Dante's Infanzia

Chapter 3
Definitely Not Dead

Chapter Description: There's no way Dante's dead? Is there?

Chapter 3: Definitely Not Dead.

Have you ever experienced something that caught you so off guard, you literally didn’t know what to think? You didn’t feel happy, or sad, or angry, or even confused? “Numb” or “nothing” wouldn’t even be apt descriptors. Those are still words with concepts attached to them that show some level of comprehension or cognition. The best words to describe this sensation would be “complete and utter, time-stopping, shut down.”

Sometimes that moment comes after an unexpected life-altering shock. Like your parents announcing their divorce at Thanksgiving dinner because one or both of them are gay and they’re tired of living the lie…oh, and Mom is pregnant again. Or finding out your best friend shot themselves in the face immediately after texting you “c u 2morrow”.

It usually doesn’t last too long. Emotions hate being left out of the party, and soon rush in to fill the gap; and time MUST be accounted for- so even as it stops, it’s still jogging in place, ready to sprint forward to catch up to the present. Still, that moment, that brief shut down of synapses, that mini-stroke, happened.

For Dante, this was that moment: Sitting in a giant playpen, dressed as a baby, being told that he was dead, by a girl who had just shit herself in front of him only minutes earlier. This did not compute. Dante was a processor who had just witnessed his first “2” after a lifetime of binary. Not only was it illogical, it was from completely out of left field. This did not work. This was peanut butter and mayonnaise on banana bread.

He sat there, his brain trying to make sense of the sentence. Lysa, the aforementioned deliverer of what-the-fuck-news, sat, waiting. She had repositioned herself so that she sat in with her legs criss-crossed. She pulled her short dress over knees, hiding the fresh diaper she was wearing. She yanked the bows out of her golden locks and her pig tails came undone, her hair falling to the side of her face. She wore the type of passive, uncomfortable smile of the hospital nurse having to deliver bad news to the family.

Her eyes remained immobile, patiently waiting for Dante to say something. Anything. To ask questions, to yell things at her, to break down and cry. Anything.

Midori, meanwhile, had crawled over to the other side of the playpen. She had had the brilliant idea to scoot her backside up against the mesh siding of the playpen and prop her legs up, so her legs and torso formed a rough 90 degree angle. Currently she seemed fascinated on how many different permutations of her own fingers she could fit into her mouth. The teenager was enthralled by the strings of saliva formed between her lips and fingers.

Dante wasn’t dead. How could he be dead? If he had died, he would have remembered it. He definitely didn’t feel dead. He was still breathing, seeing, hearing, talking, thinking. He was positive that he had felt his heart pounding when the first Judy in the white blouse and black skirt had put him on the padded table and he found himself paralyzed. Time for a rebuttal.

“Uh….no?”, was all that Dante could manage.

Lysa “humphed ” a laugh. “What do you mean ‘uh…no?’” she said “Oh yeah, kid, you’re dead, and not figure of speech dead. You’re ‘dead’, dead. D-E-A-D. Dead. Sooner you come to accept it, the sooner we can move on and go about our forever.”

“I’m not dead.”, Dante said firmly.

“Uh…yeah…ya are.” Lysa retorted with the certainty of someone arguing that the grass was green and the sky was blue.

“No, I’m not.” Dante replied.

“Yes, you are.,” Lysa said back.

“No I’m not,” he said.

“Yes you are,” she pressed

“No I’m not!” he spat.

“Yes you are!” she spat back.

“NO I’M NOT!” he shouted. Lysa held up her hand as if to say “stop” and she pointed sideways. The Judy with the bleach blonde hair and the nursery worker’s scrubs had come up to the side of the playpen and was peering in through the mesh . Her hands were on her hips and her left eyebrow was cocked in question.

“Dante, Lysa, are you two playing nice?” she asked in that way that parents give more as a hint than a question. Lysa silently nodded her head and stuck her thumb in her mouth. Dante copied.

“Are either of you cranky babies?” Both shook their heads. “Do you need a spanking? A time out? A nap? A milky ba-ba?” To all of these they silently answered “no”. Lysa was particularly enthusiastic on saying no to the bottle.

“Okay, you two, but play nice, or Mama Judy will have to spank.”, then she turned around and walked over to her rocking chair and sat down. Lysa let out an audible sigh of relief.

“Alright,” Lysa sighed taking her thumb out of her mouth. “Let’s try this again. But let’s be civil and try to talk like adults. I get enough of the arguing this when I talk to the real babies, especially the 2 and 3 year-olds.” She took a deep breath. “Now, exactly WHY is it so hard to believe that you’re dead?”

“Because, I didn’t wake up dead.” Dante answered matter-of-factly.. “I woke up here.”

