Trading Post

Yes, I would love to see the story continue as well.   There are lots of ways the story could go and they are all interesting.  

Chapter 164: Amy’s Story Amy Madra was supposed to be a farmer. That or a farmer’s wife. Raise and take livestock to market. Cook and clean around the house. Take and make phone calls trying to get the best price on feed.  Pay bills. Homeschool the kids and get them ready for the real world so that they too could one day be a farmer.  Honestly, the roles of farmer and farmer’s spouse were very interchangeable on a family farm.  The emphasis was on family first. Questions like ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ were never asked on the Madra Farm and its surrounding neighbors just north of Elizabeton where the college kids got wasted in cornfields and fraternities had hazing rituals involving bovines of various sizes.   Leave the Amazons alone and let them leave you alone.  It was just common sense.  No questions asked.  Amy was never much for common sense, though. It wasn’t until she was sixteen that Amy Madra was allowed to give serious thought regarding her own future.  “What are we gonna do?”  The question came from Jake, her older brother, and it wasn’t directed at her.  “Yeah…” Marco- Jakes twin- echoed the sentiment. His voice was shaky and he was closer to tears than Jake, but still hadn’t the strength to let himself cry in front of the others. The whole family was gathered around the dinner table, but no plates had been set. The television wasn’t playing, nobody looked at their phones, and the animals were unusually still.  Amy’s eyes kept flickering over to the chair across from her father.  It sat, completely unoccupied, save for perhaps a ghost if you believed in that sort of thing. Dad kept his head low. He kept his eyes on the table instead of his children. “I’ve already made arrangements for her body,” he said. “I’ll collect the ashes in a couple of days, and we’ll have the funeral here next week once I start callin’ folks. Give everybody time to make travel plans if they’re comin’.” The twins swallowed their tears and nodded, but Dad had given them the answer to a question they really hadn’t asked.  “Are we gonna be okay?” Dad lifted his head to look at his only daughter. “We’ve got plenty of savings stashed away for an emergency.”  He sighed and in that sigh he looked so much older than forty. “This counts. We’ll need to make some adjustments, but we’re gonna be okay. Okay?” “Yes, Dad.” “Yes, Dad.” Amy realized that her family was staring at her.  “Yes, Dad.” “There might be people coming by over the next month or so,” Dad coached. “Friends. Neighbors. Family that you haven’t seen since you were kids. Insurance folks. People from the bank. Your mom knew a lot of people and did a lot of the business side of things. If anybody asks, tell them you’re fine, even if you’re not. We don’t want to make our problems their problems. Especially if they’re tall folk.”   All three siblings nodded in agreement. Never let an Amazon think you need help.  That was a rule that they’d lived by. A vindictive and ornery giant was a terrible thing to be feared and avoided. The helpful ones still came in a close second. That was how the Madras lived. They made good money through honest work, kept their heads down, and used an abundance of caution at all times.  Whenever they went into town, they went as a group.  Littles were harder to snatch up in groups.  Amazons had a harder time justifying snatching up entire families to themselves. The one exception was fights. Never fight with another Little in public. It was an open invitation for some giant man or woman to declare that you were ill behaved and decide to “re-raise” you.  Mrs. Sanderson and her daughter went out shopping for a wedding dress a couple of years ago, and now they were both in bonnets and sharing a stroller as ‘sisters’. All because their voices got too loud and they couldn’t agree ahead of time on a price range. Goddamn Amazons. Couldn’t mind their own business and had to micromanage everybody else’s like they were children.  They couldn’t be happy unless they had all the power and everybody else had none. Fascists. “I’ll start taking over the finances and bookkeeping,” Dad told them. “Boys, you’ll need to pick up my slack on the physical end. Amy? How close are you to finishing your course work?” Amy made the mistake of answering honestly.  “Can we talk about this later?” she asked. “I…I miss Mom.” Dad reached over the table and placed his calloused hands on top of hers. “I miss her too, darlin’.  Probably just as much if not more than you. But we can’t take the time to miss her, just yet.  We gotta hit the ground runnin’. We gotta make a plan.” They’d had a plan, though. A good one.  And now with just one empty chair at the table, that plan was on the verge of total collapse. “Why couldn’t she have gone to the doctor’s sooner?” she asked her family. The twins exchanged dubious looks. Those looks turned dirty and started being directed towards their younger sister.  “We would’ve lost her anyways,” Jake said. “Yeah,” Marco agreed. “If she’d gotten those headaches checked out, some Amazon doctor would’ve just fried her brain and took her home with ‘em.” Of course those dumb goobers agreed with each other. Dad quietly twisted the knife. “They’re right, darlin’.  We were lucky to get out of that hospital when we did.  Not all those cots and incubators were filled with newborns.” Amy slammed her palms on the table and leapt out of her chair. “My mother just fucking died!” she yelled. “Who the fuck cares?!” “Do you think she’d want to end up in one of those cribs?” Dad said back, coldly and quiet. “Is that it?” Three hours ago, they’d just watched the life leave Mom’s body. She’d been strapped up to so many machines that she didn’t even look like a person anymore. Dad had given the order to take her off life support, and they’d all stayed in the room out of paranoia until he was satisfied that she couldn’t be resuscitated.   A little over a year ago, Mom had been getting increasingly worse headaches. Three days ago a doctor had told them that said headaches were most likely the brain tumor pressing up against the top of her skull.  Five days ago, Mom had been up and trying the seventh or eighth home remedy to help with what she was sure was just allergies, changing body chemistry, and ‘gettin’ old.’  Four days ago, Mom collapsed and wouldn’t wake up. Today she was gone forever. “At least she’d still be alive!” she screamed and ran off to her bedroom crying. The twins started to say something, but Dad. “Let her go. She just needs time. Everyone grieves in their own way.” **************************************************************************************************** Amy Madra woke up soaking wet. The smell of stale ammonia permeated her entire bedroom and her sheets clung to her legs like leeches.   “Goddamnit,” she hissed to herself. She jumped out of bed, disgusted with how she felt and sniffed the fingers of her right hand. “Orange…” she hissed. The busted lock on her bedroom door confirmed what her hands only hinted at. She stripped naked, bundled up her sheets and bedspread and hustled as fast as she could to the laundry room. Things went from inconvenient to annoying when she found the washing auto-locked and in use.  They went from annoying to absolutely fucking infuriating when she tried to take a shower and found it locked with two giggling idiots on the other side.  “JAKE!” She pounded on the door.  “MARCO! I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU ASSHOLES!” “Something the matter, baby sis?”  Jake’s voice echoed from the bathroom. “Have a good night’s sleep?” “What are you two? Twelve?” she scowled, and only got howling laughter back. They used to play pranks like this when they were kids; back before any of them was old enough to really understand what being a Little meant.  Back then being called a ‘baby’ was just childish teasing and not something bordering on a slur.  Jake and Marco had perfected the art of placing someone’s hand in warm water and forcing them to wet the bed. For reasons that were more superstitious than science, they preferred microwaved gelatin over water for ‘best results’. “Just reminding you of a couple things.”  Marco called back, snickering just long enough to throw in the veiled threat.  A month after Mom’s death and the fighting had never really stopped. Amy kept wishing Mom had taken better care of herself and sought help. Everyone else insisted that it was just ‘her time’ and seeking Amazon medical attention would have been a one way trip to Adoption. Even the funeral was filled to bursting with mourners who took way too much solace that Mom was dead and dust in an urn instead of dusted with power and diapered in a crib somewhere. Mom hadn’t even made it to forty.  Surely, being a forty year old baby and getting another forty to sixty years was better than having your thread cut at thirty-nine. Right? It wasn’t enough that Amy had dropped it. She hadn’t agreed with her family loudly enough. This was the twins’ way of lashing out at her and reminding her of her place as the ‘baby’ of the family. Family didn’t fight in public, but when they finally did find the time and privacy to hurt one another it usually escalated into all out warfare. “Fuck this.” Amy hissed and she stormed into the boys’ room.  Jake and Marco’s bunk beds stood at the back of their room. Yes, they were almost twenty and they still shared bunk beds and were pulling pranks; proof that some Littles didn’t need drugs, surgery, or hypnotic cartoons to regress. Her goober brothers had made a critical underestimation on this particular day. Amy might have wet the bed, but she had a big girl bladder these days and it refilled itself after it had been emptied in the middle of the night. First she climbed onto Marco’s bottom bunk. It was uncomfortable squatting and taking a hot piss in the middle of his mattress. Jake’s top bunk was oppressively close to her head, and the ceiling wouldn’t be much better from Jake’s mattress.  She had to hunker down like a frog and use her arms to steady herself by wedging herself between the two bunks.  She was Atlas in peeing frog form.  It wasn’t pleasant for her, but it negated the risk of pee dripping down on her head from above.  That’s why she chose Marco’s first. “Amy Madra!” Her father boomed. “What do you think you’re doing?” Amy fell off and onto the floor.  “Dad! Wait! I can explain! The boys-” “I’m not asking about the boys. I’m asking about you! What do you think you’re doing?!” “They did the bedwetting trick again and they locked me out of the bathroom!” “And you thought you’d ruin their beds, too, eh?” He shook his head, not waiting for a reply. “What would your mother think?” Ooof! That line was becoming Dad’s go to and there was no way around it.  “That if an Amazon saw me like this, they’d spank me and take me away forever.” “And?” “And the twins are a couple of dumb goobers and that I need to be better than them and not give them the satisfaction.” “And?” Amy’s small, skinny frame, sagged. She was a marionette dangling from one string.  “And I need to decide what I’m going to do to help out more than I am.”  That last part wasn’t true at all.  Most of it wasn’t true. Mom was a girl who gave as much as she got.  But it’s what Dad wanted to hear, so Amy said it.   Everybody grieves in their own way. “Alright.” Dad nodded, satisfied that his authority had been respected. “I’ll get the boys out of the bathroom so you can clean yourself up.  Then you can take a shower as soon as you clean all this up.” Amy gasped. “But-” “No buts.  It was your accident, darlin’, so you gotta clean it up.” Amy started stripping Marco’s bunk. “Yes, sir.” “Good girl. I’ll go get the spray and the air freshener for you to use.” Naked, furious, and still smelling of old piss, Amy fumed in her brothers’ room. She wasn’t the one acting like a baby. Her brothers were just acting like Amazons and her father was excusing them. The idea had been drifting in and out of her head for several weeks, but this moment is what cemented something in her head. “I need to get out of here.  I need a new plan.”  ******************************************************************************** Amy Madra looked up from her plate. “I wanna go to veterinary school,” she told her family that night. “Or go into zoology. Something like that.” “Oh yeah?” Dad said. “Why’s that?” The young girl pressed her lips and tried to appear as innocent as possible. “Oh…you know. Could be a good way to save some money in the long term.  Keep the animals healthy. Write prescriptions and stuff.” She shrugged, nonchalantly.  “I think it could be fun.” The twins rolled their eyes. “Fun?” Jake scoffed.  Marco was going to say something but Dad cut him off. “That’s a good idea, darlin’. I like it.” He took a bite out of his steak but the gears were clearly turning so fast that he couldn’t wait to swallow his food.  “Could be a good way to save a lotta money in the long run. Maybe make some extra cash from the neighbors, too.  Everybody around here needs a vet, and the neighbors like Amy.”  The neighbors didn’t really know Amy save as one of the kids at the Madra farm, but she knew what Dad meant. Littles trusted Littles.   Amy couldn’t help but feel a happy buzz spiral around in the front of her forehead. This was the first time in weeks that Dad had approved of her.  That same buzz came with guilt, too.   “I’ve already started applying,” Amy said. “I think I can get some scholarships, too.” Dad was looking back down at his plate, but was smiling to himself. “Get the scholarships if you can, but if you can’t we should be able to help.” He looked up and pointed at her with his fork. “Just don’t do something stupid like apply for a loan. That’s how they get ya.” The twins were simmering in their seats. “Looks like our baby sister is gonna be a college girl.” Marco said. It did not sound kind or happy the way he said it.   “We’ll see,” Jake said. “She’s gotta get in, first.” “And pass.” “And not get Adopted.” Amy didn’t begrudge her brothers their jealousy. They were the competitive sort, and from their point of view, Amy was upstaging them. They could herd cattle and tinker with any piece of equipment and keep it running far longer than the manufacturer intended. But Amy would be able to write prescriptions and sign off on certifications. Their hard skills got the job done, but they lacked certain certifications to legitimize the business. From their point of view she might be endangering their inheritance, even.  “Of course you’ll be looking for local colleges,” Dad said. “You’ll save money if you stay at home while you study.” This was not up for debate, Amy knew. “Of course.” Her smile drooped back down. She knew she could survive staying home for a couple more years.  But not going to college in some distant far off place would make it easier for them to track her down.  Make it harder for her not to keep her promise that she had no intention of fulfilling. ***************************************************************************** Amy Madra opened the pen’s inner gate, clumsily lugging two big clunky buckets filled to the brim with kibble behind her.   The petting zoo- home to many of the animals that were big enough for Amazon children to play with but small enough that they were unlikely to get hurt- was made up of a common area and a series of smaller pens along the periphery.  The common area was for giants and their children to muck about in, and the side pens were where the different animals slept and ate their meals. Every pen had two gates, like an air lock on a submarine, and the outer gate had to be closed in order for the inner one to open. This handy dandy mechanism made it harder for the donkeys to harass the kangaroos at night, or for middle schoolers to send the miniature clydesdales on an impromptu parade because they ‘forgot’ to close a gate. The summer sun was just beginning to crest on the horizon, but visitors had already started to trickle in. The winter holidays were when shopping centers made their big bucks, but summer was when the zoos and amusement parks dug themselves out of the red every year.  The animals under her care hadn’t fully woken up yet, so Amy and the other zookeepers were more of an attraction right now, but that was about to change. “Tisket!” Amy called out. “Tasket! Heeeere chic-chic-chic-chics!”   A pair of large brown birds lumbered out into the morning air.  Amy froze for a moment, waiting for the emus to register her presence and see that she was placing today’s breakfast on the ground.  Tisket and Tasket- though she could never remember which was which- waited just long enough for her to step back and then charged so that they could engorge themselves on specially ground up pellets formulated to meet the birds’ specific nutritional needs.  Not exactly the kind of thing they’d be scavenging for in the wild, but it did the trick.  Plus, the pellets looked like cereal puffs and tasted kind of like peanut butter. Amy stepped away from the birds, turning her back to them so that she could fetch the pooper scooper and hose.  She always made sure to clean the animal pens while they were feeding first thing in the morning, so that they’d get used to her presence and associate it with positive things.  It also let her get two jobs out of the way at once.  No way was she going to be accused of slacking; letting some rowdy tyke harass some poor pot-bellied Ermathian pig because she was too busy mucking out stalls. One might think that specifically being assigned to maintaining the petting zoo would have been a slight at Amy’s expense, but the Little woman was good at it.  She liked the animals that didn’t instinctively want to murder her, and felt uniquely qualified in her role.  Even the tamest of her lot was easily spooked by Amazons while they were some of the biggest cuddliest goobers to her.  They were good and patient with the kids and Tweeners, but any Amazon past puberty registered as a predator to most of them.   This reinforced Amy’s personal headcanon that Amazons were in fact an invasive species that time forgot and history re-wrote, but for obvious reasons never shared with her co-workers. Outside the emu pen, a small audience was starting to gather. Even the best zoos weren’t half as active or interesting as movies and television clips made them seem and the Oakshire Wildlife Gardens was decidedly not the best zoo.  Oakshire wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t exciting. Same for its zoo. It was too close to home- literally- but the apartments were cheap and she got paid well enough to be able to save up for something better.   Something like plane tickets. “Mommy! Mommy!” Some Amazon kid screamed at the top of their lungs. “What’s the baby doing in there?” “It looks like she’s feeding the birdies,dear. And she’s not a baby, she’s a Little.” Another adult Amazon snickered. “What’s the difference?” A smattering of chuckles signed off on that sentiment.  Amy ignored it and kept doing her job.  Like all of the zookeepers at the Gardens she wore a pith helmet and a khaki button up shirt with a matching skirt. Calling it a ‘skirt’ was generous; it was more like a crotch curtain. She couldn’t sit, bend over or even walk particularly fast without everyone around her finding out what she was wearing underneath.  Her manager insisted that it was the only uniform piece in her size, that the shorts that literally everyone else wore were out of stock, and that it was company policy for all employees to dress fully in uniform.  The glint in his eye had signaled that he was expecting an argument; perhaps hoping that she’d whine about how immodest or impractical it was or that she’d quit on the spot so that he could Adopt her under the pretense of her being unable to meet a commitment.  She’d just taken the skirts without complaint and had come into work with her own khaki shorts underneath. There was nothing in the employee handbook that said she couldn’t and Mr. Kennedy wasn’t stupid enough to push back on it.  More murmurings of “look” and “cute” reached Amy’s ears; and not all of them were about Tisket and Tasket.  She swept some shed feathers and bird leavings into a disposal container and looked up at the emus.  “Lucky…” she sighed to herself. Emus were about the same size as Littles, but so much faster. Their legs were pogo sticks made of pure muscle. To Amy’s opinion, they didn’t run as much as they bounced from foot to foot. Given enough open terrain an emu could easily outpace even an Amazon and be a blip on the horizon with the pursuing giant huffing and puffing way behind.   To Amy’s thinking, this served as proof that Littles were not, in fact, descended from emus. Emus, ironically, fared in the open where they could sprint away from sources of danger. By contrast, Amy felt safer with the big posts and wire fencing separating her from her own natural predators. She was a little over halfway done cleaning the enclosure when she had to attend to her least favorite part of her job. The same mother and kid were up to something dangerous and stupid. The young zookeeper, just out of college, darted over to the fence.  The Amazon was dangling her not-so-little girl over the barrier from the walkway.  The kid looked to be five or six, Amy guessed, but she wasn’t sure.  It turned out Amy had the same deficiency in guessing Amazon’s ages that Amazons had in guessing hers only in reverse.  Maybe the kid was closer to three or four; she could still absolutely body Amy into the ground and had the strength to wring the emu’s necks if she wasn’t careful. Amy loved her animal friends. Animals were amazing at communicating their thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs. People? Not so much. “Hello ma’am!” she spouted the words out in rapid succession, casting her spell. “Do you like petting zoos? I do! I think it’s a great way for children to interact with animals in an environment that is safe for everyone including the animals! Did you know that emus eat rocks to grind up food in their stomach? This is because they never evolved the technology to invent dentures. Also they are known to lay awake in their beds at night before finally going to sleep despite not having mortgages.” The mother froze, her child still dangling by the armpits. Both mother monster and hellspawn scrunched up their faces in started yet bemused confusion.  “What?” Amy smiled to herself, and ran her tongue over her teeth underneath sealed lips. Starting conversations via information overload was something of her specialty; her signature move if you will.   They could ignore and argue with single statements easy as pie; but give them a grab bag full of questions, trivia, and random intrusive thoughts and something in their brain short circuited and put them on the back foot.  “The entrance to the petting zoo is that way,” she pointed to her left past the two layers of safety gates, all while flashing a big toothy smile to signal that she wasn’t annoyed or bothered by the boundary breaking and obvious entitlement.  Clearly the mother had just misunderstood the rules of the zoo and hadn’t seen the multitudinous signs telling them to stay out of the animal pens. “Oh…” the bigger woman blushed and picked her daughter all the way up, placing the girl back on the correct side of the barrier.  “I’m sorry. I misunderstood.” The young zookeeper shrugged. “It’s no big deal. Easy mistake,” she lied.  “The animals will be ready to play with the kiddos as soon as they’re done eating.” One would have thought that it would be obvious. The petting zoo had hours of operation in which to expect the animals, and that time had not yet arrived. That and all the ‘KEEP OUT’ signs and basic fucking etiquette. Common sense, right? But Amazons were big enough to where they didn’t need to have common sense or cleverness to thrive. They just had to be big. The stranger nodded, absorbing Amy’s polite admonitions and corrections. “Ooooh. That makes sense! I’m sorry, Little girl.  That was my fault.”  She bent over, put her hands on her knees and regarded her crotch spawn.   “See, Reagan? Even Grown-Ups make mistakes sometimes.” The pudgy faced preschooler nodded her head like she’d been given the sagest advice. “Don’t worry about it!” she said. Then in a stage whisper she motioned to the kid. “Don’t worry, they still love snacks. These guys never get full!” The brat stuck her tongue out at Amy and all of the Amazons laughed at the precocious scamp.  Amy ignored it and went back to work.  Shit like this was why she swore off ever having children of her own.   Common sense said that Amy was risking her adulthood if not her life.  People visited the zoo every single day and there was no telling what might set a giant off that would get her fired or worse.  Something like stumbling and almost falling in the dirt might be enough for some insane infantilizer to see her as a target in need of permanent ‘help’. Independence had taught Amy differently. She was rightly cautious not to rile the big folks up, but the visitors weren’t her primary concern.  Amazons were a lot like alligators, megalo-crocs, and other aggressive reptilian species.  They were dangerous, but the ones out in the swamps were the least of one’s concerns.  Unfamiliar prey wasn’t worth the risk for most crocodilians. Too much wasted energy for an uncertain return on investment. Things only got risky when the big beasts became more familiar with people; when idiots in canoes decided to share a snack with them or when a beach became a regular hotspot with lots of clumsy splashing and no added danger. That’s when their tiny reptile brains would learn to associate people with easy food and a lack of repercussions. That’s when tragedies struck. The same was true for Amazons.  Yes, she saw strange Amazons every single day, but there were more dangerous professions: Toy store clerks, for example, or teachers; anything that might cue the big folks into associating a Little with childhood. The people who came to the Gardens were there to gawk at animals both strange and commonplace; they weren’t there with babying on the brain.   Could it happen? Of course. But nobody came here actively looking to Adopt. Amy was more at risk from her co-workers catching a case of cossets than from a random passerby wanting to pet a pig.  Pete was way too friendly for comfort and Jillian’s eyes were always undressing Amy and then putting her back in something crinkly.  The worst part was that despite herself, she really liked Pete and Jillian.  Besides being Amazons they were pretty alright.  That’s how they got ya, too.  Don’t get overly friendly with things that didn’t understand friendship.    