Just before Jeff executed the change, the flashing red light on the Chronivac had been replaced by a green light. It had finally repaired itself.
Unfortunately, Jeff didn’t notice this.
What he did notice was that familiar tingle, again. He stood up, ready to be grown up again. He could feel it. He was changing.
He was shrinking.
"Shit!" he said as he watched his already young body get even younger.
"I'm back, Jeffy," said his sister as she fiddled with a screwdriver in his doorknob. "Get ready to have your mouth washed out with soap, you little jerk."
"No, no, no," he moaned as he watched his body regress into preschool years. He looked at his computer just in time to watch it disappear along with the Chronivac. As it vanished, Jeff saw the green light on the Chronivac. All too late, he realized that it had repaired itself. If only he had waited a few more seconds...
Now it was gone, and he was stuck at four years old.
"Four years old," he said with the voice of a little, preschool boy. He looked around. The room was now furnished for a four-year-old boy. Of course, four year olds don't get their own computers. The lock clicked on his door, which swung open to reveal his now relatively giant sister. She did not look happy. "Um," he said, trying to find some words to fix things, "I'm... sorry?"
***
Later that day, Jeff had finally managed to rinse the taste of soap out of his mouth. He had suffered through the soap, then through a long timeout in the corner, and finally through hours of time laying on his race car bed while grounded in his room. His parents had come home and given him a stern lecture on using bad language and locking his door.
They had spaghetti for dinner. He ate his small plate of cut up spaghetti while feeling a bit silly sitting on a booster seat. There was no desert for him.
After dinner, he took a few minutes to search around the house to see if the Chronivac had relocated itself somewhere. He checked every computer in the house, but it was nowhere to be found.
At 8 p.m. he was sent to brush his teeth and go to bed. He had to be up early for daycare tomorrow.
Lying on his bed in his cartoon covered PJs, he stared at the ceiling. In the dim light of his nightlight, he watched a dinosaur mobile drift around lazily above his head.
"Twelve years," he heard a little boy say. "Twelve years to go." The boy sounded very young, barely more than a baby. Somehow, whenever he moved his lips, the boy spoke. He hated that boy.
"Twelve years."
The boy sounded so very sad.
THE END