Original Son

Chapter 7
Part 7

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Chapter Description: Becoming as children.

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Once home, Patricia led Matt into the bathroom, opened his mouth, and inserted a cold thermometer.

“Under your tongue, honey,” she instructed, as if for the first time. “It’ll be a couple minutes.”

Matt knew he needed to conjure a good excuse in the next ninety seconds, but nothing brilliant leapt to mind. Taking the thermometer out, Patricia studied it, then grimaced at her son.

“Well, it’s not a fever,” she announced, holding the instrument up to the light. “Does your tummy still hurt?”

“A little,” Matt said, massaging his belly. “Can I go upstairs?”

“OK, honey, just take a couple of these.” Patricia popped two little blue pills from the plastic and handed them to Matt, but stopped herself. “Oh wait, what’s gotten into me...” she said, subtracting one pill. “Twelve and under.”

What Matthew would have given to be twelve again. By nightfall, he would reenter his seventh year. Oversized ears, uncontrollable hair, and a pair of darling dimples punctuating his cheeks when he smiled. A mirror in his now pastel-themed room revealed just how much he’d changed since that morning. Hints of his old face had evaporated entirely, transforming him into a mousy, unassuming grade-schooler.

He collapsed onto his bed, now covered in flashy race car sheets. Lying perfectly still Matt could hear his mother downstairs discussing her plans for the following evening. He caught wind of them a couple days before at Bible camp, but failed to learn the specifics.

“How many? I’m thinking about thirty. Is that too many?” Patricia said, clearly speaking to another parent on the phone. “It’s OK. We have a big backyard and plenty of room. What’s that? Yes, just one dish. No need for anything extravagant. Marcia is bringing cups and several two liters of Ginger Ale, so I think we’ll be set.”

It was just as Matt feared. Patricia was planning a post-Bible camp potluck at the house.

“Oh, that’s exactly what I said to Jenny! We should have done this years ago. Won’t it be fun to have all the kids running around? Bring your camera.”

Perfect, Matt thought. Tomorrow night the house would be overrun with little kids - god only knew how little - and he would no doubt be forced into the middle of the festivities. Still, the longer his mind drifted, the cooler it sounded. He could show off the in-ground pool to his friends and play fort with Ryan and...

What’s happening to me? a voice in the back of his head repeated. Matt looked up at the clock. A half hour had passed without a single teenaged thought running through his mind.

“Crap,” he muttered, throwing off the covers.

Except for increasingly rare moments of mental clarity, Matthew felt irretrievably seven years old. The realization would come and go, like a bad memory.

With each passing click of the clock Matt grew more comfortable in his youth. During his nightly bath the sight of his willowy, prepubescent body hardly seemed as troubling as a few days before, despite its escalating proximity to infancy. He thought back...

A thump had come as Patricia pressed open the door to the bathroom.

“Mom!” Matt said, rushing to cover himself.

“Oh, I’m sorry, honey,” she said, appended by a motherly chuckle. “I left my watch on the counter.” She grabbed the accessory and headed for the door, but not before turning around to add “Remember soap under your arms too...”

“I know, Mom. Geez!” Matt said, still ducking down into the tub, flush with embarrassment.

“All right,” Patricia replied, finally closing the door.

"Mom?" he called.

A muffled answer came. "Yeah?"

"Um, I forgot my PJs."

"It’s okay. I’ll get them," she said, soon returning with a small set of light blue pajamas covered in teddy bears. Averting her eyes, she placed them on the counter.

"Thanks, Mommy, er, Mom," Matt corrected himself.

It’s happening, he thought. It’s really happening.

That night in bed Matt listened intently as his mother prepared the house below. From the sounds of it, tomorrow was going to be a big party, if not a packed house. Apprehension and excitement were overcoming dread as the mental regression slowly caught up with him. Still the intermittent periods of confusion continued. A part of teenaged Matt remained intact, though it was waging a losing battle.

With loose pajamas barely clinging to his frame, Matthew fell asleep to the sound of his parents conversing in the living room. It was the first night he would experience no nightmares or sweats. Instead, Matt would dream the dreams of a little boy, and awake an untroubled, happily rested kindergartner.

“Could you pick up some extra diapers while you’re out?” Patricia asked Richard.

