Twitter Story: Birthday Magic (Patreon)

It's your third second birthday...  

You're stuck in your highchair; naked save for a wet diaper while all your relatives gather around you and sing Happy Birthday off key.    You don't cry.  You don't scream.  You don't argue.  You just wait for your aunts and uncles and cousins to stop singing.

You close your eyes and roll them to yourself as they finish clapping.  There'd be no point in doing anything else.  None of them can understand you anyways.  You lean forward, lift your bum and push, feeling the back of your diaper fill up as you do.

It's not reflex. Just second nature by this point.   The grown-ups giggle and point out exactly what you're doing.  Jokes and off comments are made about potty training.  Your younger brother wrinkles his nose and steps away to the back of the gathering.

He's a freshman in college and is likely hoping Mommy won't ask him to change you.  You hope so too...

There was a time when the situations were reversed.  

The compliments about how good you are and mature you must be for your age fall on deaf ears. You're unmoved by the potty training comments and praise about how big you've gotten.  Come tomorrow, everyone will think you're a one-year-old, again.  That's what happened last year.  

Your third second birthday...

That means you've been stuck like this for about year and a half.  Nearly eighteen months of sleeping in a crib; bottle and breastfeeding; and  getting dressed, undressed, changed, and generally manhandled by anyone and everyone.

No one understands you. Whatever magic (and it is magic; it must be) that did this to you makes it so that people only hear baby babble when you talk, and you lack the prerequisite skills to care for yourself.  You can't even take your diaper off, your fingers turn numb and fumble every time you try.  

You wish you knew why this happened to you.  Was it that old woman that you yelled at outside the grocery store? The one riding the coin operated pony who you joked should learn to act her age? Was she a witch?  Did she put a curse on you?

Maybe it was that old Fortune Teller Machine on the boardwalk that you slipped a coin into.  You didn't wish to be a baby, but you did wish to not have to go into work.  You never have to go into work now.  This reeked of wish gone wrong territory.

You'd seen a shooting star out your window...back before your bed was a crib...

Maybe?

Or maybe that was a dream.  Mommy puts a cupcake in front of you. A single candle with a number two on it.  "Make a wish" she says. "And blow."  

You've already tried wishing you were an adult. It didn't take.  Definitely wasn't birthday magic that fucked your reality up.  And you haven't seen any shooting stars or old fashioned arcade machines since.  Mommy goes to a different grocery store than you used to and you haven't seen that old lady since.

And the worst part of it all is you're so damn lonely.  You're trapped in your own body.  Surrounded by people who coo and fawn over you, but can't listen to you.    They have no idea what you're going through.  And they never will.  All the kids at daycare are actual

They don't mind Sesame Street, peekaboo games, and getting their butts wiped for them.  It's all they've ever known.  They're SUPPOSED to be like this.  And you've been stuck like this long enough to know that other people are actually growing up.  You're the only one whose age is both set back and put on loop.  It's like being isolated and under the strictest guard you can imagine.  

Even when surrounded by your family, you're alone.  "I don't want to be alone," you think as you blow out the candle.  The party goes on.  You eat cake.  You get changed. You play on the floor as various aunts and uncles and cousins take turns trying to give you the best baby toy.  You're put to bed.  You go to sleep softly crying to yourself.

As expected.  When you wake up, you're still in your crib.  Mommy changes you and gets you dressed for daycare.  She remembers you had a birthday,  but follows up with how you're finally big enough to go into the one-year-old room.  Yup.  Same old, same old.

But when you get there, something is different.  There's some kind of commotion that you can hear even as Mommy unbuckles you from your car seat and carries you inside.  People are crying.  And from the sounds of the voices, and the choice words being uttered, it's not babies.  

"Sorry," Miss Megan, your teacher, says.  "A lot of the kids are kind of fussy today. Something going around, I think."

You genuinely wet yourself in surprise.  There are no one-year-olds in the one-year-old room.  There are no strangers, either.  Your college roommate is on the changing table, freaking out as another teacher sprinkles baby powder on their groin.  A friend from work is unsuccessfully trying to take their onesie off.  Another familiar face is stomping their foot and demanding to speak to a manager and gets a pacifier shoved into their mouth for their trouble.  

You hear your name as Mommy puts you down.  Your best friend waddles up to you. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"