“And here,” Lysa said gesturing all around them, “is where we go when we die.” Dante said nothing. He just sat there, not believing, absent mindedly sucking on his thumb.

“Okay,” Lysa said, chewing on her lip. “Let’s try this another way. Let me guess: You lost consciousness, and when you woke up, you were in the clothes you last remembered wearing, and you had peed and pooped yourself?” Dante nodded.

“Then”, Lysa went on, “one of those,” she jerked her head sideways indicating the worker in the rocking chair, “cleaned you up, took off all of your body hair and then dressed you up like…that.” Dante nodded again.

“Then,” she continued, “you got force fed a bottle of delicious milk, got burped, and everything seemed really good for a little while. Am I warm?” Dante continued to nod. “Then, they brought you here. That‘s what happens to about everyone who comes here.” she finished.

Dante nodded, still not really believing. Whatever this place was, dream or not, it was organized, so it didn’t exactly baffle him that they had a standard operating procedure. Of course, this was still just a bizarre pill and booze induced dream, so it didn’t matter. Time to set this nightmare chick straight.

“Look, Lysa…was it?” Dante started, putting on his most patronizing smile after taking his thumb out of his mouth. “Just because I’m in an unusual situation, doesn’t mean I’m dead. There’s a perfectly….” he pause, (reasonable wasn’t a good word for it, and logical was right out) “plausible explanation for all of this.”

“Oh really?” Lysa retorted, “how did you get here and wake up in a strange place?”

“Kidnapped,” Dante stated a little cockily. “I was pretty drunk last night; would have been easy to take me.”

“Okay, what about the wonder-women here that all look alike?” Lysa asked.

Dante shrugged, “plastic surgery and steroids.”

“The milk?” she pressed.

“Drugged.”, he smirked. Come on, that last part should have been obvious.

“These and all of this?” she gestured to their clothes and surroundings.

“There’s a market and a manufacturer for everything, these days.”

“Then what does anyone gain from all of this? Treating us like babies?” she asked. That was a tougher one. Dante didn’t have an immediate answer for that. Then it came to him.

“Porn.” he said. Lysa’s jaw dropped. “Yeah, porn,”, he went on. “There are probably hidden cameras throughout this entire building that are secretly filming us so that sickos and pervs can whack off at home on their computers.”

“That’s messed up!” Lysa exclaimed. Dante shrugged, his cocky little smile grew just a bit bigger.

“Like I said,” he shrugged, “there’s a market and a manufacturer for everything these days. Besides, I’m pretty sure this all just a really weird dream. Like I said, I was really drunk last night.”

“Oh.” Lysa said, an evil smile spreading across her face. “So we’re dreaming now, are we?” She leaned forward and crawled over to him, slowly, methodically, seductively, her hips swaying with every stride. She licked her lips as she drew nearer. She gently caressed his forearm, and leaned in, her eyes closed as if to kiss him.

Dante closed his eyes, and puckered his lips. Awww yeah! This dream was just starting to get hot! He could feel her breath on his face.

“Dori!” she said, in the same high pitched voice people use to call their pets. “Num-nums!” Pain shot through Dante’s hand as Midori- apparently having broken free from her contemplation of mouths and fingers- bit into it., his arm being held in place by Lysa’s iron grip.

Dante screamed in agony as Midori drew blood from his hand and tore at it the way a dog tears at a piece of meat. Tears ran down his cheeks unbidden as skin ripped off. Midori stopped biting and blew a raspberry at Dante as he continued to wail. Lysa released her grip and sat back, mimicking his prior smug expression.

“Yeah,” Lysa said, “I taught her to do that.”

“Midori!” The Judy in the nursery scrubs yelled as she threw open the gate to the playpen. “Not again! Bad baby! Bad baby! Mama Judy spank!” Midori was quickly picked up, spanked on her diapered bottom, and then laid back down on the playpen floor while she went limp. The nursery worker walked over and took Dante’s hand.

“Aw, poor Dante‘s got a nasty boo-boo,” she murmured as she looked at his mutilated hand. “Let me kiss and make it better.” The woman took Dante’s hand, and pressed her lips against his bloody wound. “Mwuh,” she said, making an exaggerated kissing noise. Then she took her hand and lightly wiped the blood off Dante’s hand. None of it seemed to stick to her, simply vanishing as she wiped it off.

His hand was healed! No pain, no bite marks, no blood, no missing skin. Nothing. It was as if the last 30 seconds hadn’t happened. The woman picked Midori’s lifeless form up and carried her out of the playpen, shutting gate behind her. “Naughty Midori!” she said, as she propped the overgrown baby in a stool in the corner.

“So,” Lysa said, the smirk still not leaving her face. “Still dreaming? Still shooting porn?”