Translucent

by Beardsley, Nathaniel

  Translucent

  By Nathaniel Beardsley

  1

  Harold and Christi Byrd woke up to the sound of their daughter screaming.

  When a baby wakes up crying in the middle of the night, it’s usually just a matter of little consequence that can be easily resolved. And so when Harold and Christi Byrd heard their daughter screaming, they didn’t initially worry about it. Karena Byrd was only 11 months old, after all, and it was a regular thing for most 11—month olds to cry in the middle of the night. Karena did better than most babies in being calmed down and soothed. Most of the time when this happened, which was perhaps once a week, she was quiet in a few minutes and would go back to sleep.

  But not every night is like most nights.

  On the night in question, the Byrds stayed in bed for a minute, partly to see if the wailing would cease and partly due to a lack of desire to get up. It didn’t cease.

  “I’ll go get her,” Harold said, standing up from the bed. Christi said nothing as he slipped on his slippers and shuffled down the hallway, rubbing his eyes. He entered the nursery and walked over to Karena’s crib. The room was dark, but he knew by heart the layout of the room, and was used to navigating it without the use of his eyes.

  “Hey,” he said. “Shhh, it’s okay. Nothing to worry about. Just go back to sleep.”

  This coddling only caused Karena to wail louder, and he could hear her thrashing violently in the crib. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said. “Calm down.” He picked her up and held her, but this seemed to make her even more uncomfortable, as she began to kick at his body with her little legs. Though he swayed her back and forth as gently as he could, Karena did not fall asleep like she almost always did when she woke up at night.

  Harold was beginning to get concerned. This was not their daughter’s normal behavior, for sure. He wasn’t usually one for singing lullabies, but he decided he’d give it a shot this time. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star,” he sang, as it was the only lullaby he could think of at the moment. “How I wonder what you-” he was cut short by a series of disturbing gagging noises coming from his daughter. It sounded almost like she was choking and she began to desperately thrash around even harder in his arms.

  Disturbed, Harold quickly over to the light switch and flicked it on, illuminating the dark room so suddenly that he was forced to close his eyes. Little by little, as Harold’s eyes adjusted to the brightness, he could finally look at his daughter in the light, and the sight was enough to make his blood run cold.

  There was a look in Karena’s eyes that he had never seen before, a look that was most abnormal for her, indeed for any baby her age. She was staring at something behind him with wide, terrified eyes. Her breathing was anaerobic, and she looked like she was in a trance-like state, and yet panicking at the same time. Suddenly, she let out a high pitched shriek, and Harold ran over to the crib and lay her down, almost dropping her so great was his shock.

  “Geeee-meouooooo- eaaaaar!” Karena shrieked. Harold stopped. The wail she had just emitted was not a baby’s cry. It was not the shriek of an infant who had just been born 11 months ago. It sounded almost as if…

  “Geeet meii ou oof eaarrrr!” Karena shrieked again, but this time it didn’t sound like a shriek. Harold knew by looking down at her face that Karena wasn’t merely crying. She was trying to express the thoughts going around in her brain by using something that she’d never been able to do before. Something here was very wrong. Harold’s heart began to throb quickly in his chest as the reality began to sink in, though he found himself not accepting it truly.

  “Get me out of here!” she screamed, and though it still had the gurgle of a baby’s voice, the words were clear and defined. She was talking. Karena, their 11—month old daughter, who just hours ago had never spoken a work of English, was talking to him.

  Harold’s eyes grew wide with the realization, and he instantly rushed out of the room. Heart pounding, he ran into his room and grabbed Christi by the hand, trying to drag her out of bed. “Christi!” he shouted. “Get up! Now!” She groggily began to sit up and get out of bed, but Harold didn’t bother to wait for her, racing back to the nursery where Karena was still hyperventilating in terror. He leaned over her crib and looked at her.

  “Get me out of here!” Karena screamed again.

  “You can talk,” Harold said, so quietly that one could scarcely hear him. He was really talking to himself, but Karena actually responded to him.

  “Of course I can talk!” she cried. “I don’t know if this is a joke, or whatever, but just get me out of this stupid crib!”

  Harold staggered back and crashed into the wall, causing him to lose his balance and fall down partly, landing on his knees. “Oh my gosh,” Christi gasped, standing at the doorway. Harold stood up and backed against the wall, slowly this time. “She just spoke,” Christi said. “How is that possible? She can’t just-”

  “Shut up! Both of you!” Karena screamed through her tears. “Can someone please explain to me what is going on!?” She began thrashing wildly again, but her attempts to get out of the cribs were to no avail.

  For a minute still, Harold was far too stunned by the situation to have any sort of reaction. But he recovered and began racking his brain, trying desperately to think of what he should do. “Who should we call?” Harold asked.

  “A doctor! A physiatrist! A scientist! Anyone!” Christi said. Harold nodded and rushed out of the room.

  “For the last time!” Karena cried. “Get me out of-”

  And suddenly, as if an involuntary wave of exhaustion had passed over her, she fell asleep.

  2

  Karena woke up, and to her dismay saw that she was still in the crib.

