Geometric dysphoria.

.

"Do you know what I hate about being a mouse? Do you know what I really hate? It's the fact that you're not just physically small. I mean, you get me right. I accept that I'm small in the physical sense. But that doesn't mean I have to be small in the mental sense. Or the power sense. But the rest of the world, seeing a small mouse such as myself, is all too happy to think that too. That we're tiny, insignificant, that we can be brushed aside at a moments notice. I mean, look at those in power. How many are mice? Or government. We're the mother-curding majority and…"

SLAP!

Sliding back on his chair, the grey mouse rubbed his red cheek as his mother stared him down. "Samuel Gregory Cloverson, we do not use that language in this house! Especially in front of your sister!"

The grumbling rodent turned to the chair next to him, the younger mouse occupying it looking up from her cereal. "Honestly it's not that creative of a swearword. I think it's quite silly that us mice use fromage based profanities. I mean what's so offensive about curds, whey, rennet…"

"Stop that right now young lady!" her mother scolded. "Just look what you did Samuel!"

He slammed his paws down on the table. "Oh sure, blame me for her decisions. Way to go!"

"SAMUEL!"

"I didn't say Whey!"

"Well you did just then," she yelled. "That's it, you're grounded."

"You can't do that, I'm twenty!"

"I'm kicking you out."

"What!? In this economy and housing market that your generation left me?"

"Oh sure," his mother grumbled. "Your go to response."

"He is right," his sister said. "Our generation is essentially curded up and doomed to wage slavery by the total rennets of your…"

"CIARA!" she yelled, before turning and grabbing Samuel by the ear, hauling him off. "You're coming with me for that!"

"Oh why am I not surprised!"

.

.

"You know you're lucky that you're the golden child," Sam grumbled, as he walked with his sister along the perimeter fence of Little Rodentia.

"Yes. That's why I use it to say curd words a lot."

"And I then get the blame."

"Not always. You just have to avoid saying them at all so she can't make the connection."

"Oh sure, and you get to say them all you want."

"Curding yes I can. That rennet pschyo mother can't get in my whey."

Sam nodded. "You see, that's the attitude to have. You get what I'm saying! You may be a mouse in body, but not in mind, you understand what I'm getting on about."

"No, I think you're a whey bore with his head up his own curding rennet hole." And with that she let go and jogged across the road to the gates of her school.

Sam just threw his tiny little arms out to the side. "Sure, be that way!"

"HOW DARE YOU USE THAT LANGUAGE BY A SCHOOL!" someone scolded, Sam receiving a handbag to the face before he could correct her.

.

.

"We really have the worst swear words, don't we?" Sam grumbled, as he sat down at his desk, killing some time.

"No mate, you do," his co-worker snorted. The dunnart grabbed some of his seed bags and began nibbling away at a sunflower seed, getting dust all over his front. "But maybe you could yell about it some more. Do you know the trouble I have stopping my daughter embracing these stupid mouse ideas."

"Those stupid mouse ideas are our culture, Kadu."

"Yeah. Yours, not ours, not that our joey's are getting the…" A beeping signal cut him off. "Can't get a break."

Together, they walked over to a pipe entrance, scurrying up it and long until they dropped down into a large warehouse. At least a metre by a metre, and with a medium-mammal sized power washer piled in the centre. Kadu, checking the note, directed them on and in, the pair crawling through with their lights and tools, searching for any burnt out wires anywhere.

They were halfway up when the sound of the warehouse roof opening sounded out, the creak echoing in through the hard outer plastic shell. "Hey!" Stuart began, before his entire world twisted over itself, spinning and cartwheeling as he went from climbing up to being thrown on his back, landing on the sloped inner surface of the casing and starting to slide down it.

"I said it was another Type-7!" a loud voice boomed. "Hunk of junk…"

Still sliding, Sam felt himself rammed back up and above where he had come from and thrown forward at the same time, his head hitting one of the internal components and his body sent spinning over itself, until another huge jolt threw him in a completely different direction. Right into a grease filled nook between the main pump and the electric motor.

