Tale #66: The Here, Then, and Now (Part 1)

Tale #66: The Here, Then, and Now (Finale to 'Shortcomings and Goings') (Content Tags: Surrealism, cosmic horror, messy diapers, possible confusion) The belly of the beast was a labyrinthine abyss, from which a thousand lifetimes could be kept away from the light. Each reel held the hopes, dreams, and memories of the ones who had been swallowed by the entity's unending hunger. Each reel ended at a door, and every door was passage into the reality of someone completely different. Somewhere in this darkness, my own reel could be found. Somewhere in this pit, my salvation could be found. If I could assume control of my own timespan, then could I not scour it for clues as to why I was targeted? Could I not use it as a means to change the history of what had become of me? I'd opened more doors since the first one. I'd lived more lives and I'd suffered the same fate at the gnashing teeth of the beast, over and over, like I was stepping into a play. Every time I would disassociate from my real existence, so that I could be transplanted into the one recorded; I viewed my real life as the dream, and the assumed role as my reality. The dissonance wouldn't cease until I pushed past the precipice of the life that I took over; once the creature struck, I was swiftly ejected, and my sense of self returned to me all at once. I was able to remember each new life that I entered, and it helped me to cement the pattern that I had hypothesized before opening the first door. Whatever attracted the beast to its victims, it had to do with perceptions and personal demons around growing up. Maturity, and all the irksome elements that were associated with it, had to be the bait that brought forth the shark. For all these other people though, there appeared to be something more than what I could presume for myself. In each reel, there was a trauma core; there was some bundle of horrific memories that solidified the reel as complete. It was difficult for me to understand at first, but as time went on, I came to realize that these living nightmares were when each person had first become vulnerable. That first kid that I became, the one with the red hair. I thought I'd changed his timeline, since I'd had to leave class, so that I could deal with my mental breakdown. I hadn't changed that though, at least I didn't think so; looking back at the reel again, it looked like that lined up perfectly with his first encounter. That breakdown was something that was already there. I couldn't go back in his door to find out exactly what it was, but I'd get flashes of his memories sometimes when I was awake. He'd been terrified of growing older; terrified of moving up to higher and higher grades. He'd planned to run away from it all, if he hadn't fallen prey to the beast. That brought up something else that I'd started to notice. None of these first encounters were when the victim had reached adulthood like me. Their first encounters were all during some point in childhood, and I was never able to exist in their life long enough to see what came next. Why was that? If the beast sustained itself on the memories of its victims, then why choose such short-lived livestock? Even my own lifetime was short in the grand scheme of things; wouldn't it make more sense to attack someone much older? Or were their memories not as powerful? I'd been twenty-five when it attacked me, right? I'd settled into a new house, after making some lucky gambles on cryptocurrency, and I'd started my PhD. I still worked, while going to school, though my memory was scarily fuzzy on what that job had actually been. With how distorted the details of my existence had become, the puzzle pieces of my history completely jumbled up, I'd lost track of certain things altogether. The longer I stayed like this, the more hazy my former life became. I would confuse details of adolescence with those of adulthood, while the only real familiarity were the memories that I associated with my childhood. An irony, since my childhood was something that had been so murky to me before all of this. Though even with how vivid the accounts of my childhood now felt, they still didn't seem quite right. That was another reason I wanted to find my own reel so badly; I needed to know for myself whether the things I believed were true. I got what I asked for, and all that receiving it meant. I'd been on month three of sorting through the darkness; every time I fell asleep, I ended up back in the shadows, and I spent the time searching. Every door that I entered seemed to help light the path ways of the wicked place. I lived life after life, and that illuminated the darkest trails of the creature's stomach. There was no way to properly map it out, since the place felt so incomprehensible in the waking world, but I'd created a path of light through the traumas I'd been burdened with. This led me into the furthest fathoms of what