Dust

Chapter 1
Meeting in the woods

Chapter Description: Al has lived his life to get his ideal career, but has not made any attempt at a relationship. Hopefully this meeting will change his life.

He told her to meet him out here, so here he stood.

Al glanced at his watch as he waited for his "guest". She was late. Not that he blamed her, she was probably busy with her own personal life, but he hated waiting. Now that he thought about it, a personal life was more or less his problem, or at least, the lack of one. Al spent his whole life working towards his career goals. He had never taken the time to make friends or get married. He glumly went over the things he thought he should say to win Mindy over, but he knew it would all come out as awkward nonsense. Over the last two weeks since she joined their company, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind, and now that he had time to play around with relationships this one was worth giving a shot. As he stood there contemplating the conversation he was startled to see a short, old lady approaching him.

"Nice day out today," she wheezed, "What brings you out here to my forest, young man?"

Al gave her a puzzled look. This was a state park, no one person owned it. He turned hiis attention toward the setting sun. "I’m just waiting for someone," he replied.

"Oh? Who would this someone be? Is it your wife?" the old lady prodded.

Al gave a weak laugh, "No," he said, "just a coworker. We planned to meet out here." In all honesty he was really surprised Mindy had agreed to meet him at all, but here he was waiting for her. He wouldn’t be too shocked if she decided not to come though; he wasn’t the most popular guy at the office.

"Oh? Are you two going to be working out here in my forest?"

"No, not working, just talking." Al was beginning to get a little agitated at how much the woman was starting to pry into his personal life.

"Talking about what?"

Al was very annoyed at how deep she was getting into his business, but in the interest of passing the time decided to indulge her anyway, "I’m... hoping we can start something."

"Then it’s a date? You really don’t look very presentable for such a get-together" she advised.

Al knew that. He looked about ten years older than he really was, due to all the neglect he’d given his body during school. "I guess I could do with losing a few years," he replied dryly, " but all things considered, I don’t think I’m any worse for the wear."

"Oh, I can help you with losing years if you like," the old lady croaked, "I’ve got something that can make you look a lot younger."

Al thought for a minute. If it worked then no harm done. If it didn’t, then he could just yell at her to get lost. If this was supposed to be some sort of sales pitch, he’d say no, but now he was curious as to what she had. "Alright, show me what you got."

The lady didn’t say a word. She pulled a handful of glowing dust from inside her pocket.

"What’s that?" Al asked, feeling slightly nervous.

The woman just blew the dust into his face. Al wasn’t quick enough to shield himself from the miniature sandstorm.

Al was very surprised. He expected he would start coughing after the dust hit him, but there was nothing for him to even brush away. When he looked back at the woman he found that they were about the same height. "What the fuck was that?" he exclaimed. He recoild as he heard how high-pitched his voice sounded. Upon examining himself he found that his clothes were so baggy on him that he could not move around or they would slide off of him.

"What bad manners," the old lady replied, "If your mother were here, she would be appalled."

"What did you do to me?!?" Al exclaimed, "I thought we were talking about just looking younger."

"You do, child, you look a lot younger. I’d say you look to be about ten years old."

"That wasn’t what we agreed. Change me back right now!" Al demanded.

The old lady sighed, "You look much more charming now than you did earlier."

"How am I supposed to score with a grown woman when I look like I have an early bedtime? Change me back right now, you old hag!" Al snapped, trying to sound as menacing as he could.

"Well, if you’re sure..." The old lady pulled more dust frrom her pocket, To Al’s surprise, she pushed him down to the ground, on the flat of his back.

"Ow, what was that for?" Al whined.

"For wasting my herbs and calling me an old hag. Here we go." she blew thee second handful into his face.

***

"Mom, have you seen Al?" Mindy asked as she arrived at the state park.

"I have him right here sweetie, and he sure smells like he needs to be changed." the old lady handed the six month old to her daughter. Mindy greeted Al with a look of excitement as she took him.

"Good. I’d much rather do it here where there’s a trash can." She pulled a changing pad out of the diaper bag she was carrying and set to work.

"You know dear, I’ll never understand why you had me do that to him." her mother began.

"Well, first of all I’m happily married, second of all my pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, so this seemed like the best course of action. Everybody wins." She made faces at Al as she changed his diaper.

"Yes, but he had aa job and was only looking for a lovelife. You could have just told him no."

"Oh, please. He’d get yelled at almost every day, and I swear he was this close to getting fired. Then it would only be a matter of time before he started asking around for a place to stay when he can’t find a job to pay his bills... and as for the lovelife, well, now he’s getting all the love and attention he could ever ask for."

"That was still pretty fucked up, dear."

"Mother! Language!" They both laughed as Mindy strapped Al in.as they got ready for their hike.