College or Cribs

Chapter 26
Kinda-Sorta-Not-Quite-Semi-Divine Intervention!

Chapter Description: Chris meets a strange girl in his dreams. (Crossover with Dante's Infanzia).

Chapter 26: Kinda-Sorta-Not Quite-Semi-Divine-Intervention!

Chris looked around at the white empty space surrounding him. It reminded him of the cliché’d gun loading scene in “The Matrix” minus the endless racks of guns. He was surrounded by white emptiness all around. There were no landmarks or horizons to give perspective. He felt he could crawl around for infinity and the landscape (or lack thereof to be more precise) would never change. His diaper crinkled as he shifted his weight uneasily. It wasn’t everyday that your eyes were cast upon eternity in all directions. He just needed to take it in for a second.

“The Hell?” Chris wondered aloud.

“Nah,” the only other occupant in this endless white- the girl dressed as a toddler, training pants included- replied back. “I imagine Hell is a lot worse. Unless being in complete empty space is the worst thing you can think of, then I bet Hell is exactly like this.”

“How would you know?” Chris craned his head up at this new intruder into his increasingly bizarre life. He was confined to his hands and knees, as always. She, on the other hand was standing, almost imperiously, looking down on him; a glint of cool arrogance in her eyes.

She had the blonde pig tails, but not the skirt. He wasn’t bald, but he was in a t-shirt and diaper. Other than those few minor details, they were practically an Adult Baby version of Tommy and Angelica from Rugrats. The only hiccup in this analogy, is that Chris was fairly certain he looked a few years older than her.

“I’ve had an interesting afterlife,” the girl with the pig-tails shrugged, nonchalantly.

“You’re dead?” Chris gawked in disbelief.

“Yup,” pig-tails nodded her head. “Been a while, too. You get used to it, though. I’ve seen Limbo, Purgatory, and the outside of Heaven’s gates…great lawn. Good for picnics. Haven’t been to either of the big two, yet. But I’m working on it.”

“Wait,” Chris held his breath in, “does that mean that I’m dead, too?”

“Don’t be stupid,” the overgrown toddler smirked condescendingly. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you were.”

“Then what am I…?” Chris let the question hang in the air.

“What are you?” the teenage girl in the training pants furrowed her brow in comic disbelief. “You’re dreaming, stupid.” She looked upwards at the empty white expanse, at what would have been the sky and asked, “Why do I meet so many dumbasses in diapers?!” She shook her hands dramatically and then let them flop to her sides.

“So, this is just a dream?” Chris asked.

“Yeah…” she tilted her head to the side, “well, no…I’m not a figment of your imagination, or anything if that’s what you’re wondering. But you are asleep, and this-“she gestured to the vast blankness surrounding them, “is an empty dreamscape. I would’ve made it a bit more fancy if I could,” the teen toddler added, “but I haven’t exactly mastered that whole ‘Vision from God’ thing just yet. I’m still a beginner.”

“So, you’re an angel in training or something?” Chris questioned her.

“Saint in training, thank you,” the girl corrected him. “Angels don’t need training. They kinda come pre-programmed right out of the gate.” She spun around and stuck her butt out a bit. On the back of her purple pants, stitched in yellow were the letters S. I. T. The girl twisted a bit and looking over her own shoulders, pointed to each of the letters, very carefully, one at a time.

“S-I-T,” she said. “Saint. In. Training. That’s why I’m in training pants. Well, that and I had my potty training taken from me for a couple of decades. Oh, and it’s pretty much divine mandate that I wear them until I fully redeem myself and earn my Sainthood. Like I said, I’ve had an interesting afterlife.”

“Uh…huh”, was all Chris could say. What did you say to something like that? The thoughts, ‘Nice Ass’, popped into Chris’s mind as he couldn’t help but stare at the teen girl’s padded rump. Despite himself, he felt himself get a little hard and his diaper became a little less roomy in the crotch.

“That’s why I crinkle when I walk,” the girl whirled back around. “Now what’s your excuse? Why are you padded up, even in dream land...unless?” She looked Chris over again and realization came over her. “Oh my gawd!” her nose crinkled, “Is this actually how you think of yourself?”

