Retrofocus

Chapter 5
Parallax

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Chapter Description: Tension mounts as the inevitable confrontation between Laura and Sasha approaches.

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~At Sasha’s~

Frantic, Laura scanned the bathroom, but her search came up snake eyes. Peeking into the hallway, she noticed Lizzy’s door hanging wide open. Oh, no. Laura’s belly groaned, her palms grew salty with sweat, and dryness took over her mouth. The camera was out of her hands now, and the possibilities were endless.

Dressed in Sasha’s pretentious garb, she sped out of the bathroom, down the hallway, and onto the stairs. Even as she approached the ground floor, she sensed the mayhem had already been unleashed. Christy and Sasha both huddled over someone, a child Laura guessed from his height. As she drew closer, her mind shifted into overdrive and her eyes widened in disbelief. Please don’t let that be who I think it is... she prayed.

But the nearer she came, the more her hopes seemed in vain. With astonishment written on her face, Laura approached the frenetic, teary-eyed boy.

”Bobby, is that you?” she asked.

”Yes, it’s me!” he shouted. “Something turned me into a little fucking kid!”

”Now, now, Bobby, calm down, it’s OK,” Christy comforted him. “Do you want me to take you to the hospital? I called your parents. They’re on their way over, all right?”

”This sucks!” the eight-year-old yelled, picking at his baggy trunks. “Wha...where...why is this happening?!”

”I’m not sure, Bobby, but we’ll find out, OK?”

Stunned at Bobby’s new youthful appearance, Laura nearly allowed herself to become sidetracked. The sight of her number one crush reduced to a sobbing third-grader with buck teeth and prominent patches of Beaver Cleaver freckles marking his cheeks was enough to distract her from just about anything. Sasha was also in hysterics - though Laura saw the tart had not regressed a day. Damn. The only person she had succeeded in humiliating was the one guy she wanted to impress, only now it seemed he was far out of her league.

The camera was fast becoming the centerpiece of a risky game - one Laura now wished she could stop, though she knew she had no choice. The weight of responsibility suddenly fell on her shoulders and a sickening unease formed in the well of her stomach. What began as an entertaining, playful rush had spiraled into a potentially anarchic mess. Luck had replaced strategy, and now reestablishing order meant wresting control of the board from an impulsive seven-year-old.

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Outside on the patio, confused partiers elected to continue partying, assuming the problem was under control. The ones who observed Bobby’s regression up close, however, couldn’t stop relaying their eyewitness accounts.

”Dude, it was strange. All the sudden, he started like shrinking,” one girl explained, illustrating Bobby’s descent with her hand, “like getting younger.”

”People don’t just get younger,” Randy countered. “You must be imagining things. Or maybe Sasha’s mom cooked up brownies, if you know what I mean...”

”I am not high!”

”Probably just some practical joke dreamed up by people who weren’t invited.”

”No, I saw it! One second he was all normal and then he looked like he’d been hit by a shrink ray or something.”

”Watch Outer Limits much?”

”Funky!” Charity said, repeating perhaps the most overused word in her lexicon.

”Yeah, funky,” one of her adoring male flunkies added.

Still, unbeknownst to the chatty high school crowd, more trouble lurked on the horizon, or more specifically, in the grass to the left of the pool. Lizzy, a somewhat unpredictable first-grader with frizzy brown hair and a knack for evading parental detection, held in her hands a contraption that could easily take the party down a notch. Unaware of the camera’s power, she walked in and out of the maze of similarly na?ve high-schoolers, who looked down at her with patronizing smiles.

”Hey short stuff,” one busty Latina said, smirking at the little girl’s frilly pink and blue bathing suit, which boasted cartoon images of Barbie and Ken.

”Hi,” Lizzy replied shyly, immediately escaping back into the throng.

Ducking and weaving, she could almost go unnoticed in the crowd of self-absorbed teenagers. But eventually her rhythm failed and she ran head on into Charity Scott, who, as luck usually had it, was not paying attention to where she was going.

”Oh, I’m sorry!” Charity apologized reflexively. “I didn’t see you coming.”

Lizzy remained mute.

”Easy to get lost in the crowd, huh?” Charity tried to make conversation with the unresponsive first-grader. “Hey, that’s a cute little bathing suit! You like Barbie, huh? Barbie’s cool. You know I used to have all the accessories and stuff.”

”Yeah,” the bashful girl answered.

”Where did you get that camera? You know it looks just like one my friend Laura brought with her.”

Again Lizzy went silent.

