Come Back around

Chapter 1
Come Around

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Chapter Description: An man way past his youth by nearly a century, tries to recover said youth and a life life got in the way of. Since his attempts will pretty much kill him first, two other worldly beings decided to give him a hand.

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“I hate it.” The old man shrugs. “Go to school, get good grades, go to college, get a good job, help people, improve their lives, and everything will come back around...BULL CRAP!!!!”

The old man wobbles on his cane over to the window of his home. While trees cover his view, he knows all too well what’s out there; a fact clearly shown on his angered face.

“And not one of them will remember me.” He scuffs as he starts up again. “Not one girl ever wanted me, heck, not even a guy, never got a promotion, never a raise, never even a commendation. I worked my butt off for this little community project, and what did I get? NOTHING!” He pauses for a moment. “I only got this place ?cause I won that bet. Huh. I’m surprised that zit faced weasel actually held to the deal.” He then looks to the heavens and yells, “It’s all your fault you...you stupid entity.”

He then looks down, turns towards the inside of the home and starts off. “The only reason I know there’s a Gods, because he keeps ruining my life. Oh well, only ten more years till death.”

He hobbles his way to the door and too the stairs. He pulls down his stair way elevator, mounts it, and starts his way down.

“I don’t know, maybe I’ll go outside.”

Maybe we should take this time to get to know our...star for a moment. Mr. Jessie Mathews, age 98, has been denied social security ever since he was born. This man came from a stable home were his younger sister was a sort of Ray Barone to the extent that one day, she cried, and he lost his bed room. To try and win the affections of his parents, he became a perfect A student, even though he was never valedictorian. He tried to get on a swim team, one of his only loves, just to be denied. He even tried track, gymnastics, baseball, basketball, and it was only fear of death that kept him from football. All of which he was turned away from; never for physical ability mind you...just bad luck. That community project he mention, this poor sap went into the family business, an Architectural planning firm. After twenty years of making roughly seven dollars an hour, opportunity knocked and he opened the door. A developer wanted to build the perfect community, with everything in walking distance, sort of a modern day Leave it to Beaver-ville. The house he lives in now was an older house attached to an old government airbase that had long since closed down and was to be converted into this neighborhood. The bet he mentioned was with his father’s partner’s son. They bet he couldn’t work around the house, and he won. The neighborhood has schools, pools, community centers, even a downtown with trasit hub; a suburban green development prototype if you will. After only about thousand hours of work it was done, and unfortunately, little Timmy Hopkins got the got the credit, and was immediately promoted to partner, while he stayed at the bottom of the barrel. Now, literally older that dirt, Jessie is old grumpy, bitter, and irate. While not his true personality, it’s the only one he sees fit to show the world. Since his forced retirement with little benefits, a retirement brought on by Timmy’s love of wearing woman’s underwear on the job, he’s spent 90% of his life in this house (getting most of his groceries threw the mail) building and scheming, trying to invent a device to literally regain his youth. In short...he’s mad. But perhaps in a good way because let it be know, he’s about to realize that things are indeed coming around, and his years of tolerance, turn the other cheek, let’s be friends attitude is about to pay off. Because now, the virgin Jessie, is about to get lucky beyond his wildest dreams.

Jessie left his house still showered in old trees that has existed since this place was an airbase. He moves out onto the small side street which then leads to a main street. The temperatures are hot and this wrinkled old man begins to feel the heat. But the sights he begins to see before him astonish him.

“Houses everywhere?” He says to himself. “There’s so many. It looks like they filled this area up.”

The houses are all evenly spaced apart with just enough space as to feel comfortable in each. Most are a play on older house designs with traditional roof lines, but Jessie knows that’s just the nature of this area. But He finds something strange.

“I hear people,” he says, “But I do not see them.”

For a man born before the man stepped foot on the moon...the first time, his hearing is still good. He picks up the sounds of children, hundreds of them, all in the background.

“Maybe, the local rec-center.” He says. He slowly makes his way there. His speed is a true reflection of his age as even the smallest out of shape slug manages to pass him as if he’s standing still. The sun’s movement is visible, “WILL YOU SHUT THE HELL UP!”...sorry.

After a few minutes (an hour) the old man makes it to his destination to find a site that almost sets his heart into arrhythmia. Thousands of children are all playing at one the several pools in this one community center. The local green fields are covered with parents grilling to their hearts content. The smell of meets and corn and all other kinds of food make him rub his liquid diet stomach back to life. His mouth almost drops to the floor with anticipation of this large buffet, but something catches his eye, a group of boys who’s ages can be anywhere between ten and fifteen. There must be at least thirty of them, but they all appear to be getting ready to do something in one of the pools.