Chris blushed. “Kinda”.

“Holy shit!” the girl slapped her forehead, causing her pigtails to swing back and forth. “The Professor said you were a little messed up, but I had no idea that-“

“Professor?!” Chris interrupted. “Bumble?”

“Yeah….?”

“Aaaaaaah!” Chris screamed at the top of his lungs. He sat back on his rump so he could cover his ears, slam his eyes shut and try to tune the world out. “GETAWAYGETAWAYGETAWAY!” he shouted. “WAAAAAAAAKE UP!

THWACK!

Chris’s face stung as the girl’s hand slapped him across the face. Leaving an imprint across it, no doubt. She was leaning over him now, glaring down on him like he was just some stupid spoiled baby that needed a spanking.

“You...” Chris stammered, his left cheek throbbing, “you slapped me!”

“Yeah,” the girl said flatly. “I did. And you’re still not awake. So do you think covering your ears and screaming is going to do the trick?”

“I guess not,” Chris shrunk down. This girl had a way of making him feel very foolish. It was like his own mother was chiding him, or something. Maybe this girl wasn’t such a girl after all, but more of a woman trapped in a girl’s body and toddler clothes.

“Look, if you’ve got some kind of issues where you actually want to be in diapers, that’s not for me to judge,” the girl with the woman’s soul lectured. “It’s not my business, and it’s not my problem. But I owe that old codger wizard magician whatever a favor, and I intend to repay it.”

“How?” Chris asked.

“I’ve got to deliver a message to you.”

“So let’s hear it.”

“Fine,” the girl stopped leaning over Chris and sat down across from him. “The message is that you’re being played.”

“What?” Chris cocked an eyebrow.

“You’re being played,” she repeated. “Like a cheap fiddle.”

“How so?” Chris asked.

“Have you come across two special…I dunno…somethings? One red and the other blue?”

“Yeah,” Chris nodded, hesitantly. How did she know about Wubby’s eyes?

“They’re not what they seem,” the girl told him. “They’re…I dunno…alive, sorta.” She shrugged. “I don’t know the whole story, myself. Just the bullet points that the old man gave me.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that Wubby’s eyes had something to do with this whole big baby thing.” Chris agreed.

“Wubby?”

“Old Teddy bear,” Chris clarified.

“You did?” the girl asked, mildly surprised.

“I’m not that dumb,” Chris scowled a bit. “And in case you haven’t figured it out, my life lately has been pretty interesting, too.”

“Point taken,” the girl woman conceded.

“So how am I being played?” Chris asked the girl.

“For starters, you’re gonna have to make a choice, eventually,” she said. “Your life is switching around, right now, right?”

Chris nodded.

“Well, sooner or later, this little merry-go-round of yours is going to stop,” the girl told him, “and you’re going to have to choose.”

“Oh…” Chris said, taking it all in. He had originally thought he’d get the best of both worlds; where he could be the doctor part time and the baby the other part. This was a little road bump in his plan to be sure, but not a major one. “Well that’s not a hard choice.”

“It’s not?” The girl tilted her head to the side.

“Between my fantasy life and a world where my fantasy doesn’t even exist?” Chris smiled, cockily. “That’s hardly a choice at all.”

“God damnit, you’re dumb.” The teen toddler rolled her eyes. “Dumber than Dante, even. That’s saying something, kid.”

“Who?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she waved the question off. “What you need to realize is that your choices have consequences.”

“Like what?” Chris challenged her.

“Okay, for starters, let’s talk about your fantasy,” she began. “I’m guessing this whole baby thing is part of it? Diapers and everything.”

“Uh-huh,” Chris blushed a little. He’d never actually talked about this to anyone face to face, and it was a little embarrassing; even if it was to a supposedly dead girl in his dreams.

“Well, there are two ways this could play out,” she said. “Best case scenario, you grow up all over again, and you become one of those world record genius kids who’s got a college degree by the time they’re in 3rd grade.”

“I’d have to grow up all over again?” Chris remarked incredulously. “How is that best case scenario?”

