December Flash #2 - "Littlest"

December Flash #1 - "Goggles"

This flash tale is inspired by special helper DokoDokoNe. You can find their idea at the end of the story.

Christmas Eve

There’s a stranger in the room.

Danny watches the figure by the bunk bed, a pair of legs just inches from his face. He holds his breath; he doesn’t move a muscle. After so much red wine, he had gone to sleep sure that he would wake in the night with a dry mouth and an aching bladder. He hadn’t expected to be wearing a diaper.

“Okay, Jane, you’re in charge now.” A man’s voice, but it’s not Santa Claus. No red suit, no bulging stomach. The man’s clothing seems familiar, but it’s hard for Danny to be certain in the dark room. The only illumination is provided by string of fairy lights tied around the bunk bed ladder.

“Going to miss you,” the man whispers. “Little bit. Maybe.”

“Hey,” Jane whispers back, sounding hurt. But then she giggles. “Miss you too. Little bit.” She pauses. “But you have to go.”

The top bunk creaks and Danny imagines the little girl sitting up and putting her arms around the man’s neck. Jane is a hugger; a few hours before, she ran up to Danny, insisting on a goodnight kiss and cuddle. It had surprised him at the time, she had only just met him tonight. Does she do this with every man her mother brings home? But some kids are shy, wrapped around the legs of their mother, and some kids form an instant attachment. Danny knows that much about children, if not much more.

“Don’t forget the magic words,” the man says.

“I won’t, Peter,” says Jane.

Peter. The same name as her brother. Danny realizes that he’s lying in Peter’s bunk. Which takes this to a whole new level of confusion.

“It’s been a fun year,” Jane says, sounding older and wiser than she did before she went to bed. “Didn’t think I’d ever say that.”

The older Peter doesn’t reply – or perhaps it’s something Danny can’t see: a kiss on the girl’s cheek, a wink of an eye. He walks away from the bunkbed, goes through the doorway. He doesn’t turn back.

Danny lies on his back, looking up at the base of the top bunk. There are several puzzles for him to solve. Why he’s woken up in the kids room, in a little boy’s bed, after falling asleep in their mother’s bed. The the biggest puzzle, of course, is why Danny has regressed back to childhood. And why he’s not screaming the house down.

Another creak from the top bunk, and this time Jane’s legs appear. She climbs down the ladder and crouches by Danny.

“You’re awake,” she whispers. She’s smiling, looking rather like a Christmas angel in her white nightgown, the glow of the fairy lights giving her head a multi-colored halo. Yes, she is older than she was before. Her mother had said Jane’s daycare was just down the street, walking distance. But Jane won’t be going there after the holidays; she’ll be in second or third grade.

She puts a finger to her lips and Danny half-expects Jane to announce a game of hide and go seek. “No big noises, okay? I know you must be full of questions.”

Danny thinks a big noise would be the perfect plan. He should begin with a yell, and perhaps move onto some shrieking. But he’s so small. Three years old? The age Jane used to be. He can feel the diaper around his waist. Any noise he makes will sound like a small child waking in the night. It will surely bring Jane’s mother, and Danny isn’t sure he wants to see her.

“What’s going on?” Danny asks finally, and he flinches at the high pitch of his voice.

Jane grins, showing off a couple of gaps in her front teeth. What did her mother say, when it was just Danny and her, enjoying a glass of wine on the couch, about to enjoy each other. “Kids are like a money pit; you have no idea. Food, school uniforms, even the tooth fairy.” But she had been talking about Peter. The Peter that, Danny understands, just left, adult sized.

“Every year, Mommy asks Santa Claus for children,” says Jane. “Two perfectly-behaved, adorable children. It’s like her Christmas wish. She holds out her hands and counts on her fingers. “Two years ago she got Peter, one year ago she got me.” She produces her toothy grin again. “And this year…” She reaches out and pats Danny’s arm. “This year, it’s you.”

Danny pulls away. He can’t be a child, can’t give up his adult life. “Don’t want that,” he says, sounding like the most petulant of toddlers. Even though part of him needs the contact, part of him expects to be held, hushed, coddled.

Jane will roll her eyes. She will stick out her tongue.

Instead, she gets into bed and curls up beside Danny. Face to face, she gives him a sympathetic look. “I know, Danny. It’s hard being the littlest. But it’s okay; Peter taught me about the magic.” She shows off her gap-toothed grin and says, in a musically distracting way, “At Christmas play and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year.”

Danny wrinkles his nose as he concentrates. Where has he heard that before? The words echo in his head. And then he gives Jane a hopeful, inquisitive look and asks, “Is it time to get up yet?”

Jane laughs. “It’s the middle of the night, silly! If you want Santa to come, you have to be asleep. Come on, roll over.”

Filled with Christmas excitement, Danny does as he’s told. After a minute or two of his big sister stroking his back, he is fast asleep.

THE END

When a single man visits a single mother that he met online for Christmas, he gradually begins to become suspicious of where her two little ones came from in the first place. - DokoDokoNe