It’s when the Amazons started liking you that you were at the greatest risk. When you became more than just a random Little to them and they identified you as someone they wanted in their life was when you had to be on guard. The strangers saw her as just another Little. Her co-workers had become familiar and wanted her to be their Little. She’d managed for about half a year, pitting them against each other two or three at a time and playing off their individual jealousies and quirks.  Amazons were not great at sharing, Littles included, and all of her potential wardens contented themselves to looking instead of touching as long as none of the others got to her first.   The tricky part was that zookeepers weren’t paid great. Her hours, pay, and the general cost of living left Amy with no social life to speak of.  It was nice to be wanted; even if she didn’t want to be caught. The closest thing she’d had to a date night in the past four years was the time that Jillian took her out for drinks after work and Amy secretly poured her ‘mocktail’ into Jillian’s while she was in the bathroom.  Jillian had to rush back in an hour later, and Amy had to take the bus back to her apartment, but it was better than what would have happened if she’d finished her drink and/or gotten back in Jillian’s car. This wasn’t the ideal life, but it was all hers.  No father living in constant fear. No brothers trying to stay ahead of her in a competition that only existed in their heads. Yet she needed to start sending in resumes to other zoos, and soon; probably before the year was out. The manager and her co-workers wouldn’t be patient forever, and Oakshire was always meant to be a step in her gradual ascension, never a final destination. These sort of things weighed on her mind almost everyday. It wasn’t always comfortable but it was normal.  The world wasn’t fair, but if one was particularly clever, one could at least break even.  And Amy Madra was nothing if not clever… THWIP! THWIP! THUNK! Something sharp and painful pricked at her ears and then something big knocked her from behind, sending her sprawling to the ground.  Her head bounced in the dirt like a basketball. Her skull pounded and her ears rang.  Her muscles throbbed and she felt a slight breeze and a stinging near her shoulder blades. Patches of skin stung from skidding scrapes and a tiny bit of blood dripped onto the nape of her neck.  The world floated and spun around her for an indeterminable amount of time. Perhaps three seconds, perhaps a lifetime followed by a time paradox reset.  When she was able to say something, her words were directed up at the idiot birds looming over her and pecking at her head.  “The fuck, guys?”   She covered her head with one arm and used the other to shoo Tisket and Tasket away.  The birds jumped back but did not keep their distance, their long necks snaking around and their beady little eyes focused on her head.  They kept pecking at her, lightly this time, and followed her whilst she tried to roll away and get her footing. She quickly gave up waving them away, and instead covered her head with both hands.  It was when she checked her ears that she realized what had gone wrong. Emus could be very sweet birds, but they were not particularly bright and loved shiny objects. Today, for whatever reason, Amy had forgotten to remove her favorite earrings and Tisket (or maybe it was Tasket) had taken notice and did what big dumb birds did.   It was embarrassing, but hardly life threatening.  Amy was bruised up, but nothing was broken.  Her shirt was ripped, but she had spares in her worklocker for just such a mishap.  Camel spit happened. Hippo poop happened. Dumb birds pecking, kicking, and tackling you happened.  It came with the job.  “SOMEBODY!”  A distant sounding voice called out. “SOMEBODY HELP! THE OSTRICHES ARE ATTACKING A LITTLE GIRL!” Still hazy, Amy felt the ground tremble and saw the emus do what they did best when scared. She was in the strange Amazon’s arms a second later while the birds strafed the edges and stayed as far away as they could manage.   “Don’t worry, Little girl. I’ve got you,” the Amazon cooed. “I’ve got you!” Amy was about to try and say something but her pith helmet fell off.  The woman’s gasp was audible. “WE NEED AN AMBULANCE OVER HERE!”  the stranger screamed. “SOMEBODY CALL THE HOSPITAL! SHE’S BLEEDING! I THINK SHE MIGHT HAVE A CONCUSSION OR SOMETHING!  HER SKULL IS CRACKED OPEN!” “Huh?” Amy mumbled, the world still spinning. Her ears were still bleeding but that was the worst of it. She might need stitches, but she’d had worse growing up. Her brothers saw to that. The Amazon had dirty blonde hair that was parted down the middle, and swept back into a high ponytail.  She gazed at the Little zookeeper in her arms like Amy was the most precious thing in the world.  Her piercing green eyes had completely stopped blinking, afraid that Amy would somehow evaporate and disappear into the last remnants of morning fog.  “Little girl? Little girl?!” The panicked stranger practically screamed in her face. “Little girl, can you hear me? Do you know where you are? Do you know your name?” “Amy…” she croaked out.  “Please put me-” “Everything is gonna be alright, Amy!” the stranger interrupted. “I’ve got you. Miss Helena’s got you! You’ve taken a very bad fall and you’re bleeding, but you’re gonna be alright, honey. I promise!” Amy ran her hands along the back of her head and only a few stray hairs came back. No, that wasn’t entirely accurate.  “It’s not blood,” Amy tried to explain. “It’s just hair dye.”  She’d dyed her hair bright red a week prior and the color was still running. Her pillow at home was perma-stained ’pop-punk-passion’ as the label had described it and bits of dye were still splashing off in the shower every time she rinsed her hair. The clouds and the morning sun whizzed by above her.  The gates out of the emu pen and into the main petting zoo area squeaked in protest.  People were on their phones calling for help and filming the brave woman who had just rescued the poor unfortunate Little from an animal attack. Voices, familiar and unfamiliar, were asking a million questions at once and none of them were directed at her. “Those big nasty ostriches attacked her out of nowhere!” Someone shrieked. “Poor baby!” “Emus,” Amy groaned. “They’re emus…”  Nobody heard her. The rest went by in a blur.  Her co-workers ran to see what the commotion was, but not one of them stopped or corrected the woman.  Pete? Jillian? Fucking Mr. Kennedy?  As soon as the word “Ambulance” came out of someone’s mouth, they had no further questions, besides “are the animals okay?” Amy ended up getting a free ambulance ride to the hospital. The ‘nice’ paramedic gave her something to help her relax on the way there. Amy relaxed so much that she got her first diaper change in the middle of the ride to the hospital.  She’d tried to refuse it but the needle went in anyway. Same for the diaper. It’s hard to be clever when nobody will listen to you.  Damn near impossible. The good news was that she didn’t have any broken bones and only a few scrapes and bruises. All easily fixable with the right topical treatments.  No concussion either.  But then a pediatric specialist came in and diagnosed her with something called “Maturosis”. “Are you her guardian?” the doctor, an Amazon male with broad shoulders, a chiseled jaw, and a full head of hair asked the stranger who had dragged her here. “No,” strange Amazon admitted. “I just saw that she was in trouble and knew I had to help.” The doctor smiled.  “Would you like to be?” ***************************************************************************************************** Amy Madra lied on the changing table with the biggest, cheekiest, most shit-eating grin on her face, staring up at one of the meanest, angriest, most controlling Amazons she’d yet to have the displeasure of encountering.  “Amy!” The middle-aged Amazon lady with the curly hair and glasses sneered down at her. “I can’t believe you just did that!” Amy looked past her so-called teacher and gazed up at her own reflection in the ceiling mirror.  It was obvious what the mirror was for; it was almost impossible for a Little to open their eyes and see anything but how the giants wanted to see them.  Every step of the entire humiliating process could be seen as it happened in real time. The thing is there was something hilarious about the way the other woman looked at her. For all her size and authority, Amy thought she looked like the impotent dean that gets pranked in every bad college movie.  Amy’s pants were bunched up by her ankles, and her legs were boosted up and pushed back while the maternal monstress dragged ice cold wipes between her cheeks.  Yet Amy was the one in control, here. Honestly, Amy wasn’t sure what this Beouf woman was so mad about. This latest change was probably the easiest clean up job that the professional brainwasher had ever had to do. That’s because the majority of the pee and poop were in the toilet where they belonged. “Mrs. Zoge?!” the lead reprogrammer turned her head and bellowed. “Any luck finding the other scissors?” “I’ve found two pairs!” the torturer’s assistant called back. “One in the reading nook, and one taped underneath the independent puzzle center!” Beouf didn’t speak it aloud, but Amy could still read the “How the…?” on her lips. Legs, still up in the air, the Little girl laughed through her nose, her amused squeaks sounding like a guinea pig that had just been given a veggie treat.   “Don’t you dare laugh about this, young lady!” the teacher barked down at her. “What you did was very dangerous!”   Amy cocked an eyebrow. “Going…potty?” “Playing with scissors!”  Red faced and flustered, Beouf finally remembered to grab a new diaper and slip it under Amy. The old diaper wasn’t wet or messy in the slightest, but Amy had rendered it useless. The adhesive on the tapes was impossible to rip off bare handed, and something about the way they were designed seemed to make the waistbands tighter when pulled down, but the things weren’t indestructible.   All one needed was a sharp enough blade, like a box cutter or a steak knife-or in this case a pair of Amazon sized scissors- and an enterprising Little could slip their crinkly confinements. Amy had done it several times before; it’s what had gotten her kicked out of the first daycare and enrolled in this ‘special’ program. This however, was a far greater feat than even she had thought to accomplish. She’d managed to time it just right so that she’d run to the bathroom, cut her diaper off at the sides, and actually use the Little sized toilet for its intended purpose! For some reason, the Amazons didn’t like that.  The big dumb goobers didn’t care to be proven wrong and Amy had just thrown a fun monkey wrench into their arguments that Littles instantly lost all their potty training. She’d done it at her old daycare, but her old daycare didn’t have any bathrooms within sprinting distance and the changing tables were out in front where everyone could easily see.  She failed simply because she never had the opportunity succeed.  This was still a massive win!   The daycare workers at the old place had been very upset at her walking around naked again and again, and they definitely didn’t care for her peeing on the floor.  That’s what they got for leaving out sharp objects where clever ‘babies’ possessing adult intelligence could smuggle and hide them for later use. Goddamn fucking fascists. To Beouf and Zoge’s credit, they connected the dots quickly and did an immediate inventory.  She probably wasn’t going to get to this again. Not for a while anyhow. Helena Milner had already Little-proofed her entire house and everything that sliced, diced, buzzed, jolted, or created anything resembling ‘an owie’ had been locked away and barred from her. Beouf’s face was redder than Amy’s hair when she was done powdering the girl and forcefully yanking up the new diaper between her legs. Amy fiddled with the pacifier clipped to her shirt, but left it alone, preferring to suck on her front teeth instead.   Random Thought: If Adopted Littles had greater access to social media, #angrydiaperchange would totally have been a thing. The lead Amazon took Amy’s squeaking giggles as a personal affront. She went for Amy’s shoes and took the pants and socks with them.  “We’ll. Just. Hold. Onto. These.” She growled. Amy didn’t know it at the time, but her wardrobe would be getting a significant revamp in the near future. Goodbye toddler shorts and anything that she could undress independently in. Hello onesies, rompers, and full body pajamas until she could be trusted.  Funny, since diapers by their very design were for people who couldn’t be trusted to make it to the toilet…which she totally had.  Beouf turned her head and called out again. “Any luck?!” “Not yet!” came Zoge’s reply. “Mommy!” Ivy’s voice butted in. “Did you check the play area?” Still strapped down to the changing table, Amy used all of her willpower to keep from cursing but  she was begging to boil.  FUCK!   REALLY IVY?!   SHE COULDN’T HAVE MINDED HER OWN DAMN BUSINESS JUST THIS ONCE? She’d been so clever about where she hid the scissors. Waited several business days to ensure that they hadn’t been missed.  She really regretted not slicing open that toy octopus and stashing a pair there. She would have given herself bonus points if she could have smuggled it home. Out of all the Littles Amy had ever met, Ivy was by far the most mindfucked.  She seemed to love tattling on the others and Amy swore the Yamatoan looking girl got a tiny orgasm every time an authority figure gave her a pat on the head.  There was being completely mindfucked, and then there was being a teacher’s pet.  