?I don’t believe it.’ He thinks. These boys...they manage to trigger something in this old virgin’s mind, but it would take a billion bottles of Via... “Say it and your dead!”

?Look at them.’ He thinks, no longer breaking the forth wall. ?I must admit that I’ve always loved girls, but if these guys were around when I was there age I would have considered switching sides.’ By all definition of the word, these boys were practically perfect. From the darkest skinned boy to the red head with freckles. Everything seemed to just be perfect. Their shapes, their tone their hair, their faces, and just enough of a variety to make the straightest man stare. Exhibit A: ?My God they are beautiful. But if these are the guys.’

He turns a few degrees to see the girls standing on the side. The abundance of teens makes him think for a moment, that this is some sort of teen sub-event of some sort of community gathering. Of course, he does not stop there,

?None are too big, none look like young porn queens, they all look naturally, well proportionally beautiful. No wonder why you here so many cases of old people going after kids. Its like the first generation of Moonraker kids.’ He starts for the gate when he realizes something is quiet odd. The entire pools is encapsulated in a rod iron gate. While he only had to pass the obviously open gate to get there, he now just seems to notice the gate’s doing something weird. There is a shimmering puddle of water standing vertically inside of it. It ripples with a bright beam of light filtering threw the center and the sound of water rippling threw it. He moves forward to investigate. He stops. With violins playing a sweet melody which gives some air of comfort and hope, he reaches up his left, free hand, and touches the puddle. He pushes his whole hand inside, and moves it around, then pulls it out.

?Wow. Either this is some sci-fi wormhole, or I’m about to pass out.’ Guess which one it turned out to be.

After a few moments, or that’s how it seemed to him, light blurs back into vision, and a woman fades into his view. She looks about middle aged, but refreshed, and...

“Mom?” He asks.

“Jessie,” The woman says with a light burning brightly behind her. “JESSIE what the hells is wrong with you?” She begins shaking him violently. “Why are you lookn at em childn that way? Huh boy? Why Why? I should have left you at thantownk......”

The light fades and the shaking stops...just to be replaced by another light. He refocuses his view and looks onto the face of a rather strapping youn...okay, I can’t continue...he’s butt ugly. SO ugly to, that I won’t even bother describing him.

Jessie gags, but doesn’t throw up.

“Hello sir?” The man uglier than what should be naturally possible asks. “Can you here me?”

Jessie pauses before responding... “Paramedic?”

The man looks up to just behind Jessie, who just realizes he’s on his back. “He’s awake, lets go.”

He feels the pull of a vehicle and watches as the man stabilizes himself, then sits up.

“Don’t worry sir.” He says as he goes to his cell phone. “You don’t have to worry, you just passes out due to de-hydration. Lulu.”

“Lulu?” Jessie asks.

“Ow Lulu is my dua... Hello honey.” The man immediately switches conversations, but Jessie needs nothing to tell him who he’s talking too.

?How can something so hideously disgustingly ugly actually have kids? Maybe two of them got together. My God, those kids must look like...like...’ a picture of the pile of crap on Weird Science pops in his mind, ?my God those poor kids. I though I had it bad.’

“Okay, good bye pookie.”

He presses the button on the phone, then looks at it. He notes Jessie’s interest them immediately turns the phone to him. His attention immediately focuses on the picture on the phone.

?No please no...huh?’

“That’s my daughter, my son and my wife.” The man states.

The kids are gorgeous, and so is mama.

In his mind, Jessie says a little prayer. ?Dear God...I hate you.’

Latter in the hospital, things haven’t gotten any better.

“So sir, you should really know what a man your age can take,” the woman lecturing him may be young, cute and fully bodied, but her rather nails on a chalkboard like voice and her hyper peppy demeanor is enough for Jessie to want to kill himself. Given his fear of death, who coincidently is just down the hall, he lays in his bed watching the young lady hoping for her to experience a heart attack herself. “...your body can’t handle being out in the light and air as everyone else’s. Yours is old and worn out, your lungs need to be hook up to pure oxygen for every second of the day, and what were you thinking that our friend the sun if your friend? NOoooooo. The sun is YOUR enemy. It turns that liver spotted skin into something a little less....well it makes it more....hell it makes you uglier. And it will just make all those wrinkles and handing skin’ that much deeper. Then it will dry it all out till you look like the prunes you should be eating so that you can have a bowl movement.” Please note that at this time, the door is open, and there are people, all younger, walking past it in the hall way. “Then it just heats up that boney little frame of yours and turns you into a giant hot pocket. You don’t need vitamin D from the sun, but we have the thousands of meds you doctor prescribed down in our gift shop slash pharmacy. Oh, and you shouldn’t live alone, you should go to one of the many nursing homes out there, yeah. Here’s one...” she picks up a brochure off the side table and flings it in front of him, displaying the pages. “Look at how happy they are.”

