Tale #155: The Birthday Gone Backwards (Part 3)

That was a feeling that had been tugging at his neurons all day: the undeniable sensation that not all was as it was supposed to be. The thought that his memories weren't correct, and that they'd been changed by some outside force beyond his comprehension. The most recent example was most plainly the overalls that he'd found himself suddenly wearing; he was so sure that he'd been wearing khaki shorts while striking at the pinata, but whenever he squatted to get his candy, and subsequently pooped himself, it was as though the overalls had just magically appeared on him! Thinking about that also made him reconsider other things about the day. Hadn't he been wearing Pull-Ups earlier? Hadn't his party had a Transformers theme? Or a Pokemon theme? And was he really only just now turning seven? It made his head hurt. It felt as though his own mind was trying to steer him away from these questions, as if it was trying to protect him from some unknown eldritch truth. And then it all tied neatly together with those bizarre dreams that he'd been having. The dreams in which he was reduced to a baby turning two, dooking his diaper in his highchair, with hardly two brain cells to rub together. He could remember the anxiety, the dread, the doubts... This was wrong. All of it was wrong! The whole picture wasn't there, but enough of it was shown to him that he couldn't ignore it. "Mom...I think something is wrong." He finally found the strength to vocalize, as he got off his bed. "What do you mean, sweetie?" She asked as she balled the dirty diaper up and tossed it in the pail. "I...I'm not supposed to be this little. I'm supposed to be big." There was an uncomfortable silence that hung in the room, as thick as the fumes that still lingered. What TJ had thought might be a silly statement, one that he almost had hoped for his mother to laugh at, was being given credence by her unamused frown. The longer that the silence persisted, the more that these thoughts nibbled at his noodle and gave him insight that should have been washed away by the rewinding of his history. Finally, though without the conviction she really needed, the woman replied: "What are you talking about, TJ? You *are* a big boy! You're seven now, aren't you proud of that?" It was misdirection, and if he'd been a little younger, then it undoubtedly would have pulled the wool fully back over his eyes. As it was now though, the boy had just enough of his wits and rationality to trust the instincts screeching from within; the magic in his blood, the same that had tried to warn him, had kept onto just enough of his past to give him a fighting chance. "N-no, I am, but...I'm s'pposta be even older than that! Bigger than that! M'not s'pposta be in diapers anymore!" He shook his head, getting closer to the dark truth of how his fate had been subverted. "I'm...I'm going into high school! I'm turnin' fourteen!" He squeaked, that flicker of a past not fully erased now rearing its head and baring its teeth. Diane had been worried that something like this might happen; she'd never looked too deeply into whether or not her son shared the same connection to magic that she did, but she'd known that it was likely. The woman sighed, "Oh, TJ... Why don't you forget about all that? Are you really in that big of a hurry to grow up? Don't you want to be a kid for a little longer?" The boy paled, "Y-you know? What's happening to me? Does this have to do with my dreams?" She reached down and ruffled her son's hair, "I'm a witch, and I guess that you're one too. I never told you about it, because I didn't want you getting hurt." "...You're the one doing this?" The look of betrayal was almost enough to make Diane stop her scheme, but she knew it was too late to simply reverse things; at best, she could halt things here, but then TJ would spend his second youth hating her. "Calm down, TJ. You're getting too worked up..." That set him off in an instant. All the fear, sorrow, and shame were lit like a powder keg. His eyes widened, his fists clenched, and he gritted his teeth: "Worked up?! You're turnin' me into a BABY!" If the kids hadn't been in the backyard, stuffing their maws with candy, then they probably would have gotten a good snicker out of that; TJ didn't care about what they thought though, at least not any longer, since he'd come to discover that everything about today had been a deception. His fury bubbled up and erupted in several more angered screams, or squeaks rather, that were directed at what his mother had done to him. He may not have remembered everything he had already lost, but that only made him more upset; his face got red as a tomato, and he began to stomp his little feet on the carpet. His diaper rustled and shook, his posturing spoke to his frazzled emotional state, and without noticing, he was cutting toots one after another in his diaper. The tantrum reached a peak, and the flatulence took a turn for the wetter sounding. Leaning himself forward, like a rabid beast ready to pounce, he suddenly exploded into the back of his diaper. The garment puffed out with the squishy