Amy could forgive one, but not the other.   Everything that came out of that creature’s mouth was straight out of every bit of Amazon propaganda ever written.  The girl had no original thoughts. Nothing was in her head that wasn’t placed there by one of her caregivers.  The other ‘kids’ she’d met were different degrees of broken down and grieving their former lives, same as her, and she definitely didn’t like all of them, but she understood them.   They were Littles. They’d played the game and lost and everyone was keeping themselves as sane as they could in their own way after a fashion.   Ivy? Ivy was just a miniature Amazon with the baby crazy directed inward.  That bothered Amy. It bothered Amy more that Ivy was exactly the type of ‘child’ that Helena Milner wanted Amy to be.  This? This wasn’t death. But ending up like Ivy? Close e-fucking-nuff. The other Littles, save Ivy, were all in the nap room, imprisoned in cribs and locked down until all cutting and slicing implements had been accounted for.  “I think we’ve got them,” Zoge reported. Beouf exhaled and picked Amy up on her hip.  “Alright,” she said. “Let the other rascals out.” They came out of the bathroom together and Beouf remembered something. “Check the sheets and mattresses while you’re at it!” “Yes, ma’am.” FUCK AGAIN! Amy hadn’t hidden anything in there, but she’d been considering it.  The baby monitor they had was second hand and didn’t seem terribly sensitive. She had been wondering if she could cut up the sheets into thinner strips and make a blanket rope like in the movies.  It wouldn’t help her escape, but escape was never her intent.  When you weren’t allowed to have money, a job, hobbies, or friends of your choosing, you made your own entertainment, (and pissing off Amazons was pretty damn funny.) “Miss B?” A sniveling man-child named Randal whimpered upon exiting the nap room. “What happened?” “Amy made some very bad choices, my love.” Zoge answered. “Most unfortunate.” “What’d she do?” “She was playing with scissors and could’ve gotten hurt.” “Doing what?” Amy gripped onto Beouf’s shoulder, sucking on her teeth and trying not to laugh. “She was trying to change her own diaper.” Amy blinked, suddenly drenched in confusion.  Seriously?!  Beouf didn’t give time for any more questions or corrections. “She had a messy diaper on, but she stole some of Mrs. B’s scissors and cut it off and dumped it in the toilet.” Half a dozen of her fellow inmates gaped and gawked like she’d done something amazing.  The rest snickered and whispered “still thinks she’s a big girl,” to one another. Ivy’s nose wrinkled.  “That’s yucky, Mommy!” “It is,” Zoge agreed.  “And much more difficult to clean up.” “I know some of you really want to help,” Mrs. Beouf talked down her Little flock, “but things like scissors are not toys and Amy could have really hurt herself.”  She looked at Amy and softened, bouncing her on her hip while she continued on with her teachable moment. “Dirty diapers can feel yucky, and a lot of you still have big emotions and might get embarrassed. But it’s okay to ask for help. That’s what Mrs. Zoge and I are here for. That’s what your Mommies and Daddies are for. It’s okay to have an accident and ask for help.” There was no way that this bitch thought that. No possible way. Amy had still been peeing when Beouf had burst in and caught her! She was either lying or delusional! Facts didn’t matter when someone else’s feelings determined the truth. Goddamn fascist- “BULLSHIT!”  In her ire, Amy had forgotten to keep her inner monologue ‘inner’. Beouf tensed and hardened instantly. “Mrs. Zoge. Please watch the class.  I’ll be right back.” “Yes ma’am.” The Yamatoan answered back with the seriousness of a guard awaiting an inmate’s execution. Amy felt herself tense when the Amazon opened up the back door and took her into the small in-between area too small to even count as a hallway.  This was it.  Just like last time, she’d crossed a line and the giant ‘Grown-Up’ was going to put lie to her own beliefs by giving Amy an ass beating that she’d never forget. She was going to cry, Amy knew. Assuming she could form words, she was going to lie and apologize and swear she’d never play with sharp things or say naughty words ever ever again.  Whatever her torturer demanded to say she was eventually going to say it after a lot of pain.  That’s just kind of how torture worked.  “I wonder what my next daycare will be like,” she mused to herself, wanting to speed things along.  Amazons were awful, but Helena Milner was a soft touch when it came to spanking. She’d been whooped at the last prison and her exodus from that place wasn’t wholly the staffs’ idea. Beouf didn’t take the bait.  She opened a second door and marched on in. If Amy had placed a bet on the existence of a ‘Spanking Room’ to coexist with the Nap Room then she would have just lost a lot of money. Through the back door was an actual classroom with actual children; ones who looked like they might be young enough to be singing ‘Wheels On The Bus’ and finger painting without it being a complete insult to their intelligence.  “Mr. Gibson,” Beouf fumed. “I am terribly sorry to interrupt your class, but is it okay if Amy stays with you for a few minutes while I go make a phone call?” Amy looked around, expecting to see another Amazon. Another control freak that wanted nothing to put her up on the shelf and file her away as inconsequential. Her heart skipped a beat when the reply came from much much lower to the ground.  “Sure thing, Mrs. Beouf. Just put her on the bean bag in the corner and I’ll have a talk with her.” A Little? Here?!  Right next door to the brainwashing room?  How in Hephaestus’s crispy blue balls did that happen?! Beouf set Amy down in the corner and slammed the door without looking back.  “Okay gang,” he said to a pod of three year olds. “I want you to separate these shape cards into piles. Count the sides, match them up, group them together. Any questions?” “How many sides do circles have?” Someone who was actually young enough to maybe need diapers asked. “That’s a question for philosophy,” the Little man said. When none of the toddlers got his joke, he told them, “just group the circles and the ovals together.” For a moment, Amy Madra allowed herself to feel hope. Or if not hope, then at least a spark of inspiration. This was a Little that was allowed to walk around Amazons sans padding. He had a goatee and everything!  She marveled at the relative stealth of his approach. It had been two months since anyone her size didn’t move with the sound of a thousand plastic bags stuffed down their pants. He smelled of soap and deodorant instead of baby powder.  This changed everything! “So,” the Little man hissed to her. “What are you in for?” “Long story,” Amy tried. “And it involves emus.” The Little man frowned. “Huh? No, I mean what did you do to piss Beouf off?” he whispered. “Do you have any idea how patient she is? She’s a nutter, but she genuinely believes she’s doing right by you and wants what’s best for you.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled, talking down to her like she was a dumb kid and just a few years his junior. “Now why the fuck would you go and try and mess that up?” Amy’s spirits and expression started to droop so much that it felt like her face was melting off her skull like candle wax.  This changed nothing.  This guy was a Helper, through and through. He might as well have been Ivy except he still got to dress himself as a perk. The sellout leaned sideways against the near wall and crossed his arms. From his meticulously combed hair all the way to his goatee he looked down on her as if she’d just fallen off the turnip truck and he was some wise master at the top of the mountain.  “First off, I can’t help you get out of here, so don’t ask.” Amy sniffed and caught a whiff of her own powdered bottom. “Yeah,” she moped. “I kinda figured that.” “Good. Now let me tell you something that I tell pretty much everybody that ends up here.” ***************************************************************************************************** Amy woke up in her crib.  It was the middle of the night and thunderous cramps had rocked her out of an otherwise peaceful slumber.  “Fuck…” Amy mumbled, her eyes still closed.  Or maybe they weren’t. It was unusually dark in the nursery tonight.  Another cramp prevented Amy from rolling over and going back to sleep. Helena Milner had switched from Little formula to some kind of goat’s milk. The stuff tasted good enough and really hit the spot but it didn’t taste like milk from any species of goat that Amy was familiar with.  The flavor and sweet fattiness was there, but there was something with the texture.  It was probably breastmilk. Not so deep down she knew this. As disgusting as the thought was, Amy justified it to herself thusly: Amazons might as well have been a different species. A parasitic and predatory one at that.  She didn’t flinch while drinking milk that came from another species’ udders so it wasn’t logical to balk at consuming milk from another species even if their udders were much more pleasingly shaped. Presently the stuff was really doing a number on her digestive system.  She’d long since adapted to having a gluten allergy- proper bread and cookies had been off the table since she was nine or ten; but was she becoming lactose intolerant too?  Unlikely.  Her stools weren’t watery like diarrhea but gone were the days of hard pellets clogging her up and giving Helena Milner fits. (The woman was obsessed with being a ‘good Mommy’ except in all the ways that nurtured independence. Amy wasn’t incontinent. Just that when she had to go she really had to go and her body was going to beat her up until she listened to it. Amy moaned lightly to herself and pushed herself up to all fours. She winced in the darkness when she felt the night time diaper sag.  It had been just a couple of months, but Amy’s body was getting better and better at going without her knowledge or concent; especially while she slept.  Maybe it was the milk?  She lifted her hand to her nose and gave her fingers a sniff, just to give her something to latch onto. No orange gelatin smell or stickiness.  A third cramp made her face scrunch up.  She definitely wasn’t going back to sleep now. She’d been good with going to sleep in a clean diaper. Not a wet one. “Might as well…” she whispered to no one in particular and started pushing. It only took three long and painful grunts for her conscious body to bypass her unconscious resistance, after which the vile stuff felt like it was a snake slithering out on its own.   The pain in her belly subsided while her general dissatisfaction with life skyrocketed. She literally hated this shit.  She stayed frozen on her hands and knees after, unsure of what to do next. She wasn’t going back to sleep, but there wasn’t much to do in a dark room trapped in a crib. She supposed she might be able to trip the latch to her crib again, the one that Helena Milner didn’t know about when she’d assembled it incorrectly. What would she do after that, though? Wait? Hide under the crib and give Milner a heart attack when she wasn’t there? That did sound like jolly good fun.  The big downside was that Amy had no idea what time it was or how long she’d have to endure her own stink. Five minutes before Helena Milner busted in and started singing like a movie princess? Yarp. Five hours? Nah. The nursery was darker than usual.  The bulb on her nightlight had burned out and she wasn’t allowed to have a clock. And Amy had slept just long enough to still feel exhausted and still want more. “Don’t be stupid,” she told herself.  There was no point in hurting herself for some moral victory. Purposefully staying in a wet and dirty diaper counted as self-harm.  She inclined her head and called out towards the general direction of the baby monitor.  “Helena? Helena, wake up! Wake up, wake up, wake up!  Helena? Helena!” She paused and listened. “Hel-eh-nuh!”  Again there was nothing.   Oh right.  This was one of those conditioning monitors. Meh. She’d already been through so much these last couple months. The school’s fall festival was coming up and Helena had picked out a transforming ‘Baby Butterfly’ costume. She could be forced to crawl as a caterpillar, swaddled into a pupa, or toddle around with glittering wings. Saying the M-word wasn’t particularly infantilizing or degrading by comparison.” “Mommy-Mommy-Mommy-Mommy!’ She took a breath. That should be enough for the stupid box to activate. “Helena?! Wake up! I need my diaper changed! Come change me!”  A little louder she yelled  “Come on! I know you love that stuff! Once in a nighttime opportunity here!” Finally there was a sound.  But it wasn’t the tired shuffling footsteps she’d gotten used to hearing when Helena was turning off the lights just before she slept. And it wasn’t the heavy footsteps of the psychotic giantess when she was wide awake and bursting with maternal energy.   These footsteps were faster. Softer too. A pitter-patter if you will.  Like hers. And it sounded like there was more than one set.  Helena’s single floor suburban domicile was almost as big as her old two story farmhouse. She shouldn’t have been able to hear the pitter-patter of Little feet through the door. The ever present hum of air conditioning alone would drown it out.        Amy’s senses started to sharpen.  