Run Away- Chapter 11 (Patreon)

(CW: Talks of Suicide Attempts.) 

Run Away- Chapter 11

Status Update: Three weeks. I’m approximately three weeks from being homeless.  That’s about how long I have till I run out of money and my share of rent is due.  I quit my job.  Again.  Except I didn’t even quit-quit.  I ran out of the store with pissy pants and won’t be reporting in for work ever again.

If I wasn’t working under the table, I could at least count on one last paycheck. Maybe unemployment?  

But I can’t.  So three weeks worth of savings is about all I have left

Okay, you might be thinking that that sounds so much worse than the whole story, but if I’m being honest I’m totally downplaying just how crazy it all was.

It was a normal day in the toy aisle (normal for me anyways), and I was helping a customer find a toy that her daughter would like.  Kiddo was maaaaybe a crawler (maaaaybe). Baby was that age where if not for the pink onesie and the flowery headband, you had a fifty fifty shot of correctly guessing her gender.  The woman seemed to be about my age, and about a head shorter than me. Smelled like baby powder, Irish Spring Soap, honey, and peppermint.  

A lifetime ago I would have thought that all came from diet and hygiene, but since I can apparently smell people’s auras or whatever I knew that meant she was a little anxious but super excited.  Probably because baby had just entered that stage where she was more than JUST a sleeping, crying, eating, pooping blob.  New Mom was getting a rush of endorphins from the idea of being able to actually play with her baby.  “Is she your first?”  I asked.  I already knew the answer.

“Is it that obvious?”  Yes.  Yes it was.

“Just an educated guess,” I half-lied.  “I don’t see any big brothers or sisters.”  I would’ve thrown in that she didn’t know where the baby toys were was also a sign, but it wasn’t.  Anybody can find any part of the toy section if they take half a section.  It’s pretty well organized.  Everybody just gets lost looking for their action figures, and trucks, and tea sets, and play-doh.  The reason is obvious.  They’re always drawn to me.

I took her to the baby section and just waited for my toy sense to kick in. “So which one do you think she’d like?” New Mom asked.

I looked at the racks of stuffed animals and jingly toys and rattling balls and plastic rings.  Any second now, I’d be drawn to the right choice like a bea to a flower.  Whatever I found myself wanting ended up being the best toy for purchase.  And if I wanted more than one thing, chances are Mom or Dad or Auntie or Grandpa or whoever would walk away with two toys in their shopping cart.  

Just like almost every other time.

Seriously, if I had this power but with cars, my commission rates would be so through the roof that I’d be able to retire within the year.

This time, though, it didn’t work the same.  It worked too well.  I wanted everything.  Every. Single. Damn. Thing.  I wanted the stuffed bumblebee.  I wanted the stacking rings.  I wanted the speak-and-says.  I wanted the rolly phone.  I wanted the shapes sorter and the rattle and the tummy time playmat and the crawl through tunnel and the toddler cube and the bead maze and the playwalker and the crinkly octopus teething sensory toy.

All of it.

I wanted all of it.

Except I didn’t want them.  I NEEDED them.  It felt like there was a hole in my heart and only these shiny plastic things could fill that hole.  I felt like an addict in front of a shelf full of my drug of choice.  I was an addict;  an addict for fucking baby toys.  

“Miss?” the woman said.  “Miss Alice?  Alice? Are you okay?  Are you crying...?”

I turned to face her and felt the tears streaking down my face.  “Oh,” I sniffed.  I didn’t know why I was crying.  But I did.  

FUCK.

Then the look on New Mom’s face completely changed “Ooooh my! Looks like somebody had a leak.”  She spoke in that weird sing-song that adults use when they speak to babies.  It was a tone that I’d hoped never to hear again.  And it was directed right at me.

Her own daughter sat in the built in seat, looking around blankly; as babies do.  Lady was looking right at me.  And it wasn’t until the wet patch spreading down my jeans went down past my knees that I understood why.

Fun fact.  Most people think that when they’re embarrassed about something happening around their crotch region that they’ll slam their hands over the front of their pants and crab run away.  It’s how it works in all the cartoons, anyhow.  Untrue in my case.  My arms flailed out as the stuff flooded out of me and started making tiny puddles on the floor.  I froze as I finished wetting myself, the piss feeling cold right then and there because of how hot my body was getting combined with the industrial air conditioner working its magic.