“More?” his father said, unlocking the front door.

“Just in case,” she explained. “It would be nice to have on hand.”

***

The smell of boiling coffee and glazed crullers slowly ran its course down the hallways of the police station.

With an unwieldy stack of files underneath his arm, Officer Jim Shelton hung his coat on the rack and proceeded toward his neatly-manicured cubicle. On the way he dropped the collection of manila folders onto the desk directly adjacent to his. Even the loud thud failed to garner a reaction.

Shelton cleared his throat. “Here are those reports you requested.”

“That all?” the detective said, turning to face the heavy stack of paperwork now obscuring his view of the window. “Any money left in the budget for more red tape?”

“Can’t say we aren’t thorough.”

“Thorough. Very diplomatic, Jim. I like it.” Detective Harris grinned. “Maybe they should bump you up to PR.”

“Does it pay more?”

“Not likely.”

“Well, looks like it’s gonna stay me and you,” Jim said, carefully placing his coffee onto a drink coaster. “And what has you so distracted this morning?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know,” Sam replied. “We received a call last night from a neighborhood on the north side. Guy wouldn’t give his name, but he kept sputtering on and on about some church. New Day or New Life, I think.”

“Another Ted Haggard?” Shelton said, stirring his black brew and leaning back in his chair. “Break out the meth unit.”

“No, weirder than that. I would have sloughed it off as a crank, but the guy just kept rambling, sounded really unsure of himself, like he was trying to keep his voice to a whisper.”

“What did he say?”

“Well that’s where the fun begins. From what I could make out, people at this church are growing younger...“

“What?” Shelton spit his coffee back into the Styrofoam cup.

“You heard me right. Kids at this church are aging backwards and no one is trying to stop it,” Harris explained coolly. “Gotta admit, that’s a new one on me.”

“A whole new brand of crazy there,” Shelton added. “Where do people come up with this shit?”

“Yeah...” Sam swiveled his chair back toward his computer. Going silent, the young detective tapped his dull pencil against his forehead nervously. His partner immediately recognized the posture.

“You aren’t actually considering following up, are you?”

“I...” Sam paused, scanning a page of search results. “I don’t know. I’m ninety-nine percent sure he was nuts, but...”

“Always the one percent with you.”

Despite a relatively short tenure on the force, Detective Harris had gained a reputation befitting a veteran cop. By the end of his first three months at the department, four major outstanding cases were closed thanks to his uncommon ingenuity. Already his superiors were learning not to question his leads.

“Who is the pastor out there? Leary, isn’t it? I saw an ad for the church in last Sunday’s paper.”

Shelton returned to blowing the steam from his coffee. “You’re going out there, aren’t you?”

“It sounded... too well acted to be a prank.”

“Better watch out,” Jim laughed. “Might end up on the Junior Police Academy.”

***

“Matthew, come downstairs, sweetie,” Mom called.

With an unusual energy, Matt sprang out of bed at the first sound of his mother’s voice. He took two steps before the shapeless cotton pajama pants tumbled down his wiry little legs. His baggy shirt soon followed, slipping down one shoulder. Not thinking much about it, he shed the remaining clothes and went digging for something suitable in the multicolored chest of drawers beside the bed.

A floorboard creak heralded his mother’s approach. Stepping in, she saw Matthew, now no older than five and a half, naked with his backside shining for the world to see, rummaging through his old pairs of underwear.

“These are all too big, Mommy.”

“Oh, I know, sweetheart,” she said, rounding the bed. “I think we have something in the attic that might fit.”

“OK,” Matt said, taking his mother’s hand and trotting unashamedly down the hallway beside her. All the while thinking something wasn’t right about the situation. Patricia, on the other hand, could hardly contain her excitement. Finally Matt was acting his age like the other children. Not only did he address her as “Mommy,” but now he appeared perfectly content to march down the hall without a stitch of clothing.

“Are you ready for your last day at Bible camp?” she asked enthusiastically.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Matt responded, suddenly feeling the urge to cover his privates. “Make sure they’re big boy pants.”

Patricia grinned. “Oh, I certainly will, Matt... Matty.”

Relief. For a moment, he worried his mother might make him wear training pants or diapers. But why would she do that? he reasoned. Five year olds don’t wear diapers and he was almost six already. The thought of being stuck in diapers in front of all his friends that night terrified him.

