Unfair: A Diaper Dimension Novel (Chapters 115 Uploaded!)

[something101]

The way this is written is like it's an autobiography from Clark, I get the feeling that he succeeds in escaping but the truly unfair part is that it comes at an expense, possibly Cassie's freedom? 

[Moon3ye]

A wonderfully entertaining chapter.

And again one which strengthens my theory that Clark notes everything as a kind of memory and writes down only his view of things and we will recognize only at the end of the real reality.

I still kind of hope that this whole "maturation" in this story is true and Clark is really a victim of it.

[YourFNF]

Wow just when I though I couldn't hate Forest anymore. Yeah no the constant gaslighting more than anything is what would probably break me. Ironically this almost makes the full mind wipe seem more merciful since at least then your basically dead.

[TerranV]

Yeah it really speaks to how petty Forest is that she would hold a grudge against someone she views as a "baby". 

I'm also holding to the idea that this is Clark remembering things after escaping his adoption at great cost.

Edited February 28, 2022 by TerranV
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[something101]

I also think he does meet up with Cassie and the chocolate will take effect during this play date. 

[BabyJilly_S]

Ah, the chocolate goes in, she's is certainly candidate number 1 for the poisoning if it turns out to be so....

[Personalias]

Chapter 54: Every Little Thing Falls Apart

“Are you sure you want to do this?”  It was Janet, because of course it was.  She’d coaxed my cooperation out of me by dangling this last meal in front of me and now she was trying to talk me out of it.  “This could...this could go not the way you want it to go.”  She sounded cautious; choosing her words carefully.  Trying to let me down easily.

I was still in my sailor suit.  From my car seat I looked down at my stomach, not feeling anything but well aware that something was happening on the inside.  Chances are it would be another few hours before it kicked in, yet it was inevitable.  “Yeah.  I’m sure, Janet.”  One losing battle at a time.

“Clark, I know you don’t like Miss Forrest but…” Her eyes flickered with indecision.  Perhaps she was feeling the cognitive dissonance of what she’d just done to me.  A trace of guilt. Another wedge between us.  Was she trying to justify?

“Janet…” I stowed away my boiling anger.  Bottled it up.  “...can we talk about this after I say goodbye to my wife and tell her how much I love her and will miss her and how at the very least she owns our house now and is safe.  Can we please wait and have this conversation after that?”

Janet stared at me in the rearview mirror, then looked away. “Fair.”  Janet didn’t know the meaning of the word.  Not really.  I was beginning to think that no Amazon could.  “How do you want to do this?”

I thought for just a second.  What would Cassie do?  Answer: Cassie wouldn’t do it.  But what if she had to?  “When the GPS leads you to the block, keep going,” I said.  “Then find somewhere out of the way to park.  I’ll switch it into those clothes you got me.”  

“Make sure she’s home, and then change you in the backseat,” she paraphrased.  Damn those choice of words.  I couldn’t even tell if she was doing it on purpose or whether her particular brand of Amazon cruel and crazy was kicking in.

Then a fragment of the old Clark Gibson charm kicked in.  “If you want, you can stand outside the car and watch, but I’d appreciate it if you gave us some space.” It’d be easier to talk to Cassie and tell her to wait for a Tweener messenger if no one else was listening in.  “For her sake. It might show her how trustworthy you are.”  If I couldn’t stop the crazy, I could at least direct it in a way that would benefit me.

Even from the driver’s seat, Janet seemed uncomfortable. “Okay,” she finally said.  “But please don’t leave my sight…”  

I bit my lip.  “Yes, Mommy.”  Best to hedge my bets.

Just do this.  Just do this and get through the night.  Tomorrow I could probably find a way to message Tracy for her to deliver to Cassie. What message though?  I didn’t exactly have a plan, yet.  Just a framework for delivering a plan.  Escape infrastructure, if you will

“Clark…”

Oh! New Idea! I could test Tracy out.  I could give Cassie a codeword to wait for, like ‘Sharkbite’.

“Clark?”

And then Cassie would have to tell Tracy something like ‘Minnow’.

“Clark? Honey?”

That way when Tracy got back to me, I could ask her what Cassie said. If Tracy replied with ‘Minnow’, I’d know that she really talked to my wife.  

“Baby?  Clark?”

Any other response would mean Tracy was lying to me, which would suck, but then again I could at least know whether to trust my old assistant.  I wanted so badly to trust someone from before this mess went down.

Mess…

Damnit now I was doing it to myself.

Doing it to myself…?

DAMNIT!

“Clark!”

I fidgeted in my seat and wriggled out of my own head.  “What?”

The car was no longer moving.  “Is this your old house?”

I craned my neck as best I could and stopped breathing.  No blinking.  If I could have willed it I would have stopped my heart right there, but was left with the thunderous pounding starting in my chest and spreading all the way from my ankles to my ears.

“Clark?”  Janet looked genuinely distraught, unsure of what to say.

“Get me out.” The words sounded hollow coming from me. “I want to see.”  A lie, technically.  No one wants to see something like this, but there was an underlying compulsion; a bit of thanatos.

“Clark.  I’m so sorry.”

“I want to see.”

“Clark. Cassie’s not in th-”

“I WANT TO SEE, JANET! NOW LET ME SEE!”  Janet jumped in her seat.  Her, the mighty Mommy Amazon, jumping at my roars.  Who said I didn’t have a teacher look or a teacher voice?  The cost of confirmation, however, was too much...

Janet cut the engine and walked around.  She opened my door, and unbuckled me, picking me up out of the car.  She was mumbling something to herself, her lips moving but no sound coming out.

“Put me down, please.”  My voice came out hollow again. Quiet.  Dead.

She put me down on the ground, and I walked around the front of her car to see it for myself.  No hand reached down to grab mine or yank me back up.  I stepped and beheld a terror that I had never even pondered.

From the sidewalk I could see where my bedroom used to be.  I could see into my bathroom, the giant sized toilet cracked but standing like a monument to the fallen.  I needed neither door, nor window to see through to them.  There were none to be found.

I knew the kitchen, the living room, the spare bathroom and the guest room that would never have any guests from memory and guesswork alone.  Nothing stood to mark their passing beyond what the wind couldn’t sweep away.

My house: Broken. Burnt down to ashes.  Yellow caution tape squared off my entire front yard. The blaze had been contained so as to preserve most of the sod but everything else had been torched.   Outside that initial patch of green, from the closest blades of grass to the crumbling frame, were in shades of gray and black.  The gray of smoke and the black of ash.  Despair and death.

The closest neighboring house had those same colors bleeding into the outer walls. Smoke damage.  I don’t know if I imagined it or if the wind still carried the smell of burning cinders into my nostrils, even though there was no heat.  My life.  Literally everything I’d ever built up and strived for had collapsed into dust, with just the broken skeleton as a bare remains.
I took a step forward.

“Clark…”   

I heard Janet but I ignored her.  I was numb inside. A deer in headlights.  I took more steps. A moth to flame.  It would be easy to duck under the tape.  For someone of my size, ‘duck’ would be a misnomer.  

“CLARK!”  Footsteps behind me.  Too far behind.  She’d given me too much space.  She’d catch me in a dead out run but… I could run.  Run away.  Use the openness to my advantage and make a run for it.  I didn’t have to duck and weave to get through the wreckage as much.

“CLAAAARK!”  She wasn’t picking up speed.  Not running.  If I sprinted now I might stand a chance.

Or I could just go back to my room.  Go to my bedroom. Lie down. The mattress didn’t look too bad.  Maybe I could smother myself in it; impale myself on charred up coils of spring.  Maybe I...