The sound of the warehouse roof being closed sounded out.

Kadu let out a burst of non-cheese based swearwords.

Sam got up, groaning as he felt the black slime coating his back and gluing to his fur. He tried to hold on to the fixtures around him, feet treading around as they tried to gain purchase.

They dug in to the tar like goo, before slipping out from under him, sending him sliding along it on his front. Paws tried to dig and grasp, slipping through the grease and, newly lubricated, sliding right off anything else that he could have held onto. Tumbling back down, body beating itself against the tight confines, he felt something rip his headlamp clean off, plunging him into darkness as he slid down and down before crumpling into a pile in a pitch black dead-end nook of the device.

"Hello…"

His ears rose as he heard Kadu, somewhere. Trying to climb out, he found the roughest corner he could and tried to lever himself out, only for his greased up paws to slide right off. "That rennet swilling big jerk got me trapped!" he yelled, trying to push himself up once more, only to slide back down again.

.

.

One hour later, and with a muted apology and awkward silence only feeling marginally better than being torn a new one by his boss, Sam was washing himself off in the company shower. A knock on the door signalled that Kadu was there, and coming in. "Got a spare change of clothes."

"Thanks," Sam muttered, only to pause as he saw a few tremors in soapy pool around his paws. He didn't think anything of it, until the water coming down on him suddenly went ice cold freezing. "EEEEH!" Then boiling water hot. "ARHHHH!" And then back to normal.

"Anything the matter in there."

"Stupid tremors from a stupid curding big just went and messed up the plumbing," he yelled, slamming his fist on the tile (singular) wall in front of him. "Ahhhh! I HATE them! Who do they even think they are."

"Big guys," Kadu shrugged off.

"Exactly," Sam said, shutting off the shower and walking out, starting to dry himself off with his towel as he ranted. "Stupid big guys thinking they can walk about and do what they like and can just lord it over us, day after day, because we're small. We're little itty bitty insignificant things, and the worst we can do is make some silly noises, 'cause if we ever get any real power they can just flatten us. Heck, that's what they want to do, it's why we have to live in this stinking ghetto to keep us safe."

"Speak for yourself," Kadu muttered, rolling his eyes.

He got a towel around his head for his effort. "And then there are the rodents who suck up to them," Sam said, marching over to pull on his underwear. "Who think it's okay that we're small, and don't have the power we deserve, or make apologies for those big mammals. As if they actually care for them. Because do you know what? They don't. They obviously don't! And the bigger they are, the less they care. You know, I bet half of the elephants out there fantasise about ripping out that fence and just going for a good old fashioned rumbling over our curding town! -And the other half want to do it to all the rodents insane enough to not live in this safe haven!"

"Safe haven?" Kadu said, crossing his paws.

"Well what else would you call this place?"

"A stinking ghetto."

"Huh, you would, wouldn't you?" Sam grumbled. "Stupid pan-marsupialist, not joining up with the mammals who are really like you, happy to insult our culture and not integrate, you don't even eat cheese…"

"You called Little Rodentia 'a stinking ghetto', not me. So which is it? Stinking ghetto or safe haven."

"Both!"

"Oh how convenient."

"Yeah! 'Cause it's true."

"Just like Elephants all wanting to stomp us?"

Sam, finishing pulling his new shirt on, just held up his paws and gave his co-worker the most incredulous look he could give. "No whey!"

The dunnart tilted his head. "What… Way?"

"I… Not way!? WHEY!?"

"Oh, the dumb swear word."

"It's not dumb it's part of our culture!"

"You had to explain it! That makes it dumb!"

"No it doesn't."

"Yes it does. If it's dumb and it works it's not dumb. But that DOESN'T WORK! Besides, elephants DON'T want to stomp you, they're terrified of accidentally killing you."

"Oh come off it."

"No."

"You can't change the truth."

"Wanna bet?"