“Mommy, is Candy gonna be here tonight?” Matt asked, scratching his bottom while maintaining his modesty with his other hand.

“I think so,” she said, climbing back down the attic stairs with an adorable pair of button up blue jeans and yellow Sesame Street underwear. “Why don’t you try these on?” Leaning down, Patricia threaded Matt’s feet through the tiny underpants and pulled them up to his waist.

“There,” she remarked. “It’s been awhile since you’ve sported Big Bird, huh?”

“Yeah...” Momentarily confused, Matt wondered just why the Sesame Street underwear seemed old, why he remembered growing out of it. “Are you sure these are big boy pants?”

“Yes, honey, I’m sure,” Patricia answered, holding them out so Matt could step in. “Perfect. You are one handsome little boy.”

***

The final day of Bible camp flew by like a dream. Except for a few brief mental eclipses, Matt adapted naturally to the four to six age group. Despite the half-day schedule, he encountered few obstacles to making new friends. Seeing some kids he recognized vaguely put him at ease, though they seemed different somehow. Matt tried to discount the lingering questions in his head and trust what the adults told him. Besides, the playground equipment possessed a new allure and he wasn’t about to let Nathan grab the best swing.

“Hey! That’s mine!”

“Nah-uh, I was here first,” the chunky five-year-old replied, swinging his legs back and forth but producing little momentum.

“OK, well I get it after you,” Matt said, leaning on the fire pole. “Are you coming to my mom’s house tonight?”

“Yeah, my mom’s bringing cookies.” Matt could see Nathan already salivating at the thought. As the portly kindergartner attempted to swing himself, images popped into Matt’s head, flashes of the sixteen-year-old old Nathan, deep voiced and sporting a thin shadow of facial hair. Then, seconds later, it would disappear.

“I... I remember you being older,” he stuttered, unsure why such thoughts haunted him.

“What are you talking about?” Nathan asked.

“I just...”

“You’re weird,” Nathan said, sticking his legs down and bringing himself to a sudden halt. “I’m gonna go get some water.”

With that awkward exchange, Matt decided to keep the strange memories to himself. Maybe if I ignore them, they’ll go away. he resolved. Distracting himself with thoughts of that night’s party, he succeeded in training his mind to think like an eager kindergartner. The more mental baggage he let go, the higher the swing went and the wider his smile became.

That afternoon the VBS volunteers staged a little graduation ceremony for the kids. One by one the rows of former high school and college students filed by the sanctuary stage to receive their “Jesus Loves You” certificates, a far cry from the diplomas many were preparing to accept just weeks before. By this time, volunteers who began Bible school as college freshmen were mostly reduced to first graders, while high school freshmen were now in diapers.

“Let’s give a big round of applause to all our participants,” Pastor Leary said.

Parents and grandparents looked on, some tearfully, as their children smiled gap-toothed smiles from the stage. Patricia watched proudly as Matthew, now a sandy-haired boy with a persistent cowlick, blended right in with the short, chatty row of five-year-olds.

***

By that evening, the Kessler house brimmed with doting parents, playful kids, and the smell of barbecue. A picnic table crammed with hot dogs, buns, burgers, and Tupperware featured prominently in the backyard. Guests shuffled through the line in a near constant flow, munching on chips and pouring themselves another round of warm Pepsi. Even some of the extended Kessler family made appearances. The house hadn’t felt so alive in years.

“Hand me a bun and a fork,” Rachel beckoned her daughter Aubrey.

“Here ya go,” the young, pony-tailed girl said, before darting off toward the pool.

“She is absolutely adorable,” another mother remarked, watching the six-year-old sprint by in her flowery one-piece bathing suit.

“Oh, thank you,” Rachel said. Refocusing her attention on the pre-school aged boy behind her in line, she motioned down. “Is this your son?”

“Yep, that’s him.”

“Well, aren’t you a cutie,” she said, moving to pat his head before noticing his styled spike. “Nice hair! Looks like a little ladies man.”

“Oh, that’s a long way off now, I think.”

“I guess you’re right,” Rachel laughed. “How old?”

“Nineteen before the miracles started happening,” she answered, almost proudly.

