this diminutive man with a herculean build. Each time he went under, he wondered if he would wake again as his former, 7’2” self, but now he realized that life had never existed. He was the world’s shortest bodybuilder and he wouldn’t have it any other way.