Sam gave him and angry look, before pausing. "Sure. A hundred bucks."

Kadu looked at him for a second before smiling. "Yeah, A hundred bucks. And I know just how to test it. I know a friend, who knows a friend, and…"

.

.

"So this is an arcade?"

"A VR arcade," the fieldmouse owner said, showing off the various booths with his paws. "And, with some tweaks, potentially a new innovation in the realms of haptic feedback."

"What?" both the regular mouse and dunnart asked.

"No more will us miniatures be on the back heel of technological progress, only ever miniaturising what the big mammals build. No more making do with CD's you play like records, or using old I-Carrot phones as your PC. Today, us little guys, mainly me, lead us forward in innovation."

"That doesn't answer the question," Sam said.

"Yeah," Kadu agreed. "I'm agreeing with him on this. And you know how irritating I'll find that."

Sam gave his workmate a surprised, confused, and slightly angry glance, but was cut off before he could follow up with any words.

"VR may make the world out there look like it's different, and may make you different too. It can make you look like any species you want. But it won't make you feel like any species. Until now." He showed them over to a curtain that he pulled away. "Ta-Da."

Sam's mouth hit the floor. "Is that the mech controls from Purrcific Rim, or…"

"No and they're called Jaegers," he huffed, before showing him the set-up. As expected, a VR mask was present for each of the two gaming stations. But, hanging behind them, were a bunch of arms attached to the ceiling. "Anyway, you fix yourself into the arms, and you can not only walk around and jump as if you're in the game. You can adjust the resistance to make it actually feel like you're any mammal."

"Like a giraffe?" Kadu asked.

"Yup. You can be a giraffe, your colleague here can be an elephant."

Sam put his paw up. "If I'm an elephant, what about my trunk."

"We have mo-cap cameras all around, and you have your tongue."

.

.

"Uploading, three, two, one!"

There was a fizz of static and then Sam blinked. The VR world they were testing out sent them to a techno-lobby, with various gateways leading off to different games and such. But Sam was far more interested in the view closer to home. Big grey arms, legs, and as he stuck his tongue out and bent it up… He felt his head get pulled back slightly, simulating the trunk impact. "Okay, this is interesting."

"WOAAAHHHHH!" Looking over, finding the action taking far longer than he expected, Sam saw Kadu's avatar, the neon purple giraffes head spinning and spazzing about left right and centre. "I feel a little sick!"

"Ha, funny that," came a voice from outside, their host. "A lot of the mammals who use this world are actually megafauna. There's lots of simulated rollercoasters and stuff. Anyway, I'll just let you explore."

Sam nodded, before looking over the lobby and smiling. In the centre was a small model city. "So, smashers, let's see what it really feels like." One-hundred dollars his way. He'd start smashing the virtual world, and some of the other elephants he could already see would jump in once the dam was breached. He could just see it!

He couldn't reach it though.

Not yet at least.

His attempts to scurry just ended up in his legs getting pulled back, his balance shifting, and the gear simulating a slow, heavy, falling over.

…

"Okay then."

.

Getting up, he found that he could walk forward at a fairly fast pace. He just had to put a bit of thought into each step. Something he soon thought he got the hang of, only to loose concentration and fall over again.

Finally, reaching the virtual model city, he raised his foot up and brought it down, hard. "DIE!" The small tower exploded, shattering and collapsing as his foot worked its way down and in, crunching it. The simulator made him feel it perfectly, leg shaking and vibrating as his target buckled and crumpled before exploding in fire. Holy heck! He felt BIG! No more mini mouse. He was one of the big guys, doing what all big guys want to do. "RAAARRRR!"

And so on he marched, bringing his wrath to the simulated city. Arms and feet careening, even his simulated trunk flopping out to land straight down a road, flattening the fleeing simulated dots. SMASH! BANG! BOOM!

He made his way to the centre, a massive spire rising up, and pushed into it, expecting it to tumble over like a giant domino.

The part below his arms did.

