September Exclusive - "First Chance" - Part 1

Parkdale

He hasn’t spoken since he regained consciousness. Not a word, not a peep. It’s probably the shock. They didn’t take away his tongue, after all. His vocal cords are still intact. Yes, it must be the shock.

“Christopher, it’s going to be okay,” says Diane. “By tomorrow, you’ll look as good as me!”

He doesn’t reply. For what it’s worth, he would agree that his wife looks amazing. As pretty and lively as she did when the first met, Fresher’s week at university, close to thirty-five years ago.

“I know you’re embarrassed, but they promised they’d fix this.” She grins, showing off white teeth. “You look adorable, by the way!”

He probably does. But that’s not what he asked for.

They sit on the bed, in a master bedroom of a house they entered for the first time last night. Barely twelve hours later, they are both different, both very much changed by their short time in Parkdale. Christopher looks at Diane’s body and thinks…pneumatic. How Aldous Huxley described Lenina in ‘Brave New World’. Meaning curvy, ample-breasted, bouncy. His middle-aged wife is now a freshly minted adult, she is the springiest of chickens. Parkdale has removed thirty-five years of Diane’s age, like a chronological liposuction.

Christopher, meanwhile, is not pneumatic. The only time he might look bouncy is on a grown-up’s lap. He finishes what’s left in his bottle – something that Diane said was full of essential electrolytes and nutrients following the treatment but tasted to Christopher like plain old orange squash.

“How could they get it so wrong?” Christopher asks, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. He looks down at his body. If they shaved the years off Diane, they carved them off Christopher. They took an axe to him.

“Their mistake,” says Diane, “they’re not denying it. The woman I spoke to on the phone. She said that a lot of couples actually want it this way. You know, so instead of husband and wife, it’s mother and son. Just like it could be father and daughter.” She nods as she talks. “She says it’s pretty common.”

“Great,” says Christopher, and he learns something else about being a little boy; he can’t roll his eyes. “I’m glad it’s common. I’m delighted they turned me into a baby.” His voice is high and girlish, and while his diction is okay, Christopher can sense how easy it would be for his spoken English to deteriorate.

Deteriorate. The word sits in his mind, sits on a grand plinth. It’s a big word, it doesn’t belong in a baby’s head.

“You’re not a baby,” Diane says. She looks him up and down appraisingly. “I bet you’re three.” She twists her lips. “Well, two and a half.” She gives a little shrug, as if to say, What does it matter?

Christopher laughs, and then covers his mouth. What an appalling little giggle. He had meant to sound sarcastic, as bitter as he felt inside, but instead, he’s trapped with the noises of a small child.

“They’ll fix it,” Diane says soothingly. “I promise.” She reaches for her husband, and he scrambles away, crawling across the bed like…well, like a toddler.

He parks himself on the corner of the duvet. “I don’t want to wear this,” he says, tugging at his clothes.

“It’s only for tonight. They’ve got to wait for the first treatment to stabilize, and then they can make the alteration.”

Alteration – as if he’s at the tailors, being measure for a suit.

Christopher groans. “It’s too much.” Meaning, it’s too cute. Too childish. The white turtleneck, the blue corduroy overalls with the train on the bib. And of course, the underwear. He pokes critically at the thickness around his waist.

Diane looks at him with a mournful expression, and for a moment Christopher can’t tell if his wife’s tone is empathetic or condescending. “It’s going to be okay,” she says softly. “You know, it could’ve been worse. They said maybe you’d wake up all smiles.”

“How do you mean?”

“There was a chance, you might have lost your adult memories during the treatment.”

“Jesus.” He shakes his head as he imagines being reduced to babbling, drooling incoherence. “This place…how I’d even sign up for this? Bunch of cowboys.”

Diane laughs. “Instead of a bunch of train drivers?” She winks at her husband. “Those really are the cutest overalls.” She beckons him to her with curling fingers. “Let me give you a hug, make you feel better.”