“Careful, Little boy.” I was yanked up before I could finish the dreadful thought.  “That’s not a playground.”  Two unfamiliar hands hoisted me up by the waist and whipped me through the air.  “Let’s...put...you...riiiight here while I talk to your Mommy.”

The umbrella stroller I was placed into enveloped me. The new Amazon’s hands worked fast, faster than Janet’s; maybe even faster than Beouf or Zoge and I was restrained in what felt like the blink of an eye.  “Huh?”

I looked up and saw my attacker.  Not Janet, but familiar; oddly so.  Dirty blonde hair that was neatly parted in front and swept into a ponytail.  Green condescendingly smiling eyes shown against scarlet lipstick.  They popped against her light gray shirt and greenish brown vest.  The comfortable “mom jeans” looked like something Janet might wear on campus.  The whole look screamed so casual as to somehow seem bougie.  Total soccer mom.  

Where did I know her from?  I didn’t know any soccer moms.

Janet was on us in a flash.  “Clark!’ She said my name for what felt like the millionth time that day.  “Honey! You can’t go in there!”  She immediately regarded the newcomer.  “Thank you so much!” Followed quickly by, “I am so sorry!”

The women waved Janet’s apology off.  “Don’t worry about it. Babies sometimes get ahead of themselves.  And us,’ she laughed and extended her hand.  “Helena Madra.”

“Janet Grange.”

The new Amazon threw me a wink. “You’re Little boy is an adventurer, isn’t he?”

My house...my whole life...everything I’d ever built was crumbled not sixty feet away and my grief was being reduced to the misadventurous curiosity of a child.

You know what I was almost thinking...I just didn’t have the strength to think it.  Sometimes even the T-word is not enough.

Janet let out a tired laugh; a fake laugh.  “It’s been an adventure alright.”

“Just like my sweet, Amy.”

Something almost clicked in my head, “Amy?”

“Hi.”  My tunnel vision cleared up.   I wasn’t the only Little in this stroller. It was a double.

Like almost all Little clothing, the dark blue dress failed to come down far enough to hide her padding with the diaper swollen and pressed up against the buckle. The  dark, almost navy blue dress complimented the near pristine white of my own outfit and dark blue trim. Even if the Peter Pan collar wasn’t quite the same style.  The Mary Jane shoes looked uncomfortable as anything, not that she’d have to do much walking in them.

Light brown hair and artificial freckles stared back at me and sent me to a happier, if more precarious time in my life.  It was the missing gap in her front teeth that finally made me recognize her.

I’d met them on the bus after me and Cassie’s date at the barbecue joint.  They’d gotten off at our stop and we stayed on even longer just to avoid them.

“Have you had your baby long?” Helena asked, sounding casual.

Finding someone who didn’t seem to judge her relaxed Janet.  “Not long,” she replied. “But I knew him before his Maturosis manifested.”

That was apparently the right combination of words to unlock Helena’s mouth.  “Maturosis? Oh my goodness! You know about Maturosis?!”

“I do,” Janet nodded. “I work at Oakshire Elementary!”

Helena put a hand to her heart. “That’s so sweet that you adopted your baby right when his Maturosis flared.”

It didn’t take a degree in psychology to see that Janet was low-key eating this up.  It was the weekend all over again.“Thank you.”   

“Is your Little boy enrolled there?”

“Today was his first day.”

“Mrs. Beouf was absolutely instrumental in helping my Amy realize she was a baby.  She’s so much happier now! I just know yours will learn and grow.” She was talking about me like I wasn’t even there.  “They even have a Little teacher there who helps out from time to time so that the babies can see that it has nothing to do with their size! Isn’t that a happy coincidence?”

I felt the blood drain from my face.  She’d looked me in the eyes and buckled me into this stroller, but hadn’t made the connection. She’d ID’d me on that random bus encounter, but now was talking as if she didn’t recognize me? Did I look that different without my beard?  Maybe it was just a matter of expectations.

Next to me, the Little woman with the missing teeth’s eyes lit up.  I heard her whisper, “Bus kid!”

Away from the stroller, Janet smiled.  The smile didn’t quite register as anything more than polite. She didn’t correct the woman about the status of that Little teacher. Instead she changed the subject. “I notice you have a dual stroller.  Twins? Siblings?”

Madra started to gush. “Hmm? Oh no. My sweet girl is the only Little I need in my life full time.  I just got the double stroller so that if she’s helping me watch one of her friends, we can go on walks together and she won’t be separated by another stroller.  Socialization is very important for a baby Little’s continued happiness.  Sometimes we can get so protective of them that we put ourselves at the center of their lives and cloister them off from each other.  We tell ourselves that Mommy and Daddy attention is all they need, but they also need their own friends.”

“Babies need friends who are like them.  Not just parents.  Not just classmates. Not just bigger children.”  Janet was nodding along, but her tone had taken on something of a rote quality.  She was quoting something.

Amy’s Mommy beamed. “Exactly!  Little Voices?”

“Just started reading some of their literature,”

“Oh you’ve totally got to come and-”

“Hi!”

Speaking of ‘Little Voices’, the one right next to me spoke loudly enough to grab my attention.  The finger attached to that voice was poking me in the shoulder relentlessly.

“Um...hi?” Great.  Another Little who had gone past the edge.  Another Ivy.

“You’re the Little boy who I saw with the Little girl on the bus that one time and my Mommy talked to you and I went down on the bus and I found the gum I wanna say it was cherry no wait it was strawberry the cherry gum was another time and then we got off the bus and the gum tasted real good but my Mommy made me spit it out because she didn’t want me to choke and we talked about emus and what birds say what’s your favorite color?”

Correction: She wasn’t Ivy.  This might be worse…  “Um...you didn’t talk this much before…?”

“Nope.”

I kept one ear on the Mommies chatting each other up.  “Why are you talking to me now?”

“You were a stranger.  Now you’re a baby so it’s ‘kay.  So anyways I like strawberry gum and my Mommy said I shouldn’t have gum cuz I could choke and it stays in your tummy for a long time but she said I could have strawberry ice cream but ice cream has a different mouth feeling and I like chocolate and vanilla ice cream better maybe if I could get that fancy space ice cream.  My favorite color is lavender.  That’s like a fancy purple, ya know?”

Slowly, I nodded, though I did not speak at first.  Too many emotions.  Too much crashing down all around me.  I’d been debased, advanced on, mocked, harassed, condescended to, intimidated, coerced, and brow-beaten.  This blast from my past was one straw away from breaking my back.  “Um…yeah?”

“-Littles who lived here.”

My ears perked up.  They were talking about what happened!  I leaned forward in the stroller.  Janet’s eyes made contact with mine.   “Oh? There were Littles who lived here?”  

“Oh yes. I think so.  A Little girl, I think. Poor thing-”

“What happened?”

A finger poked my shoulder and out of habit I turned to face its source.  “So why do you think they call it a rectangle because it’s not very tangled up its lines are super straight and the angles aren’t wrecked either so that can’t be it,” she paused long enough only to snort at her own words, ”seriously though I think I ‘member reading it being from another language but I don’t read magazines that don’t have crayons anymore.  What’s your name?”

“Clark.”  I immediately realized I shouldn’t have answered.  It only encouraged more talking when I needed unfettered hearing.

“It happened this weekend. Amy and I live a few blocks over but-”

“- going into Mrs. B’s class are all the toys-”

“-Little girl had a breakdown or something.  Maybe her Matur-”

- there’s a difference between toys and blocks ya’know-”

“Lucky none of the others houses caught fi-”

-eouf does she still have those funny glasses-?”

