Amusingly enough I wrote this while smashing through writer's block myself for this last stream. Kind of a meta approach to it but hey whatever works. Much to I'm sure  Mannoth's delight I finally followed up on my previous short story Looming Job Prospects with this sort of short follow up.

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Felicia’s jaw rolled back and forth. The pencil perched between her teeth noisily bounced and scraped against every dimple and contour of her pearly whites. There had to be a way to word this editorial without coming off so… so preachy! The panther deleted the latest string of sentences to grace her laptop’s screen and sighed. Raspberrying the pencil out from between her lips she caught it in her padded palm and scribbled some notes onto the looseleaf that served as her mousepad.

“<Insert introduction here> Readers of all ages, species, and sizes,”

She let the pencil slip from between her thumb and index finger and dragged her hands up along her cheeks. “Augh why is this so hard?!”

Felicia’s wide eyes drifted towards her apartment’s window and took in the drab brown blinds that clinked against the window as a gentle autumn breeze wafted inside. Streaks of sunlight poked between them and illuminated her apartment’s modest furnishings. She had closed them hours ago once she realized she was spending more time staring out the window than at her computer screen. Every so often the thrum of bicycle tires against the pavement below or the rhythmic thooms of a giant’s footsteps would carry through the as of now unseen screened window. With a heavy sigh she forced herself to scribble a stream of consciousness onto the paper beneath her black fluffy wrist.

“I’m not here to argue that any one side is objectively right or wrong. Or that any one person’s opinions are any less or more valid than another. That people aren’t allowed to be angry or resentful or elated or confused. Regardless of how you feel about the topic, the demographics of our city are changing. And with change comes uncertainty. Tension. Everyone knows it. Everyone can feel it! Be it weighing down upon your shoulders, buzzing in your head, or clutching at your chest.”

There was just something infinitely more satisfying about writing one’s thoughts out on paper. Felicia brought her pencil’s eraser down upon the crossed out compilations of words and rendered them little more than grey smudges and pink bits of rubber. “A decent start,” the kitty cat convinced herself. Her shoulders drooped when she looked at just how much more paper remained to be filled. At how much empty white space remained.

She dragged a clawed finger against her scalp and errantly scratched and flicked away bits of dandruff. Nothing was too inconsequential for Felicia to distract herself with! It wasn’t like she was collapsing under the pressure of being a newly christened editor, no no no far from it. It was… just… breaking from the tried and true routine was hard. Scary, even. This would be the first time this newspaper would be reaching out and purposefully targeting the giant population after all. They had always been an afterthought at best when she was but an intern and when physical print was alive and well.

The panther leaned forward and let her forehead tunk softly against her kitchen table where she had set up shot. Back then people had to go through the effort of writing and then mailing a letter to let the scribes behind the ink know how they really felt. But now? Now that the digital age had already come and gone all it took was a few lazy depressions of one’s fingers to let the entire world know how your opinion on a piece. She was admittedly a little put off by the potential reaction her editorial might garner. “Though I could always just disable comments…” Felicia mumbled into the edge of the table.

“But then all I’d be doing is soapboxing. Not inviting discussion,” the feline bitterly acknowledged to herself. She ran her hands through her long black hair and tugged at it. This should not be this hard. Her fingers dragged themselves over the laptop’s keyboard and starting clicking and clacking.

“But instead of letting this bubble and fester just beneath the surface let’s nip this in the bud. We all know these feelings can’t fester beneath the surface forever. They’ll bubble and boil over at some point. Maybe people are just scared to talk about this. I know I am! Maybe people just don’t know how to articulate themselves or give a spoken form to their thoughts. I’ve certainly struggled! So if no one else will… I’ll get this conversation started. As someone who is not a giant.”

Felicia let loose a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. Words! Sweet beautiful words all in a row. The insides of her skull felt numb and heavy after begrudgingly giving up so much as a paragraph. She could reward herself with a snack. Or a brisk walk outside. Or anything that wasn’t staring at the screen and praying for this damn thing to write itself. The panther tugged at her sweater. Its brown wooly embrace ruffled and tussled slightly. “I told myself I would write this thing tonight and I will!” She unconvincingly smacked her hands against the table in protest. The salt and pepper shakers hiding behind her computer wibbled and wobbled a minimal amount. “Or at least I can get a rough draft out,” Felicia muttered to herself as she took to typing once more.

“I’ll do so by providing us all some context. You’ll have to forgive me for summarizing a couple centuries’ worth of details in all but a handful of paragraphs but I want to keep this short and sweet. Those of you that fear being displaced by the no no no no no What’s happening now? This sudden societal shift where giants and not so giants find themselves treading the same ground? This isn’t new. Not in the grand scheme of things. If anything this is just another turn of the wheel of history. It’s just been a while since this last happened and no one is around that remembers it. Way back, way WAY back in the early 1800’s a certain something called the Industrial Revolution kicked off in earnest. What I would like to do is focus on one of the primary reasons why.”