was below; this was where my reel was hidden away. I'd found it. Before I could even see the images it carried, I knew that it was mine; there was an energy from it, a magnetism that couldn't be put into words. It drew me in and I followed the trailing length of its immensity; picture by picture, I could see the hazy images of my own life laid out, as if each memory was fogged over. It was my eternity in smoked glass. At the end of the reel was the same sort of imposing door that'd haunted the climax of every reel before it. This was different than those other doors though, this was *my* door; the reality that existed on the other side of that knob was my own. My hand hovered for a while; this had been what I was looking for, but was I having second thoughts? The abyss trembled around me, but the real culprit was the knocking of my own nervous knees. Did I really want to see my own life? Did I really want answers to the questions that I'd been asking all this time? Better yet, what if dipping my toe into the past didn't solve anything? I hadn't fixed anyone else's problems by going through these doors, what could I possibly plan to do in there? My hand retreated briefly from the knob and landed on my heaving gut like a butterfly. It seemed impossible to have a panic attack in a dreamlike realm like this, but I was proving it very possible. The door filled me with such a primordial dread that I felt that I may fall to the floor. I wanted to leave. I wanted to wake up and simply accept my fate as an eternal fragment of my former self. I just didn't want to feel *this* But I'd never escape this feeling if I didn't push forward into the unknown. Whatever was on the other side of that door, it had to be better than being an endless snack to prey upon. It was the punishment of Prometheus, and I refused to be chained to this rock any longer. I lurched forward and twisted the knob. The door opened and I fell into an emptiness beyond words. This already felt different than all the other times that I'd gone through one of these doors; I could tell that there was significance here. "Happy birthday! Six is such a great age; you're really turning into a big kid now!" Today was the day that I'd be turning six, but it wasn't a happy one. All week I'd been having it hyped up for me by my friends and family, but it'd just me more miserable with each passing day. Things felt like they were moving too fast, and nobody gave me a chance to really explain that. The bigger issue was that I *couldn't* explain it, at least not in any intelligible way that'd be respected. My friends, like most first graders, were obsessed with the idea of becoming bigger and being treated like they were mature. My family would never understand either; how could I go and tell them how I felt, when they so often praised my blooming maturity? Nobody would understand, and I wouldn't know what the right words were anyways for this malaise that I felt. I envied the carefree lifestyle of my juniors, even those who were still not pottytrained. If anything, I was especially jealous of the diapered tots that could play the day away and be coddled without any expectations at all. So I rejected this birthday on principle. I refused to grow up, and if I could have my way, then I'd tumble backwards even further! Every birthday came with a wish to be made on the candles, did it not? So that'd be my wish this year: I'd wish to return myself to a more innocent time. I played the part of an enthused birthday boy that day. I opened gifts, I ate pizza, I played games, and finally it was time for the cake. As to be expected, my mom had worked extra hard to make the cake to my interests, and so it carried the likeness of Pokemon (and one Digimon, but I wouldn't hold the mistake against her.) The birthday song commenced and it felt as if time was slowing down. If my life existed completely within a glass jar, then that jar was beginning to crack. I didn't feel afraid, but I did feel like I knew what was happening; like a gnawing thought that festered deep in the mind, but it was too deep inside to decipher. "...Happy birthday to yooou!" I blew the candles out and made my wish inside my head. The cracking glass became a shattered storm of razors, but only in that instant, and then the feeling immediately receded. The cake was delicious; I got Pikachu of course, and part of Horsea too. Not long after, the kids would start to get picked up from the party, and my parents would busy themselves with cleaning up after the festivities had come to a close. With a pile of new toys to choose from, I was left to my devices, and I went into the backyard to play. Being alone outside, with my action figures in front of me, I should have felt at ease. Instead, that odd niggling from earlier was returning and making me paranoid. I couldn't quite place it, but something certainly felt off, and there was the slightest feeling that I should know