”Not much of a talker, huh?” Charity said.

”Would you like a picture?” Lizzy asked abruptly as she took aim.

”Oh, sure!” Charity replied with pretend excitement. Almost instinctively she launched into a series of Vogue-like poses.

“How do I look?” She winked.

”You look pretty,” Lizzy said, clicking the biggest button she could find. Noises from the camera indicated she had pressed the right one. Soon the new picture fell out and Lizzy snatched it up from the grass with a satisfied grin.

“Thank you!” she said happily, bouncing back into the mob.

Funny girl, Charity thought, readjusting her bikini top. As if following a script, Charity’s hormone-laden admirers gravitated back toward her in seconds.

”Wanna take a swim, maybe?” one of them asked.

”Not right now,” she said flatly. “Maybe later.”

Just then, Laura approached. Out of breath, she spoke in clipped words and phrases.

”Lizzy... have you seen...Lizzy with the camera...” she huffed.

”The little girl running around?”

”Yes.”

”Yeah, she just... ran into me...” Charity said, off put by

Laura’s panicked appearance. “Is something wrong? You look really pale.”

”The camera... did she have a...“ Laura paused, getting a clear look at Charity.

”What is it? What are you talking about?”

”Charity,” Laura said, a grave look crossing over her face. “She took a picture of you, didn’t she?”

”Yeah, why?” the usually-bubbly blonde answered. “What’s the big deal?”

But Laura wasted no time explaining the details of the situation and disappeared back into the swaying crowd as quickly as she had emerged. And not a moment later, Charity began registering the changes - ones that merely piqued her curiosity at first.

Though she had only realigned her bathing suit seconds before, already the straps had slipped out of place. A peculiar, abnormal feeling inched over her body yet she had no words to describe it, except to say she felt... uneven.

Also, several boys around her grew worried expressions when they noticed their trunks slowly loosening. “Hey, what’s happening to us?” one said, his voice jumping an octave at the last syllable.

”You guys, something weird is going on,” Charity said, creases spreading across her previously-tight-fitting swim suit. “I don’t like this. Somebody make this stop.”

By now, a group of inquisitive onlookers had begun assembling around the affected teens. They watched intently as a few boys lost the battle with their oversized suits and turned into blushing choir boys. Charity, meanwhile, struggled to stay composed as she regained her fourteen-year-old figure - a rounded, chubbier face, shorter legs, and a less-curvy waist. Still, her key resources remained intact, though they looked comical in proportion to the rest of her.

”Oh my god!” Katie screamed, running to see what all the commotion was about. “Charity, you look... you look... like you did in middle school!”

”Look at them!” someone in the crowd yelled. “What’s happening to them?”

”That’s messed up...“

”Somebody make it stop!” Charity howled, feeling her bikini bottom slacken. As the effects took hold, though, there was no stopping the transformation. As time ticked by, the unlucky teens crossed the puberty threshold and the objects of their maturity started vanishing like mirages. A boyish smoothness took over where thin, adolescent sideburns and spotty chin hair once reined. Muscular forearms made tough by months of football camp dissolved into the lanky limbs of children. Voices rose higher and higher until the band of jocks sounded more like the Harlem Boy’s Choir sans harmony.

”Shit!” many of them repeated, with growing intensity.

Suddenly Charity let out a scream only heard in the best horror movies. In a flash - no more than ten seconds - her celebrated boobs deflated like leaky dodgeballs. Her bikini top flopped onto her chest like a mere decoration, a useless shred of purple and black cloth hanging on for dear life. In no time at all Charity found her D-cups reduced to the size of Dixie Cups. A few seconds more and the pint-sized, pointy nubs would dissipate entirely, leaving her boob-free as a Boy Scout meeting.

”No, no, no, no! This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening...” Charity chanted three times like mantra. But the spell failed to bring her back to Kansas. She was stuck in the merry old, flat-chested land of Oz, and to make matters worse, everyone was staring at her like she dropped a house on a witch.

”Charity, what the hell is going on?” Katie said, pushing her way through the talkative crowd once again. “Are you OK?”

”This is not good,” Laura said to herself as she continued her quest to find the elusive Lizzy.

”No, no, I’m not OK!” the tearful eight-year-old stuttered as she fought to keep her rumpled bathing suit from snaking down her shoulders and legs. The absence of her bulbous claims to fame, though, made her feel more naked than anything. She was a ridiculously cute little girl, but with nothing out front, that’s about all she could be - cute.

For the second time that afternoon, Christy walked out onto the patio to discover a distressed elementary school age child dressed in adult swimwear.