“Another paragraph. Good. Good good good. Write through the pain, Felicia!” the feline told herself as she flicked open her internet browser and cracked open one of the many online encyclopedias available at her fingertips so as to double check her facts.

“The means of scaling up technology used for generations to a size feasible for giants had finally arrived. Plows and tills were now capable of being produced at the sizes needed for those among us that are greater in stature and giants wasted no time in using them. Their sheer size allowed them to do in hours what would takes weeks for those of us that we might consider statually impaired. Food stocks exploded practically overnight and nearly any and every profession in agriculture became a dead-end endeavor for anyone who was not a giant as no one could reasonably compete with the sheer scale of their production. So, entire families and communities migrated to the only place where opportunities remained. In the increasingly crowded cities where factory after factory sprung to life. Gosh does this come off too snooty and matter of fact?

Now I’m not saying it was a gentle transition. For a variety of reasons, it wasn’t. But you’ll be hard pressed to find a historian But that influx of labor? That sudden and forceful shift from an agrarian society to an industrialized one? Courtesy of our giant countrymen it is estimated that our industrial revolution came a good century before it otherwise would have. We advanced so quickly, so fast, because of that! And what’s happening now is no different.”

The words flowed freely now. Felicia couldn’t afford to tidy or edit them up she just needed to get thoughts onto paper, be it the physical or the digital kind, now!

“This is a net gain no stop that Lets cut back to the present day. Now, much like then, technology is finally being scaled up to a size fit for giants. You have to remember that computers, much less phones, that can access the internet anywhere at anytime is just now a thing for them! It’s a wonderful thing that should be shared with everybody no exceptions. In terms of technology They’ve always been forced to wait and wait and wait when it comes to technology.”

Okay so maybe she could bring herself to edit a little as she want.

“In their eyes, I can imagine it looks like less large folks are dragging their feet and only reluctantly letting them partake in and enjoy the latest and greatest technology there is to offer. When in reality it is expensive, time-consuming, and often impossible to do so! Now that giants are on par with us once more though they would like no that’s preachy stop that Now that we all have access to roughly the same level of technology once more though we’re witnessing a shift. A seismic one. Rural areas are predominantly populated by giants given that they have been and still are far and away the best farmers. That and, you know, they have the needed living space out there too. But now we have a globalized economy. The factories our ancestors once flocked to have closed shop and moved overseas. And they sit rusting, quietly, in the hearts of our cities. Or they did. Until giants started moving into cities to tackle engineering, construction, computer science. The kinds of topics that they, along with anyone else, could grapple with and learn at their leisure no this is getting kind of rambly!

Turns out they make ideal lofts and homes for the largest among us. Belts and blocks of rust and steel are being revitalized and are having new life breathed into them. Thanks to this information revolution giants now flock here to grapple with engineering, computer science, and construction much like we do! What few institutions that dot this land that actually cater to people of size are no longer holding them back as a whole from the same kind of education we take for granted. No longer do giants feel like they are being excluded or shunned to the countryside. Our city is coming alive once more. The urban blight that was slowly taking hold is being miraculously reversed. These are all good things. This is These are the kind of fundamental societal changes that are good for everyone! Everyone benefits from these things. But, much like how the Industrial Revolution allowed us to advance so quickly, so fast, these changes won’t always come gently.

For those giants no don’t call them out just lay out the facts It’s hard to say this is all for the best to the crane operator who has been laid off now that there’s someone six stories tall on site that renders their heavy machinery irrelevant. To the couriers who can’t possibly keep up with someone whose long legs can let them jog across the length of the city and back in a fraction of the time they can ride or drive the same distance.

What we’re going through now will make us better and stronger as a society as a whole before and it’s likely to do so again. I’d just like to point out that then, much like now, that transition process is going to be bumpy and potentially painful for people of all shapes and sizes. People both big and small are going to feel left out or left behind with what all is happening. Both giants and not so giants have valid fears and concerns for all the change these societal shifts bring.

So instead of muttering curses under our breaths or holding grudges or misgivings towards one another why not see if we can resolve our shared problems? After all, it’s an issue we’ll all have to confront sooner or later. This isn’t something any of us will be able to ignore forever.”

With that, Felicia leaned back into her chair and thrust her arms into the air. “YES! Yes yes yes yes yes finally!” Feverishly mashing the Save button on her laptop’s word processor she rose from her confining chair and stretched her back. It was rough and rambly but it was something! Grin spread wide across the panther’s face she groaned when she realized the light peeking through the slits in her blind was courtesy of the streetlights. Not the sun. She snuck a peek at the bottom right corner of her monitor. ‘7:46 PM’ it read out.

Hmmm… if Felicia hurried she might be able to sneak into her favorite little bakery down the street just before it closed! Swiping her scarf out from the closet she hurriedly wrapped it around her black fluffy neck and locked the door behind her. Who knows, maybe she’d find Angela there? The place had started making a concerted effort to cater to plus-sized customers after all. …Couldn’t hurt to bounce ideas off of her new big bun coworker before committing to print, after all.