The Spirit floated down into a local weekend morning market. People milled about, looking for odds and ends. The Spirit smiled down at the crowds, seeing so much potential here. After a moment of hovering it settled its attention on a young man sitting alone at a picnic table. He didn't look like he belonged at this rural market. He was wearing a crisp green designer polo shirt and khakis shorts with boat shoes. He was probably in his mid-twenties, well-groomed, successful. But the Spirit was focussed on the object of his attention.
The well-dressed young man was gazing over at the edge of the market. There a large farm family was resting while the father, a burly man in a white singlet and cut-off jean shorts, finished an ice cream cone. His wife, a rotund woman with dark black hair tight in a bun, was sitting on another picnic table, dressed in a far too revealing halter-top and black knee-length leggings with a pair of jandals. They were clearly white trash. But their kids were even worse. One girl of about nine or ten was wearing a sparkly black t-shirt that revealed her whole tummy and very short jean shorts. A boy a couple years younger wore nothing but a pair of baggy orange board shorts, no shirt in sight, as though he'd come to the market without one. Neither child wore shoes, and the filthy state of the bare soles indicated that was normal for them.
But the two younger boys were much worse. They appeared to be little more than toddlers, one perhaps three and the other four or five. They were playing in a semi-dried mud puddle, completely naked. The silly, feral little boys squished their bare feet in the mud, wriggling their toes in it and drawing designs in it until their hands were filthy up to their wrists. Little cartoon underoos lay abandoned in the dirt nearby but their parents didn't seem to mind at all. The lack of other abandoned clothes indicated the boys had been brought there in minimal wardrobes anyway. Yet the young man was watching them play and he didn't really look disgusted, or amused. The Spirit took his look as one of longing, of jealousy. He envied the little boys' freedom to be messy, to not have to worry about wearing impressive, neat, expensive outfits. They didn't care what anyone thought about them.
The Spirit decided to fix that right away. But rather than floating down to the young man it went for the parents, slipping her fingers into their minds at once. The duo blinked and went glassy-eyed as she finished her alterations. As she floated away the man's eyes came back into focus and he began looking around the market. It was only a moment before his eyes settled on the young man seated nearby, gazing in his direction.
Jeremy wondered why the burly redneck was staring at him so intently. He'd only been looking at the naked kids playing because he found it so shocking to let your children do that in public. He had even been considering saying something to the parents, except he knew it would be pointless with country hicks like that and the man was bigger than him and likely to take offence. Jeremy tried looking away, breaking the uncomfortable eye-contact. But the man yelled, "Dylan, get your butt over here!"
Jeremy looked around, wondering who the man was yelling at. Was there another little boy nearby? But no, the man was still staring right at him. And now the rest of the family was too.
"Come on Dilly!" the shirtless boy yelled, climbing atop the picnic table and waving right at him.
Now Jeremy didn't know what was going on. He decided it was time to get out of this place before the people made a bigger scene. But as he stood and turned around he saw the man rushing towards him. Jeremy's heart pounded in fear and he panicked, tripping over the table-leg and falling flat on his face. He picked himself up quickly but before he could move a strong hand closed around his arm and yanked him back. He looked up into the man's face and shivered with fear.
"What are you doing?!" he managed to ask, his voice wavering.
"You can't just run off on your own Dylan, you know that mate. Mummy 'nd daddy can't be chasin' after you all the time," the man scolded, pulling him back towards the family.
"What are you talking about?" Jeremy demanded in confusion. "I'm a grown man!" he shouted, glad to see people were looking now. Maybe someone would intervene.
"This isn't time for pretend Dylan. You don't run off. You're too little for that. You just come play with Bailey and Sammy."
"Too little? Have you lost your mind? Look at me!"
The man ignored his complaints. "C'mon now Dilly, you can make mud pies with your brothers, you always like getting extra messy."
"Who is Dilly? MY name is Jeremy! I'm twenty-four years old."
The man gave him a severe look. "I've had enough of pretend Dilly. You stop your cheek or daddy will smack," he threatened. "And where on earth did you get these fancy clothes?"
"These are mine!" Jeremy insisted, feeling the fear that the man was serious about smacking him.
The man snorted. "I don't know where your mummy would have got you clothes like those, and... are you wearing shoes?"
Jeremy looked down at his boat shoes and nodded. "Of course I am."
The man looked at him like he'd sprouted a second head. Then he looked up at his wife and called, "Rosie, did you buy Dylan shoes?"