”Oh, my!” she said, shuffling toward the lively mob of horror-struck teenagers. “Move back, move back! What’s going on here?!”

The entire crew responded at once.

”They’re getting younger!!”

”Charity is all little!”

”People are, like, turning into kids!”

”Shit, did you see that?!”

”Somebody help them!”

When Christy finally broke through the crowd, she encountered Charity and a group of boys, all of which looked no older than nine. As she reached down to help the regressed teens into the house, she saw a bright light from the corner of her eyes. She turned to find Lizzy, camera in hand, documenting the proceedings.

”Get in the house right now, young lady! This is no time to be taking pictures, OK?”

Congratulations, Laura thought as she ran toward the trigger-happy seven-year-old. The understatement of the day.

~At the Hanson House~

Grocery bags in hand, Adam and Julie opened the front door cautiously.

”Taylor? Laura?” Julie called, getting no answer. Trekking further into the house, she heard kids’ voices coming from the hallway and followed the sound. “Taylor? Cassenia?”

Rounding the corner, she met with a vision she could never have anticipated.

”Hi Mom,” Taylor said plainly, flapping his sleeves at his sides.

”Taylor, honey! What happened?!” She knelt down to the young boy’s level. “I didn’t believe you on the phone. I mean...this is impossible! Grown people don’t just suddenly go back in time. I didn’t...“

”It’s a device, a camera that does it,” Taylor explained, his eyes never leaving the ground. “Take a picture and it makes you older or younger depending on the setting.”

”Taylor, boy! What happened here?” his father joined the concerned chorus. “You’re... you’re a... why, you look like a kindergartener, son!”

”Mommy! Mommy!” Cassenia shouted, scampering into the room.

”Cassenia, baby! Oh no! It happened to you too?” Julie said consolingly. “Come here, honey.” She hugged her youngest daughter with a firmness that reassured Cass everything would be OK. Seeing her children so youthful again immediately triggered the protective maternal instinct in Julia.

”It happened to all of us,” Taylor clarified.

”All of you? Are you sure?” Adam asked almost skeptically.

“Where is Laura?”

”She took the pictures of us and left to go to a party...”

”You mean Laura did all this? And she just up and left?”

”Yeah, but that’s not the worst part...“ Taylor muttered.

“Kevin is twenty-four now.”

”He’s what??” Adam nearly went into cardiac arrest.

Conveniently, Kevin elected to make his appearance only moments after Taylor’s announcement. Both Julie and Adam lifted their heads in astonishment when the shaggy, unkempt man appeared in the doorway. Donning only a pair of white cotton briefs and a smile, Kevin was, for the most part, on display for the world. With course brown hair traveling from his ankles to his torso and arms, the overgrown youngster looked no different from any man of twenty-four. And judging from the protruding bulge in his underwear, the transformation had not missed any part of him.

”Oh sweet lord...” Adam moaned. “This is unbelievable! What the hell are we going to tell Natty and Jim when they get back? Everything is fine, but oh yeah, by the way, your son has chest hair now...“

”For godsakes!” Julie said, peering behind the coffee table.

“Who is this?”

”That’s Sydney, Mom,” Taylor answered.

”She can’t be more than two years old!” Julie said, as she bent down and lifted the child from the mound of crumpled clothing. “Oh, you poor thing! Why did they make you so young?”

Sydney declined to talk, assuming her being carried naked in Julie’s arms spoke for itself.

”Well, I won’t have you stay like this,” Julie whispered into Sydney’s ear. “I think I have some of Cassenia’s old cloth diapers in the attic.”

”Mom, please, don’t put her in diapers,” Taylor begged, overhearing his mother’s comments. “It’s bad enough...“

”It’s all I have, Taylor,” Julie snapped. “And two-year-olds just need diapers. That’s the way things work.” Sydney’s heart jumped when she heard the dreaded d-word. At least her old clothes, however outgrown and superfluous, provided her some emblem of her true adulthood. Her bra may have been physically useless, yet it still served as an insignia, a reminder of what once filled it. But the road to babyhood was paved with diapers - and she knew the moment Julie shoved that white piece of material under her butt, there may be no turning back.

~At Sasha’s Party~

Laura watched as Lizzy carted the camera inside the house, then trailed her as covertly as possible and waited for the right moment to strike. Sneaking up behind the preoccupied seven-year-old, Laura reached around and grabbed the gadget from the little girl’s hands.

”Hey!” Lizzy chirped. “That’s mine!”