  This is all a dream, she thought. I’m going to wake up any minute now in my real body, and everything will be perfectly normal again. Never mind that I already did wake up, I’m just going to wake up again, in the real world, and it will be all right. It’s just a really vivid dream. I’m not a baby, I’m Karena Byrd, and I’m 15 years old, and I’m asleep right now. I’m going to hear the teachers walking down the corridor waking everyone up, and I’m going to get ready for the day and-She kept repeating herself over and over in her mind, trying to make sense of what was happening. There was a rational explanation for this, and soon it would all be over.

  She remembered reading somewhere that pinching yourself or inflicting some sort of pain on yourself could help one wake up from a dream. She wasn’t sure whether this was actually true or not, because most of the time when she was in dreams she wasn’t actually thinking about waking up, but she decided she’d give it a try anyway. Karena lifted her hand, but looked in dismay at her absurdly chubby fingers and practically non—existent fingernails. She discovered when trying to move them that she had very little dexterity. Pinching wouldn’t work.

  She tried banging her head against the wall of the crib, but found herself so weak that she could scarcely do it to any effect. Desperately, she began thrashing her arms and legs about as wildly as she could manage, like she’d done before falling asleep, but she soon realized that this was accomplishing nothing at all, and so she decided to save her energy and stop.

  What on earth was going on?

  Karena closed her eyes and rocked back and forth. How could this be possible? Answer: It couldn’t. Meaning that there had to be some way out of this. Some way to get back to her ordinary life and forget that any of this had ever happened. The strange man was never there, she never saw the world vanish before her eyes, nothing this whole day had been real.

  She heard a sound and opened her eyes. It was her dad, who she hadn’t seen in 5 years, coming into the nursery. When he looked at her, the best word to describe his look was afraid, a look that she’d ne
ver seen from him, especially directed at her. But right now, she only felt anger towards him. It was impossible that he could be here, and it was impossible that she could be here like this. Her dad hadn’t just magically come back, so he couldn’t be real. The whole situation was impossible, and she knew it.

  “This isn’t real,” Karena said as her dad came over to her crib.

  “What?” he asked, startled. He apparently still wasn’t able to cope with the fact that she could talk, which was absurd. Karena didn’t want to have to deal with other people’s misgivings about her ability to speak; she didn’t have the patience.

  “This isn’t real,” Karena repeated. “None of it. You aren’t real, nor is this room, nor is this crib. Not even my body is real. All of it’s just a figment of my imagination.”

  Harold breathed deeply and composed himself. “None of this feels real at all,” he finally said, somewhat nervously.

  “No, no, it’s not that it doesn’t feel real,” Karena said. “It isn’t real. It can’t be.”

  Harold turned away and sat down in a chair at the other end of the room. He wasn’t looking at her. “How is it that you can talk all of a sudden? Yesterday you were only able to utter small phrases like ‘Dada’ and ‘Mama’ and now you’ve learned to speak fluent English overnight. How is that possible?”

  “I’ve always been able to talk,” Karena said.

  Harold shook his head. “No, you haven’t. Unless you knew how to and simply chose not to do it, you’ve never been able to talk. And anyway, that doesn’t account for your irrational behavior last night.”

  “I see no reason to tell you anything,” Karena said. “You’re nothing but a piece of my imagination, caused by a spicy meal I ate last night or something. YOU…AREN’T…REAL.”

  She said this with such ferocity that Harold looked up at her crib and caught her eyes through the wooden bars, staring daggers at him. “Karena,” he said. “I’m your father, and believe me, I’m real. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but if I know something it’s that I know who I am, and I’m sure of my existence. So tell me right now what’s going on with you, and please don’t hold anything back.” He was still nervous from the fact that she could speak, that much was apparent, but now he had a desperate look on him, begging her to tell him what was going on.

  For a moment, Karena felt the urge to tell him everything. She knew his face well, even though it’d been years since she’d seen it, and she knew that if there was any one person in the world she could trust with anything it was her dad. She could see him now so vividly, the color in his face, the folds in his clothes, even the veins in his hands. She almost felt like believing in him for a moment.

  But then she remembered her situation with a look down at her own body. Her dad wasn’t really in front of her, and she couldn’t let herself believe that for even an instant. Because if she did, then the fact that she was a baby would have to be true, and she couldn’t let that happen. She wasn’t going to tell him anything. And she said so.

  “Karena,” said her father. “As you father I am begging you to tell me something. Please. Just something to give me an idea of what’s going on. Whatever it is, I can help you.” He looked unsure about this though, still in a state of surprise that he was talking to his 11—month year old daughter.

  Karena shifted herself so that she was facing away from him. Her mouth was shut. There was no way that she was going to tell him anything.

  A minute passed and nothing happened. But Karena could feel her father’s eyes boring into her, pleading her for something, anything. And so she decided that she would tell him something. Not something about what was going on with her, but something else.

  She turned around and looked Harold square in the eyes. “You’re going to die,” she said, and she turned around and fell asleep again.

  3

  “So then,” said the doctor as he entered the room. “Judging from the urgency of your call, there must be something rather important happening, am I right?”

