mind-wiper:

jamestmedak:

Let’s get wet …

Dylan was not a happy man. Growing up was supposed to be cool, it was supposed to bring independence and adventure and the freedom to set your own bed-time and decide when and what to eat. That’s the way he’d always imagined it as a little kid. But the reality of adulthood was loneliness and responsibility. It was having to dress up in the most uncomfortable shirt and tie, strangling his throat, the tightest, sweatiest good shoes and long pants in the middle of summer to make a living. It was only occasionally hanging around with his former best friend, Brett, and never really sharing any close moments with him anymore.

Why couldn’t grown-ups have sleep overs? Why couldn’t they play fight on the couch, or really share any more physical contact than shaking hands? He really began to envy the kids living across the street from him. The little boys could often be seen running screaming and happy around the neighbourhood in nothing but their shorts and maybe a t-shirt. They held hands, wrestled in the grass, got big hugs from their mums and dads when they needed them.  It became clearer and clearer to Dylan that it was kids who had the freedom. Growing up had been the mistake.

Dylan spent more and more of his time pining for what he’d lost and wondering if he should try to get it back. It was actually a possibility because Dylan worked at a research facility and one of the most secret projects was simply called “the device.” Oh it had a much longer, scientific name of course, but most of the guys just called it the device because everyone knew what you meant.  For a secret project it wasn’t a very well kept secret within the company. 

The device was said to be able to alter reality itself, to actually twist the world into some new form, even if totally illogical. Of course once reality changed no one would know, so there was no way to know if the device had already been used. This idea tortured Dylan. He began to wonder if adulthood as it was had only been created by the device. Was this really how things were meant to be or the mad invention of a power-drunk scientist?

Finally, unable to take it anymore, Dylan used his top level security clearance to steal the device and smuggle it back to his house. The machine itself appeared to be a slightly oversized laptop with a black screen showing only a blinking command prompt. Dylan had thought very hard about what he was going to type. He knew it was too dangerous to make massive changes, they needed to be as small as possible. So he sat on his couch, looking at the blinking screen and waiting.

“Hey mate, what’s going on?” Brett asked, walking into his friend’s house. “I got your message, what was so important I had to come over right now?”

Dylan looked his old buddy over, frowning at the suit the twenty-six year old wore. It was the dull corporate uniform of adulthood. He just knew Brett felt the same as him, trapped, cheated, tricked into boring maturity.

“You remember when we used to play in the bush, back behind your yard?” he asked Brett.

The other man looked confused. “Yeah, like when we were in primary school you mean? I remember that, sure, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

“I miss those days Brett. I know you do too. No deadlines, no work…”

Brett just shrugged. “Yeah, but there was homework, there was chores. They seemed tough at the time.”

Dylan nodded. “True, we did have some small responsibilities when we were nine or ten. But remember even before that, when were really little?”

Brett glanced at his phone. “Not really, not that much. What’s this about Dylan? I have a dinner to get to.”

“I found a way out Brett. For both of us.”

Now Brett looked clearly concerned for his friend, putting the phone in his pocket. “Out of what?” he asked softly.

“Adulthood,” Dylan answered with a smile, typing on the laptop:

Dylan and Brett are five year old boys. They are best friends…

He paused, looking up at Brett’s nervous face. Could he do this to his best friend? Could he do it without him?

He continued to type:

They are happy little boys and will never have to grow up.

“What is that? It looks like some kind of weird laptop?” Brett asked.

“It’s basically a god machine,” Dylan answered as he finished typing. “And I can tell you that because it really doesn’t matter anymore.”

Brett started to shake his head, really thinking his friend had lost it, when Dylan hit the large key marked “Execute.”

A wave of energy erupted from the machine, sweeping through the room around them. All of Dylan’s things seemed to be transforming, pictures changing, showing some other man, the couch shifting colours right beneath him. It was becoming someone else’s apartment.

“What the hell…” Brett began to exclaim. But there was a flash that blinded him, an odd sensation of falling and then they weren’t in the apartment anymore at all. They were still together, but they were standing outside in the sun. 

Brett looked around in shock as he recognised the location instantly. It was his parent’s backyard. Well, it was the backyard of the house they’d owned when he was a kid. But they’d sold that five years ago. And yet there they were. He could see them, sitting just inside the sliding door, watching TV. For an instant he thought they had travelled backwards in time. But no, the TV was clearly modern and his parents didn’t look any younger.