There was no air conditioning. The nursery ceiling fan wasn’t stirring the air. The tiny light where the baby monitor should be wasn’t glowing. The nightlight wasn’t burned out, the power was out! There was a crunching, grinding sound coming from the other side of door. Not the sound of a knob being turned; the sound of a lock being hastily broken.  Amy held her breath.  The door creaked open.   “Amy?” a voice called out into the darkness. “Amy? Are you in here?” A blinding beam of light flashed into her eyes. Amy winced and held her hands out in front of her face. “Ha! Found you!” Amy knew that voice! “Jake?” “Jake’s in the truck,” her other brother whispered back. “I’m Marco.  Now come on!” Amy’s face didn’t change. This was a dream. Just had to be a dream. No way would her dipshit brothers go to all the trouble to find her and break her out.  “What are you doing here?” “I’m busting you out, goober!” Marco hissed back. “Now tell me how to get you out of that baby cage so we can get you the fuck out of here! Jake and me ruined the old truck bed knocking over a power pole three blocks back and we’re fucked if that Amazon wakes up! ”    Instinct and adrenaline kicked in, preventing her from overthinking the situation. “Gotcha!” she said and crawled to the corner by the foot of her bed so she could fiddle with the latch.  The process took ten whole seconds and those ten seconds were the longest of her life. “Way to go, baby sis!” Marco quietly cheered.  She couldn’t see his face clearly but she could hear his disgust when he said “Damn it stinks in here.” Amy’s blush felt like it was enough to light up the whole house. “Yeah. That’s me. Sorry. Tell me you’ve got a box cutter or something.” “In the truck,” Marco promised. “And some real clothes.” “Wipes?” The outline that was her brother shrugged. “Didn’t think you’d need them.”  Amy rolled and tumbled over the railing and onto the floor.  On the way out she crinkled past the changing table and stole a packet of wipes.   She lingered two seconds longer than she needed to because she was trying to piece together what to do with the dirty diaper and wipes when she was done? Would taking one of the pail liners work?  “Come on!” Marco nagged, his voice picking up more urgency. “We gotta go!” Amy mentally chastised herself and realized that she could literally just toss her shit out the truck window while they were driving.  Man, she’d been here too long. They sneaked through the eerily quiet house past several layers of wrecked baby gates and under cover of darkness. Helena Milner must have been out like a light. Were she not so terrified she would have suggested that Marco slip the giantess’s hand into a cup of something warm, just for the dramatic irony. That and the power was out and Helena Milner preferred stocking chocolate pudding cups to orange gelatin.  True to Marco’s description the old truck had been rendered pretty much useless. It was a miracle the back axle was intact enough to where it would still drive. It was parked parallel to the road, waiting to speed off as soon as one of them crawled down to the floor and worked the Amazon sized foot pedals. Its headlights were off and the engine was idling  “Woo-weee!” Jake crowed when they got in the truck. “Welcome back, baby sis! Missed ya, kiddo!”  He sniffed the air. “Did not miss that smell, though…” “Fuck you and hand me something sharp,” Amy said. As promised she was handed a box cutter.  “Strip fast or be ready for some bumps,” Jake said. “We gotta move!” Marco started to slide down to the floor boards so that he could work the pedals. “Hold on,” she stopped him. “Let me work the pedals. That way I can help and stay hidden.” The twins did that thing where they read each other’s minds. “Now she wants help…” Jake muttered. “Are you sure you don’t wanna get changed first?” Marco asked. “Get into some real clothes?”  Amy kept sliding down and scooting for the pedals, blocking her brothers’ way.  “Do you want an apology, me to smell good, or to get the fuck out of here?” They didn’t need to do their whole twin telepathy thing to make a decision. “Floor it!” It was a tense half an hour before any of the three siblings spoke to one another. “How did you find me?”  Helena Milner had Adopted her but had decided to forego the official process of eliminating her legal identity in favor of creating a new one. Helena had stolen Amy’s savings, the security deposit from her apartment, and her final paychecks to purchase the first round of furniture and supplies.  It also meant that no message had been sent out informing Dad and the twins what had happened to her. “We went looking for you,” Jake said. “Wanted you to come back home.” A horn blaring and a jerky swerving motion paused the reunion. Marco took over. “Checked every place that we could find that would hire Littles. Zoo told us you got snatched and they were stupid enough to give us a forwarding address.” “To your apartment,” Jake broke in.  “Tweener secretary gave us your Amazon’s name so we could try and collect your…shit…what was that word?” “Personal effects,” Marco helped. “Yeah. That.  Then we did some sleuthing aaaand here we are.” “Why didn’t you guys try to find me sooner?” Amy asked. It sounded less grateful than she had intended.  “Like you wanted to be found…” Jake snarled. “Jake,” Marco said. “Go easy on her. We can yell at her for being stupid later. Let’s just get back to where we all belong.” The silence stretched along with the road.  “Does Dad know?” “That you got Adopted?” Marco asked. “Course he does.” “Knows what happened, too.” Jake said. “You were in the paper, baby sis. ‘Local Woman Saves Little From Petting Zoo Attack.’” Marco softened the blow. “It was buried deep in the Local section. No follow up. No names. Just a couple paragraphs.” “Found it linked on MistuhGwiffin.” “But it was there.”     “Is Dad…is he mad at me?” The twins spoke at once but not in unison. Jake said “Yes”. Marco said “No”. Amy said “Huh? Which is it?” There was more silence. Marco broke it and her with, “Sis? Dad’s dying.” Jake twisted the knife with, “We wanted you to be able to see him before…y’know.” “And for you to be safe.” “And for you to keep your promise and help us.” Amy took her hand off of the gas pedal and flexed her now aching wrist.  “Jake? Pull over for a second. Let me switch with Marco.  I need to get cleaned up.” ***************************************************************************************************** Amy Madra did not sleep well. Every time started to get comfortable in her own bed, she’d feel the slightest twinge in her bladder and ran to the bathroom.  Each time only the tiniest trickle came out because that’s all there was.  The few times she lost consciousness, she woke up ready to scream because of the figments that her brain conjured up. She was still in Oakshire. Still at Helena Milner’s house. The next time she closed her eyes, she’d open them and be back behind crib bars with her reckless and wild escape being just a fever dream. The sun was starting to get low when her body finally allowed her to do something besides piss, re-wrap herself in blankets and stuff a pillow over her head.   DING-DONG! The doorbell was the last straw. It gave her the right amount of fear and adrenaline to sit up and toss the covers off once and for all. She was back in her childhood bedroom, just as she’d left it. It had been perfectly preserved like a shrine. Same for her nightgown. She got up and dressed herself in clothes she hadn’t worn since college. A button up top, denim blue jeans, work boots, and of course, underneath it all, a bra and panties. She felt…not as relieved and empowered as she’d expected to feel. It was good to be able to choose her own outfit and dress herself. It just wasn’t the transformative experience she’d built up in her head since this summer.  Fearing that new habits might die hard, she reached found some menstrual pads and stuffed them into their pants as a kind of makeshift pull-up. Amy crept out into the hallway and froze when she heard Dad’s voice. “Warrant?” Another voice, a woman’s, replied.  “I’m only asking if this is the Madra residence.”  Amy’s heart rate sped up. Had Helena Milner found her? “Do you have a warrant?” Her father repeated. “I’m only asking if this is the Madra residence, sir.”  It wasn’t Helena.  But from the tone of her voice she considered herself an authority figure, which probably meant that she was very tall and scary.  “And I’m asking if you if you have a warrant.” Dad replied back. “Maybe if I could just come inside and talk with you for a few minutes…” “If you have a warrant signed by a judge, I will dutifully open my door to you and we’ll have a conversation then.” “Little bo-…” The woman stopped herself. “Sir, I don’t want to make this harder than it already is.”  Definitely an Amazon. “Ma’am,” Dad said pointedly, “if your job is too difficult to follow proper procedure and respect the letter of the law, perhaps you should find a different job.” Silence invaded her ears. Dad and the Amazon were staring one another down. “I’m going to leave my card in your mailbox, Mr. Madra. If Amy tries to contact you, please let us know. Her Mommy is very worried about her.” “And I will speak to you if and when you return with a warrant. Have a nice day.” “Have a good day sir.”  The door slammed. “Fascist!” Dad grumbled.   Amy untensed and stopped pressing her entire body up against the wall. That whatever gods were listening that Dad kept the screen door barred and locked. It was for more than keeping out flies.  Thank her great-great grandpa that he built their house to Little specifications.  It was harder for Amazons to burst in when they had to hunch and squeeze through the door. “She’s gone.” Dad called after a wait.  “Car just got off our property. You can come on out.” Hearing the strength in her father’s voice gave Amy false hope that the twins had exaggerated the severity of his condition.  Rounding the corner and seeing him dashed that delusion.  Dad looked like he’d aged a year for every month she’d been gone since graduation. The pair regarded one another silently. Each one looking the other one over. “Hi Dad.” She squeaked.   He nodded, brusquely.  “Amy.”   “It’s good to see you.” He sniffed. “I know.”  Then, “Go get the twins. We need to have a family talk.” “Okay.” She ran off to find them. Amy had no memories of being a baby, and being the youngest with a very small social circle, had no memories of growing up or being around babies. Her time with Helena’s had been less a rewinding of the clock and more of an alien abduction. Back home with her dad and her old house and fetching her brothers for a family meeting? That felt like regression.   She did it anyway. They gathered around the dinner table. There was no supper on the table, only whiskey. The glass in front of Amy’s chair was already full and Dad was filling the others.  “Sit down. Have a drink.” Amy didn’t need to be asked twice. She downed the glass in one tremendous gulp.  “Just like her mother…” Dad chuckled bitterly. Everyone else took a seat and the boys started gingerly sipping their drinks.  Dad left his untouched.  He just held in his hand and swirled it gently. “I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to have this.” Then just like his daughter he downed it one gulp. “Oh well.” The old grandfather clock in the living room ticked by. “Um…whaddya got?” Dad poured himself another glass of whiskey. “Colon cancer.”  His face took on a grim kind of humor.  “Figures. Your mother was always the brains and I was also the ass.”  Nobody laughed. That’s how she knew it was funny. “How long?”  “A friend guesses it started about ten years ago. Probably before your mother got sick. Those polyps or whatever they’re called grow slow and take a while to get all cancerous.” He exhaled. “Just didn’t notice until it was too late.”   ‘A friend’. That phrasing made her think that he hadn’t been to a doctor.  Or if it was a doctor, it wasn’t a people doctor. Amy tensed and gripped the edge of the table. “I mean how long do you have?” Dad shrugged and swirled the glass around again. “Not sure. Probably less than I’d like. Likely more than I deserve.” “Fuck.” “Yeah.”   The twins didn’t speak. They looked like they were suffering with every syllable. “What about you?” Dad said. “Did you enjoy your life playing in the petting zoo?” Amy licked the front of her teeth. “Honestly? Yeah.” The old man seemed to approve. “Good. Good for you.”   Another two minutes ticked by.  Amy was too sad and scared to try and hurry it along.  “I wanna know why,” Dad said.  “Why’d you stop going along with the plan?” The whiskey hit her brain hard enough that she managed to tell the truth. “I needed my own life. I didn’t want to be stuck here.”  Stuck here like them.  “I wanted to make my own decisions.” Dad took another sip of the whiskey. It appeared to be hitting him too. “You satisfied with those decisions?” “Are you?” “Yup.”  The response was too fast. Her old man just turned fifty and he was acting like a stubborn toddler.  All he needed to do was stomp his foot and huff and he’d have fit right in at Mrs. Beouf’s class. “This wouldn’t be happening if you let someone help take care of you. Like gone to a doctor or something.” “Every doctor in a hundred miles is one of ‘em.” Dad literally spat into his whiskey. “I’d be Adopted like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Amazons latch onto weakness. They’re attracted to it.” Her entire skin felt like it was sizzling.  “What happened to me was a fluke.  