?They don’t look happy.’ He thinks looking at the dead, the pictures of these fallen comrades. ?No, they look medicated. Look there all eating Jell-o. I use to love Jell-o...AS A SNACK! I don’t want it as my main meal.

“And lookie hear, look at the fitness activities.”

?Fitness?’ As Jessie deals with a mental overload, we can note that there idea of fitness is having them walk down the hall...in some sort of traction device that makes them look like a large, prize fish being weighted for competition.

“Yepers, this is what you need. This is what an old geriatric man like you needs to live.”

“NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!” Jessie yells, and with the full brunt of his strength, he pushes the woman out the way, climbs out of the bed, grabs his cane, and starts off in a huff.

“NEVER! I will never allow my self to be placed in an establishment like that.” He makes it to the door, and does a bee-line for the exit. “What’s the point in living if you can’t live. I didn’t want to be older that existence. I wanted to be young. My life was stolen from me! I want it back! I want it back!”

As he makes his way pass another door, which matters little what’s happening here as all the visitors (and some of the patients) have all looked outside to spot this event. The nurse looks down the hall to the man and yells,

“Wait ancient sir, wait.”

The man stops only for a moment. He then turns his head to a little girl with shoulder length black hair and barks.

“Don’t listen to what they tell you kid. Have fun now when you young. Don’t listen to them Have sex, get high a few times, go drag racing, go backpacking in Europe do whatever makes you happy.” He then starts off, not even bothering to note the ?girls’ unusual clothing.

“But SIR!” The nurse yells again. “You still in the hospital gown.”

The man hears, along with the crowd who immediately grab their children’s eyes as they gag on air, then rush back inside of their own rooms.

“I don’t care. Let’em look.” He proudly states before continuing down the hall.

As everyone heads in, including a depressed nurse, only one person, or two depending on how you define person, stands watching the old man depart.

A literal bag of bones stands there; watching for a moment, then lifts his black robe draped arms and looks to his list. He cycles around the scroll as he states,

“Hmmm, Jessie Mathews.” He starts in his Jamaican accent. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I have him coming up soon.”

The little ?girl’ looks up to the ?man’ and notes in a distinctively young male voice, “Why don’t you just go digital? It would be easier.”

“We thought about that in the nineties, but a survey reveled that people liked the list better.”

The boy scrunches his face as he thinks, then returns a, “Wait a minute, that poll was held by some Hollywood studio.”

“And like some of those nut jobs don’t work for us?”

The boy shrugs then looks down the hall at the man as he leaves the secure wing of the building. Screams ensue.

“I think...I should take this one.”

“Ah, go ahead. I got a new movie coming out tomorrow, and I’m expecting a wave of new arrivals from it.”

As a hurt old man makes his way home, on a plain of existence unknown to most...well mostly the living... in a land were there only seems to be ambient light, and it is low. The sky is dark and filled with purple clouds. There appear to be several small tropically dressed islands. The largest has a small, Japanese style pagoda on it and the small boy from earlier. He wears an off grey Hakama uniform with a back belt holding the dress like pants up, and a pair a dark blue shoes that could easily be tall ballet slippers. His thick back hair is long and straight, providing a sharp contrast to his lightly tanned flesh. From the looks of things, he’s probably no older that twelve.

He dangles one foot over a small pound were an image of this angry old man is in a cab, while he sits on the other. After a few moments, a tall, shapely woman walks up from behind. Her body is well proportioned, and while not a product of surgeries, it could very easily have been so. She keeps her rather long black hair in a pony tail held by a red silk scarf. Her clothing is also inappropriate for the child in the room, being a rather low cut Kimono like dress with a large red obi belt, and a Chinese dress bottom (it has a long slit moving up the side which allows every, every inch of those long legs to be...

“Eh em.”

...huh, oh, excuse me). Any way, the woman drops down by the boy and playfully lies on her back, while the boy remains focused completely on the image in the water.

