Re: Dante’s Infanzia

Chapter 8: You win some, you lose some.

Dante woke up an hour or two later, feeling refreshed, sober, and wet. His second diaper change went much easier than his first one, partially because he really was starting to accept this process as inevitable. It didn’t hurt that he had wet in his sleep, either. For some reason, it was easier to take knowing that he was unconscious when the inevitable happened. Maybe bed wetting was slightly more grown up than wetting while conscious, and that’s why toddlers could wet the bed up to a certain age and it be no big deal.

He had been feeling very cold and clammy below the waist, so the change was a welcome one. Dante did some rough estimation at that fact. He must have wet soon after he fell asleep, his bladder further loosened by the fresh dose of angel milk.

Now dry, and rested, Dante found himself and his playmates plopped down in the middle of a cubicle room filled with toys, bocks, baby books, and other such diversions. Their Judy set them each down, gave them a pat on the tushie and told them to go play. Apparently, now was free play time in the nursery- or more accurately time to stretch their legs in the prison yard.

Within minutes, they were joined by other babies, their Judy’s carrying them in one at a time and setting them down. A few Judy’s took position as activity supervisors, attempting to coax the baby-kids into some form of play or another- maybe offering to read a story. Other Judy’s simply hung back at the perimeter of the cubicle and talked to each other while pointing at and making various side comments about their infant prisoners.

The Judy in the green dress was nowhere to be seen. Likely her wards were too rebellious to be allowed to play nice with the others, so they had been sequestered for further conditioning. Poor saps. Dante felt a (perhaps) undeserved sense of pity and superiority over them. If they kept struggling so openly, they’d never get any freedom at all. Even small freedoms presented opportunities; opportunities that could be taken advantage of when the time was right….

Nope, at this rate they’d be just as doomed as Midori in no time; their Judy watching them like a hawk, smothering them with conditioning and pre-programmed motherly affection. Quiet defiance was the way to go, as far as Dante was concerned. If Dante was going to keep his sanity and even escape this place one day, (What, let a little threat like eternity as a newborn stop him completely? Naaaaaaaaah.) he’d have to play it cool and lay low. Right now, laying low meant getting with the program and getting some serious playtime on.

“Looks like we lucked out, today” Lysa said, surveying the population. Their Judy had decided that she looked “too precious” in pigtails and so had done her hair back up after nap time. “Not everyone here has been broken down yet.”

Dante spotted the girl who had done the wonderful finger-paint portrait, dressed in a pink onesie. Wearing denim shortalls, (lucky punk) was the elementary kid who had made the play-doh man. A few others who Dante hadn’t seen earlier the day also seemed to possess the spark of sentience in them.

“I was afraid I’d be stuck with you all day,” she said, batting her eyes in a facetious attempt to look innocent. She was back to playfully messing with him. Dante didn’t take the bait.

They started spreading out and crawling around, looking for activities to do and talking to each other; those that could talk anyways. A few of the older kids occupied themselves by playing with and talking motherese to actual infants. Dante supposed that fawning and cooing over a real baby allowed them to keep the sense that they were at least mentally mature. All in all, there were probably about two dozen rugrats and eight rug watchers in this area.

“Is that a T.V. over there?” asked Dante, pointing to a big-screen at the far end of the play area. A large quilted blanket was spread out on the floor directly in front of it. Some stuffed animals were scattered over it, though there were plenty more elsewhere.

“Oh…yeah.” Lysa answered, “that? You can go watch T.V., if you want. You go lay on the blanket, and they’ll turn it on for you. I wouldn’t waste my time though.”

“Why?” asked Dante. If this was another brain washing thing like the milk, Dante needed to know up front. Then again, if it were, wouldn’t T.V. time be mandatory?

“Unless you’re interested in reviewing your ABC’s and 123’s”, Lysa told him, “again and again, and again, it won’t be very stimulating. Even if you show you learned something, the Judy’s ignore it or don’t believe it.”

“What do you mean?” Dante arched an eyebrow.

“One time,” Lysa explained, “early on, I wrote an entire letter in crayon about why I should be treated like an adult. I showed it to one of them. The laughed and said it was the cutest thing they had ever seen. They asked me who wrote this for me, and started passing it around to each other, trying to figure out who REALLY wrote it. I was so pissed off I started bawling my eyes out. All I got for my trouble was a bottle of milk. ” Though Dante couldn’t say he was at all surprised, he did feel a slight tinge of anger on Lysa’s behalf. These Judy’s were either willfully ignorant or sadistically stupid.

“Some of the cartoons are so lousy, I swear the Judy’s actually made them right here in Limbo just to torture us. Like, there’s this stupid show called ‘Dora the Explorer’ “, Lysa mimed gagging herself with her finger down her throat. “It’s about this little Spanish girl that-”

“-I’ve heard about it,” Dante interrupted. “It’s actually a real show among the living right now. It’s very popular among babies and little kids. Lysa paused and stared, completely silent.