The part above bent and toppled the other way, on top of him, something the hard pressing robo arm connected to his head did its best to simulate. "AH! EHHH! GRRRRR!"

He stood up, rubbing his sore head, not that it helped give the VR kit on top of it.

"Serves him right."

"Huh?" he asked, turning around, suddenly feeling a bit guilty. He'd probably spooked another little guy like him, or… He paused as he saw another two elephants looking at him distastefully.

"Come on!" he roared. "Let's smash like we always wanted to!"

He stomped down, grinding his foot, and looked up… Only to see one of them look… Queasy.

They walked off.

He turned back down and carried on stomping. Smashing. Doing so until everything had been levelled, and had even started to respawn in.

It didn't get old.

The looks of the elephants staring in didn't change either.

"Honestly something must be wrong with you," one said, as he finally got out. "Even looking at those little dots running around this far from my feet makes me feel a bit ill."

He didn't know what to say to that.

He didn't have the time either, as the session ended.

Kadu, after attending some needs with the help of a sick bag, looked at Sam and smiled. "One-hundred bucks please."

"I… Come on, that was hardly a fair sample."

"Two-dozen 'big guys' and not one bought in."

"I…" Sam began. "Maybe they figured out I wasn't an elephant, so they hid it."

"Oh really?"

"Yes really! And I'll prove it."

.

.

"So, all white skin?"

"Why not?" Sam said.

"Swirling eyes."

"Sounded cool."

"Festivised trunk."

"I want to see Christmas lights like the tiny things others think they are."

"Voice modulator."

"I WANT TO SOUND DEEP!"

"And unlike that, this will do that. Okay, three, two, one!"

And with that, Sam was back in VR. Back in the lobby. And, unlike before, he was not going to make a scene. Instead, he was going to go around, hang out with other elephants (presuming of course they were elephants, and not other animals with their avatars set as elephants) and see how long it took for them to find out.

It wasn't long before he realised that he had one big advantage in the size department. Every now and again he'd see a mammal that was very much not moving right. The hippo whose legs scurried crazily under him, his body slowed down in comparison. The vanta-black fox hopping and skipping everywhere. Even one other elephant whose gait just looked… wrong.

Finding a mirror and checking it out for himself, he saw that, thanks to the haptic feedback arms, he very much was moving like an elephant.

And these things were first of their kind.

He had the advantage now.

And so, following a bunch of gathering elephants, he entered in to a big portal. Above it shone the name of his absolute favourite rodent spectator sport.

DEATH BALL

"AAAAHHHH! I'm supposed to be good at this!"

"You're not!" One of the elephants on his team yelled, as the massive platform they were on shifted from sloping one way, to the exact other.

Of course, this was a virtual floor.

The one in their room stayed level.

Sam's didn't.

"WOAH!" he cried, landing against one of the side walls, pausing as he turned and heard a rumbling coming. One of the massive balls, towering over him, rolled up. "No, I can do this!" he said, bending down and meeting it with his hooves. He felt the system simulate the pressure on his palms and his feet shuddering against the ground.

But he fought against it.

He pushed.

And he rolled the ball off, right into one of the holes.

It rung, a point for his team. "COME ON LETS DO THIS!"

.

.

Walking out of the VR game area, Sam looked around as a bunch of other elephants patted him on the back.

With their trunks.

Opening his mouth and sticking his tongue out, he waved it around as best he could to pat on the shoulder of one of the others.

"Dude, do you have like full body movement VR?"

"Yeah," Sam boasted.

"Neat, where can I get it?"

"How much does it cost!"

"Lol, it messed you up in the death ball experience."

Sam looked between them before thinking up a lie. "I'm afraid the system isn't out on the market yet, it's just in the prototype stage."

"Yeah, only way you could afford it," one of the elephants said, pointing his trunk at him. "Do they, like, use robo arms from car factories or something?"

"I… Yeah, I think they do. Smarted up of course."

"Naturally," he said, as another elephant chimed in.