Magic.  Poor choice of words.

The lady with the actual baby looked at me and started to gush.  “Uh-oh.  I guess that’s what happens when you use those cheap store brand diapers.”   

Looking back on it, I’m gnashing my teeth and feeling my heart thud in my ears as I type this.  She could’ve freaked out that a grown woman was peeing her pants.  She could’ve looked at me and declared that I wasn’t ready for potty training or some such bullshit, or mentioned that somebody FORGOT to put a diaper on me.  Two out of those three reactions would still have been batshit crazy and reserved for the dark corners of the internet that I’ve been traversing to try and find SOMEBODY else who has been through what I’ve been through, but it would have at least partially recognized the reality that I was wearing a store employee vest, tight jeans and presumably grown-up underwear.

Instead, she was blathering at me like I was ALREADY dressed like an infant.  In her brain I had ALREADY been wearing a diaper; just a cheap one.  I didn’t need to be demoted, just CHANGED.  I didn’t need to be mocked or scolded; I was ALREADY a baby.

(Yeah, I know it’s weird that I’m paying this close attention to what this stranger lady said but where I’m from, words matter.  Grown-ups say the wrong thing and they end up in indentured servitude until the next major pro-wrestler overdoses on steroids.  Babies say the wrong thing and they end up down a babysitter’s gullet.)

FUCK! I did NOT just type that!

“Come on, baby,” the lady with a real baby not a foot behind her said to me.  She picked up a diaper bag out of the cart and slung it over her shoulder.  Still in shock, I reached my hand up to my ears.  Still pointy.  But still very much covered up.  It wasn’t the ears that were doing this.   

“Ma’am?”  I said.  “What are you doing?”  Except looking back on it, I didn’t say Ma’am.  I called her the OTHER M-word.

“Poor baby,” she said.  She grabbed my wrist and started walking me towards the direction of the bathroom.  Her own baby was still sitting in the cart and was starting to cry out of abandonment as her mother tried to drag me someplace quiet to strip.  “Let’s get you changed!”

Through the smell of my own waste I caught a whiff of something else.  Something old and ancient, like ivy grown over marble halls, and the wood on a log cabin right after a storm.

Something Terrible.

Something Green.

And just then, She didn’t seem quite so short.

I couldn’t get out.  Her grip was like iron.  Just like Another’s grasp.  And when She opened the pastel bag and took out a Pampers, I could tell that it wasn’t sized for an actual baby.

I tried.

“Hush child.”  Her voice was different.  But the way she talked to me was unmistakable.

“B-b-b-but,” I managed to croak out.  “What about your baby?”

“That’s not my baby.  Come along. Behave.  Be a good baby.  We’re going home.”   It was almost the word of a god.

But I didn’t want to come along.  I didn’t want to behave.  I didn’t want to be a good baby.  I didn’t want to be any baby.  And I definitely didn’t want to go “home”.   And almost the word of a god still ISN’T the word of a god.

I thrashed.  I wailed.  I roared.  I started pulling things off the shelf and tossing them to the floor.  People passed by us.  We might’ve been completely invisible or mute.  Or I might’ve been just a baby having a tantrum.  My heels were scuffing up the floor, but it wasn’t doing anything to tire Her out.

Coloring books went airborne as we passed them.  Dollar editions of checkers and jacks hit the floor.  And I panicked even more as it sunk in that cheap ass toys were closer to the bathroom.  And don’t ask how I knew, but I knew:  When that bathroom door closed, I wouldn’t be in the Real anymore.

With my one free hand I hit Her with crayons and colored pencils.  She just kept dragging me.  Saying nothing.  I wasn’t even worth addressing just then.  I wasn’t even worth a supervillain monologue.

Just before we turned the corner to go to the Restroom I pelted her with something else and she let go of my hand.  The Wooly Willy toy-cheap ass dollar store item that it was- pelted her on the back of her neck.  She didn’t scream like the Wicked Witch of the West but she did make a sound and start rubbing the back of her neck.  It was like she’d been stung by a wasp or something. She even let out a little sound of pain.

I didn’t need more time.  I took every Wooly Willy off the dollar purchase hook, waited long enough for Her to turn around and chuckled them right at Her scowling face.  No melting.  No screaming. No turning into a puddle.  But She started backing away.  It was fear I saw in Her eyes.  She started closing her eyes and swatting blindly.  Bees.  I was throwing a stupid dress up game that moved around fake hair on a sketch bad...and it was stinging her like bees.

