“I was born at twenty-six years old. Don’t you believe me?”
“No, obviously. Are you dumb?”
“My mother gave birth to an adult, I was folded in a tiny oval shape, my limbs were folded over my head, mother did not struggle, she pushed me once and I came out of her, wet, drippy, and deflated. The doctors looked at mother horrified. They felt sorry for her.”
“Did you have teeth?”
“Of course, I was a complete adult.”
“Did you breastfeed?”
“No, I was an adult, I had a regular lunch, after mother taught me how to move my just inflated jaw, I ate something easy, pasta, even my gut was able to digest it.”
“Stop playing me! You always talk weird shit when we smoke… go to sleep.”
Enzo was not playing. In fact, he was born at age of twenty-six and currently he was only ten years out of his mother’s womb. There was so much he could know being outside for such a little time. His body unfolded in front of his tired mother’s eyes, and to her horror, he unfolded taller than her, with a full beard and armpit and butt hair.
She looked at her adult son and cried holding the tiny blue and white embroidered overall she chose for him, rolled on a towel, laying down on a hospital bed, trying to hold his neck still and feeding a plate of pasta with a bit of butter and cheese. His mother did not hold her disappointment over an adult son, with her breasts hurting filled with breastmilk, she refused to give him.
Enzo first burped and then vocalized. “Am I alive? Do I have to file for taxes, mom?”
“Not yet, but you already lost quite a few years of contributions for retirement. My precious son, we are doomed, by the time you leave university you will be in your forties, but you can speak, which is good.” His mother did the math in her head, knowing life had chopped off twenty-six years of her child.
The father rejected him and left, his mother watched her newborn adult son on the rug of her apartment trying to give his first speeches while she tried quickly to teach the basic operations and how to be financially responsible. He was fast to learn how to clean himself on the bottom and they needed only a week’s worth of diapers.
One day, while she prepared the Sunday lasagna, she noticed his showers began taking longer, it would not be long until he adventured looking for sex. It was too early, she was rested, after birth her weight had bounced back, she was sleeping full nights and her son was already doing his fair share of domestic labor, she was not much older than him, being on her mid-thirties, she looked at the baby pram and looked at Enzo already shaving, she cried, she cried every night, she had idealized sleepless nights, eventually losing her husband for a pretty mistress, biting his fat baby limbs, teaching him to eat. She had read all the books about food introduction, and for what? Enzo would eat all the house groceries without making a fuss, he was mostly independent and did not express feelings for her the way a dependent baby would.
The baby was idealized to be her mini me, her companion, for at least twenty years, but Enzo had long showers, learned how to read in no time, and spent his time on the computer. She gave birth to a roommate that did not bother even to pretend to like her. The first years she tolerated his behavior, she had to teach him basic humans’ skills, and he needed to get his school diploma.
She was relieved when Enzo left the house for university in his thirties, she had to mourn the baby she never had and restart her love life and hopefully have a normal baby. She loved Enzo in a unique way, but if he were born already at twenty-six, she was scared one day he would drop dead before her, and nobody would take care of her in her old age. Enzo was egoistical, aging faster than his mother.
Enzo moved out and finally found freedom. He knew he was uncommon, in his early thirties he knew inside he was still silly and naïve, but on the outside, he had a full beard and was a big man and had to pretend to know what he was doing. He limited himself to studying and learned how to smoke and drink with his roommates.
Every morning, he would check his face and compare it with his previous day, he had a massive photo album documenting his face changes. He also knew his time was shorter on Earth and wondered why he was going through the hassle of having a degree to fast-track to the casket. He looked at the thirty somethings, and he seemed to have stabilized, he looked mostly tired, his liver was not on the same shape as the other young men, soon he dropped the alcohol and remained only with weed.
Luck made him meet a bartender, she was his age and was doing well on her own. She offered him a shot, and he walked her home. He could remember the words of his mother, “a woman must feel safe first,” he wanted to hug her, that’s what his pants wanted. But he offered his hand, she took it, and he felt content just at that, she then hugged him, his mother was right. She hugged and kissed him, and it was easy to find the holes. He studied anatomy books, someone his age could not be ignorant about clitoris and vagina.
Enzo enjoyed seeing her, mostly because fucking was awesome, but she wanted more, Enzo was not ready for more, he finished his bachelors’ and found a dead-end job in the same city, continued to live with roommates. He continued taking pictures of himself and placed them in his album. He noticed his hair becoming fuller on top of his head while his beard and body hair thinning. The lines on his face, from sleepless nights and alcohol abuse were also becoming shallow.
Maybe he was settling in life, sleeping better, smoking less, enjoying just one woman at a time, eating better and not giving a single fuck about work, doing the bare minimum, and kissing more ass, he was even promoted to middle manager. Then one day it hit, he woke up without back pain, he stretched and the hernia was not there, his boner was harder than ever and he stank. He called his mother.
She looked at him and cried again, she finally had her normal baby on her lap and checked the mistake of nature son, regressing to puberty. He stank of arrogance and cheap deodorant, for the first time, she hugged him and it felt genuine.
“Would you like to come live with me?”
“No way, I want to be free, I want to see the world.” He was resolute, he got all the money he had accumulated, took massive loans, and disappeared, leaving the city, then the country. Tried every drug, every human being, every corner of the Earth. When the money ended, he begged, he tagged along, he did odd jobs, hitchhiked and when he was tired of the world, instead of it showing on his sunken face, he almost looked like a scared middle schooler.
He then went back to mommy, he had siblings, just a little younger than him, Enzo had his baby room reconstructed with a tiny bed with a car frame. He let the guard down, for the first time he played like a kid, he watched his stern mother smile while looking at him, he wasn’t a mistake anymore. He helped them with homework, did the same small chores they did, and had his mother give him a bowl cut.
In the middle of the night he woke up, choking and spat out a tooth, he cried, his brain knew it, he would probably have another five years, being fully conscious, before becoming a blabbering mess of a toddler. That night he knocked at his mother’s bedroom door and they cried together.
Enzo remembered his days at university, women, fucking, but his penis was just for pissing, and his memory did not ignite any wish, perhaps it was better if a child losing its teeth refrained from the memories from his thirties and forties. One after the other, he began losing his permanent teeth and the milk tooth sprouting from his tiny gum, bleeding and itching. He hated being a kid.
In the morning, he dipped the bread in his chocolate milk and looked at his siblings, older than him, they seemed puzzled, but mother would always shush any questions about her precious Enzo. He shrank to the point he needed baby clothes, his decay was fast and he also lost his milk teeth.
One day he was so small his mother dusted away his tiny white and blue overall and dressed him in it, she cried tears of joy. “That is my Enzo, the Enzo I have always dreamt about, my own baby for me to love.”
Enzo was elated, he stopped breathing.