The woman also looked confused. "Of course not!" she yelled back. "Boy don't need shoes till he's in intermediate school and that's a good decade away."
They'd reached the table and Jeremy could feel all the eyes on him. How could none of them see this was all wrong. Here he was, five-foot ten, seventy kilos and they thought the shocking thing was the fact he had shoes on?!
The man shoved Jeremy down on the picnic bench, never letting go of his wrist as he leant down and pulled one of Jeremy's shoes off.
"Hey! Stop it, those are mine!" he yelled.
"Shush!" the woman snapped, slapping his arm.
"Boys your age got no need for shoes. You'll just ruin them playing in the mud," the man told him, yanking the other one off. "Besides, we need them off to get the rest of your clothes off."
Jeremy's eyes widened. He waited for a sign that was a joke, but there was nothing. "I'm not taking the rest of my clothes off!" he yelled.
"Hush yourself child," the woman snapped, giving his arm another sharp slap.
The man was already grapping at his nice new polo shirt, yanking it up over his head even as he struggled. "You mummy ain't washin' no more mud out of your clothes. Don't know why we even got you all dressed up just for the market."
Floating above the Spirit was having a good chuckle. She knew it was mean to make the poor boy suffer like this, but she was going to fix it in a moment anyway. She roared with laughter as the large redneck man yanked the half-naked young fellow to his feet and yanked his nice clean shorts and boxers down to his ankles, exposing him to the assorted shoppers. Luckily all they saw was another little boy just like the two in the mud already. Only the Spirit and Jeremy himself could see the truth.
Right now Jeremy couldn't see how things could be any worse. He clapped his hands tightly over his junk, sure he was blushing from head to toe. Why were the other shoppers not helping? How could they ignore a grown man being stripped nude against his will? He was on the verge of tears, but refused to cry like the little boy they insisted he was. Surely they could see he was uncomfortable and offer him back his boxers at least. But instead they just giggled at his modesty.
"Do you need to pee-pee honey?" the woman asked him earnestly.
"What? No!"
"Are you sure? You are doing the pee-pee dance."
"No! I just don't want people seeing my penis lady!"
The woman burst out laughing again. "I've never seen such a bashful three-year old," she remarked to her hubby.
"I'm sure it's just part of his pretend game. He's playing at being a big boy and they don't run around nakie-bum in public of course," the man explained.
"Oh, well that's fine then. But only messy little boys get to have ice cream treats when we get home," the woman enticed.
It stunned Jeremy that they still thought this was a game. He would just have to tell them things only an adult could know. He looked over at the two little nudists squatting in the mud next to them. One was actually tinkling now, wetting the mud they were frolicking in. How could they be so dumb? How could they think he'd want to actually play with them?
Jeremy didn't hear or see the Spirit returning to end his torture. He couldn't of course. He just felt an odd, tingly sensation as the Sprit's fingers slipped into his brain and began to change things. There was an instant when he felt things starting to change, when he realised he was becoming a silly little low IQ redneck toddler, and he was horrified. "No!" he managed to squeak out, before a wave of pleasant sensations wiped his worries away. It was relaxation, pure relaxation spreading through his mind. His muscles relaxed and his horrified expression mellowed, his lips creeping up into a smile. His hands dropped away from his penis, letting it dangle freely between his thighs for all to see.
"Are you okay hon?" Mummy asked.
The Spirit's fingers slipped out of his head and the young man's eyes came back into focus. He smiled widely at her. "Gotta do boom-booms," he announced cheerily.
She chuckled. "Oh, okay then. Can you hold it for the potty?"
Dilly shook his head decisively. He was ready for poopies right now.
"Okay then," she said, quickly pulling out a plastic grocery bag. "Go ahead and do squat-squats for mummy," she directed.
Dilly was so glad for permission to relieve himself. He dropped down into a comfy squat and hugged his knees as he pushed, feeling a lovely release down below as he pooped on the grass right there. Mummy patted his back as he did his poos, telling him how good he was for letting her know first. It made Dilly very proud. He was such a big boy.
Mummy cleaned up his poos with the bag but he wasn't paying attention to that. As soon as he'd finished his business he was off to play in the mud with Sammy and Bailey. He loved the way it went squishies tween his tootsies. He loved having bare feets in the mud. And it was there that the Spirit left him, a naked twenty-something man squirming around in a mud puddle and grinning ear to ear as he did so.