Don’t know why.

Don’t much care.

And when I saw that fear, I knew that I had to capitalize and run.  It’s not easy running in wet pants.  A lifetime of conditioning tells us that we need to stop and clean up.  Strip. Shower. Get clean.  Get new clothes.  How fucking fortunate for me that I got used to crawling around and wading in my own excrement a lifetime ago.

I ran away.  I ran home.  All the way home.  Back to my shitty apartment.  No bus.  No stops.  No looking back.  No cars hit me either...so there’s that.

I guess.

Now there’s a hole in one of my shoes and I’ve thrown away those jeans and panties rather than wash them.  I’m sitting here.  Trembling.  Naked.  And on the verge of hyperventilating as I type this.

I don’t know what I’m going to do.  I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

I never should have done this.  I never should have started diving down the rabbit hole of my own memories.  I should have been happy to just be Jane Doe “Alice” and try to move on with my life.  I neer should have started writing shit down.  

And now I’m scared to go to sleep.  I’m scared because of what I might dream about and I’m scared that the bed might be wet when I wake.  I’m scared of where I might wake up, too.

I’m putting extra milk and bread under my bed tonight.  Just in case.

And I have maybe three weeks before I’m homeless.

Update: Woke up in the bed.  Bed wasn’t wet.  But that’s because my sheets were wrapped around my ass.  

Safety-pins were involved.  The bread and milk were gone too.  They were gone...but I still woke up in essentially a poor man’s cloth diaper.

It’s okay.

It’s fine.

I know what I’m going to do.  Don’t worry about me.  If you’re reading this and you think it’s just fap fiction.  More power to ya.  Go jerk off.  I don’t care anymore. Go be a diaper perv.  Though I hope this ending makes you lose your stiffy, asshole.  

The perv who keeps copying and pasting this on his patreon should get a good jolly out of this.  I’m about to do the most derivative bullshit ever.  Sorry, asshole, you don’t get the fappy ending you wanted.

If you’re reading this and relate to anything I’m saying.  If you KNOW that the Land Beyond the Real is true. If you’ve BEEN, and somehow you escaped, I’m sorry.  I’ll only say that I wish you luck and I wanted.

I hope you don’t get recaptured.  Me?  I’m choosing freedom.  I’m choosing my own terms.

Warmest Regards,
“Alice”.

Update:  I can’t kill myself.  Not won’t.  Can’t.  I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

First I tried sleeping pills and whiskey. I felt the pills turn into pez in my mouth and the whiskey stopped burning after the first swallow.  Every gulp after that tasted like apple juice.  The pharmacy where I got the sleeping pills from had a small baby section.  I swear the babies on the packages of Huggies all looked like me.

Then I tried razor blades, aspirin, and a warm bath.  Aspirin was fine.  Bath was nice and warm.  The moment I pulled the razor up my arm it got an immovable rubber tip, and a cotton candy bubble bath appeared in the tub.  My sheets all had the alphabet (but not an alphabet found on earth) when I got out.  I burned those too.

Three minutes ago I put a gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger.  It’s a clear plastic squirt gun now, and I can’t get the taste of cherry kool-aid off of my tongue.  I wrote my last...most recent... suicide note on the receipt of the gun.  Note’s still there but it’s in rainbow crayon, and the receipt changed to the store where I used to work.  It says I got this from the toy department.

I’m contemplating throwing myself in front of a car, or jumping out of a bridge but I’m afraid what will happen if I try.  Will I magically go through the car and end up in a baby seat?  If I jump will I somehow land in a bounce house?  If I hang myself will I end up in a bouncer?

What if I light myself on fire?

I don’t know what to try.  I don’t think Peter tried.  Maybe because he knew he couldn’t.

Damn Peter.

This is his fault.  I know that now.  And it’s knowing that’s damned me.

I have no idea what I’m going to do.

If you can read this…

My name is Alice.  It’s not my real name, but it’s what I call myself.   I’m scared.  She’s coming to get me.  Drag me back.    I’ve told you too much.  I’ve learned too much.  

But not nearly enough.

I’m trapped.  I have nowhere else to go.  And I just know that She’s out there waiting for me.

I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Please help…

(To be continued.)