Reborn

Chapter 17
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Jack was having a dream that his childhood dog, who had been dead for many years, was licking his face and trying to wake him. He woke abruptly and opened his eyes, expecting to see a dog, only to realize that it was a fantasy that had been conjured by his mind.

His room was dark and quiet, as he stared through the bars of his crib he contemplated the significance of the dream. Something about it had disturbed him and when he thought about it carefully, he realized that he could no longer remember the dogs name. He knew that the dog had existed and he could recall a vague memory of playing with it outside in the snow. But it’s name escaped him, as though it had been airbrushed from his memory and no amount of thinking on his part could retrieve the missing information.

He thought about his family and his childhood, but there were gaping holes in his memory and it was becoming difficult to piece together a consistent narrative. The names and identities of his family members were becoming indistinct to him. Some of his recollections seemed to blend together, creating new memories that he couldn’t be sure were real. He could still remember that his mothers name was Julie and he could picture her in his mind, but even his memories of her had started to fade.

Jack guessed that it wouldn’t be long before all of his old memories were completely gone. That gap would be filled by new memories of Emma’s choosing, she would shape a new identity for him.

His train of thought was interrupted when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Startled, he sat up to look where the movement was coming from.

Although the room was dark the curtains had been left open and a streetlight shone in from outside, casting shadows onto the bedroom wall. The occasional gust of wind disturbed the branches of a tree in the garden, causing the shadows on the wall to shift ominously.

Jack froze in fear and stared at the shadows moving across the wall. He knew that he shouldn’t be scared of them, but he couldn’t remember what they were called.

Dark...scary...things, he thought.

He searched his mind and struggled to remember their name, but came up with nothing. As his vocabulary shrank, his understanding of the world around him dimmed. He no longer had the words to make sense of how or why certain things occurred, so whenever something frightened or surprised him, he would struggle in vain to explain the cause. He still understood certain concepts on an instinctive level, but that did little to quell his anxiety.

When he was struggling to understand something and the appropriate words had vanished from his memory, he tried to replace the missing words with other words that he still remembered. However the replacements were usually too vague to function as adequate substitutes and he would resort to cobbling together a number of smaller words in order to explain a larger concept.

He didn’t dare to look away from the dark patterns that were moving on the wall.

Light makes them, he thought.

He was temporarily reassured by that thought. He felt that if light made them, then they couldn’t hurt him.

But he was suddenly seized by the sensation that there was someone else in the room with him. He couldn’t see them, but he felt like he was being watched. He curled up in the corner of his crib and peered nervously at the shadows. He felt certain that whoever was watching him was angry, like they wanted to hurt someone.

Jack tried to tell himself that he was imagining things, that it wasn’t real. But the truth was that he didn’t know what was real anymore. As his old memories receded his convictions waned, he couldn’t be certain that he was just imagining things because he no longer had access to the full breadth of experiences that he had gained as an adult. With diminished memories and a reduced vocabulary, it was becoming more difficult for him to dismiss irrational fears.

It’s not real, he thought.

He kept repeating it to himself in his head like a mantra.

He was startled again by an indistinct sound coming from the corner of the room. He thought that he had heard something moving. Or had he imagined it? He wasn’t sure. He stared nervously into the corner of the room, looking for signs of movement.

He could still feel the unseen presence in his room and a new disturbing possibility crept into his mind.

There’s a bad man in my room, he thought.

Jack whimpered but the sound was stifled by his thumb, which he was surprised to find was in his mouth. He hadn’t even realized that he had been sucking it.

As the fear grew more intense his thoughts became increasingly incoherent. He could say to himself that it wasn’t real, but he was struggling to explain why it wasn’t real. Minutes earlier he had been thinking relatively clearly, but now his mind was clouded. When he tried to articulate his thoughts, he could only think of a few words.

Bad man. Not real. Bad man. Not real.

The presence felt real to him and that made it real.

Jack cried out involuntarily, he could no longer contain his fear. He was filled with dread and the certainty that something terrible was about to happen to him.

As he peered into the shadows and trembled, he was distracted by movement in his peripheral vision. He quickly turned his head and saw the door to his bedroom swing open, then light flooded the room and Emma stepped in through the door.

“Are you okay Jack?” she asked, “I heard you crying.” she added.

He let out an audible sigh of relief. In that moment he could only think about escaping the unseen presence that was terrorizing him. His anger towards Emma and his thoughts about his old life were far from his mind. All he wanted to do was to get out of that room, to be rescued from whatever was in there.

Jack stood up and scrambled towards the side of the crib. As Emma walked towards him he stretched out his arms and whimpered. She reached down into the crib and lifted him into her arms.

“What’s wrong Jack?” Emma queried.

He held on to her tightly and pointed towards the corner of the room. He was still trembling and he struggled to explain what he had experienced.

“Bad...bad,” he stuttered.

“Did you have a bad dream?” Emma quizzed.

Jack shook his head and groaned.