Christopher looks at his wife. She’s so young, so effortlessly beautiful in blue jeans and a pink jumper. But there’s something in Diane’s tone that makes Christopher shudder.

No. His reaction isn’t fair, she’s just trying to help. But how will it look, the little boy being cuddled by his mother? He imagines himself, swallowed up, swaddled in the pink softness of Diane’s jumper. Too much. Too humiliating.

“Come on, silly,” says Diane. She plays with her hair, her soft, shiny hair. “let’s have a cuddle.” There’s the tone again, and there’s the look in her eyes. As if she’s seeing him more as a little boy than as her husband.

“No!” Christopher cries. He scrambles off the bed, landing with a thump.

“Darling!” Diane cries, rushing to his side.

“Don’t touch me,” Christopher warns, as if he can do a thing about it. He waddles to the doorway, cringing at the crinkle of plastic pants. “Call them,” he says, pointing up at her with a chubby finger. “Tell them I can’t wait; they have to change me now.”

Diane wrings her hands. “Sweetheart, I already told you, we can’t do it yet, you haven’t stabilized.”

“Bullshit,” says Christopher, and he would give anything to be his usual height, his usual swagger. He half expects Diana to scold him for swearing. He imagines her picking him up and putting him across her knee. Smacking his little bottom. The thought makes him dizzy, and he puts a hand against the doorframe.

Diane doesn’t scold him. She doesn’t even step towards him. She just continues to wring her hands because she’s out of her depth. Throughout their marriage, she was never the one to move them forward, never took the lead, and the one time she does it, learning from a friend that a town in Parkdale can return people’s youth? Disaster.

Grateful for a spark of authority, Christopher juts his chin defiantly and says, “Tell them, if they can’t fix this in the next hour, I’m leaving, and I’m going straight to my lawyer.”

“Oh, honey,” Diane says, and she looks smaller somehow, losing the glow she had just a few moments before, although she still towers over Christopher. He can see the defeat in her eyes. She nods. “I’ll call them right now.”

He walks onto the landing, the threat giving him confidence. “Either they fix me, or I ruin them.”

“Where are you going?” asks Diane, anxiety returning to her voice.

“To check out the rest of the house,” says Christopher. He rests his hands on his hips. “Unless I need your permission to leave the room?”

“Of course not,” Diane replies softly. She wrinkles her nose. “But honey, please don’t go downstairs. You’re so little. Stay off the stairs, okay. For me?”

Christopher makes another unsuccessful attempt to roll his eyes. “Fine. Jesus. Just make the call.”

He walks along the landing and finds a bathroom first, complete with a sink that he can’t reach, and a mirror that he’s not tall enough to see himself in. He considers the toilet; his body feels out of sorts, not just because of his size – he can’t be more than three feet tall – but because the signals to his brain, like balance, like his bladder – seem off. He drank all that orange stuff, but does he need to use the toilet? He’s not quite sure.

He leaves the bathroom pausing at the bedroom door.

“Yes,” he hears Diane say. “He was shocked when he woke up…Yes, I remember you saying that…he really isn’t very happy about this.” Her voice softens but Christopher can still hear when she says, “He’s talking about lawyers.”

Charles nods to himself. That’s right, woman, you go on and sort this out. It’s the least you can do, getting us into this mess in the first place.

He continues along the landing, pushing open the next door to find a nondescript guestroom. And then, the last door on the left, reveals a nursery.

Christopher hesitates before stepping inside. As if entering means accepting his new age. As if to be inside the nursery would make him think like he belongs there, his ideas and emotions reduced to infantile nonsense. But that is such a superstitious, childish notion that he forces himself to walk inside.

He looks around the room, and discovers, partly to his relief, that he doesn’t find anything of interest. A toddler’s bed, a shelf of toys and game, and then a closed wardrobe, no doubt filled with outfits just as winsome and cutesy as his train overalls.

None of this appeals to him. It’s just a little boy’s bedroom. A waste of space. And yet, Christopher understands, any visitor to the house would assume that all if this is for him.