“Police and firefi-”

“-bout Jessinnia he’s the octopus stuffie- “

“Vans from Child Protective Services came and-”

“-home with me some of the other kids prolly call him somethi-”

“So it’s sad about the house but at least she’s likely getting the love and care she needs.”

“You can’t let them call him the wrong name, it’s rude.”

I hadn’t heard it all through the inane babble but I’d heard enough.  This clueless, typical Amazon gossip, believed that a Little girl played with matches or something and set the house on fire.

Instantly, I knew the truth.  No.  Not my Cassie.  That’s what went down.  Not by a longshot.  My love. My brave, beautiful wife did something much more poetic. Much more rash and angry.  Much more herself.

When I didn’t come home, Cassie had figured out what had happened right away.  Of course she had.  But she hadn’t known about Janet’s ‘gift’ to me in fully declaring my adult status dead.  She had seen the trap. She had known that sooner or later the Amazons would come for her in one form or another, and decided to go out with a bang.

If we couldn’t have our house, no one could.  Burn it all down and escape back to the trailer park.  Start over. Divorce me, become Cassie Braun and not look back to protect herself and everyone else left in her life.  It was exactly the kind of thing we talked about doing in the worst case scenario.

She got sloppy though. Sloppy or unlucky or both.  She got caught fleeing the scene, or they realized it was arson immediately, or the Amazons realized there was a Little living in the house and the fire was all the excuse they really needed.

Gone.  

My wife was gone.  Gone and chances are I’d never see her again, and if I did there was a fifty-fifty shot that she wouldn’t recognize or remember me.  She definitely wouldn’t love me anymore, regardless.

I’d doomed her with my hubris.  Doomed her with my ambition.  Didn’t fucking listen to her and lied to her and myself for far too long. I’d won so many battles that I’d thought myself invincible and instead of taking a single defeat- a defeat that was really only admitting she was right- I doubled down and cost us everything.

“-and that’s why I think axolotlotls are like Little frogs.”

Janet came over and unbuckled me, scooped back up and plopped me back on her hip like the last five minutes hadn’t even happened.  “Well thank you for telling me all that Helena.  I appreciate it.”

“No problem,” Helena said.  “I love chatting people up.  It’s my only vice.”  My everything destroyed and trampled in less than a week and it was just gossip to her.  My past and future no longer existed but at least she had a neat bit of trivia.  “How did your Little stinker get away from you anyways?”

“Oh it’s embarrassing,” Janet lied.  “I stopped to change him in the backseat and he just slipped off when I was balling up the old Monkeez.“

“Ha! I’ve fallen for that one before. Don’t beat yourself up.”

Janet was keeping my secret and honoring my privacy. There was a strange kind of honor in that.  I should have been touched. I was just furious. Furious with myself.  Furious with Janet.  It didn’t make sense but I was furious with Cassie, too.  Why couldn’t she have waited for me?

“Say bye-bye, Clark.” I said nothing.  My eyes went dead like a shark’s.  “He’s just shy.”

Amy piped in for me.  “Bye-Bye, Clark! He’s just shyyyy!”

“Oh my sweet girl!” the Gossip said, “She was talking about her baby.”

“I’m a baby!”

“I know, but you’re my baby.  She was talking about hers.”

“Oooooh,” the Little girl nodded sagely.  

Back in the car.  Back to another prison.  Back to a life with no chance of reprieve.  “Clark,” Janet said.  “I’m so sorry, hon.”  Dead silence from me. “I swear I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have offered or suggested it if I knew it was going to happen.”  I was shaking.  Humming on a toxic cocktail of near homicidal emotions and with nothing left to look forward to.  “Maybe you’ll see her in Mrs. Beouf’s class…?”

“I hate you.”  

“Hmmm?”

She’d heard me.  “I hate you.”  I said it again, even softer.

“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate...I ha...I...”  I’d cried a lot already over the past several days.  Had managed to go almost an entire day, tear free.  Had thought things were looking up.

I was quiet this time, but I cried all the same.  I kept muttering “Hate...hate...hate...hate...hate…”  Softer than a whisper no one could hear me.  A rain of grief over my face.  All water.  No thunder.  The lightning, I kept bottled up inside my heart.

“I’m so sorry,” Janet told me as she held me.  “I’m so, so sorry.’

“Hate…”

She coddled me and cuddled me.  “I’d take it all away if I could.”

“Hate…”

She hugged me and fed me. Wiped away the torrent from my cheeks.  “You can call me Janet if you want.”

“Hate…”

She fed me real food, not stuff out of a jar or anything pre-processed that could have been tampered with. Fresh fruit and vegetables.  “Even in front of others...I won’t get mad if you call me Janet.”  Took a few bites just in case.

“Hate...

She bathed me and washed my hair with relaxing shampoos. “If you want to talk about it, I’ll listen…”

“Hate…”

She wrapped me up and changed me and plopped me in front of the television.  The Muffet show was on. One of my favorite re-runs...the one at the train station because the usual venue was being fumigated.  “It doesn’t even have to be...I mean it can be about anything you want.”

“Hate…”

She checked and changed me again.  Put me in jammies and put me to bed.  “Goodnight, Clark.  I’ll have the baby monitor on.  Call me if you need anything and I’ll come running.

I finally found my voice after she left.  “I hate you.”  It was loud enough to hear this time.  “I hate you so much.  So fucking much.  I hate you.”  

On the cushioned mattress I muscled myself up to standing and looked directly at the baby monitor.  ‘I hate you.”  

“I hate you.”  I didn’t yell it, just said it loud and clear.

“I hate you.”  Kept it up for hours.  Kept saying it again and again and again until the room got dizzy from exhaustion.

“I hate you.  I hate you. I hate you.” Janet never came.  For all I knew, she’d heard me and then went and cried herself to sleep and turned her end of the transmission off.

Didn’t matter much to me.  I needed to say it.  The thing of it was, I wasn’t even entirely sure who I was saying it to.

“I hate you.”

[YourFNF]

Honestly I don't think Cassie was sloppy enough to get caught.... I think this was a suicide.....

Would also be an effective way to take some with you. Splash accelerant everywhere or turn the gas on and just wait with a lighter. When they kick the door... Everything goes up like the Fourth of July...

 

[Moon3ye]

This is even nastier and meaner than I expected.

His old life not only disappeared and sold but destroyed and his wife seems to have been caught.

I am really looking forward to more chapters.

[TerranV]

I expected her to not be there. Hell I think Clark might have expected the possibility of her not being there.

I wasn't expecting this.

[BabyJilly_S]

I too expected her to have bailed. But the fire ands for her to be captured, oh my.....

If her "mommy" is local and she ends up in Beouf's class , double oh my....

The cost of his ego is now becoming apparent to him.

Terrific writing as ever.

[Panther Cub]

Oh my...

[Bonsai]

Now, since his last anchor is Tracy, I expect some sort of betrayal also from her…

[Moon3ye]

59 minutes ago, Bonsai said:

Now, since his last anchor is Tracy, I expect some sort of betrayal also from her…

Tracy is a small Amazon or a big one in between, I don't know anymore, maybe she adopted Cassie, maybe she already knew about all this or maybe she staged all this to protect herself because it became conspicuous how she helps Clark and because of her size she could quickly come into the sight of "maturity" herself.

Everything is possible and everything will be entertaining.

[TerranV]

I wonder if Tracy knew anything about the house burning down. She knew where Clark lived. 

I'm also not entirely unconvinced there isn't more going on here. 

Credit to Janet, she's trying to respect how Clark feels at the end of the chapter.

[Personalias]

Chapter 55: Technically...