what was about to come next. "Do you want to play with me?" Looking up, I'd come to realize that not every kid had been picked up by their parents. There was a boy in my backyard, though I didn't really remember inviting him and he wasn't really recognizable as a classmate or a neighbor. From what I could remember, he hadn't been at the party, had he? Instead of my actions being informed by these details, I just gave a shallow nod to the offputting boy and picked up an action figure to gesture him over. "Okay, you can be this one. They're about to fight!" I looked back down at them for just a moment, and when my eyes drifted back upward, the mysterious boy had gotten a lot closer, but I hadn't really heard the crunching of any footsteps. With the boy now right next to me, I could detect that something seemed off about him; I couldn't put my finger on it, but something seemed very wrong about him. "Did you enjoy your birthday?" I blinked, my thought process disrupted by the question. Instead of lying, it seemed like I could be totally honest about how I truly felt. There wouldn't be the same judgment that I feared from everyone else. So I shook my head and frowned. "I liked the toys I got and the cake was really yummy...But I don't wanna turn six. I don't really wanna be a big kid." The admission felt good to get off my chest, but as soon as the words had left my throat, I could already feel that I'd made a mistake of some sort. The tiny blond hairs on my arms were sticking up and a chill ran down my spine, leaving me with a full body shudder. A panic was fluttering in my tummy, as if a deep-seated predator-prey response was washing over me. A wicked grin grew on the boy's face, and for just a second, it looked as if his mouth was stretching way too far upward and he had far more teeth than he should. Those empty eyes shined with interest and he looked down at me with his head cocked. "You don't want to grow up? When were you happy?" That was a solid question. When *was* the last time that I'd been happy with my age? My life hadn't been going on for very long yet, though to my perspective, it'd been full and I'd had definitive points where I'd liked things more. "Umm...Before preschool, I guess? Things were easier without school..." My memories before preschool were hazy, since that felt like an eternity ago by now, but I could distinctly remember how liberating it had been to have absolutely no responsibilities or expectations foisted upon me. To simply play, watch cartoons, and go potty in my pants without a care in the world. "Do you wish someone got you diapers for your birthday?" That seemed like a strange question to ask, but instead of blushing and denying it, I could only nod. I hadn't specifically thought about it during the party, but now that the question had been sprung, I had to admit that a box of Huggies would have been preferable to plenty of the presents that I did get. They would have been the ultimate manifestation of my wish to revert to a younger time. "Y-yeah, I woulda liked to get diapers back, instead of havin' to use the big kid potty all the time..." That odd sensation from earlier was returning, like my reality was being fractured. It was swiftly replaced by something else though, and that something else was an oddly familiar feeling of something padded underneath my buttocks. I wiggled in place and gasped at the rustling from underneath my shorts. I was wearing a diaper! "How did you do that?! It's like magic..." My mind immediately thought of the fairy godmother from Cinderella, but instead of being poofed into a fancy dress for a party, I was poofed into puffy Pampers! "Don't you want to use them? Just like a baby would?" That felt like a step too far, since my parents were right inside and they'd be displeased if they found me in a soiled diaper. I wanted to shake my head no, but instead ended up nodding. "Y-yes...Just like a baby..." There was no stopping what was happening. I could feel the heavy mass starting to push out into the back of the diaper; it was very warm and it gave me a nostalgic glow, as it snaked out and smeared itself against my rump. "I-I did a poopie..." I quietly mumbled, sitting on my knees and pinching the loaf off in my pants. No sooner than the sticky load settled and my world was breaking apart. The cosmos did tremble and burst at the seams, and what emerged was the other 'me' from the tyke that'd just pooed in his diaper like a toddler. I literally stood in the grass, in the form that I'd been reduced to before opening the doorway, and I could see the other 'me' that I'd just been reliving as for this birthday party. It was like an out-of-body experience, except I had split away from the history I'd just been reenacting. There was the me in the grass, with a dump in his pants, and then there was the 'smaller' me that was aware that this was a fragment of the reel in the belly of the beast. Vincent, or rather