We walked to the beach.
At first, I was marvelling at how the world had changed. Women walked around with their backs arched, hands
often folded beneath their breasts for support. All this achieved, though, was a little artificial lift and
some very prominent breasts.
I didn't seem to be as short as I thought; there was a lot more variety of height in the world now, especially
for women. The taller ones seemed to be skinnier as a rail and relatively smaller-chested, but the short ones,
those standing at 5'1" or 5'2" were the ones who had a lot of weight on their chest...and I realised with a
deep sinking feeling that I was even less than that.
"Look at everybody. They're all staring at you."
I suddenly looked up, and they were right. Little children were staring openly and pointing, while a couple of
teenage boys were joking and pointing. Some of the women whom we passed gave sympathetic, pitying looks, while
a couple of the men eyed me with interest, as if sizing me up.
I suddenly realised that they saw that I was going around barefoot, and in this world, that could only mean
one thing. Everybody knew, and were waiting to see it happen...
Heart in my throat, butterflies in my stomach, the next words filled me with dread...
"Are you ready? We're here at the beach!"