The pleasure curses

[Drownedinp]

My name is Caleb Thomas, I grew up in a small town, we had two elementary schools, one middle school and one high school. 

Since I lived in the south part of town, I went to Ferris Elementry.

The other Elementry was on the north side of town was Northern Elementry School.

Ferris and Northern both went to Janie Bell Middle school.

Janie Bell and kids from other parts of the county went to Booneville High school.

Ferris was the smallest school we had a classroom for every grade.

Each had about 20 to 25 kids in each grade.

Northern had about twice that every year about 75 to 80 kids went to J. Bell as we called it.

Those 75 to 80 kids went on to Booneville High plus kids from about 7 other smaller towns making the high school with a student population of about 500 kids over 10th 11th, 12th grades. 

At Ferris Elementry we had a small stream that ran behind the property.

There was a brick wall with fencing about 6 to 7 feet tall to keep kids from playing in the stream.

When I was about 8 or 9 years old we had terrible rain storms I mean terrible my mom got us in the car went to drive out of the garage,  even with the windshield wipers at full blast, you got about half a second before the windshield was covered in rain so you couldn't see. Mom backed out and drove right back in again.

She said if a kid had to walk in this they would drown before ever getting to school.

We had one radio station in town and as mom got back int the house they announced that school was canceled for the day.

As a kid I felt my heart leap with joy!

Mom didn't look too pleased. 

The next day school was cancelled again we got over 5 inches of rain in the past 24 hours the town was flooded.

Today staying home we got to go out and play it was miserable the humidity felt like you was rolling in molasses.

We stayed in.

By the third day we were back at school.

I got to see my best friends.

There was Kurt Smith, Morris Bingham and Dick, not Richard Fennington.

His parents had actually named him Dick.

Mrs. Pennington our teacher always called him Richard, you would hear him say every time it's just Dick!

Well there was Kurts older sister Barbara and another girl named Penny. Penny was cool for a girl, she wanted to be a boy, her parents let her.

Her dad was a farmer and had no sons only daughters like Her sisters she had to learn to work like a boy.

So she became one we guessed, we knew in the back of our mind she was a girl but she didn't act like one.

Barbara on the other hand was all girl she was Kurt's older sister by about 2 years she was in 6th grade.

Barbara was Beautiful!

She had blonde hair, just beautiful.

Every time she got around me I could feel my heart just beating in my chest.

I liked her, well me and about half the school.

The problem was that she knew she was cute and had that I'm so much better than you bitch attitude, it was her way or the highway.

If she she said the sky was red and you told her it was blue you just ruined any chance you had with her which was pretty much non existent in the first place. 

The rains had engorged that stream behind the school that the brick wall with the fence had washed away.

The teachers all told us that we weren't allowed to play over there, telling us that, I looked at Penny, Kurt Morris and Dick.

We knew where we were headed at recess.

We ran to the point where they still had the grounds roped off with that yellow tape they put up at cop shows on TV. You know "Police line do not cross!"

This said Caution Do Not Cross.

So the police hadn't put it up.

If they had they would of arrested you if you crossed it!

We saw a grey box just sitting there in the water.

It was wood.

Now I ducked under the tape and retrieved that grey box.

Looking back I should of left the damned thing there.

Mrs. Pennington yelled at me for crossing the line.

She didn't even notice the box I had retrieved from the water.

The bell rang and I stashed the box in the bushes and went in to class.

It was weird, it was like the box was calling me, I could see other kids getting close to the bushes but none noticed the box, like Mrs. Pennington hadn't noticed I had retrieved it.

I guess that should of been a clue. 

After school I retrieved the box.

Kurt, Morris, Dick, Penny and I went to our club house.

Soon Barbara joined us.

The box had weird symbals on it carved into the wood.

Barbara told us it was Chinese symbals. 

It didn't look like Chineese to me. Since I had been the one that retrieved it it told me it was an ancient Rune language.

