And there was me—too short that I had to stand in the front row of every family photograph. I was short in the midst of short people—life could never get any worst.
I had the lowest point of view since I always saw things from the bottom. Everybody could see the top of my head—and so they all treated me with contempt. I could only approach girls half my age, so I never brought any girl home. Mom thought I was disciplined, but the truth is that I was deprived. Mother was always very happy— maybe because I helped her save a lot of money since I never grew as fast as normal kids. I could wear one cloth size for years, and all my old clothes still fitted perfectly. I hated races, because no matter how fast I ran, normal kids will always stay ahead of me. I found the word dwarf really offensive, but there was not one better synonym in the dictionary. Midget? Pygmy? Manikin? Homunculus? They all sounded worse to me, so I had to accept my fate. I always preferred to say I was low, rather than short. Low sounded somewhat lenient to me.
I loved coming to school late because I hated morning assemblies so much. I hate whoever invented that. Why would you line kids up according to their height? What are you trying to prove? Why must the short come first, and not the other way round? It’s a queue—whoever comes first to the assembly ground should stay first in line. Common sense dictates that. You see, I always got used to staying in front of queues that I often didn’t wait my turn when buying stuff from the grocery store. I would simply walk to the front of the queue, and this always did put me in trouble. Everybody could literally pick me up and put me down. I attended a military school, and we crawled on our knees for hundreds of meters as punishment for coming late to school, but I preferred that to staying in line for morning assemblies. Just as short as I was, was just as noisy as I was. I needed some cover to make as much noise as I needed to. I wasn’t talkative—I simply had too much intelligence up in my head that I always had a brilliant idea to share with everyone at all times. Everybody could see me during assemblies because I was shorter than everything that drew breath. Even during my senior years in school, if I lined up with the juniors, I would still come first. Yes I know—I was that short. Don’t rub it in.
You see, my father was short, and my mother was short too. So was my grandparents, and my great grandparents—I come from a long lineage of short men and women—not one of us was above five feet. We were as tall as the Chinese. I know that sounded racist, but that will only be true if I was tall, so you see, being short has its own privileges. Everybody in my lineage were either dumb or ignorant. It was like they all skipped the Biology class that dealt with heredity. And mother would always brag on how much she aced her biology exams, and I would always sit down, stare at her and wonder. Not one of my ancestor was tall, and they all married themselves—short people. Mother fed me with a lot of beans, red meat, and vegetables, but what’s written is written—and it’s written: ‘a child will definitely be short if both parents are.’ Even Jesus can’t help me on that one. There’s a difference between a miracle, and something impossible. A miracle is not impossible—just merely unlikely.
I was very brilliant. I always topped every class in school. Ask my mom, I graduated top of my class. But whenever I tell someone about something they do not know, I can always see that look on their face—that look of contempt, like they find it difficult to take an advice or accept a knowledge from a little child. Do I look little to you? It’s true that whenever I sit down to have breakfast, my feet never touches the ground, and my legs swing like that of a little boy, but I always looked on the bright side of everything, just as mother did. I don’t need to ever worry about buying a car. I could just save up the money for something better, since I wouldn’t be able to ride one if I ever did buy one.