Tuesday.

“Okie dokie, Clark,” Mrs. Beouf said to me. “For today, I want you to paint a frog, okie dokie?” I didn’t react.  I just stood there at the easel, lightly nodding.  “You can paint the frog any color you want, too.  Okie dokie?”  My eyes were wide open constantly scanning the periphery like a meerkat searching for predators.  My tongue kept licking the inside of my teeth.  “Clark?”

I nodded, still saying nothing. In my mind I looked like some kind of ghost standing there with the paintbrush clutched in my fist, staring directly ahead.  An old and worn button up shirt was draped backwards over my chest so that I was fastened up in the back.  The makeshift smock was already splattered from years and years of continual use, and the bunched up sleeves dwarfed my arms.  Along the easel’s ledge were several cups of tempera paint.

I was the ghost of adulthood past, with all my life crumbled around me and nothing left to look forward to but to...paint a fucking frog.

“Clark?”

I bobbed my head lightly.

“Clark? Honey?  Do you wanna go lay down in the nap room?”

My head didn’t shake as much as oscillated like a fan. “No ma’am.”  My voice came out quiet but clear; not a hint of sleepiness in it.  Sleep wouldn’t come for me.  I’d refused its advances.

“Are you sure?”

More bobbing.  “Yes, ma’am.  Paint the frog.  I’ll paint the frog.”

“If you want, you can curl up in a beanbag over by the reading center.  Nobody’s using it right now.”  I’d already used the reading center.  Not for reading of course.  Nooks and crannies to not be seen were becoming a premium. That semi-closed off feeling was the closest I got to a bathroom stall.

Oscillating head.  “No thank you.  I want to paint.”  That was a lie, of course.  I didn’t dare put in words what I wanted to do.  Were I large enough to be taken seriously, those words might have put me in jail.

“Okay, honey.” Beouf didn’t quite believe me but didn’t feel like pressing the point .  “Call me if you need me. I’ll leave you be.”  Music to my fucking ears.

Beouf went to direct my other classmates doing their cutesy late morning activities.  Painting. Coloring worksheets. Sand tables. Dancing and movement games projected onto the whiteboard. This was the part I had missed on my first day thanks to my breakdown.

After the group centers, there were whole group activities- reading of Amazon propaganda and the like-  followed more independent activities.  Skinner, Winters, and Sosa came in for ‘speech’, ‘PT’, and ‘OT’ respectively and snatched Littles up in ones and twos for half-hour segments. There they would practice dulling skills and shaping behaviors to be worse than they started.  Those not picked for extreme gaslighting that day were given these inane preschool activities to do.  It was the kind of stuff that I didn’t put as much time into back in my own classroom because I was still responsible for academics.

For actual children, playing in a sand table might be a treat at the end of a week if not a longer period of time for a job well done. For us Littles it was much more frequent; a normalization in infantilization.

I was at the painting station.  Apparently, I was supposed to “paint a frog”.  Clipped to the side of the easel was a photograph of a frog for reference.  Most days before this, I might have come up with some pithy observation, but I was too tired;  emotionally blown up.

Not sleepy.  Just bone, dead ass tired. There’s a difference, I’d found.  After staying up all night cursing at Janet through the baby monitor, I was woken up, changed, dressed in toddler clothes and then carted off to school.  It was like my previous breakdown had never happened.  Not so much as an extra day off to grieve. I wasn’t even asked.

Janet made no comment about the contents of my diaper, but she’d gone heavy on the rash cream. The training chocolate had done its work and then some.  She seemed wary of me from our last interaction, but far from exhausted.  Someone had gotten a good night’s sleep.  I made no reply when she’d asked if I’d slept well.

“Must’ve slept well for all this poopy to come out and you not cry out. What did you eat to have all this go through you?”

“Chocolate…”

“When did you…?” She stopped and left it at that.  I didn’t want to have that conversation anyways.  The only thing worse than Mommy crazy Janet was sympathetic and regretful Janet.  I just kept quiet.  Not resisting anything, but not contributing unless asked and only the bare minimum at that.

No schemes went through my head that morning.  No tears came out of my eyes.  An advantage of being bone tired is that it’s harder for you to feel feelings.  Your body goes on autopilot survival mode and your brain becomes a crocodile.

What is food? What isn’t? Where’s the danger? Where’s safety?  No good or bad. No love or regret or sorrow.  Just numbness.  Your body becomes so tired that you’re not really you; but an avatar of yourself.  I was playing the world’s most boring MMO and the mission objective was “Paint a Frog”.  Zero experience points or gold awarded, but the game wouldn’t progress until I did. No cut scenes either.

Running on adrenaline and spite...mostly spite, I had shambled through the day, feeling nothing. Breakfast. Circle Time. Centers.  I was basically a cross between a zombie and a turtle; uttering few words beyond proving I was alive.  Just doing what was asked of me but no more.  Feeling numb.  I needed the numbness after yesterday.

There had been only one time when I hadn’t felt numb and that was when the bus unloaded that morning. No Cassie; adopted or otherwise.  How messed up was it that I was looking for her? It was stupid to even get my hopes up by that much.  Beouf’s class had a waiting list.  If Cassie got adopted by someone in Oakshire there were any number of run of the mill Little-centric daycares that would take her, (and one particularly awful one).

I was never going to see…

No...no...don’t think about it.  Just stay numb.  Paint the frog.  Paint the frog, shamble through the rest of the day. Go to sleep. Rinse and repeat forever.

I winced as a cramp went through me.  At least I was starting to feel the cramps again. I’d needed changing after snack time and the load in the back of me had practically teleported in there.  I liked to imagine that cramps meant the training chocolate was almost out of my system.  More likely, it just meant I’d get a warning before I uncontrollably soiled myself.

Don’t think about it.  Just stay numb.  Paint the frog.

I dipped the paint brush into the non-toxic paint.  Blue.  Why not a blue frog?  “Paint the frog,” I sighed.  “Paint the frog.” I leaned in and started to drag the brush across the art paper.  Paint the frog.

This was just busy work.  The whole thing was busy work.  We weren’t learning.  Not what they were explicitly teaching us.  They’d convinced themselves that I was just a dumb baby anyways.  I could literally paint anything, call it a frog, and they’d be happy about it.  Possibly happier if it was particularly inaccurate.

I wasn’t even angry.  Not even annoyed at this point.  Too drained of everything to be annoyed.  I’d lost it all.  My wife was adopted. My house burned down.  My career over.  My personhood legally rebooted and kept in a holding pattern.  To top it all off, the inevitable next few days of near helplessly filling my pants would cement everything the giants already thought of me.

I wasn’t even mad at Raine, to be honest.  It was hard to get mad at the scorpion for stinging. It’s what it did.  The most painful thing, the thing that threatened even numbness born out of trauma, grief, and spite was the looming and ever-present fact that people like Beouf, Janet, and even Zoge were just as bad as Raine.

I had fooled myself into thinking they were my friends and protectors, but they were no better than her.  That’s why I was stuck in Beouf’s classroom having to paint the frog.

I paused.

Beouf was no better than Raine.

Paint the frog.

All Amazons were crazy.

Paint the frog.

They’d convinced themselves…

Paint.

…that I was a baby…

The.

No matter what…

Frog.

Clark; the reasonable, professional adult with complex thoughts and feelings that were considered by his peers and coworkers? He was gone as far as the Amazons were concerned; assuming he’d existed at all to them.  I couldn’t rely on that perception or that approach.  My captors were immune to it.