"You know, I heard that they were already starting to sell those systems to smaller mammals."

"Figures," one of them said, "much cheaper for them. Typical."

Sam's eyes furrowed. "I wouldn't say that. You know, all the little mice and such were always way behind on most tech right up until… Well this."

"Well, until streaming became a thing," one of the other elephants said. "You know, I've still got my grandfather's portable Record-on-the-go think from, like, the twenties."

"That was just a mini-jukebox you wore like a walkmammal."

"Yeah. Exactly."

"Why couldn't the mice just make ones their own size."

Sam opened his mouth to spoke, only for a different elephant to cut in. "Because even with them working as tight and small as they could, you just ran into the limits of what the tech could do. Same all the way up to computer chips."

"Yeah, and spacesuits," someone else said. "That's why spacewalks are done by larger mammals. Sure, you can fire your mice into space super cheap, but the thinnest the suit can be is still thicker than them."

"Well at least they get a chance to go into space," one of the elephants sighed. "Mam, I envy them. We'll never get a chance for that."

Looking on, Sam felt his muzzle twitch. Here was what he was looking out for in the first place, right? "I mean, most mice won't go to space..."

"Well at least they get a chance. These news rockets are like, a-thousand bucks a ride for a mouse. Half that for the smaller shrews and stuff. And I don't even think there's ever been a capsule big enough to take one of us up there."

"That's why we have VR dude," one of them joked.

"It's not the same. Just like those rollercoaster simulators. Just cheap imitations!"

"Well boo-hoo, that's the life we got," one of them said.

At which point Sam stepped in. "Yeah, stupid lucky mice. Don't know what luck they have, makes me wanna…"

He left it open, wondering if anyone would chime in.

Only they instead looked away, scratching their heads, except for one. "Dude, you're the luckiest one here. Don't go picking on mice just because those crushing pictures they showed you in first grade gave you nightmares."

"Crushing pictures?" Sam asked, pausing as he saw the looks sent his way. "-I was home schooled."

"Lucky," one of them said. "Remember 'Captain Look-Around?'"

"Yeah," Sam said, vaguely.

"Well that was the nice part of teaching us to always look where we went. The other part, by the small mammal safety authority, was showing us pictures of crushing accidents…"

"Don't remind me," one of them muttered.

"Hooves or tires, and the bloody pancake…"

"I said DON'T remind me!"

"-Left behind," he finished off. He shook his head. "Oh, and seeing the interviews of elephants in jail for the charges. Some not that much older than we were then. I spent a few months slide walking around after that, fearing I'd accidently squish a mouth and join them."

"But…" Sam began. "What if the mouse wasn't looking where he was going? Or wanted to commit suicide."

"Well I mean there is the proof or reckless endangerment and rights of way, but try explaining that to a little calf."

Sam nodded. "I guess I lucked out… Though I remember once seeing this rodent safety video. It's all check where you're going, stick next to the walls, look both ways…"

"Guess it does suck a bit to be them too," the elephant nodded. "But I mean, making it so we jump away and get queasy if we see any little thing pop up on the floor. Do they think we want to go around stomping them or something!?"

He grunted a murmur of disapproval, one met by the others around him.

Sam just nodded, his ears going back. So if this was what he thought.

He looked down grumbling. DAMMIT! He REALLY wanted those one-hundred bucks.

He was about to mope off in a different direction, when the VR crowd began making their way over to a portal to 'The Tanuki's Castle Experience', some of them waving their trunks at him.

He paused, before following on.

.

.

"Ninety seven. Ninety eight. Ninety nine. There! One-Hundred!"

Kadu smiled as he folded up the small bucks and slipped them back into his pocket. "So, heading back to play with your new friends?"

"They're not," Sam began, before pausing. He'd been spending more and more time at the VR booth, making the most of it as the favour granted was used up. And, in that time, he'd grown closer and closer to all the other elephants there. Howard. Annie. Klaud. Dominic. Magnus. They'd played sports together, climbed over the overgrown bridges and pathways across cliffs and ruined cities, raced micro-race cars around looping tracks and across crazy obstacles. Each time getting closer, each time working together better, enjoying each other's company.

