January Flash tale #1 - "Mommy"

She thinks I’ve forgotten. She’s wrong.

“Look at those beautiful blue eyes. Look at my perfect ray of sunshine.”

Sandra picks me out the crib, holds me up and gazes at my round face. Fact is, she’s much happier as a mother than she ever was as a wife.

I could wipe that damn smile off her face, of course. I could say what’s on my mind: bloody murder, sweet revenge. I don’t know how she turned me into a baby, but I know it hasn’t affected my memories.

Sandra checks my diaper – wet, admittedly, my bladder control is a joke, especially when I’m asleep – and likes me down on the pad to change me.

“We have a visitor this afternoon,” she says conversationally, as she cleans between my legs with a Wet Wipe. “Your Auntie Diana!” She talks as if I can’t understand, which suits me fine. She tells me more that way, she gives herself away. Since yesterday, she has told me so much about our marriage, about how unhappy she ways. She’s told me things she never told me when I was my adult age. Things I could have dome something about.

You were never here.

You treated me like an obligation. Like a contract you couldn’t get out of. A burden.

I saw that look in your eyes, even when we made love, which told me your thoughts were somewhere else.

My dear wife saw things that weren’t right. “Distorted thinking”, the psychologists call it. A mix of black and white thinking – either she is loved or she isn’t, either circumstances are perfect or they are ruined – and projection. Sandra put her own misgivings onto me, about our relationship, about my presence. Because to be clear, I was fully committed to my marriage. I loved my wife.

I don’t love my new mommy.

“Let’s get you dressed for company,” Sandra says. She smiles down at me. “Let’s get you presentable.” The lilt in her voice, as if I don’t have a thought in my head, makes me want to scream.

But I don’t. I’m going to save the screaming – and the revealing – for when Sandra’s here. When I have a witness.

I lie there as Sandra dresses me in a zippered onesie that is…well, what color exactly? Not baby blue, not yellow, my wife had put me in something…beige. And decorated with flowers and shrubs. She has made me her earthy baby, I guess. But this is the closest to actually “growing” a real child. The concept behind the outfit is as fake as her baby. She told me yesterday that I’m six months old. Sure enough, I can roll onto my front, I can sit when supported. But I’m not able to walk away from this.

Still, I’ve practiced talking. Whispered to myself in those moments when she’s left me alone and the monitor is turned off. I can form the words to deliver the headlines.

My wife turned me into a baby.

She picks me up, pops a pacifier – beige as well! Where is she finding this crap? – and carries me downstairs to the living room. She sits me on her lap and scrolls through her Instagram feed. It’s full of babies like before, but now I’m on there as well – in a diaper, in a highchair, lying on my back – along with the obligatory hashtags.

#momswithcameras

#instamama

#motherhoodunplugged

#momsofinstagram

#mommy

Yeah, that last one. Her new name, narrating her actions in the third person.

Mommy’s fixing you a bottle. Mommy’s giving you cuddles.

She’ll be looking forward to me using that name. Calling her ‘mommy’.

That’s not the name I’m going to use when Diane gets here.

So many babies on Sandra’s phone. I could almost feel jealous. Almost. Those wide-eyed, chubby-cheeked creatures, all looking up innocently at the sound of their mother’s voice. They don’t know they’re being put on show for the Internet to see.

Sandra’s phone buzzes to indicate a new text message. We read it together, mother and son.

2 mins away! 👶🥳

And I understand in this moment that ‘Auntie Diana’ is in on the plan. Who knows, maybe Sandra’s work friend is the brains behind it. Maybe Diana is a damn witch.

I won’t be revealing my adult thoughts today. I will put on the same show I do for Sandra; I will gurgle and drool, I will wriggle and goggle.

And then Sandra will want to take me out, show me off in public. She will have to take me to the doctor. She will take me to the library for story time. And then I will tell my story, I will split her wide open with my words.

“Auntie Diana’s just around the corner,” says Sandra. I watch as she closes Instagram; in fact, she closes all her apps. I sit in my wife’s lap as she swipes to a phone screen that has a single application. One icon, colored just as beige as my footed onesie.

“Let’s get you ready for visitors,” Sandra says gently.

She taps the earthy icon, and I am surprised.

I am amazed.

The colors are anything but boring. They are the opposite of my outfit.

They are…everything. They are the whole story. The entire, beautiful, overwhelming universe.

I reach for the phone. Sandra giggles. “You like it,” she says. “You like being Mommy’s baby.”

I don’t like it.

I love it.

I understand, before I don’t, before my thoughts scatter to the four winds, that the colors on the screen, the digital everything, represents my memories, my intelligence and hard-earned wisdom. I understand that the app is taking all of it, sucking it from my mind, and giving me a final, delightful lightshow, before I am left a drooling, gurgling idiot.

I frown. That’s not right. That’s a big-

I’m bouncing. Just a little. Just enough. I forget about the phone – the screen is blank anyway; the pretty colors have gone bye-byes – and I smile at the bouncing sensation.

I am secure. I am complete. On the lap, in the arms of the person who does everything for me. Who knows all the things.

She lifts me up, so my feet bounce on her knees. I bend my legs and giggle. I smile at her and tell her how much I love her.

There are no words. My mouth is silly and wet.

But she knows. She kisses my silly lips and says, “Sweet boy, isn’t that better. Isn’t that perfect.”

I gaze at her face; I sigh at her happy noises. And I love my mommy.

THE END

A man is horrified by his ex's plan to turn him into her baby, until he watches her special video. - Rick