“So, what’s with the old guy?” She asks in her naturally seductive tone that doesn’t work one bit on this boy.

“He was in the hospital today, screaming about how his life was stolen from him.”

“Huh, that should sound familiar.” She says with a smile. The boy ignores the comment. “So,” she starts returning to a more serious tone, “what are you planning on doing?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Don’t know? It seems obvious to me Jiragi.”

“What, you wanna go down there and make his day in a way his heart can’t tolerate?”

She pauses. “No, ick, even I have an age limit.”

“That’s something coming from someone who’s passing two thousand.”

“I have a conversion system for humans. Even though I must admit, some love in this man’s life could only be beneficial.”

“Your right.” The boy takes a deep breath. “But when we were in the hospital, I had the distinct feeling he had a plan in mind. My guess is he’ll go straight home and revile it.”

“So, you’re going for the indirect approach this time. That’s unlike you. Usually you’re more blunt.”

“Still not as blunt as you. I never almost got arrested by the secret service.”

“Well it’s a sad state of affairs when a nation elects a bachelor to office who’s so afraid of women. I figured I’d activate his notion. Besides, it did win him a bride, and a second term.”

Jiragi shrugs slightly. He watches as the old man steps out of the cab, yells at the cabby, who then peels out, leaving the man in front of his darkened house.

Nigh time, and the house is dark. Jessie has arrived home in an exposed storm. He flies up to the front door, throws it open, then slams it shut behind him. He then stops for a while, letting his old body deal with the strain just put on it by so forcefully handling the door. After a few minutes, he starts off again. He moves towards the basement door which stands wide open as another lift stands in its way. He hops on the life, and allows himself to proceed down to the lower lever of the building. He then dismounts, and in a fit of rage bolts at his incredible pace of one inch a day (okay, maybe a little faster), towards the rear were a large hatch stands open with the picture of a swan mounted on the outside.

The man steps inside of the hatch who’s door has been to heavy for him to close for years. He walks inside, and down a long almost completely dark corridor. He emerges into a large open space were the lights turn on automatically (sensors not witch craft). There, thousands of small parts lay in bins and on the floor in various parts of the room. But at the end of a makeshift aisle sits a large, odd looking chamber that looks like something assemble on Junk Yard Wards (if that).

“Finally, my baby, I’m ready to use you.” He says looking to the machine.

Back in the other dimension, Kaguya (no, you haven’t missed anything, we haven’t said her name yet) looks down on the water on all fours in extreme interest.

“What is that thing?”

Jiragi looks down a little less interested and a little more...well you’ll get the idea.

“I think its suppose to be a youthanizing machine.”

“Euthanizing?” Kaguya pauses for a moment. Her excitement then drops, “Wait you mean Youth-anizing don’t you.”

“Yeah.”

“So what’s the odds of something like that working?”

“In this day and age, about one percent.”

Jiragi opens his left palm to the object. Immediately a schematic of the device pops up and he begins scanning threw it.

“Oh boy.” Jessie says back in the land of the living. “I’ve been waiting to use you for years. But, I think I figured out a time setting. No, being reversed too far like that poor Guinea pig.

“Guinea pig?” Kaguya asks childishly.

Jiragi moves his hand to the left of the main screen. Suddenly a second video window opens and shows a brief segment of his last experiment. The small Guinea pig is placed in the machine. The door closes. The rodent looks around, when suddenly an aura of light fills the chamber. The pig looks around confused, but in a few seconds...

“Eww.”

“That was horrible.”

“Well, at least I know how he is trying to get it to work. I guess he figures that a circulating, spherical magnetic field on the nanoscopic level rotating in an inversed polarity field at the rate of metabolic activity in the cells themselves would allow for the cells to reverse their metabolic activity causing a reversal in the aging process.”

“Will that work?”

“Nope.” Is the boy’s simple answer. “As we see from the rodent. It acts more like a giant microwave. The only reason it appeared to work on the rodent was because it boiled out all of the water out then vaporized most of what was left.”

“Well, I’m guessing he’s going to need your help, or that of Grim’s.” She states sitting up.

“No, well yes, but I think I found a way in here.”

“Then its my turn.” The woman says standing up.

“I don’t think so.”

“There, finished.” Jessie says setting the parameters into a machine that looks about half his age. He then stands up from the CPU and walks towards the machine.

“I will have my life back. I will join those kids and their diving fun games, and I will have my youth. I will live.”

He moves inside, and closes the door. The machine starts to hum. Then spark. Then smoke. Some flames shoot out, and the devices explodes.

