The science behind reforming, along with most aspects of a tiny's seemingly indestructible yet malleable physiology, was murky. How a tiny could inflate from a smear on the ground back to a three-dimensional albeit miniature human or untangle themselves after being twisted up like a pretzel seemed like it would forever be a mystery to the scientific community. It was simply taken as fact that a tiny could come back from practically anything provided an outside stimulus wasn't interfering with their reformation. A stimulus such as, say... a piece of loose stitching that had impaled itself through a tiny's body and then, following hours of pressure and grinding under the mountainous backside of a short stack attorney, had bent, essentially turning the aforementioned impaled tiny into a worm on a hook. In such a case, that tiny would find themselves screwed beyond belief.
"I am screwed beyond belief!" you screamed.
Mia's threat had scared the crap out of you but, once you calmed down and thought about it, you realized it wasn't that bad. Every tiny's reform time varied depending on the degree of squashing. Given the number of hours Mia had spent sitting on you, you figured it would take 2 hours tops for you to free yourself. That left you plenty of time to get yourself free... or so you thought. Sure enough, after much concentration and struggling, your head and limbs had inflated, but your torso remained firmly stuck to the chair. It was no mystery why, the pain of the stitching that had embedded itself in you was still torturous. However, now that you were mostly inflated you could focus on freeing yourself. Even as the lights turned off in the office, you were still confident you could get yourself out of this.
Your tune had long since changed as the hours passed by. It was worse than you feared. Not only had the stitching bent to "hook" you, the point had bent so much that it was imbedded back into the leather seat. Even without breaking the skin, for all intents and purposes, you had been "stapled" to Mia's chair! Throughout the night you struggled and fought first to free yourself from the stitching, then to trying to simply tear the stitching off, but nothing you did worked.
As the first rays of daylight shined through Mia's window, you went into denial even as you continued to struggle. "Mia was kidding! She was kidding! She's not going to get a usage license for me. She just wanted to scare me into quitting. Well joke's on you, Mia! Anthony Little is made of tougher stuff than that--WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CHAIR MADE OF?!"
You froze. Footsteps were approaching the office. Three women were in conversation. You recognized the first voice as belonging to Ms. Martinez.
"While I'm pleased to hear you're making progress with the case, I have a meeting to get to in five minutes. Maybe we can talk about this later?"
"Actually, Diane, this isn't about the case," Mia said and you could just picture the cruel smirk on her face. "This is about a... little problem."
Ms. Martinez sighed. "Mia, if this is about Anthony Little, your--many--objections have been noted and overruled... though I can't say he made a good first impression yesterday."
"Aw, come on, Diane, give the little guy a break," Olivia Roberts, the third partner at M.A.R chipped in. "Who hasn't been late before?"
"On their first day, Olivia? I know it's difficult being tiny, but even so, it's just not professional. I know he's small, but that should only make him work harder to exceed expectations."
"Exactly Diane," Mia agreed. "And if his best isn't good enough to get him to succeed, we're better off getting rid of him now before he can embarrass our firm."
The voices were now right outside the door! The knob was turning! You frantically struggled at pulling the stitch free even as the door swung open.
"Maybe," Ms. Martinez said, "but until such time that you have undeniable evidence he's utterly incapable of doing his job, Mr. Little will remain a member of this firm."
Each clack of a heel came with a rumble of the ground. A shadow fell over you. You looked over your shoulder, face paled and caked in a cold sweat. You tried to speak but you were so scared the words wouldn't come out. Mia's smile was so satisfied you'd think she'd just been declared Queen Insufferable.
"Undeniable evidence? Well, if it pleases the court, I would like to present Exhibit A!"
Mia pulled out her chair and presented it with a flourish. You couldn't believe it. Stuck to your boss's chair and presented like a sideshow. You'd feel mortified if you weren't so terrified.
Olivia stared blankly at your flattened form. "Um, what are we looking at exactly?"
Diane was quicker on the uptake. The second she recognized you she closed the door before anyone outside could see. Turning to Mia she asked coldly, "Just what do you think you're doing, Mia?"