”No, it’s not,” Laura said bluntly, elevating the device above Lizzy’s reach. “Do you even understand what you just did?”

”I took pictures of the...“

”That entire group of people,” Laura said, pointing to the paparazzi-like swarm of inquiring teenagers outside. “You just turned them all into little kids.”

”Cool.”

”No, not cool,” Laura explained. “You’ve caused enough trouble already. I suggest you go upstairs right now and stop being a brat.”

”No you don’t! You can’t order me around. You’re not my mom!”

Laura smiled devilishly. “Then how about I make you a little baby, huh? Would you like that?” She started to aim the camera.

”No, I don’t wanna be a baby!” Lizzy began hyperventilating at the mere suggestion.

”Then go upstairs and quit being one.”

”OK, OK...” Lizzy gave in easily, speeding up the stairs, all the while looking back warily to make sure Laura didn’t pull any funny business.

”Whew,” Laura sighed, not realizing that her biggest battle waited just around the corner.

”Laura.”

Sasha had seen the entire episode from the living room. With a collection of traumatized children - some only three or four years old - occupying her backyard and kitchen, she was understandably upset and now she had a clue as to why her guests were intermittently reverting to childhood. That strange camera seemed to be the leitmotiv of the day; everywhere it went, pandemonium followed. And Sasha wasn’t about to be the next victim.

”Hey Laura,” Sasha bellowed from the spacious living room, “what have you got there?”

”What?”

”Come here. I want to talk to you about something,” Sasha said with a deceptive calm, motioning for Laura to join her.

“What is that thing?” She pointed to the camera, which Laura held at her side.

”Oh, it’s... nothing.”

”Look, you and me are just about the only ones left that haven’t turned into kids. First Bobby, then Charity. Now, everyone else is out there in shock. And I know I’m not doing it,” Sasha reasoned out loud. “So that leaves you.”

Laura put on an indifferent smile. “So what?”

”So, I saw you running around after my little sister and that stupid camera you brought. Now what does that thing do? Why were you threatening Lizzy with it?”

”You think I’m going around turning everybody into children?! Why would I do that?” Laura asked, already sweating under Sasha’s interrogation lights.

”Because you wanted Bobby Meyers to go out with you.”

”Yeah, right. As if I care about Bobby Meyers...”

”I saw you watching us kiss. You couldn’t stand it, could you? You couldn’t stand that Bobby might like me better than you,” Sasha spat. “Did it ever enter your head that Bobby might not want to go out with a little poser like you?”

”Yeah, well, at least I’m not some stuck-up bitch who thinks she should get anything she wants!” Laura fired back, realizing too late that her words had been out loud, not parenthetical.

”What did you just call me?!” Sasha turned beet red. “I know you didn’t just call me a bitch.”

Speechless, Laura scanned the room to make sure no other parties were present.

”You’re such a little twat,” Sasha said. “I invite you to my party, at my house, with my pool, and my friends, and you come over here and call me a bitch! Like Bobby Meyers would ever go out with your bony ass anyway.”

”Better than a conceited bitch who pads her bra,” Laura retorted, fire coursing through her veins.

”Oh yeah right!” Sasha growled. “You’re one to talk, Miss Kleenex. You can’t even fill out that outfit you have on. I’ll bet you had to make everybody else kids so you could feel better about your little A-cup friends there.” Sasha cupped her breasts suggestively. “Very impressive, Laura.”

By this time, Bobby and several other shrunken partygoers had caught wind of the escalating skirmish and wandered toward the battle zone. But the gathering crowd only seemed to provoke more histrionics from Sasha, whose attacks only grew fiercer as the quarrel escalated. With a growing audience of overdressed kids pointing and staring at them, the two girls looked poised to launch into a catfight at any moment.

”You ruined my party, you bitch!”

”Not before you stole Bobby right out from under me, you little cunt!”

”What did you think, turning Bobby into a little squirt would scare me off?” Sasha hollered, veins bulging from her forehead. “That’s just like you. If you can’t have something, nobody can!”

”I was aiming for you!” Laura said. “Just like I’m doing now!” Laura followed through on her threat - holding the camera at Sasha like a gun. “Any last words for your boobs before I send them back to the third grade?”