“Huh, wa-.” The next day, or what he hopes is the next day, Jessie opens his eyes to a bright sun shiny day. The light pours inside of his bedroom lighting up. He rotates around and sees the light, and the trees dancing in the breeze outside. He sits up inside of his bed to feel his...nothing.

“Huh. What’s wrong with my body?” He states as he looks over himself. He sees, nothing. No body. His normal long outline in the covers are gone.

“What...What did I do?” He jumps up and onto the bed out of sheer terror. But the ease of the accomplishment, and the appearance of a small, thin body mounted below his vision changes his attention from terror to joy. A large smile springs to his face.

“I don’t believe it.” He states almost breathlessly. The second time boy jumps off the bed and runs over to the mirror. The image staring back at him is that of a young, eleven/twelve year old boy with light brown, somewhat long hair, the same type he had in the seventies, his body isn’t exactly buff, but not a stick ether. Honestly, he’s a cute kid.

“I wonder.” He says. He begins to think. And think. And think. Suddenly, a small bulge begins to appear under his medical garb. He looks down with a large smile, he even attempts to lift up the medical garb to see, only for it to fall down off of his small body. He drops it to the ground and looks at his pride and joy in the buff.

“I have a stiffy. I have an erection!” He yells to the heavens. “I haven’t had on of these since the teens.” That’s 2013-2019 for those who wish to know.

Then, the smile disappears, and he looks down on himself. “I need cloths.” But this does not stop him. He hops out the room, bypassing the chair lift completely. He heads into the basement and into the hatch. He moves into the cold, dirty area, passes the waves of parts and items that lie around the facility, and arrives at a set of boxes. He opens the boxes and begins pulling out cloths. He pulls out a pair of briefs, some socks, some pants, and a T-shirt. All appear to be up to date, and actually somewhat new, being only a few years old at the most. He throws the cloths on, all of which fit perfectly. He then walks over to a box on a metal shelf and pulls it off. The box is a shoe box. He throws of the top and pulls out a pair of brand new look tennis shoes. He immediately pulls them on for another perfect fit.

“Yes. They fit, I didn’t think they would.” He flies to his feet, and then runs to the location of his device. What he finds stops him in his tracks.

The device is in ruins, completely burnt out. Parts of it are even melted.

“I don’t remember walking out of that.”

He looks over his exposed arms to see no scars or burnt marks. “How did...”

Beeeeeeep.

“Door bell?” He says recognizing the loud, annoying noise. He turns and runs out of the hatch and heads up the stairs. He arrives at the door, throwing it open and sees...

“Hello.” Kaguya says with a seductive smile. It causes the rejuvenated boy to gulp. But the woman’s more sexy business woman dress...still leaves little to the imagination. The outfit is tight fitting. While she’s not hanging out of it, her chest’s size is not hidden one bit by the button up dress shirt. Then those legs, they are covered in a set of black stockings. The stockings...

“While we wait for him to catch up, you are Jessie Mathews correct.” The boy nods. “Then this packet is for you.” She states handing him a large vanilla envelope.

He takes envelope. “What is it?”

“It’s your registration information for school. Your going into the seventh grade, are you not?”

“I...I guess.”

“Well, unfortunately, you missed the pool party yesterday, but school starts on Monday. Your classes are set, and Monday is also sports activity day, so there is a booklet in there that you may want to read. Oh and also you need to READ the rule book, and sign the paper in the rear of the book, and bring it to school on Monday.”

“Okay. Thank you?” He says still confused.

Kaguya turns, but winks to the boy in her seductive manor before walking off the property, leaving the young boy, who not one girl has ever taken interest in, with his jaw on the floor.

After a few moments which could easily be minutes, Jessie looks back down to his small package then turns and heads into the house.

Meanwhile, Kaguya walks out to the sidewalk were an awaiting Jiragi stands in normal cloths.

“Well, how’d it go.” The boy asks.

“Well, he’s too young for me so...”

“Kaaaguuuyaaaa....”

“Alright, alright, it went fine. I sense he suspects something out of the ordinary, but I’ll think he’ll be okay. Now if you excuse me... there’s a couple down the block who need to repair their marriage. That’s my department.”

The boy looks to the ground.

“I refuse to asks how. Have fun.”

“I will.” The woman walks off in a way that causes a group of teens on bikes stop dead and fly over their handle bars. But Jiragi just smiles as he watches the woman walk away. He takes another deep breath before asking himself...

“Were to next.”

To Be continued...

 

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