I made a dumb mistake and-” “You broke your promise,” Jake said. Dad threw him a glare that was positively withering and Jake sunk back down and sipped some whiskey.   Dad put his loogie infused whiskey back down on the table. “He’s right you know? You were supposed to stay here. Take care of the animals. Learn how to run the family business like your Mom.”  He thumbed over to the twins. “You think these two quarter-wits can do more than grunt work and handy-man shit?” Amy felt like she was speaking blasphemy but she said it anyway. “I didn’t want to grow up to be like you and mom.” Marco snorted. “The first half of that sentence is true.”  Dad gave him a warning look and he took the hint. “Do you know that you’re the first person in our family tree to ever get Adopted?” Dad asked. “You’re the first in our recorded history that ever fucked up so bad. So are you really satisfied with how your plan worked out?” Amy stood up. “Honestly?” She stood up too quickly and needed a moment to get her bearings. “Honestly? Yeah.” Miss Helena had been really good to her all things considered. She never hit Amy or mocked her and every time that Amy had cried- really cried, not just the fun crocodile tears- Helena immediately promised to change her behavior and had a pretty good track record so far of not doubling back.  Besides the whole ‘Mommy’ thing and everything that came with it, Amy really liked her. Maybe even a bit more than… She sat back down without fully meaning to. The pitfalls of drinking whiskey on an empty stomach.  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m here now. I learned my lesson and I’m here to help. I’ll take care of the animals. I’ll run the business.  I’ll take care of the boys.”  The fact that she took no joy in insulting her brothers and that neither of them took offense illustrated to her how grim the situation had really become. Dad’s nose wrinkled up.  “Sorry to say that’s not the plan anymore.” Her chest started feeling tight. The room was getting all…spinny.  “Why not?” “Because you’re not my daughter anymore.” The spinning was getting worse. “Huh?” Dad stood up and leaned up against the table.  He suddenly didn’t seem so sick. That and Amy was having a hard time focusing her eyes on him.  “Let me put it in terms that even a baby could understand.”  He said it like it was a curse. Baby had four letters, so it counted. “My two idiot sons stole our truck and took you away from your Mommy. Now we’ve got protective services and cops on our front porch, and unless we all wanna spend the rest of our lives behind bars, you can’t have ever been here and my sons can’t have ever gone down to Oakshire to bust you out.” It hadn’t been just whiskey in that glass.  Amy stood up and had to lean against the table to keep standing.  “What did you do to me?” “You’re gonna go night-night.” Dad spoke maliciously. “When you wake up, you’ll be somewhere safe. You’ll have a suitcase, some money, and the old pickup. After that, you’re on your own. Never come here again.”  He finished his drink, hocked up loogie and all. “Don’t worry, baby girl. When I see your mother again I won’t tell her about this part.” “Sorry, sis…” One of the twins said. She couldn’t tell which one of the four had said it. “I mean Amy.” “Dad. Are you sure about this?” It could have been one of the other three but did it really matter? “You chuckle fucks made this problem for us. I’m cleaning it up.” A few more lines of dialogue happened, but Amy couldn’t hear it over the momentary ringing in her ears.  She had to throw up.  She had to get whatever this was out of her system.  She had to vomit up the poison so that it would stop affecting her. “Hey?” A far off voice called out after her. “Where’s she going?” If she’d still been the free spirited and rebellious baby girl that she’d been the last few months she would have thought to show her disgust by sticking her finger down her throat and puking all over the dining room table.  She wouldn’t have fixed anything because by now the poison was too far in her system for her to do anything about it but it would have pissed off ex-family and give them more work to do. Being back home had regressed her back to a civilized young woman and so she foolishly thought that vomiting would accomplish something and she still had the courtesy to run for the toilet to puke her guts out. “Amy!” the voices called. “Stop! You’re going to-!” The world went topsy-turvy and amy slipped and fell, almost making it to the potty and having the worst kind of accident.  Before she lost consciousness she remembered tripping and then felt an incredibly sudden and sharp pain in her mouth when momentum carried her face first into the toilet bowl.  Then blackness. ******************************************************************************************* Amy Madra was given the gift of ignorance one last time when she awoke. Her bed didn’t have bars on it so she was allowed to think for a fraction of a second that she was still in her old bedroom and that what had happened with Dad and the twins hadn’t really happened. It was dark when Amy woke up. The crickets were singing a mixtape that was indistinguishable from the ringing in her ears. Her mouth tasted like blood and when she went to touch her two front teeth were tongue, it touched something sharp and jagged. She was in a motel room; a cheap one. She sat up and felt a familiar wet squish between her legs. As promised, by her bed there was a wad of cash, a suitcase full of clothes, and keys to nearly totaled pick up truck that no Little could possibly drive on their own. Amy sat on her bed, weighing her options. How was she going to live her life on the run forever?  It could be done, hypothetically speaking but she’d already fucked up so much. What options did she really have?   It was two in the morning when Amy shook herself from her choice paralysis. She finally remembered that she had the ability to change herself and removed her urine soak pads. Gross. At least when it happened before, someone else cleaned it up for her.   Her family had been correct, though. She had failed. She had failed to be an adult just as much as she had failed to be a farmer.   The farmer part didn’t sting so much because had she ever really wanted to be a farmer, but the adult… Had she really wanted to be an adult?  Had she really? Or had she just been expected to and she went along with it because of lack of options.  In some regards she’d been more free, more herself, since she’d been caught than she’d ever been while free. Amy suddenly knew which option she liked best. She picked up the hotel phone by the bed stand and dialed out. “Hello? Can you please give me the number for Helena Milner? She lives in Oakshire. Actually, can you just put me through?” The phone rang once. Twice. Three Times.  She was asleep. She slept through a burglary last night. She’d sleep through a phone call.   Four ti- “Hello?” It was Helena!  She sounded scared and hopeful.  “Hello?”  Amy’s voice caught in her throat. Static crackle from the cheap receiver tingled inside Amy’s ear.  “Amy?” Amy’s whole body shuddered. “Hi, Mommy.” “Amy?!” Helena almost screamed.  “Amy is that you?! Amy! Baby! Are you okay?! Where are you?! Did the bad people hurt you?! Are you okay?!” “Mommy,” Amy swallowed hard. “I need you to come and get me.” “Are you okay? Where are the people who took you?” “Nobody took me, Mommy.” A single tear traveled down her cheek. “I ran away. I’m sorry, Mommy.  Can you please come get me?” “Why are you saying my name like that?” Helena wondered. “Like what, Mommy?” “Not important,” Helena said back. “It just sounds different for some reason.” There was a deep breath that puffed into the phone as Helena Milner regained her focus. “Amy? Mommy needs you to do something for her. Can you try to help me?” “Yes, Mommy.” “Are you on a cell phone?” “No. Landline, Mommy.” “Good. First you’re going to tell me where you are. Then I’m going to give you my cell phone number. After you have that Mommy needs you to call her on her cell phone and talk to her all the way there while she drives so that she can stay awake.” “Yes, Mommy.” The stationary had the dirty little motel’s address and it was simple enough to find out her room number.  Helena answered her cell with the same urgency, panic, and hope that she had when she picked up her house phone; like she genuinely feared that Amy might discorporate during the brief time it took to hang up and redial. Amy had prepared herself for the marathon verbal reaming of her life. She was over two hours away from home.  The twins had bought a room and dumped her farther from Oakshire, not closer.  It made sense. It’s what they would have wanted for themselves if the roles had been switched. What she got was two and a half hours of her Mommy apologizing and telling her how much she loved Amy.  The only thing she said more than ‘I love you’ was ‘I’m sorry’.  Mommy blamed herself for everything. Promised the sun and the moon to Amy if she’d only come back. She didn’t have to be a good baby girl for her Mommy to love her. Amy just had to be hers. That was it.  They were halfway back home before her Mommy noticed the damage that had been done to her teeth. They were cracked and jagged like broken glass.  Like her heart.  Mommy hadn’t noticed because she was so busy gushing that Amy hadn’t had many opportunities to open her mouth.  Grown-Ups meant well but they weren’t the best listeners and needed hints.   That was okay.  It wasn’t that different from learning to play with any other animal.  Emus like shiny things too much and Grown-Ups were hard of listening.  It’s just how they were. “Oh my goodness, Amy, you broke your teeth! Why didn’t you tell me? No. That’s not important, it’s my fault that it happened if I had been a better Mommy to you you wouldn’t have ever run away. Does it hurt? Of course it hurts.  We’ll get you to a dentist first thing in the morning and get your teeth fixed and we’ll get you shiny new implants that look just like your old teeth and then it will be like it never happened!” “No thank you, Mommy.” Amy whined. “I think I just want them out.” “Are you sure?” “Yes, Mommy.” ******************************************************************************** The preceding story is not exactly how Amy Madra told it to me. I made some inferences, took some liberties, and edited out her purposeful ramblings and sidebars meant to bait me off topic to prevent me from digging for more; but I promise all the essential facts and details are there and accurate to the best of my knowledge. Had I recreated what she told me verbatim-how, where, and when she told me throughout the day- the story would have been constantly interrupted by even more non-sequiturs, a stern talking to about playground etiquette, a lunch break at a fast food restaurant, two more rounds of diaper changes, nap time at my place, and a cartoon show about a family of talking dogs raising their young children through the art of improvisational roleplay.  (Amy forced me to watch it if I wanted her to finish the story.) At the end of the tale, we were back in my nursery. I was taking copious amounts of notes on my tablet, trying to jot down what had been said before while also listening and remembering what she was saying now. “So you never got new teeth because you wanted to remind yourself about what happened?” Ever fae, Amy shrugged. “Pretty much. Bit dramatic, yeah, but so am I.” I looked at my notes. “But…why are you crawler?  From the way you described it, I thought whatever your dad slipped into the drink did it but that doesn’t add up with everything else.” “After the dentist we went back to the Adoption courthouse. Do they still have those jingly dolls there? The ones that make you giggly and wobbly?” I remembered my own trip there with Janet. “Yeah.”   “I made my Mommy get me one and then I kept shaking it until it stuck.” My heart dropped down into my ballsack. Amy had crippled and deformed herself so that no one but an Amazon would ever want her.  She sailed to the shores of a completely different life and then burned the boat.  “Quick question: Why did you keep calling her ‘Helena Milner’?” My friend snorted. “Because that’s her name, you goober.”  “But I thought you two were Amy and Helena Madra.” Amy gave me the most contented smile. “We are now.”  Holy shit!  My right hand went and grasped the wedding ring dangling around my pacifier. Amy’s eyes sparkled and glimmered. “See? You get it.” “Yeah,” I agreed. “I think I do.  But what does this have to do with me potty training Ivy? I thought you were going somewhere with this.” Amy crawled up to me and put her palm over the tablet, pushing it down into my lap and forcing me to look her in the eye.  “Clark. My guy. Buddy. My Pal. My homeboy. My rotten soldier. My sweet cheese. My good time boy.” “You’re doing it again…” “Ivy is a baby. Like us. If she gets potty-trained, she’s still gonna be a baby. Mrs. Beouf’s Class? It’s filled with Littles. Littles hate babies. And they hate babies who have it better than them even more.” [End Part 13]     

I play FallOut 76 and 4 mostly. Then next in line is Minecraft and Farm Simulator.

Yes. I will certainly ask for week supplies at upcoming urology appointment. I may even ask directly to urologist for the Molicare ones. I dont think i need the MegaMaxs yet. Though i could ask for the Lites? We'll see.    I think the Tranquillity line is already at the top. absorbency wise. So i cant imagine there would be much left of the formulary to go through. 