”You wouldn’t!” Sasha said, a hint of reluctance creeping into her diatribe. “Not in front of everybody like this you wouldn’t...“

”Try me,” Laura issued a Clint Eastwood-esque dare. Part of her felt invigorated by the power she commanded; the other part had no clue what demon had possessed her. Something in her brain - maybe a chemical imbalance, maybe a fight or flight instinct - had triggered this gradual breakdown the moment she saw Sasha tongue smooch the boy of her dreams. And now was her chance to knock the perpetrator back down the social ladder, back to playgrounds and bland elementary school lunches, back to Barbie dolls and cootie-cautious boys, back to glittery notebook covers and bikes with sparkly streamers hanging from the handles. She may be rich, Laura thought, but she can’t buy back years.

The stupefied band of watchers refrained from commenting - not for lack of words, but because their new low angle perspectives made the feud seem surprisingly grown-up and important, as if, like a dangerous barroom brawl, it commanded their respect and undivided attention. Still, as the match grew more gladiatorial, none of the kids could resist watching the two girls duke it out.

”I’m warning you!” Sasha said, a wary vibrato still present in her voice.

”Of what? What are you going to do?” Laura taunted sarcastically. “That’s what I thought.”

Just then Sasha sprang toward Laura in an attempt to swipe the camera, but came up short. The move startled Laura, who reacted defensively by clicking the button twice in a row. Sasha stopped cold in her tracks. Though the flash mechanism had undoubtedly jammed, still the camera made its familiar buzzing sound just before it spat two pictures from the slot.

”OK, you did not just do that!” Sasha said nervously.

“You are so dead.”

Laura, half surprised by her reaction as well, stood fixed and wordless. She had just exposed Sasha to a double dose of the camera’s medicine, enough to propel her back to preschool, maybe further. She deserves it, Laura rationalized, thinking how rewarding her rival’s impending regression would feel. In less time than it took Sasha to snag Bobby, her rich, popular ass would be demoted to girlhood.

Truly, a Hallmark moment.

The spectators waited in pin-drop silence, like Romans anticipating the final thumbs up or thumbs down. But as the seconds ticked by, both Sasha and Laura felt a foreign sensation wash over them. Tears formed in Sasha’s eyes as she realized her hands were shrinking in front of her. Her bathing suit strings already felt unfastened. Her breasts no longer fully complimented her top and the bottom drooped precariously between her thighs. Reverse puberty had already begun.

”What the...“ Laura mumbled, detecting a subtle downward motion sweeping over her body. She hastily inspected the pictures she had just taken, but the images remained distorted and amorphous. Glancing up again, she noticed a prominent mirror mounted on the far wall of the living room. Oh please, no, not that, Laura thought as the bottom dropped out of her stomach. Desperate, she peered into the camera’s viewfinder hoping to swap the settings and restore herself to sixteen, but the screen had gone black and only a red flashing word appeared: “Filmpatrone...”

Helplessly watching her breasts fade away and recede into her chest, Sasha suddenly turned her sights on Laura and, in a fit of tween rage, tackled the unsuspecting photographer with every ounce of energy her twelve-year-old body could muster. With limp clothes dangling, the warring preteens wrestled each other onto the ground. The camera again plunged to the floor with a loud clunk.

”Stop it! Get off of me!”

”Change me back, you bitch! Change me now!”

As each took turns pinning the other to the ground, bits and pieces of their wardrobe shook loose and fell to the sidelines. Laura’s shoes slipped easily from her slender feet while Sasha’s swimsuit hung like an empty sling from her scrawny shoulders.

The inflection of their voices also rose higher and higher as they hurled insults at one another - the result of both riled tempers and younger vocal chords. While the conflict grew increasingly immature in tone, so did the bodies of the participants. What began as a confrontation between two jealous teenage adversaries transformed into a silly, juvenile scuffle between two whiny little girls, both aging backwards at an alarming rate.

Eight-year-old Sasha yanked Laura’s hair back, sending a surge of pain up her scalp. Seven-year-old Laura responded by shoving her hand in Sasha’s face until she released her ponytail. Rolling like gymnasts on the floor, the pair lost the majority of their adult clothes in no time, leaving Sasha nearly naked and Laura draped in a black muumuu.

”Quit it!”

”It’s all your fault!”

”Oh my god!” a twenty-year-old Christy exclaimed as she entered the living room. “Oh my god! You two get off each other right now!”

”But Mom!”

”Sasha Nicole Pistello, this is no way for two young ladies...“ Christy stopped, realizing her standard lecture did not apply. Far from young women, Laura and Sasha were hurriedly approaching four and five. “...two girls to act!”

Bobby picked up one of the fallen pictures and examined it. An adorable eight-year-old Sasha stood in the foreground - and in the mirror behind her, a similarly young Laura could be seen snapping the picture.

 

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