A Shrinking Discovery (eco-health update)
The invention that helped us save the planet in 2024 was meant to be a weight loss process. In the ramp to turn science into a profit center, the University of Texas at Dallas had been working with a quantum computer that could predictably transform fatty sections on human bodies into smaller fatty sections. The corporate sponsors were thrilled. The university was thrilled.
Steve, however, the lead engineer on the hardware side of the process was less enthralled that his game-changing technology was going to serve the human race by reducing love handles and punches of old affluent people.
What he did was radical, illegal, and incredibly dangerous. Using himself as a test subject, Steve retargeted the cosmic pizza oven to consider his entire body in the equation and asked for a 2.4% reduction. The rest is history.
Over the years that followed, 90% of Americans making over 7 million dollars a year had undergone the enlightening process. The process was less efficient for the poorer souls who were forced to use black-market tech from the Phillipines. Steve, the pioneer ended up dying before the fruits of his discovery could be realized into the globe-saving tech it represents today. It was discovered that high levels of vitamin C interfered with the quantum reduction process. And on Steve’s 5th experiment, going for a full 5% reduction in one session, he’d been fighting a covi-cold with Emergen-C(tm) fizzy water just hours before the procedure. The reduction worked fine, his mind did not. Brain fog would be a mild description of it. It was more of a brain blackout curtain. Steve had to withdraw from science and the project immediately following his 34th reduction. He was only two inches high at that point. His discovery assured his name would go down in history as the man who saved the planet. He lived out his 234 years in a care facility the size of a small bus, that had room for 500 littles. That’s what they were called back then, littles. Today, it’s just people.
As the entire world moved toward tiny people and their tiny things our demand on the Earth’s resources dramatically decreased. Space travel became inexpensive and relevant for exploration again, not survival. Tiny wars still raged in parts of the world, sure, but global warming and horrific weather events were only minor catastrophes, not planet-altering patterns.
At exactly 1 inch high, mankind found its sweet spot. As our organs and cells and energy requirements got smaller our lifespan grew exponentially. We’re in the third century of micromanagement, but it appears the smaller bodies are much healthier and more robust than expected. It’s like, during the shrinking process the body discarded poor-performing cells, it was like all cancers and fat cells were stunted into a dormant state and became easier to remove. At two inches high, Steve is the world’s longest-living human. We can’t tell too much about his cognitive state, the OJ really smoked something in his brain. Put his mind on standby or something. He appeared happy toward the end of his life, but he couldn’t write or talk. He loved reruns of old Real Housewives shows and there were decades of seasons of multiple shows for him to enjoy.
Apple, Google, and Amazon got together soon after Steve’s initial experiment was successful and collectively bought the shrink-tech, as it was called back then. They actually bought the entire University of Texas school system and turned the whole thing into a non-profit. Apple would build the tiny tech products. Amazon would fulfill the 1/20th-sized orders, and Google would empower its AI to polish away all bad press, bad news, and bad tech around the transformation of the entire population of the planet.
Great time to be alive. I, John, am slightly larger than most tinies. I’m typing this on a MacBook Pro about the size of half a stick of Trident gum. Our phones are now built into our headsets. We look a little Borg-like (20th-century sci-fi reference: Star Trek) with our over-ear coms device. I wear contact lens displays rather than glasses, I think they make me appear smarter and taller than I am. I’d tell you that I am slightly larger on purpose, but that’s not accurate.
We learned a lot about the process (trial and error/death and horror) as the years went along and every company, every country, every currency on the planet was pointed at making everyone smaller. One of the things we learned was the perfect number of shrinks before cognitive functioning was impaired. It was 5. After 5 shrinks, no matter where you were on your goals, you had to stop or risk becoming a Steve. And on my fifth session, something wasn’t set correctly. My final reduction was 0.98 but it was supposed to be 0.91. And now I tower over most of my colleagues and family.
It’s hard, actually to be accepted. I haven’t had a girlfriend for years. But I keep a large stable of cats.
Yes, we shrunk our pets too. We left the livestock full-sized and our resource problems were all solved.
image: this is me now, with old Apple earbuds(tm) for scale
Read more Short-Short Stories from John.