  Harold and Christi simply stared daggers at him, as he was simply stating the obvious, and after a moment of this the doctor realized what he should be doing.

  “I apologize for my somewhat late arrival. I was preoccupied with something at the time you called, and I wasn’t able to come immediately. I hope it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience.”

  The two Byrds merely stared at him again, without saying anything.

  “What…uh…seems to be the problem, then?” the doctor asked, deciding to skip all the pleasantries and go straight to business.

  “Our 11-month old daughter can talk,” Harold said.

  The doctor blinked and looked over at Karena, lying in the crib at the wall. He looked back at the Byrds. “Well, then you must have a very intelligent girl.”

  “She wasn’t able to talk just 24 hours ago,” Christi explained. “And then all of a sudden she woke up in the middle of the night and started talking.”

  The doctor looked baffled by the two people standing before him, claiming that their daughter seemed to have magically learned to speak over the course of a night. “I’m sorry, but, I’m actually having a hard time believing your story,” he said. “As I’m sure is perfectly understandable, considering its incredibility.” He paused and, shifting uncomfortably, looked back over at Karena, who was lying awake in her crib, staring at the doctor. “If this is indeed the case, which I highly doubt it is, mind you, could she perhaps demonstrate?”

  “I’m sure she will,” Harold said. “Though she’s reluctant to tell us about how this actually happened, so I doubt you’ll get any information out of her.”

  The doctor gave Harold an incredulous glance at that statement, before going over to Karena’s crib and peering down at her. It was awkward to have someone the size of a giant staring down at her in her crib, and she searched her mind for what she should do. She was tempted to talk to him to the way she had to her parents, but she quickly decided against it and developed a new plan. It would be better just to play dumb and act like she was a real baby. The more she got frustrated, the longer this dream was going to seem, so she immediately closed her eyes and pretended to fall asleep. She was feeling tired anyway, so it wasn’t hard.

  “Um…” the doctor was still hovering over her, clearly feeling strange to be talking to be talking to a baby. Karena smiled inwardly. Despite how unsettling this dream was, she was finding this particular part to be quite amusing. In the morning, she told herself, she would be able to tell all her friends about the strange dream she’d had. “Could you please…say something so that I can see…that you can…talk?” Through opening her tiny eyes a slit, Karena could see the doctor’s ruddy cheeks as he went red with embarrassment. Clearly this was something doctors hadn’t been trained for, and it was all Karena could do to keep from smirking at the doctor’s unsureness.

  The doctor turned around abruptly after a moment and looked back at the Byrds. “Well, clearly you are mistaken about your daughter having the ability to talk. She’s quite mute, and I’m sure you’ll be convinced of that in a few days’ time, despite how realistic your dream might have been.”

  “Dream!?” Harold exclaimed. “Believe me, this was no dream. I just spoke with her hours ago and both of us saw and heard her talking last night. She was thrashing about like crazy and banging her head on the side of the crib and doing all sorts of other disturbing things that no baby should ever be seen doing. I don’t think we would have both had the exact same dream at the exact same time, where the actions of one person in their dream were mirrored in the other’s dream. It’s impossible.”

  The doctor gave a small smirk. “Well, Mr. Byrd. To be quite frank I think the prospect that an 11-month old who could scarcely utter small words the day before can learn to speak fluent English overnight is less believable than the prospect of you both having the same dream at the same time, especially since there is no proof that your daughter can actually do what you claim she can. Perhaps-”
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  “No, I don’t want a ‘perhaps!’” Harold cried. “What I want is answers, doctor. I want to know what’s wrong with my daughter, and how it can be fixed, and, and…”

  Harold couldn’t go on before breaking down in tears. He stood up and walked over to Karena’s crib, looking down at his supposedly sleeping child. “Talk to me!” he yelled. “Please, I know you can do it, and I know you’re not really sleeping right now, so just talk to me! We can help you! I know you’re in shock right now, and I know you don’t want to communicate with us, but just TALK TO ME!!”

  Harold doubled over on the floor, as the doctor walked out the door, checking his watch to see how much time he’d just wasted with this crazy family. He would mail the paycheck shortly.

  4

  Karena woke up from another long slumber and found herself still in the crib, in the nursery, in the body of a baby.

  She had no idea how long it had been since she’d woken up as a baby, but she estimated that it must have been at least several days. As the hours ticked on and she went through a strange cycle of sleeping and lying awake and being fed disgusting baby food before falling asleep again, a thought would sometimes come into her mind that she’d try to ignore. But time continued to go on, and on, and on, and nothing changed, and the fact that was popping into her mind more and more often was soon impossible not to realize.

  This was no dream.

  Though Karena knew it was true, she didn’t think about it, instead focusing on other things like trying to gain mobility in her chubby limbs so that she could be able to do more things like trying to find more ways to wake herself up. By making her believe that she was eventually she was going to wake up, it gave her something to focus on, a mission that she was constantly working towards so that this could be over. But above all of this, there hung the sense of dread, that she was never going to wake up and that this was her new life, living as a baby, helpless and incompetent, until she would grow up and become a toddler, and then a child, and then a teenager, and then…