Emma looked directly into his eyes and moved her face closer to his, until they were almost nose to nose. He could feel her warm breath on his face and he was reassured by her presence.

“It’s okay honey, it was just a bad dream. Do you want to sleep in mommies bed tonight?” She asked softly.

Jack nodded his head. He would have done anything to get out of that room.

Emma rubbed his back and carried him back to her bedroom. Then she sat down on the bed and cradled Jack in her arms so that he was looking up at her. She caressed his face and patted his bottom lovingly.

He was pressed up against her body, lying back in her arms and gazing up at her face. He could feel the heat radiating from her body and he knew that she would protect him. He could recall that he used to resist her attempts to cuddle him, but now he wondered why he had bothered fighting her.

As he looked up at her, he noticed the outline of her breasts beneath her pajamas. They were inches away from his face and he had an urge to touch them. He wasn’t sure why, but her breasts seemed to call to him. They promised comfort, they promised safety, he wanted to move closer to them. He reached out and placed his hand on one of her breasts.

Emma looked down at him quizzically and raised her eyebrows, then a smile crept across her face. Reaching down, she removed his hand from her breast, then she slowly lifted up her pajama top to expose her bosom.

Jack stared at her breasts in awe. He felt a primal urge to move closer to them, he wanted to be in contact with them. He gawked at her nipples and wondered what it would feel like to have them in his mouth. He reached out again and pressed his hand against her bare breasts, they felt soft and warm. Touching them with his fingers only intensified his desire to move closer, he squirmed around in her arms until his face was almost in contact them.

Sensing his desire, Emma used her arm to support his back and guided him closer to her bosom. Her breasts now filled his vision and he couldn’t think about anything else, he had an insatiable desire to feel them on his tongue. He pressed his face up against one of her breasts and opened his mouth, then he wrapped his lips around the nipple. He could feel her warm skin on his tongue and he instinctively started to suckle her teat.

The terror that he had felt in his own room had started to subside. As his heart rate slowed and his breathing returned to normal, his thoughts became gradually more coherent. He now realized that there was nothing to be scared of in his room and that he had imagined the whole thing.

What am I doing? Jack thought.

He removed his mouth from her nipple and closed his eyes. His head was still resting against her bosom and he attempted to gather his thoughts. He was ashamed that he had suckled on Emma’s teat and he couldn’t understand why he had found her presence so comforting. Now that he could think clearly again, the allure of her breasts no longer made sense to him. He had expended a great amount of effort attempting to flee from her, but now he had found solace in her arms.

But her attempts to comfort him were also a reminder that she was capable of being kind towards him. He understood that whenever he stopped putting up resistance she would respond by offering him warmth and affection. He felt strangely reassured by her behavior and he concluded that once he had forgotten about his old life she would continue to care for him.

He was still fearful of losing his mind, but he wanted Emma to be kind to him. He knew that if he couldn’t escape from her then he would need to learn to live with her. He realized that in order to be happy, he would need to make her happy.

He was unsettled by the idea of forgetting about his previous life, but the idea of living in misery in the present was no less disturbing. Above all else, he just wanted to be content.

Jack knew that once he had forgotten his past he would no longer have to worry about leaving it behind. But he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t bring himself to surrender to Emma, he wasn’t sure how, or why, but he still had hope.

He thought that if he opened his eyes then he would be able to summon enough energy to crawl out of her arms and into her bed, but he was weary and the effort it would take to do so scarcely seemed worth it. It would only have been a tiny act of defiance, he knew that what he really needed was a plan to escape. He yawned and then shuffled around in her arms until he was in a more comfortable position, then drifted off to sleep.

When Jack woke up in the morning he was lying in Emma’s bed. His head felt fuzzy, if he could have remembered the words he would have described it as “brain fog”. But he couldn’t recall the words, he couldn’t remember many words at all actually, he just knew that something was wrong, he felt like something was missing.

The morning seemed to be pass by quickly. Emma changed his diaper, then dressed him and fed him breakfast. After he had eaten he played with his toys in the living room and watched TV. All the while something was gnawing at him, it was a problem that he couldn’t describe, just a vague sensation that something wasn’t quite right.

By the time he realized what was troubling him it was already lunchtime, he had remembered that he used to be an adult once, but he couldn’t remember how long had passed since then. The gaps in his memory and his inability to count higher than five were were making it increasingly difficult to keep track of the passage of time. The difference between a day, a week or a month was no longer readily apparent to him. His recollections of being an adult almost felt like a dream, something that had occurred a whole lifetime ago.

He was sat in his high chair, reminiscing about the past, when he decided to raise the subject with Emma.

“Mommy, I used to drive a car,” he announced.

Emma placed her fork down on the table and continued to chew her food for a few moments, then she smiled warmly.

“Wow, what color was it?” she beamed.

He thought about it carefully but he couldn’t remember what color it was, he could only recall being sat in the drivers seat. Then another word popped into his mind, a word that he associated with driving cars.

