Exhausted, you fall asleep. You wake up to your phone buzzing with a video doorbell notification.
“Yes?” you ask, your voice disconcertingly fuzzy.
“It’s Mr. Yuan. Really young hooah come see me tell me maybe my cream work too good. I think of you and I think maybe you need new clothe!”
You throw on your clothes, fling open the door, and look up—up!—at the wizened old Chinese man as your pants and boxers fall down again.
“Oh good. You take shower. Get all cream off! But maybe make you too young. You can’t wear adult clothe!” He takes your bony shoulder and frog marches you over to a doorway. He whips out a pencil and a tape measure and marks your height.
“150 centimeter. Maybe five foot, or four foot eleven. You have scale?”
You nod, bring him into the bathroom, and step on the scale.
“Eighty four pound.” You shudder as your body gets hot. You writhe slightly and get dizzy.
“Oooh. Seventy eight pound. But that dizzy good. Mean you done getting smaller.” He takes you back over to the doorway. The mark he just made is well above your head now. “142 centimeter. Maybe four foot eight now. But you done now. Maybe eleven or ten year old. No more ache and pain, no more old man noises when sit down!”
You start to cry. “I didn’t want to be a kid again!” you cry out in a voice untouched by puberty. “Put me back! Maybe an age cream?”
“Pah! No such thing. Every kid would use. You have to grow up normal way. But maybe bad news for you.”
“Worse than having to grow up again?”
“Listen. This cream meant for adult only! For old man who want to feel young again. I had to study why. Old man who pay for research want to spend young as long as possible! So cream make him young but then get old very slow. So he can enjoy life, pretty woman, big strong, long time.”
As you parse through his thick broken English, it dawns on you what he is saying.
“You mean I won’t grow up? I’m stuck like this forever?”
“No, no, don’t be stupid! No such thing as immortality! Just make you get older slow. So maybe three or four time slow. Original customer buy that cream maybe ten or twelve year ago, use to make himself eighteen. Now maybe look twenty one. Spend long time in his prime! Big athlete now.”
You do the math in your head. You might not even be able to father children for ten years! And the idea of a puberty that lasts twenty years or more… you cry even harder.
“Listen,” says Mr. Yuan. “Right now a little inconvenient! But you make friends now and then when they old… you still young! They have arthritis and bad back and bald and you still young stud!”
You just shake your head.
“There nothing to do except grow up,” says Mr. Yuan. “Now here. I bring smaller clothe because I think maybe the hooah get younger from your cream. You put on and we go get better clothe for you.”
You sniff, wipe your eyes, and put on the shorts and t-shirt and slides. They’re too big for you but far better than the adult clothes you left behind.