Becoming Benji - Chaper 5

Chapter 5: The Unraveling

Ella rose shakily, gripping the sink for balance. Her reflection met her with wide, questioning eyes. Had she really been there — not just dreaming, but truly transformed, cradled in the arms of a woman? Had she drooled, and crawled, and babbled, and forgotten how to walk?

She remembered the softness. The warmth of the blanket. The scent of powder and milk. The slow melting of adult thoughts into baby instincts. She remembered wanting things she hadn’t wanted in twenty years.

Ella looked down at the pacifier again. It was silent — inert. But her gut whispered that it had chosen her. Or maybe, she'd chosen it.

She turned it over, inspecting it. The rubber nipple glistened faintly in the harsh bathroom light. It had taken her into a memory, or a dream, or maybe even a life that could have been. One where she didn’t need to think or decide or carry the weight of the world.

But what was it, really? A curse? A gift?

Ella tucked the pacifier into her coat pocket and stepped out into the store room. The shop was empty of customers, just as it had been before. Dust floated in the sunbeams from the high front windows.

No one was there to notice she’d been gone. Or where she had gone.

Her fingers brushed the pacifier through the fabric of her pocket, and she knew this wasn’t over. The pull to be that baby, to fall into the role of helplessness and dependence, was dangerous.

She needed help.

Ella reached for her phone, her fingers trembling as she typed out a message. She had to tell Maya. She had to make someone else understand what was happening, what she had gone through. But would Maya believe her?

Maya responded fast, she had seen her message and was calling her back, when Ella swiped to answer, Maya’s voice sounded flat with fatigue. “Hey.”

“Can you come over to my work?” Ella asked, her voice a little too fast. “Like, now?”

A pause.

“Why? What’s going on?”

“I just — I need to show you something. I can’t explain it over the phone. Please, it’s important.”

Maya’s sigh crackled through the speaker. “Ella… it’s been a day, alright? I was literally about to take a nap.”

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t serious.”

There was another silence. Then Maya’s voice came back, cooler now. “Is there something wrong, are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, I’m not hurt. I swear. Just — come over. Please.”

Maya exhaled again, clearly torn. “Eesh, okay fine. But I’m not staying long, okay?”

“Okay.”

Ella ended the call and stared out across the quiet street. For a moment she wondered what Maya would say — what anyone would say — if she told them the truth. That she'd been a baby, a real baby, for hours. That her sense of time, her body, her mind had been bent around a plastic trinket she hadn't even meant to find.

She looked down at her coat pocket. The pacifier was still there.

She didn’t know whether to feel grateful or scared.