A visit to the doctor

Chapter 1
A visit to the doctor

The man wears dark clothes and smokes a Clove cigarette in the cool night air. He skulks near the bushes and watches as the ceremony ends and people begin filing out. He stands still; nothing but the pulse-like orange flare of his cig. No one notices him.

Then he sees it.

The faint glimmer of the gold outline of John’s certificate gleaming in the moonlight.

He stomps the cigarette out and licks his lips. Then he follows them: both John and his lovely wife Elizabeth. He has to be cautious moving through the ever sparser crowd—fortunately, John and Elizabeth are so drunk on the glory of receiving such a prestigious award, neither of them realize they’re being stalked. Even so, there are still far too many people around. The man begins to think the transaction will have to occur at John’s home.

Then a stroke of luck!

Suddenly and without warning, John and his wife take a shortcut down an alleyway.

The man smiles. Quickening his pace he looks back over his shoulder only once before pulling on the black ski mask and vanishing into the alley.

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, but then he sees them. Two shapes not too far ahead.

"Hey John!" the man calls, pulling a Magnum Desert Eagle (.50 AE) from his duffel bag—something more cannon than handgun.

"John!" he yells, pulling the hammer back. "John, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take that certificate from you."

By the time John and Elizabeth turn around, the man has already crossed the distance between them.

"What?" John asks, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"I said I’m going to have to take that certificate from you."

John opens his mouth to respond, but before he can utter a single syllable the man lifts the Magnum and fires point blank into his face. What’s left of her husband’s head sprays across Elizabeth’s silk blouse and she screams. She screams and screams.

She screams as John’s body flops to the pavement like a dead fish. And she screams as the man bends over and pries the certificate loose from his still warm fingertips.

The man smiles down at the paper, brushing off a few wet chunks of skull.

“At long last!” he shouts. “Finally my lifelong dream of having an award for being an adult baby for two years and then going back to normal has come true!”

His cackling fills the alley.

Then, suddenly, it stops, and he trains the gun on Elizabeth.

“Of course, the question remains: What should I do with you?”

Elizabeth, almost too terrified for words, goes to her stock answer, “Y-you sh-should ask yourself, w-what would Jesus do?”

A laugh.

“Bitch please—“ the man says, pulling off his ski mask, letting the shining mane of brown beard and hair flow free as an effulgent light circles his head illuminating the alleyway “—I am Jesus.”

All Elizabeth can do is gasp and fall to her knees at the overwhelming all consuming magnificence of the man before her.

“I really just came for the certificate,” Jesus says. “But, now that I think about it, you’ve been putting words in my mouth for way too long: ‘What would Jesus do? What would Jesus do?’—as if your sinful and mortal mind could possibly know what I would do. No, I think it’s time for some good old fashioned Old Testament style payback. Look at you,” he gestures to all the blood and gore of Elizabeth’s dead husband splattered all over her, “you’ve gone and made a mess of yourself. Here, let me help you… After all, cleanliness is next to godliness.”

Then Jesus lifts his right hand to his mouth and blows through the hole in his palm creating a strange tuneless whistle. A wind kicks up. Elizabeth’s hair and blouse and skirt lift in the breeze, change, and fall back into place: her hair now in pigtails; her bloodied blouse a freshly cleaned bib with a duck on it (two sizes too small to cover her ample breasts); her skirt and panties, a thick disposable diaper; her feet bare.

In shock, Elizabeth somehow manages to stand, her shapely legs spread apart by the Pampers.

“Cute,” Jesus says, “But we’re not quite there yet. Here, let’s try this.”

He lifts his left hand up, blowing throw the hole in his palm, creating the same kind of discordant notes. This time, Elizabeth can only hear the wind, she can no longer feel it. And, as she listens, she loses concentration and stands there wetting herself with a confused look on her face.

Jesus stops blowing, then smiles at her.

“Elizabeth…”

Her eyes are glassy.

“Elizabeth… I want you to listen to me, because we don’t have a lot of time. Right now your mind is slowly regressing to that of a two year old, so you need to pay attention while you still can, alright?”

She nods absently. “Okay.”

“Elizabeth, tell me something, do you remember a girl named Emily?”

She struggles with it. “Yes…” she says. Then, “Yes…Emily Watson…she was engaged to John when I met him.”

“You stole John from her.”

“Yes.”

“And he married you instead.”

“Yes.”

“Well it’s good that the two of you know each other, because she’ll be the one taking care of you. As I said, your mind is being reduced to that of a two year old…although you’ll still remember everything, who you are, what you’ve lost—you just won’t be able to think or reason beyond the level of a toddler. That will last for one week. After exactly one week passes, there will be a five minute period where both your body and mind match your twenty-two year old self. Then your body will regress. It will happen quickly, you won’t feel any pain, but within seconds you’ll find your twenty-two year old mind stuck in the body of a two year old. You’ll cycle like this every week for the rest of your life. For half the month you’ll be a gorgeous young woman with the mind of a baby, and for the other half you’ll have the mind of a bright college student stuck with the body of a small child.”

Elizabeth is both horrified and dumbstruck. So hard to keep track of what he’s saying, but she knows she doesn’t like it. She sits down on the pavement in her wet diaper and sticks her thumb in her mouth.

“Now then,” Jesus says, “why don’t we get you over to Emily’s? Hmm?”

Elizabeth shakes her head vehemently. “No!” she manages to blurt out before going back to sucking her thumb and pouting.

“Oh yes. I think Emily is going to just LOVE her job as your new mommy. I can only imagine the things she has in store for you.”

Another whistle through his hand and Elizabeth, still clad in diapers and a bib, is suddenly sitting in an oversized red wagon. The wheels squeak as Jesus pulls her off into the night.

Looking back, Jesus says, “Oh, and FYI, you were way off about the stories I like to read on ararchive.com. My favorite authors are Nomdreserv, Dark Oni and Louder. But I guess you’ve probably figured that out by now.”

More laughter.

And then the laughter fades.

And it is silent.