“Mommy, I used...I used to be...adult,” he stuttered.

The once vibrant glow on her face dimmed, replaced by a shadow of concern.

“You used to be what?” she queried.

“Adult,” he repeated.

Emma leaned forwards so that she was closer to Jack and then tilted her head slightly, as though she was struggling to hear him.

“What did you say honey? I can’t understand you,” she quizzed.

“Adult,” he reiterated.

Emma frowned, her face was contorted with confusion.

“Mommy can’t understand what your saying,” she explained.

“Adult,” he squeaked.

She chuckled to herself and shook her head, then grinned from ear to ear.

“Honey that isn’t a word, try saying it a different way,” she suggested.

He had been sure that adult was a word, but now he was second guessing himself. He decided that if Emma didn’t recognize the word, then he would need to use other words to get his point across.

“I used to drive a car, I was big,” he clarified.

“Do you mean that you used to be a big boy?” she asked.

Jack felt relieved that she finally understood what he was saying. He thought that if he could make her understand that he was a big boy, then she might start treating him like a big boy.

“Yeah, I was a big boy!” he squealed.

“No honey, you’re a little boy,” she corrected, “but you will be a big boy one day,” she promised.

He felt disappointed that she didn’t believe him, but he was struggling to think of other words that might change her mind.

“I was a big boy,” he insisted.

“Jack, you’re a baby,” she replied, “but you will grow into a big boy,” she reassured.

Jack felt a flash of anger, he didn’t want to be a baby, he wanted to be a big boy.

“No, not a baby,” he protested.

“When you were just a little baby you were in mommy’s tummy,” she explained, “then you were born and mommy took care of you, now you’re growing into a little boy,” she continued.

He was sure that he hadn’t been in her tummy, he could remember being a big boy. He tried to think of words that might convince her that he was telling the truth, then slammed his hand down onto the high chair tray in frustration.

“No, not a baby. I was a big boy,” Jack disputed.

Emma picked her phone up off of the table and started to tap her fingers on the screen. A few moments later she held the phone out in front of Jack so that he could see it clearly.

“Jack, look at this picture,” she urged.

He studied the photo carefully, he could see Emma sat down in a chair and she was cradling a small baby.

“That’s you when you were a little baby” she explained, “and that’s me holding you,” she added.

Jack was confused. He understood that the image on the phone was a representation of something that had actually occurred, but he had no memory of it happening. He could recognize Emma in the photo, but he didn’t recognize the room that she was in.

“First you were a small baby, now you’re a little boy and then one day you’ll be a big boy,” she continued.

He understood that growing into a big boy was supposed to happen in the future, but he couldn’t explain his memories of being a big boy in the past.

“I did used to drive a car,” he insisted.

“When? How could a tiny baby drive a car?” she quizzed.

Jack grunted and slammed his hand down on the high chair tray again. He was sure that she was wrong, but he couldn’t articulate why.

“You’re imagining things honey, it’s just make believe,” she explained.

He contemplated the word “imagining,” but he couldn’t remember what it meant. He was haunted by memories that he couldn’t explain, his past was unfathomable.

“I know what will make you feel better,” she announced, “I bought some ice cream, do you want some?” she asked.

He recognized the words “ice cream”, he couldn’t remember exactly what it was but he knew that he enjoyed the taste.

“Ice kweem!” Jack repeated excitedly.

Emma went to the kitchen and retrieved a plastic container from the freezer, then carried it back into the dining room.

“Oh no,” she exclaimed, “I don’t think you’re allowed to eat ice cream anymore Jack,” she continued.

“But I want ice kweem,” he protested.

Emma placed the container down on the dining room table, then crossed her arms and shook her head.

“But only babies are allowed to eat ice cream,” she clarified, “big boys aren’t allowed to eat ice cream, they have to eat vegetables,” she added.

He didn’t recognize the word ‘vegetables’, but he understood that big boys weren’t supposed to eat ice cream. He knew that he liked ice cream and he didn’t want to stop eating it.

“But I want it,” he whined.

“But you said you’re not a baby, ice cream is food for babies,” she replied, “I’ll get a carrot for you instead,” she added.

He didn’t want to be a baby, but he did want ice cream. He was puzzled by the contradiction and he struggled to come up with a solution.

“No, ice kweem!” Jack demanded.

“But only babies are allowed to eat ice cream,” Emma argued.

It occurred to Jack that he could say that he was a baby and eat the ice cream, then deny that he was a baby after he had finished it.

“I am a baby,” he whimpered.

“Alright then, I’ll get you some ice cream,” she replied

Jack congratulated himself for tricking her and decided that after he had finished eating the ice cream he would announce that he was a big boy. But then an unsettling thought occurred to him and he wondered whether she would be capable of saying things that she didn’t mean. He remembered that he had attempted to escape the house and that she had stopped him, he could recall being frightened of her.

“Ice cream,” she chirped.

He looked up and saw her carrying a bowl towards him, he couldn’t wait to taste the ice cream.