A Plea For Help From The Planet Of Dearth

John Doe,
Alien

Hello Earthlings – I am writing to you from the planet of Dearth, a world very similar to your own but with one minor difference. Well, perhaps one small difference is a better term to use. Or tiny difference. Or little difference.

Let me explain: in your world, the vast majority of people are “normal” sized. Sure, there is variation in height, but for the most part, adults fall between the range of 5 feet and 6 feet 5 inches. However, there is one exception of people who are much smaller than the rest of the population. You earthlings typically refer to these people as little people, dwarves, or midgets.

According to the website Little People of America, dwarfism is a “medical or genetic condition that usually results in an adult height of 4'10" or shorter, among both men and women, although in some cases a person with a dwarfing condition may be slightly taller than that. The average height of an adult with dwarfism is 4’0” To get a little more specific, dwarfism is a genetic mutation that occurs either when the dominant “dwarf” gene is passed from one parent to the child or if both parents carry a hidden “dwarf” gene that is passed down to the child. In either case, dwarfism is quite rare, although I’m sure you have seen a few in your lifetime.

Well on my planet, dwarfism is the norm and what you would call normal-sized people, such as myself, are actually the exceptions. Yeah, that’s right -- 99.9% of the population are what you call midgets and only a very small minority of people are of “regular” height. As you can imagine, my life is essentially a living hell. I remember when my parents first learned about my condition – I was rushed to the hospital at only a few months only because I was already half the height of my parents! I remember how humiliating it was to walk into my first day of kindergarten and already be as tall as my teachers, unable to fit in any of the kiddie chairs and having to deal with my classmates laughing behind my back as I awkwardly tried to cram my giant fingers into the tiny cookie jars.

Let me briefly explain to you what Dearth looks like. Well, actually, it’s not that hard to visualize because it’s basically the same as Earth but with everything shrunk to about 20% of the size you are used to. All our houses, doorways, buildings, pencils, food, chairs, tables, beds, etc. seem tiny for people like you and I, but for the vast majority of the population on Dearth, it’s just normal. I have to custom order my clothing, bow my head in order to fit into any room, and cram my body into these tiny cars just to drive to work. If I want to travel anywhere or go on vacation, I just buy up an entire row of seats on the airplane, and sometimes that’s not even enough.

As I grew older, I knew there were only two professions for someone with my genetic disorder. One was to become a professional basketball player. I was scouted from a very young age to join my hometown’s youth basketball training program. You may think this is glamorous, as I’ve heard that the professional athletes in your world make a lot of money, but on Dearth, it is quite a different story. Basketball players don’t get any respect, make very little money, and our fans just come to our games to boo us and throw rotten fruit onto the court. It’s pretty similar to how the WNBA is perceived on Earth now that I think about it. Anyways, I decided against that career, which left me with only one other career choice: a lifeguard. As you can probably imagine, little people are not the best swimmers and need constant supervision while in the water. So, for the last several years since I graduated little school (the equivalent of high school on Earth), I’ve been a lifeguard at the Bryn Mar Country Club.

I plead to you, anyone who is reading this, please save me. Please send a team to my terrible planet and extract me. I’m desperate and need to get out of this living hell. My planet is located in the northern side of the Andromeda galaxy. As you could probably guess, my planet is revolving around a dwarf star, so it’s easy for us to get lost amongst all the “normal” sized stars in our galaxy. Please send help, I just want to be normal.

For more articles by John Doe, click here. To get in touch with this writer, email doe.john@surrealtimes.net.

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