The shy boy carried on about his business, ignoring the boring adult conversation taking place above him. Taking advantage of his distracted mother, he proceeded to craft a small mountain of Ruffles potato chips on his plate, surrounded by every condiment available. This despite barely being able to see above the table’s edge, even on tip-toes.

“Aubrey was sixteen,” Rachel gossiped. “Just about to get her license when she came home one afternoon and I just could swear she looked younger.”

“Chris was trying on clothes when we noticed his normal size looked baggy on him.”

“I got a lot of chips, Mommy!” the boy suddenly interrupted, his bathing suit drooping to one side.

“You certainly did. Let me look at that. Come over here so I can tighten your pants again, honey,” she said, corralling her son next to a vacant lawn chair. An hour into the festivities, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle swim trunks were riding low, threatening to come tumbling down should he make any sudden moves. She reached in and retied the boy’s suit, then released him into the nearby crowd of giddy kindergartners.

“I forgot how much I loved having a little kid around,” Rachel commented, drawing up a seat. “Look at them. They’re just precious.”

Youthful anticipation, and a rapidly-fading adult personality, had done a number on Matthew throughout the day. The rush of regression accelerated, Matt greeted the visitors not as an aspiring first grader, but as a lively four-year-old. Whatever remained of his grown up train of thought might better be described as a choo-choo. In addition to a dramatic decrease in height, his scraggly mop of hair was replaced by a neat, average trim. New populations of baby fat on his face and stomach clearly signaled his imminent descent into toddlerhood.

Now suffering from boundless amounts of energy, Matt wormed through the crowd like a busy little chauffer. By the living room couch, he discovered fellow pre-schooler Nathan Gibbons getting cleaned up by his mother.

“Try not to be so messy, Nate,” she advised, wiping his cheeks with a wetnap.

“OK,” the stout boy obliged.

“Hey Nathan!” Matt’s greetings now came out like squeaks. “Have you seen the rest of the class?”

“Too many people,” Nathan exclaimed, already pointing his sights toward the back porch picnic area.

Then Matt spied a familiar woman down the hall near the bathroom. Abruptly ending the conversation with Nathan, he sped toward Sharon with big smiles.

“Are you Candy’s mom?” he asked.

“Yes, I am,” she said, bending down to place a curious, pink-overalled baby girl on the ground. “Isn’t she pretty?”

A puzzled expression crossed his face as he watched the big-eyed toddler steady herself. Only the vaguest visual cues of her future appearance remained. By now nearly all had collapsed into the chubby anonymity of infancy. “That’s Candy? I thought she was older.”

“Coming up on eighteen months,” Sharon explained softly. “Say hi to Matty, baby.”

The infant waved an exaggerated hello. “Hi,” she chirped.

“Um, hello.” Matt patronized the girl. “I think I’m gonna go play outside now.”

The strange disappointment weighed heavily on little Matthew. For the next hour, he splashed around the pool and pigged out on hot dogs, but not without the troubling images of a more mature Candace bothering him. Candy was supposed to be his age - not a baby. The episodes of worry, however, did little to decelerate the effects of his ever hastening regression.

By 8:30, Matthew easily passed for a three-year-old, and much to his dismay, the consequences of the de-aging also mounted. Bewildered, he stood in the center of the kitchen tugging at pantlegs trying to ask an adult the location of the bathroom. Upset by the lack of attention, he soon felt a dribble of pee coast down his leg.

“Sweetheart!” Patricia said, finally noticing her youthening son in the midst of the party. “Did you have an accident?”

Matthew stayed quiet, though the temptation to cry was great.

“It’s ok, honey,” she reassured him as she grabbed him underneath the arms and hoisted him to her side. “Even big boys have accidents sometimes.”

In the bathroom, they discovered another dutiful parent mopping up an unfortunate mishap. Wasting no time, Patricia situated little Matthew on the sink counter and began removing the evidence. In no time, he found himself naked from the waist down and being asked to lie back in the same position as a young girl next to him.

“It’s Allison, right?” Patricia asked.

“Yes, Allison Foster. I think we met last week at the morning prayer service,” the short, thoroughly tanned woman answered, sliding a cloth diaper underneath the girl’s bottom.

Patricia smiled. “And this must be Danielle?”

 

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