Marcus, a 25-year-old historian, travels back to 1995 as a pure observer—until one private, reckless choice in his three-year-old body rewrites his entire future. When he returns, the man he was is gone, and the butterfly is still beating its wings. The Butterfly Effect Is Real The hum of the time machine was a familiar comfort—a low, rhythmic thrum that vibrated through the floorboards and deep into his bones. For Marcus, a 25-year-old historian, the past was usually a collection of sterile data points, archive documents, and dusty artifacts. But this trip was entirely different. This was personal. The coordinates were set for his family’s suburban home in October 1995. As he prepared for the jump, Marcus caught his reflection in the temporal drive’s diagnostic monitor. He was in prime physical shape—tall, broad-shouldered, with a dense, muscular frame forged from years of heavy lifting and disciplined athletics. He prided himself not only on his physical authority but also on his sharp intellect and unshakable logic. Beside the diagnostic screen, the machine’s Temporal Continuum Profiler blinked steadily, maintaining an active real-time scan of his personal timeline. Marcus paused, his hand hovering over the displacement trigger. His training in temporal mechanics had drilled one foundational rule into his head above all others: the Butterfly Effect. Chaos theory dictated that the smallest intervention—a single displaced pebble, an altered variable—could send catastrophic ripples through the decades that followed. For a brief second, genuine concern touched his mind. He shook his head, brushing the anxiety away with a quiet chuckle. He was an expert historian; he understood cause and effect better than anyone. He understood the risk. Marcus had strict protocols: he was not there to change anything. He wasn’t there to stop his parents’ impending divorce or alter his childhood. He was there as a passive observer, to better understand the emotional dynamics of why his parents’ marriage had disintegrated. His method was quantum consciousness displacement—projecting his 25-year-old mind into the physical frame of his three-year-old self. He would quietly watch, take notes in his mind, and return. He engaged the drive. Reality folded, and his consciousness slammed into the small, fragile frame of his three-year-old body. The first thing Marcus registered was the texture of the living-room carpet beneath his knees and the solid weight of wooden blocks in his small hands. Midday sunlight streamed through the windows, highlighting dust motes dancing in the warm air. He was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, a half-built tower of colorful blocks in front of him. Everything felt oversized. From the kitchen came the rhythm of his mother’s daily routine: the clatter of pots, the hiss of sautéing vegetables, and her quick, efficient footsteps between the counter and the stove. Jennifer moved constantly, carrying an invisible burden that showed in the tight line of her shoulders. Across the room, his father, David, sat buried in the armchair by the window, the broad pages of a newspaper shielding him from the room. A heavy, unspoken tension filled the space between them—a silent wall that the three-year-old body could instinctively feel even as the adult mind catalogued it. A small figure plopped down beside him, breaking the quiet. Marcus turned to see his sister, Sarah. At five years old she was a bundle of energy—scraped knees, dark-red hair pulled into messy pigtails already coming loose, and a faded pink T-shirt featuring a cartoon pony. She carried a Barbie doll missing one shoe and set it down purposefully on the rug. “Wanna play ponies?” she asked, her voice bright and commanding as she began arranging her toys. In his adult life, Sarah was a sharp-tongued 27-year-old who never missed an opportunity to tease him. Seeing her here, with a gap-toothed smile and a faint smudge of jam on her cheek, felt surreal. “Sure,” Marcus murmured. His three-year-old voice sounded surprisingly small and high-pitched. For a while they built sprawling storylines together. Sarah directed the play with unselfconscious authority, quick to laugh and eager to lead. Marcus followed along, observing her through the lens of a historian. She was completely unaware of the rift forming between their parents, floating safely in the innocence of early childhood. David barely looked up from his newspaper. Jennifer never sat down once. That night the atmosphere in the house shifted from silent tension to overt exhaustion. Jennifer came in to tuck Marcus into bed, her movements mechanical as she went through the bedtime routine. She helped him into his nighttime pull-up—a thin, elastic-waisted garment that rustled softly as she slid it up his legs. At three years old, Marcus had been completely dry for over two months; the pull-up was purely a safety net to ease his mother’s peace of mind. As she smoothed the waistband and pulled up his pajama bottoms, something stirred in Marcus’s adult mind. The soft padding pressed against his skin, familiar and strange all at once. In his adult life he had spent years suppressing a deep, secret fascination with diapers—a private comfort he had always denied himself out of intense shame. The shame was still there, a hot flush creeping up his neck. But so was something else. Something he hadn’t felt in years. This is insane, he thought. I’m a historian. I’m here to observe. Not to— But the pull-up crinkled softly as he shifted his weight. The sound was so small, so ordinary. His mother didn’t notice. She was already at the door, her hand on the light switch, her eyes distant and tired. Just once, he reasoned with himself as the bedroom door clicked shut, leaving him in the dark. I’m an adult observer. A single, isolated choice won’t alter the timeline. I wore these every night at this age. A single wet pull-up is not a historical event. It’s noise inside a closed system. The timeline has redundancy for exactly this kind of low-energy variance. Overriding his discipline, he deliberately relaxed his bladder. A surge of warmth spread quickly through the core of the garment, swelling against his skin. A strange mixture of relief and guilt washed over him. Satisfied that he had tested the experience, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, confident he would resume his strict boundaries the following day. The next morning brought a cold, clammy reality. Marcus woke to the heavy weight of the soaked pull-up. Jennifer checked him with a slight frown but said nothing. She peeled off the wet pull-up, cleaned him up, dressed him in overalls and a striped T-shirt, and sent him downstairs for breakfast. Marcus told himself the experiment was over. The day passed quietly. His father left for work without much fanfare—a distracted kiss on the forehead and a mumbled apology that didn’t sound sincere. His mother took him and Sarah to the grocery store. Sarah pushed the cart with determined concentration while Jennifer moved through the aisles with tired, automatic movements. Marcus watched and took mental notes. That night his mother helped him into another pull-up. Marcus tried to stay awake, but his three-year-old body was exhausted, and sleep pulled him under before he could stop it. He woke slowly, his mind still foggy. Then he felt it—the heavy, warm dampness between his legs. He froze. What? He hadn’t wet deliberately last night. He was sure of it. He had tried to stay awake. But sometime during the night his body had betrayed him. His bladder had released on its own, without his conscious control. He hadn’t even felt it happen. The realization was unsettling. He had assumed—foolishly, arrogantly—that he could control it. That one deliberate wetting wouldn’t change anything. But his three-year-old body had its own rhythms, its own vulnerabilities. And he had underestimated them. His mother’s voice came from downstairs, sharp with frustration. “David, you said you’d fix the sink! It’s been leaking for a week!” His father’s response was muffled, defensive. Marcus couldn’t make out the words, but he didn’t need to. The tone said everything. He climbed out of bed, the wet pull-up sagging awkwardly between his legs, and padded down the hall to the bathroom. His mother appeared at the top of the stairs, already dressed for the day, her expression pinched. “Did you have an accident again, honey?” she asked, her voice softening as she knelt to check him. He nodded, not trusting his voice. He wanted to explain, wanted to reassure her that it wasn’t a big deal. But he was three years old, and the words wouldn’t come. “That’s two nights in a row, sweetie. Are you feeling okay?” He nodded again. She changed him, dressed him in overalls and a striped T-shirt, and sent him downstairs for breakfast. The day passed in a haze of observation. He watched his father leave for work—another distracted kiss, another mumbled apology. He watched his mother move through the house with the frantic energy of someone trying to hold everything together by sheer force of will. That night the same thing happened. And the night after. And the night after that. By the end of the week a pattern had emerged. Every morning the pull-up was soaked. Jennifer’s worry deepened with each one. She began lingering in the hallway near the phone, clearly thinking about calling the doctor. The arguments downstairs grew louder and more frequent. “He’s regressing, David! He’s wetting every single night now!” “Kids have accidents.” “For a whole week? That’s not normal!” Marcus sat at the top of the stairs, listening as his small body responded to the stress in ways the adult mind could no longer fully override. One afternoon, while the shouting continued, warmth spread across his underwear before he even registered the need. The first daytime accident landed like a second blow. Jennifer’s face crumpled when she found him. That evening her voice on the phone cracked: “He wet during the day, David. Not just at night. Something is really wrong.” Later she came home with a large shopping bag and pulled out a package of thick, tape-on Huggies diapers—the kind with cartoon characters on the front and a crinkly plastic backing. Marcus’s heart raced at the sight. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said, kneeling in front of him. “I know you’re a big boy, but we need to keep you dry. Just for a little while.” Marcus stared at the diapers. This never happened, his historian’s mind reeled. I never wore diapers at night after age three. I’m rewriting my own childhood. This change was no longer a minor deviation he could explain away. Yet right beneath the intellectual terror, his suppressed adult desires flared. The thick Huggies waiting for him felt intoxicating. Despite knowing the danger, he could not deny the secret excitement blooming in his chest. That night Jennifer taped him into a diaper for the first time. The thickness between his legs was unfamiliar, the plastic backing crinkling loudly with every movement. Marcus lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, his heart pounding. This is wrong, he thought. I need to stop this. But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. By morning the diaper was thoroughly soaked, sagging and warm. Jennifer changed him with a weary sigh, then reached not for regular underwear but for a package of daytime pull-ups. “Just in case,” she said, voice tight. “So you don’t have accidents during the day.” She helped him into one and dressed him in shorts and a T-shirt. He offered no protest; he was too tired to argue. The pull-ups didn’t stay dry for long. That afternoon, while playing with blocks in the living room, the familiar pressure built too quickly. He tried to run to the bathroom, but his three-year-old legs were too slow. The pull-up grew warm and heavy between his legs before he could make it. Jennifer noticed immediately. Her face crumpled. “Oh, honey. Not again.” She changed him into a fresh pull-up, but her hands were trembling. That evening Marcus heard her on the phone with his father. “He wet through his pull-up today, David. Not just at night—during the day too. And it’s not just once. It’s happening more and more.” Her voice cracked. “He’s getting worse, not better.” The pattern was escalating now. Marcus was wetting through his pull-ups during the day with alarming frequency—sometimes twice, sometimes three times. Each accident left him soggy and uncomfortable, the padding swelling against his skin until it couldn’t hold any more. At night the diapers were soaked through by morning. Every single night. His mother’s anxiety grew with each accident. She hovered over him constantly, checking his pull-up, asking if he needed to go, watching him like a hawk for any sign of discomfort. And then her attention shifted to Sarah. “Are you feeling okay, sweetie?” Jennifer asked Sarah one morning, kneeling in front of her daughter with the same worried expression she wore when checking Marcus. “Do you need to go potty? Are you sure?” Sarah frowned. “I’m fine, Mommy.” But Jennifer didn’t stop. The questions came constantly—at breakfast, during play, before bed. “Do you need to go? Are you sure? You’ll tell Mommy if you have an accident, right?” The suffocating scrutiny, combined with watching her mother put Marcus back into baby diapers and daytime pull-ups, created a spiral of severe performance anxiety in Sarah. She began to feel like she was being watched, judged, and expected to fail. Within a week of constant maternal pressure, Sarah experienced her first accident in over a year. She was playing with her dolls in the living room when a sudden, overwhelming urge hit her. She tried to run to the bathroom, but she didn’t make it. A warm trickle soaked through her My Little Pony underwear. She froze, her face draining of color. Then she began to cry. “Mommy! I didn’t mean to! I couldn’t stop it!” Jennifer rushed in, her expression a mix of profound pity and exhaustion. “Oh, sweetie, it’s okay. You’re just so stressed out.” But the damage was done. The accident shattered Sarah’s confidence. She began to worry constantly about having another accident, which only made her more anxious, which made accidents more likely. Within a week she was having daytime accidents regularly. Within two weeks she was also waking up wet some nights. Desperate for any solution that might restore peace to the household, Jennifer bought a package of GoodNites for Sarah. The look of utter devastation on Sarah’s face when those overnight pants were presented to her was a memory Marcus knew would haunt him forever. Soon Sarah’s daytime accidents became frequent enough that Jennifer purchased daytime pull-ups for her as well. At five years old, his once-confident sister was now relying on disposable protection, just like her little brother. Marcus watched from the living-room floor