Flash Fiction: Normal (Patreon)

Normal.

You come to a dead stop.  You plant your feet.  You bend your knees. You grunt to yourself and push, feeling your cheeks spread.  You push again and feel the warm mass come out of you and enter the back of your diaper. It feels so good getting it out because your tummy doesn’t hurt anymore. The warm lump behind you is directly linked to the feeling of relief and the lessening pain; and thus it’s a good thing.  You push a little more, but at this point you’re not even thinking about it. The mess is more or less coming out on its own. Good.

“Tag!” Mark says “You’re it!”

“No fair!” you say. Stupid Mark!  You didn’t even know you were playing tag!  You chase after him, arms outstretched, crinkling and waddling around the playroom, same as him.  He’s giggling, keeping just far enough ahead of you that your fingertips can’t quite touch him back.

If you were at the playground and had some nice soft dress or a good patch of dirt to land in, you’d leap out and get him.  It’s raining though. Inside playtime only. The carpet on the floor is comfy enough to sit or crawl around on, but you would get SUCH a boo boo if you did a belly flop here.  You’ve found that out the hard way more than once.  

The anticipation and sport of it all makes you start giggling too.  Pretty soon you’re both huffing and puffing.  “Hold on!” you say. “Time out! Time out!”  Both of you stop, hands on your knees, and trying to catch your breath. “I…need…a break…”

Mark catches his breath so much faster. “I don’t!” he says, even though he’s still breathing kind of hard. Mark is by far the best runner in class.  On this flat stretch, with no obstacles to slow him down, nobody could catch him.  This is why you prefer playing tag on the playground. With jungle gyms and slides to maneuver around and duck and weave and climb up.  Even if you weren’t the best at it, it still made the game much more interesting.

You could spice things up here, you supposed, by expanding the bounds to other areas of the playroom; chase him around tea party tables or try to corner him in the playhouse, but that might interrupt other people’s fun. That wasn’t nice.

You hear your name and turn your head.  Bella is waving her hands at you. “Do you want a cheese burger?!”  

Heck yes you do!  Without preamble you walk over to the play kitchen. Mark has already gone over to the costume center and tagged someone else.  “One cheeseburger please.”

“No,” Bella says. “You have to wait for me to say ‘Can I take your order?’.”

“Okay.”  You wait.

“Can I take your order?”

“One cheeseburger please!” You say, doing your best to sound like Mommy and Daddy when they order.

“That’ll be a billion dollars,” she tells you.

You pretend to reach into your non-existent pocket and hand over a bunch of invisible money.  “Here you go.”

“Thank you! Coming right up!”

A thought occurs to you.  “Is this a drive-thru?”

“No.”

“Oh,” you say. “Then I better go sit down.”

A look of shocked realization flashes over Bella’s face. “Ohmygosh you’re right!”   She looks incredibly embarrassed.  She’s been restauranting all wrong and only just now realizes it.

“Okay. I’m gonna go sit down,” you say.  

“Where?”  

You point to the coloring table. “I’ll be over there.”

“Okay. I’ll bring your order to you when it’s ready.”

You go over to the coloring table and find an empty chair. “Hi!”

Everyone looks up from their coloring. Some wave hi, some mumble it. Everybody is coloring.  You take a seat and feel something kind of warm and very lumpy mush up against the back of your diaper.  You pout out your lip and wiggle your hips a bit, smushing the lump down and flat so that it’s comfier.  You don’t mind the feeling, you just wonder how it got there sometimes.

You breathe in through your nose and smell something funny. Not funny ha-ha. Not like a really good knock-knock joke. It just smells like how the lump in your diaper feels. The lump doesn’t feel too bad, though, so it doesn’t smell too bad either.  Your nose wrinkles, but it doesn’t stop you from grabbing some crayons and going to town on a blank piece of paper with a picture of Barney the Dinosaur already drawn on it.  The same can be said for the others.

Jimmy leans over and looks at your drawing.  “Oooh! Cool!” he says. “What are you drawing?”

“I’m not sure yet,” you tell him. “I’m just letting the colors speak to me.”

“Cool!” Jimmy nods. “Me too. But my colors are telling me that it’s a monster!”

“Oooooh!” You say.  You point to a scribble. “Are those his teeth?”

Jimmy laughs. “This is a blob monster. It doesn’t have teeth. It eats you by sliming everywhere and it melts you. It’s jell-o that eats you!.”

“So it’s kind of like all teeth,” you say sagely.

Jimmy taps his chin. “I never thought of it that way, but you’re right.”

Bella crinkles up to you and sets down a bunch of plastic food.  “Here’s your burger!” It’s a plastic patty between an equally plastic pancake and slice of toast.  “On the house!”

“Thank you!” You say.  Bella waits patiently, eyeing her culinary creation and you intently.  Oh yeah!  Remembering your manners, you grab the burger and bring it up to your lips. You chomp the air right next to it making horking sounds with the back of your throat and smack your lips. “Mmmmm! This is very good!” You say.

Bella grabs the hem of her dress and does a curtsy. “Thank you, very much. It’s on the house!”

“Can I have a burger too?” Jimmy asks.

Bella shakes her head. “Sorry, but you have to come to my restaurant and order.  I don’t have any menus to bring to you.”

Jimmy gets up. “Okay.”  He and Bella hold hands and run back over to the restaurant, giggling with glee.  Maybe they’ll be boyfriend and girlfriend, you imagine.  Bella was your girlfriend last week.  And Jimmy was your boyfriend a few weeks ago.  They’re both really good at being boyfriends and girlfriends.  They’d have a lot of fun.  Maybe they’ll be your boyfriend and girlfriend later.  

Maybe at the same time!  Was that against the rules? You don’t think so.

A tap on your shoulder causes you to tense up.  For an instant, you think Mark has tagged you again and it’s time to chase him again.  It’s not Mark, though, but one of the teachers. Miss Krystal.

“Come on,” she says, taking your hand. “Let’s go change your diaper.”

You rise up from your seat and start following her. “Why?”

“Because you need your diaper changed, silly” Miss Krystal says. How do they always know? You’re not sure what the criterion for a diaper change is, but the grown-ups sure do like doing it a lot. They always seem much happier right after they put you in a fresh diaper. Maybe it’s something like lunchtime, you ponder, something on your schedule that you just haven’t gotten the hang of and memorized yet.

“Is it diaper change time?” You ask.

Miss Krystal chuckles. “For you, it is.”

“Playtime over?” your voice quivers.  You swallow and try to find the courage to speak the unspeakable. “Nap time?”

“Not yet,” she says. She picks you up and lays you on the table and quickly takes off the clothes that are in the way of your diaper.

“Is it nap time after the change?” You ask, anxiously.

She tilts her head and frowns. “Are you tired, baby?”

“NO!”

“Relax baby,” Miss Krystal smiles down at you. “It’s just a diaper change, and then you can go back to playing.”

Instant relief washes over you. You feel the heat of relaxation all over. Okay. So this wasn’t a before-nap diaper change. It was just a regular one.  “Okay,” you sigh. “I like that.”

“Wow!” Miss Krystal remarks. “Good thing I waited a second. Your entire line just turned blue!”  She pokes your diaper and you feel the soft wet squish beneath her finger.  “If Miss Krystal hadn’t taken her time, she’d probably have to change you all over again.”

You lift your head up from the changing table. “Why?”

“Don’t worry about it, baby,” she says. “Just relax. You’re going to feel so much better after this.”

They always say that. But Miss Krystal is wrong. You already feel so much better than you did a few seconds ago.  You just got told that you’re going to get to keep playing instead of taking a nap.  What could feel better than that?