You know from Runania I told them, like I knew.

Of course I had just ruined any chance I had with Barbara by contradicting her!

We opened the box, it was like a hiss as the air from outside went in.

The lid on the inside said "Beware these are the Pleasure Curses.

Use them wisely and you will live another day.

All but one encased in here, is temporary from sunrise to sunrise, only one is permanent and reserved for bad people as a curse.

To rid yourself you need to pass the curse on by touching another and that relieves you of your curse.

The cursed one can only pass the curse on to another more vile than themself!

Now this was written in the same Rune wording that was on the outside but we could read it just the same.

The viles had different stoppers.

One looked like a nose another like a feather.

One was clear and had a yellow liquid that looked like pee in it.

I took the one that looked like a feather and sniffed it it was like the most pleasing aroma, like strawberry.

Penny smelled the one that looked like a nose.

Peppermint she said!

Kurt took one that looked like a stick of butter.

Morris took one that looked like a scroll of paper.

Barbara took the one that was clear and looked like pee inside.

Honeysuckle she said as she smelled it.

We all smelled it and sure didn't smell like honeysuckle to me it smelled like our corral where we kept our milk cow.

It smelled of piss and poop to me.

Looking at the bottoms of the viles there was writing, mine said Laughter, it was in the same writing I knew we shouldn't be able to read but we could.

Penny's said sneezing.

Kurt's was relaxed, we didn't know what that meant.

Morris was knowledge.

Morris wasn't the best student he could use some knowledge.

Barbara's said humbling bedwetting.

If your good and your heart is pure, you need not fear this.

But if you're evil your cursed!. 

She said well babies it's time for me to leave I have s date with Tommy tonight.

Something you babies know nothing about!

And she left.

We all smelled the other viles we all agreed that humble bedwetting smelled nothing of honeysuckle. 

That night my dreams were filled with visions of ancient Rune writing.

My dreams got funnier and funnier.

I was laughing so hard I wet myself.

I awoke to find it was true, I had wet my bed.

Instead of being embarrassed I began to laugh, I laughed until my sides hurt.

I couldn't stop laughing at the fact I had pissed my bed!

My mom heard me laughing and came to investigate.

She saw me there laughing sitting in my wet sheets.

The look on her face I found comical and began to laugh even more I had tears in my eyes from laughing. 

She helped me get into the bath and clean me up because I had wet my bed.

I finally calmed down and was eating my rice crispies and started laughing at the Snap, Crackle, Pop.

My dad spoke, did you hear that Fred lost all his crops they washed away in the that storm last week.

This started me laughing anew Fred was our neighbor, him and his family had just been hanging on from season to season from losing their farm, without this years crop they were sure to lose the farm for sure. "What's so damn funny Caleb? Don't you know that they are going to lose their farm now?"

I began to laugh even more now.

I liked our neighbors, I really did feel sorry for them but all I could do was laugh at their predicament.

I had to pee so I ran to the toilet before I wet myself again.

That got me laughing about my wet bed this morning.

I looked at myself in the mirror. It hit me for the next 24 hours I was to laugh. But i was laughing at all the inappropriate things.

Every time I heard something that was bad I laughed!

It felt good to laugh but as a kid I knew laughing at inappropriate things could get you punished. 

Severely punished.

I began to laugh at the fact I could get in trouble!

My dad was right what the hell was wrong with me.

My mom kept me home from school and was taking me to to the doctors to see if I had Tourettes!

Penny awoke about day break she began to sneeze at first they were just little sneezes as it got brighter they got so she was really letting them fly.

She was sneezing so hard she felt herself leaking small amounts of urine.

Her mom came and felt her forehead.

No fever she said she gave her a little childrens antihistamine this was in a liquid form and Penny sneezed it all back over her mother right in her face.

Sorry mom, I didn't mean to she said between sneezes.

The last sneeze jarred her bladder and she peed soaking her bed.

Sorry mom was all she said.

Her mom kept her home from school.

