He was not a child prodigy. Even the brightest of geniuses required a source of knowledge from which they could extrapolate and expand upon, a foundation upon which they could build their house.
He however was a child possessing knowledge that had no discernible source, a child speaking words that it had not heard. Therefore it was not surprising when his parents caught onto that fact and talked about him in hushed whispers. He heard them speak, weaving tales to each other about his apparent state as unnatural child. As if the source of his knowledge came from an entity.
Truth be told, his parents suspicion was the truth. His knowledge came from an entity - himself in another life.
At first he struggled desperately, trying to act his age. A performance of impossibility as it would turn out to be futile.
It was a lot harder than he expected to act as a one year old baby. His patience fought a war of attrition, a patience that was eventually culled into nonexistence by the continuous infantile behavior required of him - a one year old infant did after all not do anything but cry, shit and eat.
Now he considered himself a patient man, but every man has a breaking limit, every army has a limit before they route and he had simply had enough.
Perhaps he should have started gradually, a journey of speaking with incomplete sentences. Acted as a mere gifted child, a genius rather than the full-blown abnormal act that occurred.
He had been hearing them talk about him, they call him possessed. They had gone so far to have the local priest come by their house. Dousing him with holy water and baptising him in order to lend him a modem of protection from the unholy.
The unfortunate events that transpired did not end t
here. There were seemingly drastic unexpected consequences to his behaviour. His parents. They. They were different..
Making mockery of his parents' memory. The creatures that wore the faces of his mother and father, who spoke with his parents voices, were underneath not his parents at all. The warm smiles and comforting hugs that he remembered from childhood were gone, replaced with an aloof and cold façade. The only interactions between the two parties were the ones of necessity. The play, the cuddles with an infant, all gone and in the place of what used to be a warm, kind and paramount of all the understanding look of a mother – was the gaze of a stranger.
`Is this the price? The price of being reborn?` he wondered.
Each action from birth to death creating cascading effects around him, twisting the world until all it shares in common with the old world is the name it shares. He remembered that it had been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.
Well, he was a lot larger than a butterfly and his parents are a lot closer than halfway around the world. He could not help but wonder what will be left of the world he once knew. He barely recognized his mother and father as it is.
What will be left of their memory by the end? Maybe the priest was wrong in his actions, maybe he should have doused his parents to offer them protection instead. He was perhaps both the corrupted and the corrupter - destined to debase the memories of those forever lost to him.
He woke up at the dawn of morning as he heard the door to his bedroom creak open, lances of light flooding into the room, vanquishing the darkness and vanishing the dreams of the night.
The door stopped halfway open and from his position he could hear his parents beyond the door exchanging heated whispers with each other. Before the father ultimately nodded, turned and walked away.
His mother however entered the room, walking to his crib and scrutinizing him from above.
"Good morning Jason, come here" she said as she signaled to him with her hand. "We are going to the Doctor, it is time for your health check, sweetie, I recall the doctor mentioning vaccinations over the phone last week" her smile twisted and stretched as she spoke, her teeth hidden by the shadows, seemingly speaking with an abyss of a mouth.
He nodded weakly and let himself get picked up, cursing the powerlessness of an infantile body and dreading the future. For he knew there was no check-up and no eventual vaccination.
The sound of the wheels of his stroller killed the prevalent silence in the hallways of the local hospital. The white walls, fluorescent lights and distinct hospital smell summarized the tense experience as he was escorted towards the doctor's office.
They arrived outside the office of one Doctor Strickland, PhD in Biology according to the plaque. Finally at their destination his parents sat down his haste. He himself was strapped in the trolley, unable to do much about the situation, he settled for only available action: waiting and praying.
He had never prayed before. He was never a pious man; he never expected to become one either. Reincarnation however changed his fundamental perspective of the universe, opening up his former mind.
`If reincarnation is possible then the possibility of a man in the sky seems a lot more likely ` he thought as he lay there in his trolley in pray and thought until sleep took him away.
While he slept the door to the office opened with a soft swoosh as a middle aged man in great shape with greying hair and white robes complete with a pocket protector came out.
"Fiona and George, pleasure to meet you both again, my apologies for the wait, what can I do for you two today?" he said standing in the doorway. Before slightly shaking his head continuing "Forgive me, where are my manners. Please come in and be seated".
"Thank you, pleased to meet you too, Dr.Strickland." Pointing to the baby in the carriage she informed the doctor about the reason for their visit as they entered his office.
The office was Spartan, a desk, 4 chairs and an examination table with an assortment of medical equipment by the wall.
The doctor sat in silence and thought for a while before responding to the tale the woman had spun.
"You are telling me that the young man here. Jason, right, is strange? I assure you he is nothing of the sort. I see two legs, two arms and ten digits on both arms and legs. However I can run some tests if you are worried about him having an illness, may it be physical or mental. It does not hurt to be safe rather than worried, especially when it concerns a child.
The parents looked at each other and were prepared to interrupt him. However seeing their exchange the doctor quickly continued to talk.
"You have my assurance however that while uncommon it is not unheard of for children his age to speak properly and walk unassisted." Looking at the married couple seated in front of him. He thought about the amount he could charge for what was in his mind ultimately pointless tests.
The doctor hummed and said " How about it, let us move him into Room 18 and I'll run Jason through some tests to see that his cognitive abilities are developing as they should be and that there is nothing wrong with him physically . Perchance you are right and he is unusually gifted then I'll rethink my approach. I'd ask you both to refrain from the meeting, as I would rather meet him alone for starters."