“You want to be a baby forever?” the girl woman toddler asked.

“Well…kinda” Chris admitted.

“You got a mother who’s taking care of you, right now, when you’re in baby mode? Plays with you, feeds you, dresses you, changes you? All that good stuff?”

“Step-mom,” Chris corrected the saint in training. “And two little…or big…whatever…half-sisters.”

“Are you gonna be her burden forever?” the would be saint in training pants asked. “Real babies grow up and take care of their parents, or at least stop mooching off of them. What’ll happen when she’s old and in her seventy’s or whatever? Will your little sisters adopt you? Are you counting on the magic changing the world so that you’re their baby?”

“Umm…”

“It’s not even like you’re a person with disabilities who can go live in a group home or something,” she piled on. “Who knows, after ten or twenty years of being a baby, with no one the wiser for some friggin’ reason, you might just end up a ward of the state and have complete strangers take care of you for the rest of their lives. Till you die of course, and put some nice foster parents or whatever through the hell of losing a baby.”

“I…did not think of that,” Chris conceded.

“No.” the girl with pig-tails replied. “Ya didn’t.”

“I’ve got a girlfriend.” Chris spoke up in his defense. “She might be my Mama.”

“Please don’t say ‘Mama’”, the girl answered. “I’ve had some bad experiences with people who call themselves ‘Mama’”.

“Sorry,” Chris apologized.

“It’s alright,” the girl with the pigtails nodded. “You couldn’t of known. So this girl: Do you love her?”

“Yeah,” Chris said confidently. He was more than pretty sure that he loved Sherry.

“Is she a baby too right now? Like is she your baby girlfriend or whatever kinky stuff you’re into?”

Chris blushed harder. “No. She doesn’t know about my kink, I don’t think. And right now, when I’m like this,” he gestured to his diapered state, “she’s just my babysitter.”

“So she wouldn’t be your wife in this scenario?”

“I guess not.”

“Oh, so you’d give up love for the chance to play baby forever?”

“It doesn’t sound so cool when you put it like that,” Chris admitted.

“Nope.”

There was an awkward silence for a bit. For a lot of empty space, there wasn’t even an echo in this place.

“So what am I supposed to do?” Chris spoke up. “Pick the reality where my fantasy doesn’t even exist? Be miserable and closeted all to myself forever?”

“I don’t know,” the girl shrugged. “But I’ve delivered the message, and at least you know that you’ve got a choice’ even if both choices are shit.”

“Where do I go from here?” Chris asked, feeling incredibly sad and feeling a twinge of desperation enter his being.

The girl stood up. “For starters, kid,” she said, “keep your eyes open. Look around with your brain instead of your dick, or whatever part of you is enjoying this nonsense. Then when you can walk again, go find the old man. He wasn’t allowed to tell you this part or else those red and blue things would have gotten him. I’m beyond their reach though, so technically no rules have been broken.”

“What rules? Please tell me,” he pleaded.

“Serve your time here. Then find the old man. He’ll do his part to help you out, I’m sure.” The girl pulled open the front of her pants and looked down at the crotch of her training pants. “Shit,” she swore, “I’m wet again and my harp’s vanished.” Then she turned her head and looked off into the distance “Fuck.” She cursed again. “They found me. I’m not goin’ back. Not yet. Gotta go kid. Good luck.” She ran by Chris off into opposite direction from some unknown and unseen assailant.

“Hey!” Chris called after the girl. “What’s your name?” The girl stopped for a moment and turned around.

“My name doesn’t matter here, kid,” she winked at Chris. “This isn’t my story. It’s yours. I’ve got my own diapered dumbass to go save, and I’ll have to go through Hell and back to do it. You? You just have to go through yourself.”

“But what if I can’t do it? What if I make the wrong choice?” Chris cried out.

“Just figure out someone or something that’s worth making the wrong choice for,” the girl called back. “Smart money is, you’ll have really made the right one.”

And with that, the girl faded off in the distance, and Chris’s eyes, his real eyes, opened again, looking up at the Church of St. Jude’s nursery ceiling from a borrowed crib.