บท 4: A New Beginning

I awoke in a very fine looking room. It was well lit by light coming from a large window close by and a series of fine looking lamps hanging from the ceiling. The room itself was extravagant in a very bourgeois way, dressed neatly in a white sheet on all four walls and furnished with a dark wooden table, several shelves filled with some difficult, thick books and a large bed fit for a king or a very overweight person.

I also had a sneaking suspicion as well that I was lying on silk sheets but I couldn't be sure.

As a natural instinct, I looked around to survey my new environment before catching sight, once again, of my now bite sized hands. A feeling of dread solidified in my gut.

Wrinkled and bony as it may have had been, my hands were tough and weathered like a veteran soldier. At least, that's how I remembered them. But all that was gone and I was left with two wimpy ravioli sized pieces of flesh, each complete with 5 equally wimpy Italian sausages coming out of them.

Truly, I was simply in too much shock. I hadn't even finished grappling with the situation that I've found myself in.

My hands small hands moved upwards, trembling and slow before all at once, I shut my eyes and whipped my hand across my face with as much force as I could muster.

A stinging sense of pain exploded across my face and I gasped in agony, clutching my right cheek where a red mark was already beginning to spread across its surface. I would have even been willing to bet good money that from an outsider's view, the sight must have been quite hilarious to see a baby slap himself then look at his little hands as if it were a fated enemy of his.

' It isn't a dream…'

' Oh shit this isn't a dream….'

Just to make sure one last time I grabbed my legs, groin, body, face, any part of my body I could get to, feeling around and bathing fully in the sensations of the flesh and came from it.

It was completely real. Every part of it.

' But what happened to my old body? Where is it? Wait no, where even am I?' Then the first realisation hit me like a lightning bolt.

' Did I die?'

My brain blacked out as if short circuited.

'…Shit. Shit. No no no, there no way.'

' I mean, think about it. If I'm dead then how can I still remember what happened. I also don't remember how I died! Now, that is not possible.' I assured myself firmly.

' But then how would you explain this situation?' Whispered a thought.

'I…'

' NO! I can't be dead! There's no way!'

' You're in denial.

' No! I.. I….'

' Then what about my family? What happened to them?'

' …..Probably still alive and well.'

It was a surprisingly comforting thought among the sea of intrusive pain that threatened to rip my emotional state and sanity to ribbons. It brought me solace.

If I had died, that is if I had died, it would probably have been in my sleep. The last thing I remembered were the night lights of the city outside. That would mean that I had passed away peacefully. My loved ones would probably be informed the next morning as well. It might take time but they'll be over me soon enough. Then they will go on and live happy lives. They will be alive and well.

The realisation sunk in. Hard. I forgot how long the pin drop silence that followed lasted.

Then slowly and silently, a peculiar feeling started welling up in me.

It was like someone tied a knot in my gut and was gradually tightening it with every breath I took. Soon, I was panting and out of breath.

It took only a second longer for something to break inside me. A wet, trickling feeling ran down my cheeks and my vision my swam. The white silk sheets below me suddenly gained a number of moist dark spots and an annoying wailing sound filled my ears once again.

I forgot how long I cried for. It seemed that I had been doing today was being confused and forgetting. Perhaps my years really were getting to me without me realising. Which made no sense since I was now dead, and a baby.

By the time I could hold my tears in once again, the crib's bedding looked as if someone had poured the better half of a cup of water into it.

I raised a hand to wipe my tears away, clearing my vision and was immediately alerted to a strange, incredibly pungent smell. Looking down, I could see a mass of brown paste smeared all over my thighs and rear like a horrendous, smelly piece of abstract art. I could not believe my eyes.

' Did I just shit myself?'

As I had no intention of relapsing into my state of denial, I had little choice but to suffer through the smell and icky feeling as I tried to stand and find a way to cleanse myself.

The sound of a turning clasp drew my attention towards the doorway just as a group of young women dressed in fit of neat white dresses covered with a sort of black apron entered the room.

They quickly noticed my predicament and moved towards me with a kind of determined professionalism in their stride all while with a sort of motherly and caring smile on their faces that said: Come here, let us clean you up because you couldn't even perform the simplest of human duties.

Not shit yourself and cause trouble for others.

As they picked me up ever so gently by the arms, I could almost smell the scent of my dignity shriveling up and dying. Meanwhile, the women didn't bat an eyelash at the vile mess I had made and they got to work with terrifying, almost machine like efficiency.

In just ten seconds the crib was changed and ready. Two ladies removed the soiled sheet. Two others fetched a fresh sheet and changed it in. Viola, perfection.

I almost moved to clap.

' I've never seen anyone clean up so fast.' I thought, thinking back to the times where I had to deal with the mess my own children made when they were younger. These women had made my suffering look like child's play.

The woman holding me held me up by my little arms and held me out at arm's length before tucking my me under her arm and using her free arm to wipe my buttocks with a clean, scented towel.

My dignity didn't just die. It got cremated. Never in my life had I felt so humiliated. The only thing I could be glad about in that moment was that my new body had yet to reach puberty. If not, I would have had a new and equally embarrassing problem to worry about.

After she finished, the maid lady brought me close and patted me with long, calming strokes from the top of my head to my neck while cooing a soft melody as she moved to place me back down on the crib.

Suddenly she froze in place and for a second, I thought I saw a look of utter fear and bewilderment flash across her eyes. Slowly, she brought me closer until I could basically reach out and grab her nose.

' She has really great skin.' I thought to myself.

The lady had a very fair complexion and nearly perfect skin that any model would be jealous of. It was really very white. Almost snow-like in colour as if all the blood had drained from her face under her already extremely fair complexion.

' Wait what…'

' Hold on, isn't that too white?'

I had to do a double take and just as I thought, the maid really was white as a sheet in the face. She beckoned a few of the other maids over and conversed with them in the strange tongue I had heard upon arriving

It was pretty much confirmed in my mind at this point that this strange and literally otherworldly language was the main language of wherever place I had found myself in.

I coud tell that the maid was panicked in some way but the way she hid her evident behind her calm and collected face was truly oscar worthy. She gestured towards my face and talked hurriedly to the other maids whose faces went a ghostly white as well before some of them rushed off.

' Was there something on my face? I thought. It sure didn't feel like there was anything there.

' Wait shit, did they not expect me to be this ugly? Will I be thrown away? Oh god no, please no.' I thought as I started to panic myself.

I quickly raised a hand a touched the area that the maids were gesturing to and rubbed it, perhaps expecting a mole, scarring, anything that would suggest a blemish but all that I could pick up was a faint stinging sensation. Then, like a switched that had been flipped, it hit me.

" FUKUGUAGUGUGALABLAA!!"(OH FUCK THE SLAP MARK!!) I pretty much gasped aloud which accidentally made the maids even more panicky.

Any person with half a brain would find it weird that a mere babe, fresh from the womb would get slapped. And while I hadn't been here long, the signs were telltale. The silk sheets. The whole entourage. And the mere ambiance and extravagance of the room.

Whoever I was now was not ordinary.