Purgatory: Relife Chapter 2 by Aurum Copyright © 2016 Aurum All Rights Reserved.

“With that we’re done. As you can probably guess you just barely scored below what is allowed for an easier life. Therefore, you will have to relive your life. All of your memories will be erased and the only thing you will carry with you is a keen intuition from this experience.”

Before I could ask for more information or protest his decision the room went from blinding light to complete darkness.

Through the darkness I could only tell two things, I was trapped and it was wet. I was confined here until time lost meaning. Not only was I cut off from night and day, I never seemed to get hungry or have any bodily urges to help me gauge time. As a result, I did the one thing you can when trapped in such a prison; I slept… a lot.

During my countless weeks of sleep, I noticed another phenomena that I was powerless to resist. There was a sharp decline in awareness, of conscious thought, and rapid memory loss. To combat this I tried playing mental games while I was awake, but it only delayed the inevitable.

‘2 – 4 – 8 – 16 – 32 – 64 – 128 – 256 – 512 – 1024 – 2048 – 4096’ and beyond that was too difficult. ‘Ok, I’ll just remember the important things. I was talking with saint… shit who was it, saint. Regardless, I need to ignore my dad when I’m four because... why?’

This was how it was when I first started playing the mental games. The knowledge was there, but the details were lost. After playing a round or two I would become extremely tired and need to sleep.

Later, maybe a week or more, it had become almost impossible to even play the mental games. Not only because I had grown increasingly terrible at it, but because I was beginning to lose control of my thoughts. It was such a chore to even force myself to think about doing it, that my ability had declined to the point where it was just frustrating.

‘2 – 4 – 8 – 16 – 24, wait not 24, what was it’ or when I tried to remember the past it had become, ‘I spoke with someone and something happens when I’m three or was it four?’

At this point I started stomping with frustration. How could I have become so incapable of the most basic mental challenges? I knew that I should know 215 power, but now I was down to just four. Not only that, I couldn’t even remember what the numbers represented, I didn’t know why they increased like that. This is the same for my memory of everything. All I really knew was the walls were slowly shrinking on me. Coming closer and closer to crushing me alive.

Weeks of this past until my number game had gotten down to just 2 and 4, and I only remembered that I needed to remember something I had forgotten. To make matters worse, I was convinced that I would be crushed to death any day now.

This fear is what drove me to act, no longer would I sleep in this cave until I was killed; I decided to climb out with all my might. Through the darkness I didn’t know which way was out so I decided to climb forward. Rather it led to my inevitable death or not, at least I’d be taking action.

For hours I struggled, and when all hope seemed lost I saw a small sliver of light at the end of the tunnel, which drove me to push harder. The closer I got the brighter it became until I was peeking out. From there, the rest was easy.

However, as soon as I got out of the cave I was snatched by something. While I was trying to get my bearings I heard my attacker shout, “It’s a boy!”

‘Fuck!’ With his declaration I was able to realize what had happened and where I was at, but that was my last thought.

“Look at me, I’m a princess.” James shouted while wearing a pink skirt. He was having fun swinging a toy light saber at the other kids while playing dress up. To him it was a joke, the four year old was merely having a good laugh from the irony.

Joining in on the fun Chris picked up a toy sword, the kind a medieval knight would have used. He was quick to join the banter after swinging the sword at each other a few times Chris said, “but a knight can’t fight a lady.” Both of the boys, along with most of the other kids in the class were enjoying the stupidity of what was happening.

Normally the kids weren’t allowed to have sword fights, they were props for plays, but since the teacher had stepped out of the room the chaos had ensued. Wanting to keep the fun going, Chris went and put on blue dress before he announced, “but a girl knight can fight you.”

At this point nearly all the kids were laughing, not at the boys in skirts and dresses, but with them. The amusement had gone from civilly loud to a riot. Never had the young boys done something so absurd, which was saying a lot. Still, the noise had become so unreasonable that the teacher from the neighboring room came to check on the students.

