As he sat with his sister eating nachos and watching TV, a new Chronivac warning message popped up on his computer screen.
It read, "Warning: Error. Attempting to complete last change."
The flashing red light on the Chronivac had been replaced by a green light. It had finally repaired itself.
***
Downstairs Jeff felt a tingle. "Uh oh," he said.
"What's up?" Emily asked without looking away from the TV.
Jeff stood up but felt his perspective going down as he stood there. "Oh no!" he said as he watched his young body get even younger. “No, no, no,” he muttered. With each “no” his voice sounded higher and higher.
“Jeffy, what is it?” asked his sister.
Jeff just gazed at his hands as his fingers shrank and his palms swelled. In seconds, he had the pudgy hands of a preschooler. The changes stopped, leaving him stranded in the body of a very young boy, an even younger one than he had been before, he was sure.
A shadow fell on him, and he looked up to see his sister looming over him, looking like a giant now to his perspective. “Are you alright, Jeffy?” she cooed. She knelt down next to him, but, even kneeling she was still taller than him. “Do you need to go potty?” she asked then added as a whisper, “Did you have an accident?”
“What?” he said. “I mean, no, I didn’t have an accident.”
“That’s good.” She sounded relieved.
Realizing an opportunity to get away and figure out what to do next he said, “But, uh, yeah, I gotta go potty.”
She stood up and offered him her hand. “Do you want big sis to help?”
He wrinkled his nose at the image of his sister wiping his butt but tried to hide his disgust. “I’m good,” he said. “I can do it by myself.”
Emily smiled. “You’re getting to be so grown up. Every time I come back from school you seem to have shot up another inch.” She patted his shoulder and said, “Okay, then. Go ahead. Just give me a shout if you need help. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said and ran off to the stairs. He worked his way up each giant step as he clung to the hand rail for support in his climb. At the top, he ran to their parent’s room on his little legs and, once more, he looked at himself in his mother’s mirror. “Great,” he said looking at his reflection. “Just great.” He now had the body of 4-year-old boy, and he was dressed in a silly cartoon T-shirt and short shorts. “Of course, now you decide to do what I say,” he said, addressing the Chronivac in his room.
He headed to his bedroom and looked around. The room was now furnished for a four-year-old boy. It was full of colorful toys and kiddy furniture, including a little kiddy desk that sat there in the place of his old desk. His computer and the Chronivac had vanished. Of course, four year olds don't get their own computers, he realized.
“Shit,” he said. This was bad. “Shit.” He could be stuck like this. “Shit.”
What was he going to do?