droppings, rushes of hot mush splattering the inside like a firehose. It would have been something funny and cute, if not for how it represented her son's rage and hatred toward her. Shortly after the evacuation had ended, which took a few remnant farts to fulfill, he slumped forward in emotional exhaustion. His poopy diaper had shifted slightly, as had his stature, yet another gradual bump down to the finish line. Looked like he was turning six now, instead of seven. "...Are you done throwing a fit, TJ?" The woman tentatively asked, hoping that another year's worth of regression had stripped away the revelation he'd become so incensed over. "N-no! M'still mad! I hate you!" He fussed, sounding a little less angry, but not by enough. She would have to expedite things manually, as to insure that TJ no longer had the proper wherewithal to know everything she'd just admitted to him. The best way to do that? "I think I smell something stinky. Are you stinky, little man?" "H-huh? Stop tryin' to change the subject! Stop--" Right where he stood, in the middle of his sentence, he suddenly had to squat down and push out another large steamer into the already dirtied backside of the diaper. As the knobby log made landfall, he again shrunk by another couple of inches, and his baby fat became more pronounced. Now he was turning *five*. "Well, Mr. Stinkypants? Are you ready to get that diapee changed and go back to your party? Get all those big feelings out?" "N-nuh-uh! I-I...Somethin' not wight! You do...S-somethin..." He sounded less confident, and his childhood lisp had returned, but he still had an ember burning. Diane sighed, "I think you're being stinky, TJ. Are you making a big stinky for mommy?" The spell, rather a rudimentary magical command, was crude yet effective. She spoke her intention, acting as if it was an event already manifested into reality, and TJ was powerless to stop it. This time, he had to place his palms on the floor as he squatted even lower, and he grunted loudly as several more squishy lumps plopped wetly into what was now his sagging Huggies. "Nnghh...M-mommy, I makin' poo-poo...!" Now he was turning *four*. She considered stopping there, with the thought that he must surely be docile and ignorant now, but she also didn't want to take any chances. Besides, this was where he was going to be ending up anyway, so why not speed things up? "Wow, baby, you're not kidding! Those are such big poopies that you're making for mommy! And, oh gosh, are you making even *more*?" The diaper ballooned out again, only keeping everything contained by the magical measures that she'd willed. Under normal circumstances, he would have already been ripe for a blowout on the second pantload, but instead the diaper just stretched out further with its ridiculously lumpy topography. The tot finished things with a wet burbling fart, some drool escaping down his chin. And now he was turning *three*. "Okay, let's get that icky thing off of you and go have fun at your party, okay? It's almost time for the cake!" He'd return to the living room with a Barney onesie over his thick Huggies, his head no longer full of any complex thoughts or fears. With how reality had shifted, the house now had several more adults, who of course wouldn't have simply dropped off their toddlers for the party of a daycare chum. TJ got to giggle and beam brightly as he tore into the gifts, all of which had regressed along with him, and Diane smiled at seeing his raw happiness return. Once all the toys had been gleefully gawked over, it was time for the finale. She sat him in his highchair, and she lit the candles on the cake. While he could no longer acknowledge it, his premonition was coming true to the letter; his onesie had been removed, replaced by merely a bib, and his sippy cup would soon be becoming the bottle that he'd once remembered seeing. As the grownups sang the birthday song for him, with their equally infantilized children attempting to follow along, TJ would stare at the flickering flames of the three candles on the cake. They were entrancing, and a tiny part of his brain, now that it was being calmed, seemed to pick up on a feeling of deja vu. He leaned forward in his highchair to perhaps look more closely at the flames, and to maybe even remember everything once again. **BRAAAAAAAAAAPPP! BLLLARRRT!** Whatever was left of his old life made a swift exit out his backside and settled into a mushy pile underneath his bottom; one of the candles on the cake disappeared, and upstairs, the last grain of sand dropped into the bottom of the hourglass. With a vacant, drooling grin, he sat back flat on his poopy mess and enjoyed the way it smeared itself up his crack. "Blow out your candles!" TJ giggled and made an attempt, but just blew spit bubbles that turned into more drool on his chin and bib. A few more moments, a little more clarity, and perhaps he could have used a birthday wish to turn things back, but no longer. Today he turned two, and he'd be getting the second chance at a childhood that he hadn't wanted or needed. He could only hope that pottytraining was less of a struggle this time.