"I'm presenting my case," Mia said confidently. "Anthony Little is too incompetent to work as an intern at this law firm."
"Wait, that's Anthony?" Olivia gasped.
"Correct," Mia said. "After you left him with me yesterday, Diane, I tried my best to educate him on the realities of law for tinies. He thought the best way to win the case against allegations of workplace abuse and abduction was by getting statements from all the tiny workers to corroborate their boss using one of their own as an insole."
"But the defendant would just argue that the tiny had volunteered to be used," Olivia said without skipping a beat.
"Correct," Mia said. "We all know it, but Anthony didn't. If he couldn't see such an obvious hole in the defense, I knew he wouldn't be any help going over the case. So I tasked him with a job more suited to a tiny: finding and removing an irritant on my chair. He wasn't so incompetent that he couldn't find the source of my discomfort--a loose piece of stitching--but he was too weak to remove it. Needless to say--"
"You sat on him," Diane said, cutting to the chase. "You wanted an excuse to embarrass him so you sat on him. And... sewed him to the chair?"
Mia's smug smile widened as she took out her phone. "No, actually. Allow me to present Exhibit B."
She found the video and pressed play.
“Here’s a better way of doing it," Mia's voice said on the recording, "since you’re incapable of talking I’ll give you the chance of saying that you don’t want to stay there. I’m leaving this office for the night, so I’ll leave you to reform. If you haven’t reformed by the time I come back, I’ll take that as your non-verbal consent to serving to keep me comfortable, and I’m certain this recording would prove sufficient evidence for an eventual usage license application. So if that isn’t what you want, then you’d best get started reforming.”
You didn't need to see the video to know how ridiculous you must look on it. A smear in a ruined suit stuck to his boss's chair. But even now the humiliation was nothing compared to the wave of dread washing over you.
"This was taken at 6 o'clock last night. It is now 6:30 am. Anthony Little had over 12 hours to do something as simple as free himself from my chair, and he was too weak to do even that right. Can you imagine this kind of embarrassment happening in court? What it would do to our reputation? We'd be the laughingstock of the legal world! The only position Anthony Little deserves at this law firm is as an object that can be used to help bolster the morale of one of its most important lawyers. Especially now that she's been saddled with an unwinnable case by her partners."
Ms. Martinez was rubbing her temple as if a really bad migraine was coming on, "Mia, this is ridiculous. That recording isn't near enough evidence. You're not going to apply for a usage license for Mr. Little."
"I'm not?" Mia asked dangerously. If anything she seemed more angry that Diane was telling her what to do. Even though she was a few inches smaller than her partner, she came aggressively close, her angry eyes meeting Ms. Martinez's cool gaze. "We both know cases have been won before with little more than a few seconds of recording. The C.T.C's becoming laxer by the day and with Baker running around preaching "tinies rights to be used," I don't think it would take much persuasion to rule my way if this goes to court. I'll even let Mr. Little defend himself. In fact, I insist he does! I'm sure that'd be quite the spectacle."
"Come on, Mia, don't talk crazy now," Olivia said, looking nervously between her two partners. "You'd really take one of our interns to court? Think of the embarrassment that'd cause the firm."
"So now you care about what embarrasses the firm?" Mia asked. "Because it seems like everything I think will embarrass us just gets swept under the rug. Giving tinies the opportunity to play lawyer? Defending them in more and more hopeless cases? The longer I stay at this firm, the less respect for it I have, and the less respect, it seems, it has for me. So give me a reason to leave. Or," she said, turning to look Diane in the eye, "maybe you can finally remember how important I am to this firm... by admitting how unimportant that is," she said, nodding her head towards you.
The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. You should be arguing in favor of your own freedom but this was a time you knew talking would only damage your case. This wasn't about you. This was about a power struggle that had apparently been brewing for some time. You were just the straw that broke the camel's back. Now all you could do was pray that Ms. Martinez wouldn't back down to a bully.
"Well?" Mia asked. "What's it going to be, Diane?"
Diane took a deep breath through her nose and said...
1) "Fine. Keep him. It's not worth the headache."
2) "If this is really so important to you, then you and Anthony can settle it in court."
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author
