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_ Writer's Block _

"None of this works!" I launched my pen clear across the desk. The pad I used to jot down ideas followed it right after. These blank pages glaring back just pissed me off even more.

It'd been forever and a day since I'd managed to get any decent story work under my belt. For a supposed hobby, writing had a knack of driving up my stress levels.

"House all to myself for the first time in days... Gods damn." I reached out to recover my notebook. Shit. I didn't realise how close I'd come to taking out my glass of soda. That'd have done both my computer and mood a world of good.

"Haven't had a single decent idea in weeks." Retrieving my pen proved tougher. It'd somehow lodged itself firmly into all the dusty crap gathered behind my monitor. "And it's all about raccoons, too." I snorted as I swept my tail aside, dropping back into my chair. "People'll start accusing me of species bias the rate I'm going."

'...even split here in this first heat of the semi-finals; four Maleni and Four Visoka runners taking their marks on their respective tracks...'

The damn TV sure wasn't helping me any. Not sure why I'd put it on in the first place. Pointless distractions. "TV, off."

'...Remember, only the fastest two finishers are guaranteed a place in the regional final.'

"I said TV, off!" Still it ignored me. The pop of the starter's pistol matched the one in my head. "Useless fucking... argh!"

Slamming paws sent everything on the desk jumping. I practically threw myself across the room, charging for the remote I'd left on the stand. Whether it was clumsiness, anger, or the universe itself conspiring to see just how far it could push me, I somehow managed to screw that up. Rubber buttons mashed into my pads, right before the sound of plastic skittering across carpet sent my muzzle creasing hard enough to feel.

'...In entertainment news, Sturanja Music Hall is gearing up to welcome Common Castles on the second leg of their Bolstrovan tour...'

The speed I bent down at to recover the controller almost tipped me off balance. "So ya won't turn off when I say to, but you'll change channel whenever you feel like it."

'...We met up with the Polcian rock group to talk about their first ever performance outside their home continent, and how it felt to put on a show for their biggest crowd ever. Literally--!'

"Shut up." The screen went black. That overly peppy reporter lady remained peppy no longer. Across the room went the remote, thudding into the headboard of my bed before dropping harmlessly to the pillow. Probably for the best. Not that I gave much of a damn right there and then.

Trying to do this inside was pointless. Even with the silence, the lack of distractions, just being inside seemed to be getting under my fur. The air was stuffy. Almost thick with my frustrations polluting it. Grabbing my tablet and storming out of my room seemed like the best idea I'd had all day.

Stepping out onto the balcony of our fourth floor apartment gave an instant lift. It was unseasonably warm for April; sun bright and strong in the cloudless sky. I must've been pretty caught up in my writing (or lack of it) not to have noticed. Whatever the case, I nudged some of the empty beer bottles on our outside table aside, grabbed a chair and sat down even more determined to get some work done.

To my surprise, excitement even, the relocation seemed to do the trick. The air flowed gently onto balcony, smelling almost sweet with every chest easing, head clearing breath. I'd got my tablet fired up, a new story file created, and a few bullet points that would soon become a list of ideas. Possibly. Hopefully.

I'd seen other writers discuss how watching the world go by sometimes brought them inspiration. Couldn't say it'd ever helped me before, but fuck it, I was open to anything at this point.

We got a good view of the block from our apartment. I'd not normally give much thought to the cars rolling down the street, to people strolling on by, or my neighbours big and small coming and going. Today though, I was tracking everyone and everything. Hoping for a spark. An idea. Something to make me feel like an actual writer again.

First thing to catch my eye was a van belonging to the council, parked up almost directly opposite our balcony. A couple of workers stood occupied at the rear doors, unloading what I assumed to be tools along with a few folded up guard barriers. A couple more of their coworkers were already up on the front path of our building. Finally, it looked like the council had seen fit to fix up the busted lights around here. It'd taken 'em long enough. I'd got proper sick of coming up our front path in the dark after work, counting on my bigger neighbours with suck nightvision not to stagger off onto our pathway. Yeah, okay, there might be a whole plot of grass between our path and theirs... and yeah, a guardrail... but that don't fill you with much confidence when you're actually down there.

I stopped myself getting too into cursing out our more careless Visoka neighbours, much as I'd have really enjoyed it, forcing my attention instead to the city workers gathered around the first lamppost on our front path. While one of them, a wolf, had something resembling a drill in his hands, the squirrel kneeling next to him appeared to be holding a pair of Maleni in green overalls to match theirs. Forward he leaned, reaching out towards a section I could see missing its panel. Out from his palms they hopped, into what I imagined to be a waiting mess of wiring. Those guys'd be doing what their bigger colleagues were too damn clumsy... or lazy to. Just hoped they'd remembered to shut the power off first.

Without warning, something popped into my head, as if it'd used those guys out front as a distraction. Not that I was gonna complain about it!

Back to my tablet I turned, not wanting to waste the urge to throw some ideas at the page.