He sneers at the cartoon characters decorating the bedspread. Some television show that keeps toddlers glued to the screen. “Moronic,” he says to himself.

And then, by the bedroom window, Christopher finds something even more irritating. He walks over to verify that Parkdale has indeed put a toy vacuum cleaner in the nursery.

It must be a toy one, it’s half his height. He takes the handle and give it a push, wondering why he feels so annoyed at having a toy that is surely meant for a little girl.

And then, with one push, Christopher has a change of heart. Not because he wants to play with the silly Hoover, of course not. But the push rewards him with the rattle of colourful balls, visible and audible through a clear plastic window where the dust would normally collect. He crouches down, sighing at the thickness of his nappy, to inspect the gadget.

Maybe it’s not for girls. It’s red, not pink, there are no frills or sparkles. And isn’t there just something about this device that appeals to his engineering mind. He sits down beside the vacuum and puts his chubby fingers to the plastic casing, wondering if he can open it up. Because that would be interesting, to see how it works. That would be…fun.

He blinks at the popping sensation in his ears, as if he’s on a plane. He swallows and feels the popping feeling again. But it’s not really his ears. It’s inside his head. Which is strange. Which is silly.

He shakes his head, half-hoping for more pops, but without success. He looks back at the vacuum’s plastic case and the balls look bigger now, somehow, and more colourful. He would really love to get inside the toy. But not like a toddler would. Like an engineer. Like someone serious and grown-up.

And then his bladder reminds him of how much orange squash he drank, forcing him to clamber to his feet and rush along the landing to the bathroom. There isn’t much warning as a sense of urgency fills his mind. He really needs to pee.

He stands in front of the toilet bowl, and notices there is no stool for him to stand on. He decides that he will climb onto the seat instead, but reaches for the straps of his overalls, his little fingers are two weak to work the buttons.

There’s a soft whining sound, and Christopher listens for a second before realizing that it’s him. Because he must look like a little boy, about to wet himself.

“I can’t even get undressed by myself,” he mutters. He stares down at his crotch, poking at the material and groans. “No zip!”

Because I’m wearing a nappy, Christopher thinks, ready to sink to the floor in abject self-pity. Because they expect me to just wet and mess myself.

He leaves the bathroom and toddles back to the master bedroom. He’ll have to ask Diane for help, which is utterly humiliating. But less humiliating than wetting himself.

He stops short of the door. Diane is still on the phone. Her voice is low, but the words unmistakable.

“I had one chance to ask for what I wanted,” she says. “They asked me, Mum, ‘did I want to be a wife, or did I want to be a mother?’”

Christopher freezes, like a little boy playing a game, he even holds his breath. She’s not talking to the agency.

“I had thirty years of being his wife, and you know what? I wanted something else. I wanted the family he kept putting off, finding every reason under the sun, until it was too late and suddenly, we were middle-aged.”

He is frozen on the landing, listening to his wife’s bitter words. Chilled to the bone, save for heavy, insistent between his legs. There’s the softest, faintest voice in his head telling him that he should use his nappy, that’s what it’s there for.

What does he do now? Confront her? He can barely control his bladder, never mind have the biggest fight of his marriage.

Does he just give up? It would be a relief to let go, both physically and mentally. He imagines the warm wetness flooding his nappy, he pictures Diane rushing to his side, promising to take care of him.

He grimaces. She’s not his mother. She’s not anything to him now.

But what can he do? His hands shake, his eyes sting. What the hell can he do?

“Tonight, I hope. Physically, he’s stabilized, but mentally, not so much. We can’t leave until he’s Mummy’s little boy, otherwise the changes could be reversed. Once he’s all smiles, we can leave…oh, yes, he’d love that!”

She laughs, and Christopher feels a red mist of rage threaten to overwhelm his thoughts. He could run and jump on the bed; he could scream and fight.

But he doesn’t do that. He nods to himself, backing away from the door.

He knows what he has to do.

To be continued...