the monster, recoiled from the sight of me. The creature let out an otherworldly hiss, as if it was wounded by my presence here. It stepped back, like a spooked animal that had been cornered while in the middle of grazing. This hadn't happened with any of the other lifetimes that I'd fallen into; this was the first time I'd been able to confront the creature. The smell of poop drifted up into my nostrils and I winced at the familiarity of it. It felt strange to essentially be looking down at a 'me' from a different time; we were separate but connected by an invisible chain of memories. "How...How...How...How..." The creature sputtered repeatedly, as if a scratched record was turning inside. "I don't remember this. I remember having my sixth birthday, but I don't remember *you* being here. You didn't appear in my life until I was already an adult, so how did you worm your way here?" The creature didn't respond to my inquiries. Instead it was violently vibrating, making it appear even more alien than it already was. I thought I saw a bead of sweat on its forehead, but squinting my eyes, it looked more like a candle that was dripping wax; like the skin suit was melting. "...How...How...How..." I stepped forward and the beast shrinked back. My presence here was poison to it. I wondered why it wasn't fleeing, or why the 'dream' hadn't ended with me getting ejected. "You're... Me! A baby me!" My younger self, who was ironically at a physically older stage than I currently was, had snapped out of his smelly reveries. His attention was focused on the tot that had appeared and he'd quickly deduced that we were the same person. "You can't...You can't..." I looked between 'me' and the entity. Whatever my plan was, this was the time to execute it; I may not ever get another chance if I didn't do something now. From what I'd gathered, this was supposed to be my 'first encounter', though it didn't line up with my memories. So was this a memory that had been locked away? Considering the poopy diaper my former self had on, that didn't seem very likely; something like that would have been memorable, would it not? Then maybe this was some sort of retroactive feeding? The beast had this reel in his belly, so who was to say whether or not he could travel freely to different points? It fed on these memories from what I could gather, or rather the emotional weight of them, so it made sense that the beast would travel along every point of time that it could. If I'd been starving it in the present, then that was all the more reason for it to take refuge in my past. These were just guesses in the dark. The creature wasn't capable of real communication, so I couldn't exactly interrogate it on the finer points of the mechanics at work here. Even if I were to best the beast and vanquish it, I'd likely never know anything about where it came from or what it was doing to people. The time for inquisition was over though. Now was the time for action, and the only action I could think of, was to intentionally do what had accidentally set up this scenario for me. I lunged forward to grab a hold of the entity's 'shirt', in hopes that I could go another rung deeper into the abyss it held within. As I did, I could feel a small hand on my own shirt, and before I could shake the other me off, we were both getting sent through the impossible doorway of the creature's stomach. I was again surrounded by reels, but there were no doors to be seen. The abyss here was different than before; it felt more like the first time, to be caught within digestion, rather than a labyrinth. "W-where are we? Who are you?" The child behind me cried out in confusion. "I'm you from the future." "..But you're littler than me.." Explaining that part seemed impossible. Instead, I left the air between us silent and directed my focus to the place we had become trapped in. There was a spiral staircase that looked like it went down forever into a dreary oblivion. That wasn't here any of the other times that I'd been here. "Just follow me, go ahead and hold my hand..." Once he did, I could feel a shiver run up and down my spine. My mind flashed with everything that had happened to me since this had started, but it didn't end there; my existential problems were not only my own, but were shared with the version of me that had just turned six and messed his pants. Our minds became a union of despair, and while not all the questions had been answered, the other me was no longer in the dark about what was currently happening. The two of us descended into darkness, with nary a word between us, and only the squishy rustling of our respective diapers echoing off the walls of this spiraling pit. Time eventually became meaningless as we carefully trotted down, and thankfully we seemed incapable of physical fatigue in this incorporeal world, or else there's no way we could have continued. (Too big for one part! Second half is in a separate post!)