"Something with bigger coworkers," I said, as if it were the discovery of the century. "Or maybe... dealing with a bigger manager for the first time ever."

My portable keyboard struggled to stay fixed to the table with how hard and fast I typed, doing what I could to keep up with my thoughts. I remembered my first ever Visoka manager, back when I was stacking shelves at the Price King to earn spending money during finishing school. Fuck, man... He had a knack of hovering in a way that made it feel like he was growing bigger right there and then. If you weren't doing a good enough job loading crap onto the shelves at record pace, you'd best believe he'd be there to do his impression of a skyscraper, talking down your efforts in front of all the customers, tall and small. Why in the hell we couldn't have a Maleni supervisor in our section was beyond me. Guess it was cheaper that way. Unless the management somehow actually thought it worked... because it sure as fuck didn't. I lasted six months there before realising that having a giant, portable, panther-shaped watchtower as a supervisor wasn't for me. Didn't end all bad, mind. My last ever words to him were 'see you next week' as I headed off for the night. I never went back. The thought of fucking him and that place over still put a smile on my face fifteen years later.

"That's boring, though." My typing stopped dead. Notes left half finished. "No-one's gonna wanna read this standard, everyday stuff." The cursor blinked impatiently at me. "I need something better. Out there. Cool. Different..."

Back to the world I returned, surveying, hoping this 'cool' and 'different' something could be found someplace out there.

A shrill cry split my ears, forcing my jaws to lock tight. "What in the gods..."

The noise caught the attention of the council workers, too. Both them and me watched some mouse girl standing a short way up the front path from them. She didn't look hurt... the folded arms and Visoka-sized pout gave that much away.

"But_why_ can't I!?" She aimed a glare at the Maleni walkway. The shorter, older mouse looking back from knee-height wasn't taking any of it.

"I told you, no treats until after dinner!"

"But that's no fair!" "I don't really care about fair. That's the way it is."

"You said I could have ice cream!"

"_After_dinner!"

Here came another scream. My tail frizzed while the dad's simply lashed. He looked all around while his bigger daughter stomped and squealed on the other side of the grass. A few of those workers were watching with interest. He didn't spot me gawking at least.

"Hey! If you keep up this racket, you'll get neither!" The stamping stopped. Screaming turned to whimpering. "No dinner. No ice cream. Is that what you want?"

"No." The daughter searched the concrete, arms still wrapped around herself.

"Then be a good girl and take yourself inside."

Her arms dropped. They hung limp as she scurried up to the front step, her dad following close behind on the walkway. "You're lucky I don't tell your mother how bad you're behaving..."

They moved out of sight; the slam of a door closing the last of what I'd hear of the argument. How in the world did he do that? How could that guy... be so authoritative? In control of his daughter while being so much smaller? Guess you get it with practice, but... I found it tough to process.

"Huh... Maybe..." My fingers returned to the keyboard with little prompting, working hard to keep up with the voice free flowing in my head. It painted a picture of a world turned upside down by some unforeseeable, unbelievable upheaval. One morning, outta nowhere, big is small. Small is big. Maleni and Visoka are thrown into situations they might've experienced countless times before, but never on the_other_ side. People previously overshadowed, ignored, bullied, belittled... they're on top now. They're the ones calling the shots, while those in previously privileged positions are forced to react and adapt.

There'd be friendships, relationships changed seemingly for good. The dynamics of mixed-size families twisted and confused. Big parents now small, small now big, with the same holding true for children. How would a Visoka mother or father deal with waking up to find themselves suddenly standing knee-high to their Maleni son or daughter? One they're expected to protect and provide for? Would they cope? Could they cope?

Whole neighbourhoods and towns would have to face this new reality head on... Maybe even whole countries, if the effects spread far enough. Somehow, they'd all have to adjust... or risk tearing themselves apart.

"Mate, that's really is out there." The typing stopped. I cast a keen eye over the words I'd woven, picking up on every loose thread. Criticising thoughts were only too happy to start tugging at them.

"I don't think any Maleni would be considering any kind of uprising or crap like that. Not right away at least. We'd be too busy freaking out over little things... Like the fact that we've probably just exploded out of our houses or apartment blocks."

That'd be a story in itself, I figured. One done countless times before, and one I had little motivation to write there and then... but maybe in the future.

Save, close, new. Another blank page waited to be filled with ideas. Gods above, I'm tough to please.

Time for a break. These slats beneath me were getting uncomfortable. Of to the kitchen I went, returning to my workspace with a stray beer I'd found lurking at the back of the fridge. Hopefully it'd help me keep a cool head. Or loosen it up enough to let my ideas flow free.

Sucking down a large gulp of malty smoothness, I dropped back onto the sun warmed plastic. My tablet could wait a while longer. It was such a glorious day out here. I owed it at least a little longer to try and send some inspiration my way.

After a few more sips and more time scanning around the block, I caught sight of a moving truck parked a short ways down the street. It wasn't a particularly big one, but then it didn't need to be.

