June Flash #1 - "Pikshur"

He tells me to watch the screen. I watch and then he turns me back. That’s the process. 

“It’s like an onboarding video,” he says. He laughs. Ha-ha. He sounds nervous, but that’s understandable. He must know that I’m about to leave him. 

A trip to early childhood shouldn’t last forever. These journeys are like an elastic band. I wanted to be younger, remove the lines around my eyes, unpack the emotional baggage of my early thirties. So he took me back to my early twenties, and I felt my body and fill with fresh possibilities. I liked how people looked at me. There is power in youth that I never appreciated, first time around. 

“If you like that,” he said, “wait ‘til you try being a teenager.” I refused at first, but he was persuasive, evangelical. “It’s like having your spirit cleansed. It’s like an enema for your soul.” He spoke as if he’d done it himself, but it turns out, he hasn’t. He likes to do it; he likes to watch. When I became fifteen, I felt my mind accompany my body. I was a naïve and lovesick schoolgirl, I hung on his every word, fell at his feet. And then I said, “Your turn. Let me do it to you.” Like I was about to go down on him. Like it was a goddamn foot-massage. 

He puts his hand on my head, pushes me gently but firmly away, and I scramble to stay in control of a body that feels brand new. 

“Let’s see how far this goes,” he says, sounding like a scientist with an experiment. (Because he is. Because I’m just a guinea pig.) 

Too far, as it turns out. I’m a baby, with my mind still stuck at fifteen. A brutal combination, a cute but cynical toddler that he can’t take anywhere. 

The journeys are like an elastic band? When he returns me to the nursery, the elastic is surely so tight that I must be wrapped in cotton wool, I must be kept away from dark corners and sharp objects. 

He is disappointed. He was amused by the twentysomething; he was excited by the teenager. But now, he doesn’t laugh as much. 

The elastic is too tight. For a jaded engineer, for a reduced partner. 

Is that my fault? I’m not boring, I’m just bored. Milk on my tongue, a soft blanket between my fingers.  He stretched my physical regression, but my mind stayed put. He calls me a sarcastic baby, but how can I be anything but? My baby days are hardly exciting. I can’t fear danger around every unknown corner, I can’t crave the safety of his arms. I know too much. I can’t pretend to be entranced by spinning tops and glittering lights. And I can’t be anything but repulsed and furious by my wet and messy nappies. 

“Back to the drawing board,” he says. 

After another day of nothing, of neglecting my toys and kicking away my dollies, he picks me up in a jolly mood. 

“I’ve got it,” he says, grinning at me. “We’ll start from scratch.”

I smile back. I’m tired of my little body, I’ve had enough of my teenage sulk. When he turns me back, I’m going to tell him to find a new monster to play with. I’ve earned my stripes; I’ve had more than enough. Turns out, I’m better with crows feet. 

So he sits me in front of the video, orders me to watch it all the way through. Even if it’s boring. Even, and here he chuckles, “Even if it’s silly, yeah?”

I watch the first thirty seconds and learn to be afraid. I should cry out, I had better call for him, to beg for mercy. Because I cannot look away, and I know what this video is really for. 

His hand strokes my hair, pats my head. So gentle, so in charge. 

“Just watch the screen, love. Just watch the pictures.” He draws out the last word, and I understand that he is patronizing me until I forget what that means. Until I forget first how to read between the lines and then how to spell. 

It’s a terrible feeling, until it isn’t. Until I forget about big choices, until I merely exist in the moment. 

It’s okay. I am dry. I am fed. And there are colours. There are shapes I can’t name. I can feel, I can watch. And as my mind relaxes, as it shrinks and expands into an entirely new way of thinking and understanding, I barely notice as I wet my nappy. My mouth opens - not to speak but to make room for my thumb. And I sit on my bottom, good girl, and I watch the pretty pickshur. 

THE END