In Reverse, Part 3

Do you remember being fifteen? It's a really confusing time for most of us. It's a very definite transition from childhood to adulthood as kids enter high school and start learning to drive. We kinda look at it as the last stretch of childhood as we gain more independence and get ready to go out on our own.

But if you think it's confusing the first time, try doing it a second time in reverse. As soon as my 25-year-old son found out, he took away my car keys, saying I could still drive with him or Sophie in the car until I dropped to 14. The way it had been going, I knew that wouldn't be long, so I started getting used to being carted around like a kid. Ethan or Sophie started dropping me off at the lab on their way to school, and I feel totally ridiculous, flashing back to all the years I dropped them off at school on my way to work. Of course, if I didn't look the part, it wouldn't be happening, and I can see myself in the reflection in the glass doors as I walk into the lab: a young teenage boy. I even sound different, my voice being a little higher-pitched than it used to be. It's crazy, but my voice is changing BACK!

I was right, of course. It's been a week, and they clocked me at 14 today. No more driving. At all. I thought I was getting myself ready for this, but now that it's here, I'm devastated. I cried after they told me. I went to the bathroom so I could be alone and really cried. My friend Kim asked me if I was okay when she saw me a few minutes later. I lied and said I was, but I know she could tell. I couldn't help it! This is all just too much to take!

Of course, it doesn't help that my hormones are raging and out of balance just like they were the first time I was 14. The physical changes are becoming more obvious too. I've shrunk to Sophie's height, and Ethan took me to buy new clothes this evening. I'd bought some for myself a couple weeks ago when I started getting shorter but could still drive. But the rapid rate I'm regressing has caused me to get even smaller, and now my clothes are too big for me. It was the worst possible day for this to happen, but Ethan didn't give me a choice, saying we needed to get it done tonight before I got any smaller. I really didn't want to be at the store, so he practically had to drag me around, which was even more embarrassing. Nobody said anything, but I could tell they all thought Ethan was taking his little brother shopping, and he did nothing to contradict that idea. All of my kids stopped calling me Dad in public weeks ago, and now that I think about it, I can't remember the last time any of them called me Dad at all. I can't argue that it makes no sense for any of them to refer to a 14-year-old boy as their father, especially Ethan and Sophie, but it still hurts.

This morning, while we were getting ready for school and the lab, Ethan called me by my first name. Sophie and Thomas noticed, looking at me to see how I'd react. Suddenly self-conscious, I didn't know how to react, so I just answered him, ignoring the change in how he'd addressed me. I'd seen this coming and given it some thought. Practically speaking, I wasn't their dad anymore. I didn't look like their dad or even a man. So, there was no logical reason they should call me Dad, especially if I was going to get younger, which looked likely. When we got home this afternoon, my two younger kids had followed suit. I'm officially no longer Dad and am now just Michael, and if I keep getting younger, I guess I'll eventually be Mikey. Ethan and Sophie are already treating me like their little brother, and I'm afraid Thomas won't be far behind them.

He and I were playing a game this afternoon when he decided he wanted to talk.

"What's it like to get younger?"

I kinda sighed. "It's hard. Like it was great at first, but then I kept going, and it got scary."

"It's scary?"

"Yeah. Like, imagine being a grown-up and being able to do whatever you want. You can drive, you can stay up as late as you want, you can go where you want when you want. Now, I have a bedtime, I can't drive, and all of my friends are too old for me now. Even if they weren't, I'd have to check with Ethan before I could go."

"Dude, that would suck."

It did, and it does. I haven't written about my friends yet, but all of my close ones know what's going on. Some of them said they were kinda jealous, but I could see the looks on their faces: sadness and pity. I felt like I'd been given a terminal diagnosis. But even worse was the confusion.

Even my best friend Joe had trouble getting it. "So you're de-aging? I don't understand how that's possible."

I explained the regeneration and the enzymes in layman's terms. "There have actually been a few labs working on this for years now."

"But why can't they stop it? Why don't they give you growth hormones?"

"Because they'd be working against my DNA. The regression is happening on the genetic level, below the endocrine system, so giving me growth hormones wouldn't stop the process. All it would do is make me sick while I'm getting younger. The problem is the serum changed my DNA, so they have to find an enzyme that will change it back and turn the regeneration off."

"What if they don't?"

"Then I'll get younger and younger until I revert to a fertilized egg. See, what's happening is that the cells in my body are actually combining instead of dividing. Everything's retracting."

"A fertilized egg?! You could go that far?"

"That's what we think."

Joe chuckled incredulously. "And then what? What happens if they don't stop it then?"

"We're not sure. The only thing beyond that would be for the sperm my dad contributed to my DNA to split from my mom's egg, but we don't know if that would happen or not since everything in me is combining. I might just stay a fertilized egg and start growing again from there."

"How would that work?"

I swallowed a lump of fear. "I'd either have to be placed into a woman's uterus to be gestated or a test tube."

The weight of what I was saying hit him, and I could tell it blew his mind.

"Yeah," I said. "I could become a test-tube baby at the ripe old age of forty-five."

Of course, that was a few weeks ago, and my conversations with Joe have tapered off. He has no idea as a middle-aged man how to relate to a man who's become a teenage boy and is still getting younger. It's been like that with most of my friends, although some of them, including Joe, still text from time to time.

When I woke up today and opened my mouth to say good morning to my kids, the words came out squeaky and high-pitched. My voice had changed to its pre-pubescent state, which meant my reverse puberty was almost over and I'd soon hit an ungrowth spurt.

The kids all noticed, but Thomas was the only one to say anything. "Wow, you sound almost just like me, Michael!"

When Ethan dropped me off at the lab, they confirmed what I already suspected: I was now physically thirteen years old.