A couple of guys were milling around it, gathering up the content from its rear door. One of them, a black bear, held a couch in both hands, with two matching armchairs balanced atop it. The rabbit with him had what looked to be a few boxes stacked upon themselves, looking more like cardboard building blocks in his Visoka-sized arms.

I watched them round the truck, plodding over to where a family of wolves stood in wait outside the Maleni housing complex I assumed was their new home.

The two movers had to set the families belongs down outside, at the foot of the path leading up to the lot proper. A few dozen buildings sat gathered there, like a village nestled between two Visoka family homes. The rabbit and bear couldn't really march their way up the slope it'd been built upon... Well, actually I guessed they could, though the risk of fences being flattened under paw or brickwork knocked and broken by stray knees and tails made that problematic. Instead, they relied on another pair of Maleni coworkers, working in tandem to roll the furniture along the moving front walkway atop an extra-long flatbed trolley.

The bigger guys seemed wasted here. Glorified pallet stackers while those my size did most of the actual moving. Suppose it was the best they could do in a situation made tricky by the size differences. Then again, if not for those big guys driving the truck, how would any of it got here to be moved otherwise? The Visoka definitely came in useful for that...

"Something historic," I muttered past my beer bottle. "From the old days. Bad days."

My mind went back to a past I was too young to experience, but one I'd heard an awful lot about. You couldn't grow up in this part of the world and not have at least a loose grasp...

There were so many stories out there about people my size in Velika, both in the build up to and during the war with Polcia; factual and fictional. You didn't have to search hard online for an account to be read, or in the library for a tale to be told.

Refugees by the thousands, doing whatever they could to get out of Velika before their homeland truly turned on them. So many had no choice but to rely on their larger compatriots, even at a time when they couldn't be sure who to trust. At a time when groups like the fucking Whiteshirts, with implicit and explicit help of a corrupt joke for a police force, saw fit to turn neighbour upon neighbour. Friend upon friend. All to push the government's sick, sizeist agenda. Some gave up their entire lives to escape by any means necessary. They sold everything they owned to pay for nothing more than a ticket out of there. A pass to what they hoped to be a new, safe start in a place they'd never known. That wasn't an option open for all. People like my granddad didn't have that luxury, for lack of a better word. They were forced to stay until the war broke out. To find shelter with a dwindling minority that would try to protect them. Others found a place with the resistance, doing what little they could to put up a fight...

It seemed my fingers had been swept away by my thoughts. My monologue had burst out onto the page, morphing all the memories I held of Granddad and his stories into words.

He must've been five years younger than me when he abandoned his hometown. Alone, with barely a penny to his name, he somehow made it to the west coast three days later, taking his chance with a few others he met along the way in the hold of a ship bound for Bolstrovo.

It's not something he'd mention in front of Grandma, but he used to say how he'd have sooner been thrown overboard, or died at the hands of a trafficker before one of the Whiteshirts'. The things he'd been through deserved to be in a story... I wish he was still here to talk to about this stuff. There's so much more I'd have loved to ask him...

"People don't want all this gritty reality." Back came the doubt. The pessimism. "Anyway, I'd not do something like that justice. It's just way too big..."

Everything went dark. The hot sun had hidden away, leaving the cold to prickle my fur.

"Excuse me."

I shuddered at the voice suddenly sounding from outside the balcony. My half-empty beer almost tipped off the table. Rather that than onto my tablet.

"Sorry to disturb you..."

"Uh..." My eyes adjusted to the blue shirt forming a wall ahead of me, the postal service logo beneath the collar, and the enquiring face of a fox hovering above. "...Can I help?"

"Hopefully." He lifted his arms, scanner in one hand, a parcel resting in the palm of the other. "Your upstairs neighbour doesn't seem to be in, and I have a delivery I need signing for."

I waved away his explanation. "Yeah, sure." He tipped the scanner towards me as I stood from my seat. A press of my palm to the reader and a short beep later, the guy lowered his hand to let me gather the package with both of mine. Damn it was heavy... Not that I wanted to give that away.

"Thanks a lot," he said, stepping back. "Have yourself a good one."

"And you." I kept my grumbling to a minimum as sunlight returned, setting the box down and throwing myself back into my chair. Even when alone in the apartment, still the disruptions came. "It's fine, though. Still a couple of hours of peace left. Plenty of time to get a good story idea plotted out--"

Seemed those workers on the front path were still around. I could tell that from the sudden, teeth-chattering drilling of the concrete. Fuck me, even with a Normaliser it was loud. Not even headphones and music would've blocked that out.

Still it went on, and on, until finally I snapped. Up I jumped with tablet in one hand and beer in the other. Screw the parcel for upstairs. That could wait out here for now.

"Not a single decent idea." I filled a short pause in the drilling with a stumble over the chair. The scraping of metal legs across the floor cut right through me. I marched myself inside before I had a chance to kick out at it. "Damn it, nothing interesting happens 'round here." The balcony door closed with a satisfying slam behind me. "Guess I'll have to keep on thinking..."