But Clark the trickster; Clark the manipulator; dare I say it, Clark the daredevil?  Clark of the infinite poker face, master of playing dumb, architect of the Silly Sock Day Fiasco.   I looked and felt like a ghost.  If Mr. Gibson, pre-k teacher of Oakshire Elementary was well and truly gone, what did I have left of me?

Let’s show them.

With bold, precise strokes, I dipped my paint brush into the tempera again and made my mark upon the paper.  One coat.  Two coats.  I had to use the entirety of the medium made available to me, and make it clear in no uncertain terms who and what I was.

Beouf wanted art?  Then she’d get it.

Like a tiny mischievous god I stepped back and looked at what I had wrought.  I waited quietly until Zoge went on a bathroom break. “All done!” I announced, gesturing to the finished masterpiece.  My demeanor had changed entirely.  The zombie man-child dragging his everything replaced with an all too cheery, all too sinister smile.  The same weary eyes in my head were still there, animalistic, only now they had gone from prey to predator.

Beouf turned around from the sand table where she was playing with Ivy.  “Hmmm?” Then she saw it.  Her eyes lit up in surprise. Her lip pouted out and her eyebrows lowered immediately in question.  “Clark?  What did you-?”  She wasn’t even sure if she should be mad or not.  Just confused.

The easel lay virtually untouched.  Just a few random paint splatters from where I hadn’t bothered to take care so that I more fully completed the effect.  The unlaminated photo of the tree frog, however… “You said I should paint the frog, Mrs. B!  So I did!”  From corner to corner, the entire surface was caked in blue paint.  If someone had told you that there was a picture of a frog underneath, you’d have to either call them a liar or take their word for it.

My former coworkers wanted a baby?  Someone who was thirty-two years and just over twelve months at the same time?  Then they’d get it. This. This was my art.

As expected, Beouf’s lips retreated from her face.  “Ha….haha…hahahahahahahaha!”  She doubled over laughing.  “Oh my goodness! Clark!”  A few giant strides and she was back over me, her neck spasming and her trying to look away, yet unable to make herself.  A cross between a cavalcade of whimsy and a car wreck.

Ivy looked up from her sand.  Chaz stopped trying to pop bubbles being spit out by a machine.  Billy and Annie stopped trying to subtly grope each other and call it the Hokey Pokey.  All eyes were on us.  No.  All eyes were on me.

Beouf dug into her pocket and took out her phone.  “I’ve gotta take a picture of this and show your Mommy!”

Gladly I stood by my masterpiece and grinned like I’d just won a prize.  If only Beouf had known.  This really wasn’t my masterpiece.  I hadn’t won anything yet.  This was merely phase one.

“That is just too stinkin’ cute,” Beouf gushed. Her phone clicked, immortalizing what was yet to come.  “So clever!”  She started chuckling to herself again.  “I did say ‘paint the frog’.”

“Yup yup!” I chirped like a good Little boy.  “I’m real good at this!’

“You always have been, sweetie.” Beouf replied.  “It’s just coming to the surface more often. That’s a good thing.”

I threw my hands up into the air.  “YAAAAAAY! I DID IT!”

“YOU DID IT!”

Chaz, Annie, and Billy stared at me like a second head had shot out of my mouth.  Ivy just copied me.  “YAAAAAAAY! CLARK DID IT!”

Tittering to herself, Beouf went back to her desk and picked up her classroom phone.  She was still standing up and at the wrong end of her desk, so her back was to me.  Yes!

“Hello. Ms. Grange?  This is Mrs. Beouf. Sorry to interrupt.  I just wanted to tell you what Clark did just now.  No, no, no.  Nothing like that! He’s fine! He’s good!  Little out of it, little grumpy this morning, but he just did the cutest thing and I had to tell you about it.”  She punctuated her sentence with another laugh.

Time for phase two.

I looked to Chaz sitting on a laminated floor mat dotted by sudsy speckles from popped bubbles.  “Chaz…” I mouthed.   I jerked my head towards the easel.  “C’mere…”

The teenager crawled up to me.  “What?” he whispered.

“Say ribbit.” I told him quietly.  “Say it loud.”

“Huh? Why?”

He followed my gaze over to Beouf.  “I know! Right? I did say ‘paint the frog’.  He got me there.”  She was shaking her head.  Laughing at herself as much as me.  Let’s really give her something to laugh about.

“You heard her,” I hissed. “I’m allowed to paint the frog.”

A dopey, adrenaline fueled smile that a plane could fly through appeared on Chaz’s mug.  “RIBBIT! RIBBIT!”

My brush struck out.  It wasn’t as neat as my original creation; I missed a spot here and there; but within seconds Chaz was smeared with non-toxic blue tempera paint from ear to ear.

Forehead, nose, chin, cheeks.  The whole shebang.  It almost looked like a race track or a fancy treasure hunt path like in those painfully unfunny comic strips.

Beouf was still on the phone talking with her co-conspirator.  Zoge was still out to the faculty bathroom. “Hey, have you been noticing some loose stool from him? Tummy problems maybe?  No, no. It’s not too too bad but I saw the rash cream when I changed him this morning and he needed more.  Yeah.  Two in one day seems odd unless something is upsetting his…-”

Chaz waved over Annie and Billy.  “Guys. Beouf said Clark could paint frogs!”

The same look of understanding dawned on the couple’s faces.  “I want Green,” Billy said.  “RIBBIT!” he got green.  I opted for a zig zag method.  I was an artist after all. “Do my hands, too!”

BRILLIANT! COLLABORATION!  I coated Billy’s palms and he dragged them over the back of his forearms and neck.  Very kind of him to not mar my original work.

“Ribbit!”

“Paint the frog!”

Annie was next.  “I want yellow. Ribbit.”  She pulled her bangs back and closed her eyes.  “Careful.  Don’t mess up my hair.”

I shrugged “Why? It’s not like you’re going to have to wash it yourself.”

Annie opened her eyes and let her hair down. “Good point.”   I started with the hair.  Water soluble or not, it’d be a pain to get out.  Not my pain, though.

“Here,” a very green and gloppy Billy offered.  “Let me help.”  He reached for another paintbrush.  I slapped his hand away with mine.  For a split second he looked like he wanted to deck me.

“Mrs. Beouf said that it’s MY job to paint frogs.” I said.  “We wouldn’t want to be breaking any rules, would we?”

Billy nodded appreciatively.  “Ribbit. Ribbit. No we wouldn’t, would we?”

“What do you mean chocolate?  Did he specifically say chocolate?”

Ivy went so far as to get down on all fours and leap over to the easel. “Rrrriiiiiibit.”  She wanted in on the fun too.

I started scanning for the best color that would clash with her dress.  Bright red, perhaps. Turning around revealed strange, uncomfortable looks.  My three newest cohorts were giving Ivy a quiet but distinct case of stink eye and that gaze was starting to drift towards me.

“Ribbit! Rrribbit!” Ivy hopped some more.  “Paint the frog!”

I put the paint back.  “Sorry Ivy…

“You what?!”  Beouf practically shrieked.  Her tone was no longer so casual.

Meanwhile… “Your Mommy will be back from her potty break any second.  I don’t want you to get in trouble.”  I gambled on technically following rules and expectations in one breath and claimed Ivy might get in trouble with the next.

I’m going to be honest.  Looking back on that, it was not my proudest moment.  In that moment though, I needed allies and friends, not playmates.

“Oh, honey,” Beouf started to turn around. “You and I have got to talk on the phone later tonight.  I think that…”  She saw our gaggle of painted Littles gathered around my easel.  “Gotta-go-I’ll-call-you-back!”

She hung up the phone.  Her body posture was somewhere between panicked and storming.

Chaz spoke first.  “Ribbit!”