She was taking her to the doctor to find out what she was allergic to. 

Morris remembered at daybreak he hadn't done his homework he grabbed his book and started doing the math. Within minutes he had finished it and about two or three chapters beyond where they were.

Too easy he thought, is it right was his next thought, he checked and double checked it sure enough it was good. There were story books and all kinds of reading material on his bookshelf.

He had always wanted to read the Harry Potter stories he began to read The Sorcers Stone.

The boy who lived.

He had been scared to read a book like this before, he associated thick books with more difficult to read books.

Today as he read in his minds eye he could picture everything.

It was like the book was talking to him.

He was so wrapped up in what he was reading that he didn't even realize he had wet himself, he was so engrossed in the book even when his mom came to get him up he was so into the book that he was on autopilot she took him and bathed him and fed him and dressed him.

It was like he was in his own world.

What was happening in ours wasn't registering.

His mom was proud of him he had never been this interested in a book before.

She also knew with him reading like this he could verily easily walk off the stairs or off a cliff even and wouldn't know until he hit the bottom.

She decided to keep him home from school for his own safety

Kurt awoke and the first feeling he registered was that he had wet he was wet.

It had been a couple of years since he had.

If the guys found out he was a bedwetter until almost 7 years old he would never live it down.

He went to get up and run to the bathroom as if Barbara found out she would tease him for wetting his bed again just like she had when this was a daily occurrence.

As he got out of bed he collapsed into a heap.

It was like he was paralyzed nothing worked.

He told his hand to move and it didn't respond.

What the hell he thought then he remembered relaxed his body was totally relaxed.

He mumbled mom!

His mom came and found him lying on the floor she asked him what was wrong.

He mumbled something about relaxed.

Mom called an ambulance it was like her son was paralyzed.

Her first thought was Polio, he had been given those shots when he was a baby.

He even had the smallpox scar on his right shoulder.

As the ambulance was on its way she ran to wake up Barbara.

She found that Barbara had wet her bed as well. She was concerned as What she got from Kurt was he had wet his bed.

And found that he couldn't move.

Barbara jumped up like a cat and realized that she had wet her bed.

This wasn't her her this was Kurt he was the bedwetter.

She went to say that Kurt must of pissed on her somehow last nigh.

I don't think so Kurt is paralyzed.

The ambulance and paramedics are on their way here to take him to the hospital as we speak. 

They heard a distant siren that was getting louder with each moment.

For God's sake get yourself cleaned up, then come to the hospital your father will pick you up. 

They loaded Kurt up and took him to Booneville County Hospital.

Looking back I kind of still laugh, we were cursed I saw a kid that I knew and shook his hand while at the doctor. Next day I was fine but he was laughing at inappropriate things.

Penny's little sister tried to comfort her and was sneezing like Penny.

Kurt was relaxed and a kid stole his bracelet from him and next day was paralyzed himself.

Kurt was fine by the next morning.

Morris bumped into somebody while he had his nose in a book.

Next day he was fine but had found a love of reading. 

Barbara had the permanent curse she was a nightly bedwetter.

Kurt was nicer to her than she ever had to him when he was a bedwetter.

Barbara did learn one thing from her curse, humility!

Even though she was two years older than me we dated and eventully married.

I knew she was a bedwetter it didn't matter to me.

I had always had a thing for her.

She became a news reporter for the local radio station, and one day as she met with one of our state assembly woman they shook hands.

That was the last time that Barbara wet her bed.

The state Assembly woman, well she kind of fell out of the spotlight we never heard from her again, rumor was she had became a recluse after becoming incontinent.

Well the curse was true.

Barbara finally met somebody viler than her.

This woman was so vile she was leaking in the daytime as well as night.

Oh I did get the sneezing one time afterwards, Penny's curse. My son got relaxed and was paralyzed for the day. We just passed it on to somebody else. 

[Crinkleybutt]

Yay! Another story by one of my favourite authors