“I am soooo glad I’m dead right now.” she said finally. “Anyways, I’m going to hang out with some of the other non-droolers. You comin’?”

Dante shook his head. “Nah, I still need some time to adjust to this place. I need something a little more quiet and low stress. I think I’ll go try my luck and be a couch potato.”

“Don’t you mean a blanket bean?” Lysa corrected. “No couches here, see?” Dante rolled his eyes but allowed himself a smile. “Oh well, suit yourself, kid. Come on Dori, let’s go play with the smart kids.” Dori grinned and shook her head no. She stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at Lysa, as she crawled up beside Dante.

“Seriously?” Lysa asked. She shrugged her shoulders, “Oh well, whatever. I’m going to be building block towers with the others. Maybe we can play King Kong when we’re done and I’ll get to be Fae Wrae. You two can come hang out when you’re done vegging.” Lysa then crawled away in a bit of a harrumph.

“Seriously?” Dante asked, looking at Midori. Midori grinned again and gave a spastic head nod. She must really like him.

Dante crawled towards the television, with Midori close behind. The crinkling sound they made as they crawled made Dante think of unwrapping a hundred little butterscotches. Clearly, Midori had some level of intelligence since she responded to verbal questions and commands. Then again, Dante had read in his AP Psychology class that babies tended to learn to understand language first before expressing it. So this could be all according to her programming.

Dante found himself acutely worried about Midori’s affections. He was totally not down with flirting with someone who, for all intents and purposes, was the infant they were dressed up as. The whole thing was just a giant turn off in that respect.

Midori for her part didn’t seem to notice Dante’s reluctance or discomfort. Maybe Dori just looked at him like some kind of a big brother, he hoped. If Dante had to give the “let’s just be friends” talk to someone who was genuinely interested in munching on her own toes, his existence will have hit rock bottom. Just considering the possibility that he might have to give that talk was bad enough.

They reached the large blanket in front of the T.V. and Dante stretched out to lay on his belly. A Judy with black hair wearing nursery scrubs, like his Judy, came over and turned on the set for him. Midori, more interested in Dante than the T.V. leaned forward and stared at Dante, forgetting that her butt was sticking up in the air.

The screen filled with pastel colors. Two cartoon babies, a boy and a girl in nothing but pink and blue t-shirts an diapers came on screen. A real life woman walked on screen beside them. Great, blues-clues rip off. She looked at the cartoon babies, and started signing. “Come on Alex and Leah, it’s baby signing time.” she spoke as she signed.

Ah-hah! Baby sign-language. This place really did keep up with the times. Teaching babies sign language before they could talk was a trend that was really gaining steam in America. Proponents of it said that infants learned to communicate visually way before they learned to communicate verbally. This resulted in far less tantrums since they could communicate their needs and much easier potty training.

Midori’s eyes instantly became glued to the screen. She was obviously enthralled. While not as hypnotized as Midori, Dante was genuinely interested. If these angels kept up with the times and trends of child-rearing, then if he learned sign language, even at a basic baby level, the Judy’s would have to respond to his signals. They’d respond as if a baby signed them, but they’d still respond. This could be useful.

The woman- Rachel she called herself as she broke the fourth wall and talked to the audience- wore a bright yellow jacket and plain black pants. More interestingly, she had a blue band around each thumb and forefinger, while her other three fingers one each hand had an orange band. Clever. This made it easier to see which fingers she was using for her signs.

What followed was basically what one might expect. The woman talking to the camera, teaching basic signs that babies might need. Every single example (without exception) was followed by cutaways of actual babies practicing the signs, and other children (likely 3 or 4 year olds) doing voice over work identifying what each sign meant.

For example: The word eat would flash on the screen, and the hostess would say “Eat. It’s like you have food in your hand and you’re putting it in your mouth. Can you sign eat?” Then she would mime the sign for eat. A babyish voice from off screen would echo “Eat.” Then the camera would cut away to various infants and toddlers signing “Eat” while the same babyish voice would say “Eat” or “He’s signing eat”. Then there’d be a thirty second song of the hostess singing about eating her favorite foods.

Repeat this basic process for “drink”, “crackers”, “water”, “cereal”, “milk”, “banana”, and “juice”, and you basically had the first ten minutes of the program. Simple, easy to learn, and soooooo boring. Dante only needed to see the example from the hostess and hear the pneumonic device, and he had it. The rest of the sequence was just padding to him. (Heh. A baby show with padding.)

Midori, on the other hand, was practicing right along with the real babies onscreen. Her mindset was clearly the target audience for the show, even if her body was in the wrong demographic. Still, for the sake of his experiment, Dante was determined to watch this program and learn sign language.

Dante suddenly felt the urge to urinate and instantly let loose a stream into his diaper. Once you got over the whole “I’ve been discouraged from doing this for the vast majority of my life.” and looked past the thought of “that nice warm feeling on my crotch is my own urine,” this whole forgetting potty training thing wasn’t that bad.