Billy and Annie followed suit.  “Ribbit! Ribbit!”

“Paint the frog!  Paaaaaint the frog!”  Ivy whined.

The door opened.  Perfect timing.  Zoge, and the therapists came back with the other half of the class. “Good job today Tommy,” Sosa said.  “Now can I please see Aaaaaa-?”

They froze, taking in the situation. Chaz started crawling and hopping as best as he could on four feet.  Annie and Billy puffed their cheeks out so that their faces had maximum surface area. Ivy, bless her heart, started hopping around too, trying to be part of it all.

“What’s going on here?” Zoge asked, genuinely startled.  My classmates were much less worried and much more vocal.

A cacophony of discordant giggles bubbled into eruption.  In less than five minutes I’d managed to subvert and disrupt an entire organized play routine and add clean up to the mix.

“Oh no!” Shauna howled with delight.  “And I just got changed half an hour ago!”

Jesse was collapsed on the ground, clutching his sides. “Me too! Don’t care! Ribbit ribbit!”

“I wanna be a frog!”

“Me too!”

“RIBBIT!”

Zoge stepped in front of the newly arrived ones.  She didn’t yell and I could barely hear her. I couldn’t see her face, either.  She only said one word.  “Children…”  The therapists formed a perimeter.  Mass Teacher Glare.   Realizing they were cut off from us and surrounded, the ones who had missed the opening act clammed up.

Seeing Mrs. Beouf adopt a similar pose, Chaz, Billy, and Annie took similarly submissive postures.  Ivy toddled over and clung to her Mommy’s skirt.

No matter.  It was time for the finale.

I gazed up at the god of this classroom.  “I was trying to be good, Mrs. B.” I lied. “You told me to paint the frog!”  I gestured around to my croaking comrades.  “What else was I supposed to do?”

Beouf puffed air out.  “I…I…” She shook her head, torn somewhere between anger and exasperation.  “You.  I…  Hm.”

I put on my best confused Little face.  “Did I do something wrong, ma’am?  Do I hafta go to time out in Miss Tracy’s room?”  I’d concede that space as Tracy’s.  Never my replacement’s.

“Clark, you kn-“

“You just looked so happy that you called my Mommy when I painted one frog and…I just…I mean…I wanted you to…”  I looked at the classroom, feigning confusion and being overwhelmed as if finding out for the first time that I had done bad.

I had gone from beyond exhausted straight to the top of my game.  I could have gotten an award for this performance.

“Clark.”

“Yeah Mrs. B.?” I looked away, pretending to be fearful and repentant.

She blustered.  Grunted.  “Mrs. Zoge?”

“Yes ma’am?”

“Take Clark and the others.  Let’s do Circle Time again and maybe another story before lunch.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Beouf grabbed one of the ever-present packets of wipes from around her room.  “I’ll clean the others up.”

“I’ll help!”  I offered.

The teacher’s chin jutted out.  “No thank you, Clark.  I think you’ve helped enough for now..”

Victory.

On the way to the sitting circle, the therapists passed me coolly and took some wipes to help speed things up.  It must be nice to have coworkers to pitch in.  I had new kinds of coworkers, I supposed. They’d definitely pitched in.

“That was very…creative, Clark,” Zoge said.  “Don’t do it again, though.”

“Yes ma’am,” I promised.  That wasn’t a lie, either.  I wouldn’t mess with the paint ever again.

Why be terrible the same way when I could find new and creative ways every day to push their buttons?

[TerranV]

HA! 

Small victories. With the way Amazons are I wonder how far he could push it until they realize he's doing it just to annoy them? 

[BabyJilly_S]

That's another dangerous game to play, I guess with Cassie gone he feels like there's nothing to lose. Just maybe a fast track to some doctor/hypnosis/regression centre...

[TerranV]

27 minutes ago, BabyJilly_S said:

That's another dangerous game to play, I guess with Cassie gone he feels like there's nothing to lose. Just maybe a fast track to some doctor/hypnosis/regression centre...

Not as dangerous as it would seem. By acting childish to cover his actions they are less likely to want to screw with him more. Its when he tries to act mature would they try and push back. 

Its what Chaz did the other day on a larger scale.

[Moon3ye]

Now he's completely lost it and doesn't even realize it.

[Samriis]

Rage is a powerful thing but is often wasted... focused rage, on the other hand, is very effective, but it can consume one's original reason for being angry.

 

Bravo Clark!  Use their own bias against them... if they truly believe that Littles are lost to maturity, then let them break their minds against true passive aggressive actions!

[YourFNF]

21 hours ago, Personalias said:

playing the world’s most boring MMO and the mission objective was “Paint a Frog”.  Zero experience points or gold awarded, but the game wouldn’t progress until I did. No cut scenes e

Yep... I've been here before. Sometimes you have to just check out to get through things.

21 hours ago, Personalias said:

The teacher’s chin jutted out.  “No thank you, Clark.  I think you’ve helped enough for now..”

Victory.

Malicious compliance FTW.

....

Not going to lie I might try to lure them into complacency before going on a "Mr. Gwiffin" style murder spree.

Try to do it "Final Destination' style and make them look like accidents or suicides as long as possible.

[BabyJilly_S]

19 hours ago, TerranV said:

Not as dangerous as it would seem. By acting childish to cover his actions they are less likely to want to screw with him more. Its when he tries to act mature would they try and push back. 

Its what Chaz did the other day on a larger scale.

I suppose I was thinking on whether maturosis isn't real or not. If the Amazons really believe it's real then as you say he is safe and can just do the exact literal thing, they will think he doesn't understand. However if some know its not real (perhaps Forrest?) then he could be in trouble. 

[TerranV]

18 minutes ago, BabyJilly_S said:

I suppose I was thinking on whether maturosis isn't real or not. If the Amazons really believe it's real then as you say he is safe and can just do the exact literal thing, they will think he doesn't understand. However if some know its not real (perhaps Forrest?) then he could be in trouble. 

I imagine that it would depend on the Amazon. Beouf, Janet and Zoge definately believe and to see stuff like this as a calculated trick would challenge that. 

Forrest and Brollish definitely strike me as knowing maturosis is bs but pay lip service to it because they know its just the newest justification society uses for how littles are treated.

[Personalias]

Chapter 56: The Crying Game

I cried all day that first Wednesday.  It was spectacular!  The best day I’d had at school since I’d come back.  Big time fun and all it cost me was another sleepless night of telling Janet through the baby monitor how much she’d ruined everything until I passed out in the pre-dawn blackness.  It was nice.  

Like the previous day- shit; like most good things in my life- Wednesdays successfully marvelous antics didn’t come as the result of carefully calculated planning but from luck, the ability to adapt, and an Amazon’s crazy and arbitrary rules being turned against them.

Tuesday, I’d been super tired; punch drunk even.  Everything was numb, emotionally speaking, except for that strange giddy thrill of taking a risk.  Even then, the rush was felt through a filter.  I still didn’t feel real.  My brain had been in a kind of fog with a half-inch layer of cellophane around my personal reality.

Good.  Good things had happened.

Wednesday went to a whole new level but in the opposite direction.  

“Why is Clark crying?” Ivy asked when the bus pulled up and Littles started getting loaded off.

Tears were running down my face.  Big ones.  Dripping ones.  My breathing was fine, more or less, save for the massive amounts of snot building up and pouring onto my upper lip.  I didn’t scream or wail or bawl. I just cried.

I can’t even say why I felt like crying.  I just…

I was standing there in my onesie and sneakers, and I saw Beouf carry out Mandy and Sandra Lynn, and Sandra Lynn’s outfit kind of looked familiar in a weird way. Not the design or cut, but a similar color and hue to something this one outfit that...nevermind.

