Caroline squirmed slightly and reached out for her big sister. Apparently, the changing mats only worked on people who didn’t think of themselves as babies yet. Lysa reached out with her hand towards her little sister, and Caroline clasped on Lysa’s pointer finger with a sure grip. Lysa took a deep breath and exhaled through her nose.
“Ready…set…go!”, the nursery worker shouted as she and her double in the robes raced to see who could change their ward’s diaper the fastest. Both angel women were giggling slightly and were definitely having more fun than the girls. Dante thought that this must be humiliating. It had to be another form of brain washing, to show how they were no different than the actual babies.
The nursery worker won the contest by a good three solid three seconds. “Good game,” the nursery worker said, as the wet nurse re-swaddled the newborn and picked her up, leaving the soiled diaper on the changing mat, and ripping Lysa’s finger from her grasp.
“Yeah yeah,” the nursery worker said good naturedly, “I know, loser throws away the wet ones.” The nursery worker picked up the soiled diapers and threw them into a lidded trashcan, never to be seen again. She bent over and lifted Caroline off the mat. “Don’t worry, Lysa,” she said, “we’ll get ’em next time, right little girl?” She placed Lysa back in the stroller and buckled her in before going back to roll up the changing mat.
“But before you know it,” the angel added, “we won’t be able to play that game, cuz you’ll be a big girl, and out of diapers and using the potty and everything. You’re gonna be such a great big sister when you get older! Maybe you can even help us change Caroline, then. Won’t that be fun? Won’t it?”
Lysa turned her head towards Dante, “Don’t you believe it.” she said. “They say that every time I come to visit.” Dante didn’t need to be told not to believe it. He already didn’t.
“Yeah, I didn’t figure they were big on Pull-Ups here. Just another form of psychological warfare, right? Give you hope you’re gonna get to grow up in here, and then dash your hopes when you’re still in diapers fifty years later.”
“Right,” Lysa confirmed, “What’s a Pull-Up?” Dante had already forgotten how long Lysa had been in Limbo.
“Disposable training pants, halfway between diapers and big boy pants.” Dante informed her. (Crap watch the word choice.) “They’re like diapers, but not as thick. They’re easy to pull on and off like underwear, but can be thrown away if the kid doesn’t make it to the potty in time. They usually have designs for bigger kids, like racecars for boys, or princesses for girls. Sometimes they have little hearts or stars that disappear when the kid is wet so that they learn the difference between wet and dry and don’t sit in a wet diaper all day.”
“Yeah,” Lysa harrumphed, “never seen anything close to that around these parts.”
The wet nurse exposed her breast, and lifted Caroline up to start breast feeding her. Lysa’s eyes were immediately on the wet nurse, and they were staring daggers. If looks could kill angels….damn, there was some genuine hate there. Meanwhile, their Judy had rolled up and stowed away the mat, and taken Midori off the hands of a very grateful wet nurse counterpart. Their stroller began to move again.
So this is why you brought us here? So I could watch you get to feel like a big baby instead of a little one?
“No,” she answered, “this is.” She pointed to an approaching, baby blue cot. “I brought you here to see him. Dori!” She called out from the stroller. “Dori! Wake up, baby girl! Time for Boo-Hoo’s!” Dante could hear Midori stirring sleepily, and then begin to wail.
The stroller came to a stop as nursery worker Judy stopped to see what was wrong with Midori. “Watch and learn,” Lysa said to Dante just as she banged on the blue plastic of the giant cot. A second cry joined Midori’s, coming from the cot.
A wet nurse rushed over to the cot, bent over and effortlessly picked up a Latino boy wrapped up in swaddling clothes. He looked to be about thirteen or fourteen from the size of him, though that was the only thing about him that looked like a teenager. He screamed with his mouth wide open and his eyes still shut.
Dante could see that the boy was completely toothless. If he had any hair, it was all tucked under and concealed by the blue cap on his head. Despite the crying noise, no tears came from his eyes. He had forgotten how to use his tear ducts. The wet nurse unsheathed her robe and stroked her nipple across the boy’s cheek. He instinctively latched on and began nursing.
“Dante,” Lysa introduced, “meet Jorge Rivera: The one who showed me the ropes when I first got here. Jorge had been here for about seventy years when I came here. He showed me how to keep my sanity. When he finally started breaking about thirty years later, he decided it was time to try and escape.
“He managed to get all the way out into the hallway before they caught him. Management decided that he was too risky to be left out in the main nursery, so they sent him here and made him drink the pure stuff.
“As long as we’re here, we’ll be treated like babies,” she went on. “We will wear and use diapers. We will be fed milk and burped. We will sleep in cribs. But is that the only thing you want to be able to do, Dante? Do you want the rest of your existence to revolve around breast feeding, diaper changes, and sleeping? Don’t hope for escape, Dante, because this is where escapees end up.”
To Be Continued…