“You all need to sit on the rug until Mrs. Harrison gets back.” At this point she noticed Chris and James pointing their toy swords at each other, so she continued “Boys, you know you aren’t supposed to fight each other, even if it is pretend.”

The students scrambled to their spot on the rug while Chris and James handed Mrs. Olson the swords before sitting with the others. Neither took the time to undress out of fear of making the teacher even madder. It took two minutes before Mrs. Harrison returned to the class. It was obvious she had heard about the boys’ antics since she was quick to scold them before allowing the class to resume recess.

Up to this point everything had been fun and games, but here is where Chris and James showed their difference. Once their lecture was over, James kicked off the skirt before returning to other rowdy games. However, Chris didn’t, for whatever reason he realized that he liked wearing the dress.

That’s why even after James had taken his off, Chris continued to wear the dress. He actually went so far as to play house with the girls during that break. When he went to play with the girls they tried to get him to be the dad since they usually couldn’t get a boy to join in on their games.

“No! I’m going to play the mom or the big sister today.” It wasn’t the first time he’d played house with them, but it was the first time he’d done it in girl’s clothes, and he refused to let the fun end.

“But you’re the only boy.” One of the girls said in a whiny voice.

“I’ll do it next time, but I’m already wearing a dress.” Chris laughed as he said this because of a combination of embarrassment and excitement.

“No I’m going to be the big sis and Taylor is going to be the mom.”

“Fine then, I’ll be the baby girl.”

The debate continued for a little while until the girls gave in, deciding it was better to have him skip out on being the dad than not play with them anymore like he’d threatened. It was a blast for Chris as he really got into the role, sure it was just play, but he was enjoying himself more than any other time he’d played with the girls.

Around a half hour passed before the teacher called time. The rest of the day passed quickly for Chris due to his high from play earlier. Even better was that since it all began as a ridiculous joke, none of the kids teased him for wearing a dress. Sure it wouldn’t happen again, but it was ok since it was so fun.

“How was your day sweetie?” Chris’ mom said when he got in the car with her.

“It was fun, we worked on our vowels today.”

“That’s wonderful, did you have fun?”

“Yes, I played house with the girls.” He decided to leave out the part about a dress so his mom wouldn’t ask him why. He knew that if she found out he’d been sword fighting he’d be grounded or worse.

The rest of the day was uneventful, at least until his dad called after dinner. This was Chris’ favorite part of the day, the nightly call. The relationship he had with his dad was that of pure love. Sure his dad was a truck driver, so he was rarely home except for weekends, but he made a point to find a pay phone nearly every day, which was impressive back in 1994.

“How are you son?” Chris’ dad asked happily.

“I’m doing great. I miss you.”

“I miss you too son, so how was your day.”

“Promise you won’t get mad or tell mom.”

“You know I won’t promise that.”

“Well at least try not to.” His fear wasn’t that his dad would find out his boy was in a dress, but that he was breaking the school rules. Although his parents spoiled him, they had little tolerance for misbehaving.

“I’ll try not to.”

“Today James was wearing a skirt and playing with a sword.”

“That’s funny.”

“It looked fun so I put on a dress and played with him.” Chris paused a moment trying to figure out the best way to say it before continuing, “Afterward I played house with the girls.”

“Did they make you play the dad again?” His dad asked, thinking he already knew the answer.

“They tried to, but I wanted to play the sister since I was already wearing a dress.”

“Oh wow.” He said somewhat surprised, but not particularly concerned.

There was a long silence, not enough to be awkward, but almost. “Dad… I want to be a girl.”

“No you don’t you just think you do because you had fun at play.” He had started speaking quickly, which was rare for him.

“But I really liked it and it made me feel good.”

“You realize that being a girl isn’t like play. Trust me, it’s better to be a guy.”

“But” Chris started to protest before his dad cut him off.

“Let me ask you son…” he said emphasizing the word son, “don’t you like girls?” It was a leading question, even if Chris didn’t realize it.

“Yea”

“Which is why you don’t want to be a girl, you want to be with a girl.”