But the yard had changed. There was a swing-set there, kind of like he had as a very little kid, but newer, plastic rather than metal, better than what was available twenty years ago. There were toys scattered across the lawn. A bike big enough for him with neon green peddles and handles but with training wheels, Spiderman action figures, a plastic cricket bat and tennis balls. It looked like a child really lived here, a big child.

He looked up at Dylan, who was smiling as he looked around, like this was exciting rather than terrifying. “What did you do?!” he demanded.

Dylan looked ready to answer when another ripple of energy rolled across the yard and over them. Brett felt it as their clothing changed. Suddenly Dylan was wearing a t-shirt and jean shorts but no shoes at all, standing there barefoot in the grass. And his shirt seemed to have an image of… Big Bird? What the…

And his clothes changed too. The material shifted, the colour changing, his arms receding upwards, leaving them exposed. Suddenly he had on a sleeveless shirt, something he hadn’t dared to wear since puberty. His good pants tightened and grew rougher, becoming jeans, then slitting with rips and fading, looking like the jeans of a rough-housing boy. The ankles rolled upwards and cuffed themselves below the knee as his dress socks slipped down, disappearing into his shoes and then in a pop the shoes vanished without a trace.

Brett felt the hard dirt under the soles of his bare feet. It was so real. He’d had shoes and now he didn’t. And it wasn’t over yet. He watched his toes grow a bit wider, muscles in his feet strengthening, and a tickle on the bottom of his feet made him look at the sole of one. It was dirty brown, as though he’d been running around without shoes all day. And it was thick and callused, like that was his normal, everyday state. His body was changing in subtle ways, adjusting to some new reality.

Dylan was wiggling his toes in the grass with a smile though, looking delighted with these changes.

“What the fuck mate! My clothes! My shoes are gone! What’s happening to us?!” he managed to yell.

But Dylan’s smile didn’t flicker for a moment. “You don’t need ‘em. Remember how you never wore shoes when we were little? You could run on glass without flinching.”

“We aren’t little kids Dylan!” he roared.

Another wave of energy rolled across the yard. Brett tensed, not knowing what this one would do. He fully expected to shrink down to the size of a five-year old.  He waited for the ground to get closer, for his muscles to waste away. But as the wave passed over him he didn’t shrink at all.

Instead Brett felt all his worrying come to a screeching halt. His anger at Dylan, his desire to punch him in the face was wiped away. His fear at what was happening was gone. His heart-rate came down, his muscles relaxed. His toes wiggled in the dirt and totally lost his train of thought.

What was he just thinking about? What had he been doing? There was a moment of confusion and disorientation and then he remembered. Him and Dylan were gonna go ‘sploring in the bush. 

Dylan hopped up and down on his bare feet. “I gonna find a lion in the bush!” he exalted.

Brett giggled at the silliness. “Nuh-uh. Lions is in Afwica,” he told his mate.

“It’s a special lion. Daddy sawed it in the bush,” Dylan insisted. 

“That’s just pwetend,” Brett declared.

“Is not!” Dylan shouted. “I’ll show you. I gonna find it!” he insisted, twisting around and running towards the edge of the lawn.

Brett was about to take off after him when he remembered that would be naughty. “Wait Dylan!” he called. “Wait for me!” he urged, heading quickly over to the sliding door and pulling it open. “Me ‘nd Dylan gonna pway in the bush!” he told Mummy and Daddy, knowing he needed the grown-up’s permission so he would be safe and not get a time-out.

The older man and woman shared a look then addressed the barefoot twenty-something man standing in dirty cuffed up jeans and looking at them with the most eager, innocent eyes. “Okay, but don’t go any further than the stream,” Daddy told him. 

“Kay! I won’t Daddy,” he promised.

“There are thorns in the rose bushes, you should put on your shoes,” Mummy warned.

Brett frowned and shook his head. “I don’ need ‘em Mummy. My feets is tough,” he told her, holding up one to show.

“I don’t like it,” Mummy said.

“Dylan don’t got shoes ‘nd he’s fine. He didn’t bring none with him neither,” Brett argued.

Finally Mummy shrugged and said, “Okay, but you’ll need a good scrubbing with the hose before you come inside with those filthy footsies.”

Brett didn’t need telling twice, he raced off across the grass yard to join his buddy Dylan. The two young men held hands and charged into the thick bush behind the house, romping through it with giggles of glee searching for the imaginary lion.  They were quite tired out by the time they reached the little stream, sitting down to take a rest and clean some of the dirt from their bare feet.  Brett helped clean the mud from between his buddy’s toes while Dylan wrapped an arm around him for a little cuddle. It was always nice to have a cuddle from your buddy. Neither Dylan nor Brett could imagine life being any better.