“So whats next? The baby will need something to play and look at.” Looking around Mark thought about Aidans love for art and all the pieces he had laying around. “In the state they are a normal baby wouldn´t know anything about it, but that is easily changed.” Mark grinned again. He used his knowledge of Aidans memories to find the pictures he favored the most and put them on top of several piles of pictures so that Aidan would see them change. “Four piles, for childish picture books.” Mark typed in the program.
Aidan watched the piles shrinking in high, pressing in themselves. Seeing his favorites on top of each pile let him start crying again. “Not them too, Mark please stop this.”
He could see his good drawn and colored pictures become simpler designed, gaining some color errors such as blue trees and yellow bushes on the former picture of an near park before it stopped with something encasing them.
Next Mark went over to the bookshelf, picking through the books for the next toy. He also took some of the art magazines and put them all on the floor. He then typed in the changes he planned for them.
Each book and magazine broke apart into several pieces. Aidans flowing tears increased. Mark had let him identify each book even without reading the title. Each piece grow harder while forming into cubes. Each side of said cubes pictured either a simple letter, number or picture of something childish. When finished there laid at least fifty wooden cubes to play with. But Mark noticed his thinking error. “As long as Aidan can´t read he would have no use or them mostly. Lets see.”
He switched back to Aidans profile. There he put an exception to the “unable to read” point. “Can identify each letter on his wooden play cubes. But can´t spell any words with them or in his mind. Likes to play with them anyway.”
After hitting save Mark took the picture books and the cubes from the ground, laying them inside the playpen. He smiled at Aidans eagerness when he saw them, knowing fully what Aidan thought about them.
Aidan hadn´t noticed the changes to his mind yet, but was happy when he noticed that on the cubes were letters he could read. He eagerly took some to look over, finding what he was looking for. He laid six cubes in order to spell the word “please”, hoping that Mark would finally stop. Only after he had them in his order he noticed that while he could read each letter he couldn´t read them as a word in the end.
Mark looked at the cubes and started laughing. “I don´t know what you wanted to say by spelling “p-z-r-n-g-a”, Aidan. That is no word I know off.”
Aidan concentrated on the word he had wanted to spell, but came up with the exact same order of letters in his mind. He looked at Mark, pointing at the cubes with hope in his eyes.
When Marks laughing finally settled he explained still grinning: “You believe I would give you back the ability to read letters in combination with a way to use them? I made it so that yes, you can read each letter on the cubes and only them, but I have taken your ability to spell any word right. Even when you think you have spelled it right its completely wrong. So no way to cry for help.”
Aidan let that sink in, his hope crushed yet again and returned to tears. He tried to spell many words like “help” “h-a-g-z”, “assistance” “a-h-r-j-d-e-l-j-o-v” or even his name “Aidan” “a-j-t-o-m” in his mind and each sounded right to him. Still crying he arranged a couple of this words with the cubes, but Mark just started laughing again. What he sees as the right order is completely unreadable. The only right parts are the length and the first letter, not that he knows that.