He'd even started putting in overtime when he wasn't at the VR arcade. If he was going to be doing it this much, then stumping up the crazy cost for his own headgear would be worth it.

Heading over, he plugged himself in and joined the party on a guild raid. Slashing, cutting, attacking. Stomping. This was one game where the elephants size did come in, the group acting as the full on tank force of their army, holding up shields and marching toward the defenses before smashing them apart with their war hammers.

This was the power he thought elephants had.

This was what he thought they'd once wanted to do to him.

And dammit, it was CRAZY fun!

"I FEEL LIKE A GOD!"

The others roared and trumpeted, and together pushed through, clearing the level.

It was as they divided up the loot later that one had an announcement. "Hey, it's my Birthday in a weeks time. Invites all open. The rest of the bunch, Sam included, all joined in."

.

.

"Thank you!" he said, jumping off the paw of the Zuber driver who'd driven him to the place.

"You sure you want to come here?"

"Yeah," he said, paws on hips.

"Fine then," the driver said, pulling off. And, with that, Sam marched across the wide open pavement plaza to the front step of the looming building.

…

"Ah."

Eyes narrowing, he scurried over to the wall, running along it and looking for…

"Ah-ha!" a vent brick! Squeezing through a damaged up hole, he found his way into the wall cavity, looking around to see if he could see any way on.

A small prick of light signalled a potential path, and over he went. Little claws digging in to the insulation, he climbed and shimmied up before getting level with the hole through the plaster.

A squeeze in and through and he smiled, pumping his fist. He was under a dressed of some kind in the hall, and could already see and feel his friends mingling about nearby.

Turning, off he raced, as fast as he could. Straight into the room where they were sitting down and drinking. Up he went, right up close to the presumed birthday boy. "Hey I made it!"

He looked down and yelped, stepping back into the sofa.

Knocking himself over it, arms spinning and body tipping in slow motion, in the process.

The one he was talking to also jumped back hard, smashing into a lamppost which went tumbling down. "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING HERE!?" He yelled, as the crash of the glass table behind him exploding rang out.

"Hey!"

"What?"

"There's a mouse in here!"

"What?"

"What's that idiot doing!?" they all yelled, getting up and pushing themselves away, knocking over the furniture and smashing into the decorations as they went.

"Guys! Guys! It's me! You know me, right? From the VR!"

His pleading went half noticed.

The other half had no effect as they all pushed back, together, into the wall, their combined forced cracking it in two, dust clouds of plaster breaking out and the lights and entertainment turning off.

"Dude! What VR?"

"I… Oh come off it," Sam said, paws out.

"No, you come off it, "one of them yelled, as a chunk of the plaster ceiling above them came down in a white cloud. "We don't know you, and you think you can just sneak into our home and spook us like this!"

"Yeah!"

"Get out!"

"Go back to Little Rodentia!"

"G-guys," Sam said. "It's me! Remember in the Tanuki's castle run where I failed ten times in a row on the see-saw round-about thingy? Or what about that time on Rat-Racers where I lapped you all on that automatico race. Or what about…"

"Wait." One of them said. "You're not…"

"Yes! I am!"

He shook his head. "You don't sound like him."

Sam blinked a few times before slapping himself. "The voice modulator."

"Voice modulator!?"

He twisted his mouth, deepening it as much as he could. "Yes. To make me sound like…"

"Oh! My! God! It is you!"

"YES!" he cheered, his joy fading as he saw all his 'friends' circle around him. "I… Guys."

"Why didn't you say you were a mouse!?" they all asked at once.

"I…" he said, his voice squeaking up. "Forgot…"

The room was filled with silence until, finally, the birthday mammal himself spoke. "Well. Whether you are a mouse or not, I suppose that at least proves you're certainly not an elephant."