in silent, conflict-ridden realization. As a historian he knew the chaos theory, but now he was living it. He hadn’t tried to stop the divorce. He hadn’t manipulated anyone. He had simply made one reckless choice. It had broken a two-month dry streak, set off a pattern of accidents, intensified his mother’s anxiety, and ultimately trapped both children in full-time padding. His research window came to an end. In the quiet spare bedroom, Marcus looked at the windowsill. A delicate butterfly with brilliant blue-and-gold wings landed against the glass. It rested there for a moment, its wings slowly opening and closing in the pale autumn light. Down the hall Sarah was crying while their mother helped her into another pull-up. A cold knot of dread tightened in Marcus’s chest. The thrill of the padding had evaporated, leaving only panic. He had gone back merely to observe, but his single lapse in discipline had set off a slow, catastrophic avalanche. He swallowed hard. It was too late to undo now. Shaking off the creeping dread, he triggered the quantum return to escape the past. The 1995 bedroom dissolved into shimmering light. Marcus’s adult consciousness snapped violently back into his present body. He collapsed onto the floor of the apartment, gasping for air as heavy disorientation washed over him. He shook his head, trying to clear away memories that felt like a chaotic mixture of two entirely different lives. Then the first wrong note hit. His body felt… wrong. Lighter. Soft. The dense, heavy muscle he had forged through years of heavy lifting was simply gone. He scrambled up, but his center of gravity had shifted—lower and narrower—leaving him unstable. Every movement felt like it belonged to someone smaller. His broad shoulders had narrowed into delicate slopes. His chest had softened into gentle, rounded curves. His once-powerful torso was slender and fragile. His legs were smooth, pale, and unmistakably feminine. Even standing upright required more concentration than it ever had before. Panic seized him cold and fast. No. No, no, no—what did my trip do to my body? He stumbled backward, heart hammering against ribs that felt too close to the surface. Then he became aware of his clothing. Wrapped securely around his hips was a thick, plastic-backed diaper secured with heavy-duty tapes. It was swollen, warm, and unmistakably soaked. The weight of it pulled at his center, forcing a slight, involuntary sway. Above it he wore a short, frilly pink skirt with lace trim and a matching pastel top with puffed sleeves. On his feet were shiny Mary Janes with tiny buckles that clicked softly when he shifted. The plastic crinkled loudly with every frantic step as he rushed to the bathroom and gripped the edges of the sink. The mirror showed a face that had lost every sharp, masculine edge. Soft jawline. Clear, smooth skin. Hair artfully styled with decorative ribbons. Lips carrying a glossy sheen. “This is insane! I am a historian! I am a man!” he gasped. Even his voice betrayed him—higher, sweeter, utterly wrong. The words felt too large for the throat that produced them. Trembling, he staggered over to the time machine’s console. It was still there—anchored to his original timeline. The plastic between his legs sloshed and crinkled, the soaked bulk shifting with each step and making balance feel precarious. He activated the Temporal Continuum Profiler. The temporal scan had already finished auto-generating updated biographical logs for this version of Marcus. A single line loaded first. [TEMPORAL PROFILER LOG // SUBJECT: MARCUS] Bedwetting persisted until age 8 due to severe trauma from parental divorce. Relied on diapers and pull-ups for a significant developmental period. His stomach tightened. The record blamed the divorce. It would never know the truth. He scrolled, breath coming in ragged gasps. Another fragment appeared. An urgent pressure began to build low in his abdomen, but he forced himself to keep reading. Upon parents’ divorce, mother Jennifer remarried a strict disciplinarian named Don. Confronted with two chronic bedwetters, Don rejected psychological theories in favor of strict, unrelenting control, forcing both children—Sarah (5) and Marcus (3)—into diapers 24/7 for nearly two years to break their habit. Marcus’s blood ran cold. Marcus experienced permanent submissive conditioning. His sister, Sarah, harboring deep resentment over their shared childhood humiliation, began dressing him in feminine clothing during adolescence as psychological revenge. A practice actively enforced by Stepfather Don to ‘build submission.’ This can’t be true. The final block loaded. Marcus’s current arrangement involves full domestic dependence under a partner named Victor, 34. Marcus is maintained in diapers full-time, wears feminine clothing exclusively, and possesses no financial independence. “No! This is just a timeline anomaly!” Marcus screamed at the monitor, slamming his palms on the desk. The impact sent a soft jolt through the heavy padding. “I have my original mind! I can override this!” He pulled up Sarah’s profiler file next, desperate for an anchor. [TEMPORAL PROFILER LOG // SUBJECT: SARAH] Following prolonged diaper dependency until age 7, Sarah developed an obsession with public exposure and infantilism. Monetized her past as a top content creator on OnlyFans ('LittleSissySis'), earning $20,000/month with adult-baby and diaper content. Maintains complete alienation from Marcus, holding him entirely responsible for initiating their childhood regression. A nauseating wave of fury and betrayal hit him. She had turned her humiliation into an empire while his own petty interference had backfired into total subjugation. Fight it, his original mind screamed. You are a 25-year-old historian! You know how time works! Undo it! He reached for the temporal console to reset the drive. His hand trembled. For one clear, hard moment he managed to straighten his posture, plant his feet the way he once had in a gym, and pull the adult historian forward like a shield. The effort made the delicate frame shake. His shoulders, no longer broad enough to carry the old stance, burned with the strain of trying to remember how to stand like a man. Then twenty years of lived reflexes from this timeline crashed into his brain all at once. His sphincter relaxed without permission. A hot, heavy stream filled the padding before he could stop it. The sound was soft, intimate, and final. The diaper swelled further, the plastic growing taut and warm against skin that felt thinner than it should. A soft, traitorous relief unclenched his shoulders—the same shoulders that had just been fighting to hold an impossible posture. The contrast was immediate and dizzying: the exhausting effort of trying to be the old Marcus versus the sudden, effortless ease of simply letting go. No! Stop! What are you doing?! His original consciousness panicked. Warmth bloomed through the thick plastic. His knees trembled in the Mary Janes. The soaked bulk forced him into a slight, automatic sway that felt strangely natural to this body. Stop, the original consciousness begged. You know how this works. You know what you are. He tried again. He locked his knees. He forced his spine straighter, reaching for the memory of heavy squat sets and the solid weight of a barbell across broad shoulders that no longer existed. For several long seconds the posture almost held. The historian’s mind clung to the sensation of strain, of earned strength, of control. Then the physical conditioning answered with another slow pulse of warmth, and the effort suddenly felt ridiculous—like trying to lift something far too heavy with arms that had never been meant for it. The soggy padding felt warm, safe, and addictively secure. The old pressure—the need to stand tall, to decide, to carry weight—was already beginning to feel like someone else’s burden, and a heavier one than this body was willing to carry. Downstairs, the front door clicked open. Heavy, deliberate footsteps began ascending the stairs. “Marcus! I’m home! You’d better be dry, little one. Daddy doesn’t want to change a wet baby right before dinner,” a commanding voice called out. Marcus’s heart slammed against his delicate ribs. Panic and an embarrassing, involuntary flutter of relief fought violently inside his chest. He tried to think of the man’s name—Victor, his name is Victor!—but his brain short-circuited. The name slipped away like water, replaced entirely by a single, immovable concept. Daddy. The bedroom door swung open. Daddy stood there—tall, broad-shouldered, stern, with cold, evaluating eyes. He looked down at Marcus’s frilly outfit with practiced authority. The difference in scale was immediate: Daddy’s frame filled the doorway the way Marcus’s old body once had. Marcus felt small in a way that went beyond height. “Wet again,” Daddy stated flatly. Fight him! Tell Daddy who you really are! Marcus’s original consciousness screamed in desperate panic. He squeezed his fist, trying to summon every ounce of his original authority. The fist looked fragile. The effort of closing it tightly made the delicate tendons stand out. “I… I am a temporal historian,” he tried to yell, but it came out as a breathless, high-pitched squeak. “Listen to me. I’m a man. I built a time machine.” Daddy’s eyes narrowed sharply. He took a slow, deliberate step forward. “What did I say about playing make-believe with those silly words? Is my sissy girl looking for a timeout?” “No! I’m telling the truth, Daddy!” Marcus stammered, backing away. The heavy, waterlogged diaper between his legs sloshed awkwardly, throwing off the already uncertain balance of the smaller frame. His delicate ankles wobbled in the Mary Janes. He stumbled and landed hard on his heavily padded bottom with a loud, wet crinkle. The impact sent a soft jolt through the soaked bulk; the padding absorbed the fall in a way that felt protective, almost gentle, compared to how the old body would have hit the floor. The sensation of being on the floor at a man’s feet triggered a cascade of lived memory: Stepfather Don standing over him, Sarah laughing at his frilly dresses, Daddy rewarding him for being quiet and obedient. The original adult identity fought desperately, trying to drag up facts, dates, academic logic—but each memory arrived already thinner than the last, like paper held too close to water. He tried again. He planted one hand on the floor and pushed, reaching for the old strength that used to live in his shoulders and core. For a full second the posture almost held. His arm shook with the effort. Then Daddy stepped forward and the conditioned reflex took over. The smaller body simply did not have the leverage to push him away. Instead Marcus’s hands clutched at Daddy’s jacket for balance, the gesture automatic and familiar to this frame in a way the push had never been. “Daddy, please…” The words escaped before he could stop them. His original mind screamed in horror as his own lips continued, trembling submissively. “I… I tried to be good for Daddy…” “I know, sweetie, but Daddy still has to clean you up,” he said gently, his tone shifting from sternness to patronizing comfort as he guided Marcus onto the padded changing table. Marcus lay on his back. The last coherent fragment of the historian tried one final time. Kick. Speak. Refuse. He twitched his leg. The movement felt small, ineffectual. Daddy’s hand pinned his hip with gentle, unyielding firmness—a hold that would have been easy to break in his old body but was impossible to resist now. The sharp, ripping sound of the heavy tapes peeling away filled the room. Cool air hit his skin, followed by warm powder and the thick, cloud-like bulk of a fresh tape-on diaper being slid beneath him. The new padding settled against him with a softness that made the previous soaked weight feel suddenly distant. The contrast was immediate: the exhausting fight of the last few minutes versus the sudden, effortless containment of being wrapped up again. The remaining fragments of the historian’s identity fractured further. The stress of fighting, of holding onto a ghost of a past life, began to feel heavier than the padding itself. Every attempt to stay rigid, to stay adult, to stay him, cost more than this body seemed willing to pay. The physical comfort of the fresh diaper overwhelmed his senses. The constant stress of being a man, of holding authority, of bearing responsibility—it all began to dissolve. Something quieter and warmer was surfacing: an unfamiliar, reluctant ease in being small, in being handled, in not having to decide anything. It felt good, and that was the worst part. It felt easy in a way the old life never had. The tapes refastened with loud, crisp snaps. Daddy smoothed down the pink skirt and patted his cheek. “There’s my good girl. All clean.” A soft, shuddering sigh escaped Marcus’s lips—half relief, half something closer to a quiet, troubling calm. His eyes opened, glossy and almost peaceful. The original mind was still there—thin, distant, still whispering that this was wrong—but it no longer had the strength to make the body obey. The effort required simply to keep whispering felt larger than the relief of stopping. And the relief, for the first time, carried a faint edge of something that felt almost like acceptance. It was warm, steady, and growing. “Thank you, Daddy…” he whispered. The words came easily this time, and a quiet thrill ran through him at how natural they sounded. “Go sit in your corner until dinner,” Daddy ordered gently. Marcus nodded eagerly, scrambling off the table. With loud, thick crinkles accompanying every tiny step, he scurried to the corner, sat down, and pulled his frilly skirt neatly over his padded knees. The fresh diaper cradled him. The smaller body settled into the posture without resistance. A warm, unexpected glow spread through him that had nothing to do with the padding—a soft, obedient compliance that frightened him even as it settled over him. Through the window, a stray beam of afternoon light caught the glass, shimmering blue and gold—like the delicate wings of a butterfly. A final, faint phantom of a memory flickered in the dark of his mind: a blue-and-gold butterfly in 1995, and the realization that a single, foolish choice to wet a pull-up had ruined his entire life. Another involuntary wave of warmth bloomed inside his fresh diaper. Marcus didn’t try to stop it. The old mind registered the surrender one last time, then went quiet under the weight of how easy it felt. That was the worst part—not the tapes, not the padding, but how little resistance was left. He simply closed his eyes, rocked gently on his thick padding, and waited obediently for Daddy to bring him dinner, a small smile already forming on his lips—one he no longer tried to suppress. The butterfly had flapped its wings. And Marcus was right where the butterfly had left him.