“Mommy?” Ivy kept tugging at Zoge’s dress. She actually let go of my hand so that she could point to me. “Why is Clark crying?”

Whatever Zoge said in reply, I couldn’t understand it.  Too low.  Probably in Yamatoan.  

The others noticed it too.  “Clark? You okay?  Clark?”.  

My mouth drooped lower than the overnight Monkeez had in the morning.  My breath was coming out in ragged little spurts like a sprinkler. If I ran my tongue past my lips I could taste mucus and everything from my neck up felt like it was on fire while everything south felt shivery and cold.  

And it felt great!  

So alive!  The smell of the exhaust.  The early morning sun through the treetops. The sounds of birds chirping mixing seamlessly with the fading echoes of students grumbling to the cafeteria for breakfast.  I thought about all of it, took it all in, thought about Monday and just let myself go!

It was like there was a sunburn on my very soul.  Every thought, every emotion led to pain and crying and heartache.   It hurt so much, but in that hurt I knew myself to be well and truly alive!  I could’ve stopped, I supposed, but why would I?  

Stopping the crying would have been like stopping sex before orgasm.  The feelings and pressure would have still been bottled up inside me and I would have been left feeling stunted and disturbed.  And like laughter, this sadness doubled over and looped back in on itself; like when you laugh at a joke so hard that you stop laughing at the punchline and start laughing at yourself for laughing so long and hard.

I wasn’t just crying, I was crying at myself!  If you can’t cry at yourself, who can you cry at?

“Mrs. Zoge,” Beouf said after taking stock of the situation. “Take Chaz’s stroller please.”

“Woo-hoo!” Chaz pumped his fists in the air.  “Front of the line! Now everybody’s gotta look at the back of me for once!’

I didn’t move.  Didn’t need to.  Beouf picked me up and draped me over her shoulder.  She started gently rubbing my back and shushing me.  “Shhhhhhhh.  It’s okay, baby.  It’s okay to feel sad.  Just let it all out.  Be in your feelings.”

I was being picked up. I was being carried. Beouf was having to adapt to me. She was reacting to me. Even as I cried, there was this detached bit of reptile brain still calculating behind my own weeping eyes.  

A Raine Forrest or a Brollish would have shoved a gagging pacifier into my mouth and left it there until I became mute and compliant.  Beouf considered herself one of the ‘good ones’, and in that perception she had a weakness.  Her own particular brand of Amazon crazy wouldn’t let her treat me like a hostage.  I wasn’t actively resisting, so I had to be tolerated.

I let out a whimper.  Not a full wail, just enough to work my lungs and be heard by those listening. Just enough to keep the negative feedback loop going.  

I didn’t raise the volume in the cafeteria.  No one would reasonably accuse me of attention seeking or making a scene.  I wouldn’t resist.  No accusing me of being disobedient or willful.  As far as they could claim, I was just a sad baby.  

Who knew why babies cried?  Certainly not because of deep existential pain at having most of their personal identity invalidated and the love of their liv…

The point was I’d found a way to argue from a position of strength.  To Beouf’s and Zoge’s thinking, it didn’t matter if I was turning myself into an inconvenience.  There was no rule against crying.

So I cried while I was fed dry cereal. Others fed themselves, being allowed to pick with their hands.  I sat there and cried and made Beouf have to spoon feed me. That only gave me more fuel to cry.  The bitterness of my new lot made excellent fuel.

I cried on the way out.  I cried during Circle Time, not singing along, and just buried my face in my hands and rubbed my eyes.  Every now and then I’d let out a few muffled sobs to keep my physiology primed. Simple really.  Elementary, even.  

I wept during centers.

“Clark?” Beouf asked.  “What’s wrong?  Can you talk to me?”

Could I talk? Yes.  Would I talk? No. They’d get my noise, but not my speech.  Not at all.  I allowed a “Ca...Cass….” And then I broke down into bitter sobs before muffling myself so as to pretend not wanting to disturb anyone else.  It was amazing! So freeing!

Zoge was particularly uncomfortable.  Instead of doing our center on making up animals, she gave Ivy crayons and bounced me on her lap.  All that did was give me a rhythm to whimper uncontrollably to.

“Chō, chō ha ni tomaru.
Happa ni akitara sakura to asobu.
Sakura no hana no ue de.

“Teishi shite saisei shite saisei shite teishi”

The Yamatoan nursery rhyme didn’t have the desired effect on me.  It only made me remember when Zoge- Zoge of all people- had watched out for me and saved me from this exact fate.  Perfect crying fuel!

My sadness spread like a plague throughout the room.  Eyes were on me.  Faces frowning. Uncomfortable sighs and glassy eyes.  My classmates weren’t as hardened as they might have wanted me to think.

“Clark!” Chaz shouted across the room.  “Dude! Get over-...”  He looked me in the eye and stopped.  “Nevermind.” He muttered.  I still don’t know what he saw in my eyes: the wonderfully vibrant anger and pain I was drawing from or the sadistic lizard king taking pleasure at everyone else’s reaction to it.  Neither?  Both?

Nothing worked:  Bottles; candies, both sour and sweet; toys; pacifiers; trips to the changing table.  None of it was resisted or refused.  None of it worked, either.

Janet clicked in on heels and held me softly during her lunch break.  It was nice.  Comfy.  Didn’t stop me at all, though. It was too nice knowing I was interrupting her lunch break.  It was too nice to stain her blouse with tears knowing that she’d look down after her wasted time off and be unable to get the image out of her head.

So sweet. So...so...sweet.

Beouf tried again by taking me out of the room, across the walkway and to the playground.  Fresh air; middle of the day; relative privacy  I kept sniffling and gasping for air.  I still hated that place.  I wasn’t sure why, but just being there on that perfectly made playground bothered me in ways I couldn’t quite articulate at my best. Bad move, Beouf.

“I know you’re feeling really bad today, Clark.”  she told me.  “I think I know why. Your Mommy told me the other night.  Your old house…? Aaaand...” She paused, clearly choosing her words carefully. “I know you’ve lost a lot.  You’re going through a lot.  It’s okay to feel these feelings.  It’s perfectly natural what you’re going through.”

The grief was natural.  The cause was anything but.

With everything flowing out of me at that moment, I hit a kind of rock bottom clarity.  The most bitter, angry, resentful parts of me held their tongue and didn’t refute, even internally Beouf’s claims.  She did know what I was going through. It was her job to know what I was going through. She very likely had a variation of this talk with every Little that came into her life at some point or another.  It was very unlikely that I was her first ‘student’ to go through this kind of grief.

“I just wanted to tell you,” she stopped and course corrected.  “Ask you…?” Her lips pursed.  “I wanted to tell you that if there was anything you wanted to talk about I’ll listen.  Your Mommy, Mrs. Zoge, and I care a lot about you and know you’re in a lot of hurt.”  She placed a hand on my thigh.  “Did you know that?”

Sitting on the bench where she and Zoge camped every afternoon; just me and Beouf...
Looking down at my legs I continued to sniffle, quietly percolating the next phase of my strategy.  No strategy beyond waiting for the opening.

“If there’s anything you want to say, anything at all, you can tell me anytime.  You can say ‘Mrs. B. I need to talk,’ and I can bring you right out here where no one will be able to interrupt us and I’ll listen.  It’ll be just the two of us.  Just you and me.  You can say anything you want and I’ll listen.”

I looked down at my lap.  Gingerly, I mirrored my fingers and thumbs together into a circle, as if I were holding a toasty mug of freshly brewed coffee.  Just me and her.  Just like old times…
That thought gave me enough fuel to rack my entire body.

Not disturbing anyone else, I gave myself the freedom to scream so hard that my uvula rattled in my throat.  It was a mighty bellow from my perspective; a lion’s roar mixed with a whale’s song.

My old mentor shifted me over to her lap and hugged me, shushing me gently in an attempt to soothe me; attempting to quiet me moments after she’d reminded me of her own betrayal..  

I went into the nap room, early and alone; them hoping that I’d cry myself out and go to sleep till at least Lunch.

Tracy slipped in looking worse than she had on Monday.. Her face had lines of concern and worry etched all over it.  I’d seen this face from her before; usually when she had concerns for one of our students.

“Hey boss,” she whispered.  “Mrs. Beouf gave our room a call.  Even got permission from Ambrose to borrow me.”  She scoffed and let out a bitter chuckle.  “Pretty sure Ambrose thinks I’m ripping you a new one.’  She got out of her own head.  ‘What’s up?”

Nothing.  Nothing was up.  I was just crying.  The Tweener reached through the bars and offered her hand.  I didn’t take it.  I still needed to cry; had to keep the streak up; and the later in the day it got the more demanding it was becoming.  Had to keep the game going.

“I know about your house.” Tracy told me.  “I heard about Cassie.”  Damn.  Just came right out and said it.  Tracy was always too blunt, too honest to read the room.  Thanks Tracy.  I needed that fuel.  I needed that honesty.

Words didn’t even attempt to form in my mouth. Unless those words were “Hhhhhh...uwwwwwww…….hhhhhhh…..hhhhhh…...ahhhhhh….” and clapping my hand over my mouth when a particularly powerful surge welled up in me. Thank you, Tracy.

“That sucks.”  Tracy said.  Understatement of the lifetime.  It more than sucked.  “It more than sucks.  ‘Sucks’ doesn’t cut it.”  Could Tracy read my mind?  “I just suck at coming up with better words.  Do you wanna talk about it?”

I did not and made no effort.

“No?  Okay.  I get it.”  She reached in and grabbed my hand anyways.  “Look, Clark. I messed up. I’m gonna try and make it right. I’m gonna find her, boss.  I don’t know how but I’m gonna do it. Simple as that.”  She gave my hand a squeeze.  I didn’t squeeze back. “I don’t know what will happen after I find her, but we’ll go from there.”

More promises that would be next to impossible to keep.  More false hope. More fuel. I could have done this all day with what she was providing.

She waved goodbye and left me to be by myself and cool down.  Wasn’t gonna happen, though.

Here’s a lesson about basic psychology folks: Every behavior is designed on some level to get an effect; an attempt at control.  To avoid something.  To get something in return.  Plopping me in that dark quiet room in a crib was intended to drain me.  No one to feed off of, nothing that could be avoided.

What the giants failed to understand was that I was already controlling the situation to my liking.  Making them uncomfortable.  Making them sequester me.  Seeing the world through those bars, knowing that this was going to be my life from now on, it gave me something to draw power from.

Hope had left me, and after that hope came a kind of beautiful sadness.  A power I had not yet experienced.  Just when I’d reached my limit, all I’d have to do is think about how far I’d fallen and I’d regain the strength to quietly bawl again.

Oh to feel.  To really feel.  It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.  Love was special, but the pain of its absence was exquisite like a cat-o-nine-tails lashing against my sense of self.

ALIVE!  WELL AND TRULY ALIVE!

I cried all through lunch.  Wept into my naptime pillow. Sniffled on the playground.  Sulked and whimpered in the playpen Janet placed behind her desk for me.  Kept it going and eventually faded into a quiet silence when we went back to her house.

I needed this.  I really needed this.  It was the happiest I’d been all week.

Janet wrapped me up in a blanket and rocked me.  It didn’t diminish my happiness.  She shushed and patted my back again.  See previous statement.  She said “I love you,” at least a thousand times and continually kept wiping my nose and eyes with tissue after tissue after tissue.  Come to think of it, that might have been one of the first non-wet, non-baby wipes she’d used for me.

Bonus! The hits just kept on coming.

Dinner was much the same as lunch.  No resistance.  No real participation either.  Just crying.  If I felt this great tomorrow, I reasoned behind scrunched up and puffy eyes, I’d have to start early if I hoped to beat the record I was setting.  World record? Probably not, but a new personal best for sure.

She kept looking at her phone, too.  I got glimpses of it throughout the evening.  Reading more Little Voices articles.  Looking for Mommy tips; ways to manipulate me.  Articles like ‘What to do if you’re Little can’t move on from their old life’ or some such bullshit.

Near bedtime, Janet put me in the crib standing up.  She reached out and put her hand on my shoulder while looking me in the eye.  “I know you’re feeling really bad today, baby.”  she told me.  “I think I know why.”  

My tears subsided and my breathing slowed.  Holy shit.  Almost exactly like Beouf.  “You’re going through a lot. And um...it’s okay to feel these feelings.  Perfectly natural.  Anybody would be acting the way you’re acting with what you’ve just gone through.  It’s okay to cry and be in your feelings.  Nothing to be ashamed about.”

I’d moved past shame for the day.  That hadn’t been a concern.  I started to pick up my tempo again.

“I wanted to tell you that if there was anything you wanted to talk about I’ll listen. Me and Mrs. Beouf love you.  You know that, right?”

More fuel.  Fantastic.  I might be able to keep it up till dawn with all the momentum I was gaining.  Beouf delivered the lines well.  She’d been practiced enough to not seem practiced.  Janet was clearly reciting stuff she’d just read off of a Little Voices website.

“If there’s anything you want to say, anything at all, you can tell me anytime. Anything you want and I’ll listen.”

The words out of her mouth were scripted, but the hurt in her face was real.  She turned to leave and then circled back around.  “I mean that.  I really do.”  She left again, turned out the lights, and shut the door.

Standing up in the crib, still crying, I choked out a single “I hate you…” towards the baby monitor.

The door opened and Janet came back in.  She came back to the crib and knelt down.  For the first time in maybe forever, I was above her eye level.  “One more thing,” she said.  “You can talk to me anytime, but I also want you to listen to this.”

She sniffed.  “You’re angry at me right now.  I know that.  You hate me, and that hurts.  Alot.  Alot, alot.  I’m your Mommy, now, and I’m never going away. I’m never going to stop loving you.  I’m never going to stop trying to make you happy.  I’m never going to stop learning how to meet your needs.  I’m going to mess up...I’ve already messed up,” she choked back. She wasn’t crying but I could almost hear it in her voice. “But I’m not going to give up on you and stop trying.  If you want to hate me, you can.  I understand.  You can hate me and yell at me for as long as you need to.  When I became your Mommy I was making a promise.  I’m going to keep that promise.  I’ll wait for you.”

“And what if I never stop hating you?”  It was the most I’d spoken since I’d woken up.  It didn’t make my voice sound any less raw.

Part of me had expected Janet to condescendingly smile. Lips to turn up, head to go down. She did the inverse.  “If you want to hate me forever, you have that right.  That won’t change a thing about how I feel about you.”

She stood back up, laid me down, tucked me in, and left the room for the final time that night.  My body, in crisis mode since the sun had come up finally came to rest and was refusing to get up.  My head felt like lead on the pillow and my lungs begged me to breathe steadily for once.  I wouldn’t be pulling an all-nighter tonight.  Maybe tomorrow night.  

I grabbed Lion and tucked him under my arm.  “Good game, Janet,” I said to the baby monitor.  “Good game.”