3. A Full Bladder

REMEMBERING THE FORGOTTEN THINGS (3)

“Wow,” I said to the professor, “that’s quite a story. But tell me: how certain are you as to cause and effect? I mean, would you have formed the same friendship with Ricky had you not added the magic three words to the teacher’s conversation with you, crying in grief?”

“I worry about that,” admitted Dingle, “and think maybe my life, and Ricky’s, would have merged together anyway. We were fairly lonesome kids, you know, me with my little note book in which I wrote down, in tiny writing, anything I found interesting: the stars, the Universe, the planets, anything scientific that appealed to me, and Ricky with his often brittle ways. Maybe the chair helped, but all it did was administer the tiniest of nudges, nothing Earth shattering at all.”

“So you don’t think you can reshape the future as seen from then in any meaningful way?” I asked.

“Look,” he said, “the past is the past, the present is the present and the future’s yet to happen. But if there can be the least of connections that briefly takes the thoughts of one brain to its earlier self and maybe influence it a bit, there may be a minuscule influence on events. But only that: minuscule. Now tell me about your troubling memory?”

“It was at school,” I told him, “and I was probably ten or eleven, and I wet my pants.”

“Not uncommon in days when teachers cruelly prevented kids from going to the toilet,” he murmured.

“It wasn’t quite like that,” I confessed, “because I don’t remember asking to be excused. What I do remember is being ordered to the front of the class to read an essay or something that I’d written. I guess I was a bit of a nerd even back then! Anyway, I started reading my piece, I forget what it was about, and before I finished I became aware of a growing patch of moisture by my groin. I was leaking, and the rest of the class noticed! There was shuffling and the odd titter!”

“I see,” he said, “and what would you like to have done?”

“Why, go back to the most recent break and stand in the loo by the urinal until I’d drained myself,” I confessed.

“And what happened next?” he asked.

“The teacher noticed my embarrassment and quietly suggested I went to the toilet before I really wet myself and made a puddle,” I said, remembering. “It was uncomfortable walking too, I remember that!”

“I tell you what,” he said, suddenly animated even though it had stopped raining outside and he wanted to visit the churchyard, “let’s get you in the chair, recall that memory and see if we can take it back. You might have fragments of events leading up to it somewhere in your brain, who can tell? And then, if you can return to the most recent break you can gallop into the toilets!”

He escorted me into the chair, and switched a few switches on the arm frame until I could sense the slightest hum from it. Then he lowered the disc on its pole until it was almost touching my head and told me to close my eyes and try to think of that wet-pants day at school.

And I saw it with my eyes shut. I saw the classroom, and like magic as parts of it that had long been nothing but an indistinct blur started taking shape and colour. I was standing at the front of the class, but I couldn’t actually see myself because, well, you don’t when you’re looking out, do you? And there were the other children there, still junior age and mixed, with girls and boys sitting in tidy rows looking at me. I saw Jimmy with his big spectacles and nose screwed up, and behind him was pretty little Amanda with unbelievably long hair, and next to her sat Perry, a quiet boy who hated sitting next to girls. I’d forgotten all that detail as I read from my exercise book, a piece I’d written about the planets in the solar system. Of course that’s what it would have been! My main nerdish interest!

“Are you okay?” asked Dingle quietly so as not to be too intrusive if my memory was forming.

I nodded. No need for me to reply. Then, as I concentrated, I became aware that something from my thoughts, some little snaking tendril of myself, was leaving my mind and hurtling through time to the boy, me, in the classroom.

“Toilet!” I whispered to myself. At least I thought I whispered, though no sound can have come out, what with the distance in time involved.

And I stopped reading. “Please sir, I’m sorry, but can I go to the toilet?” I said, breaking the magic of my essay.

“You should have gone at break, Pandrake,” said the teacher, Mr Gibson I suddenly remembered, a name that hadn’t found its way into my head for ages.

“I’m sorry, sir,” my little self stammered, and I found myself clutching my shorts in desperation.

“Go on, then, boy, and hurry back. That essay is really quite good and I want the rest of the class to hear it,” ordered Mr Gibson.

So I did just that. No wet pants, just a half-run to the boys’ toilets and a huge wee.

Somehow I took the memory forwards to nearby events. I got back to the classroom relieved, and not a hint of moisture on my clothing anywhere.

“Welcome back, Pandrake,” said Mr Gibson, “and carry on reading. No, in fact, start again from the beginning. Others might learn a few things from you.”

And I did just that, trying to put intrigue and mystery into my voice as I skipped from Mercury, past Venus and on to Mars.

And I came to an end. I was proud of what I’d written, though my older brain winced at my suggestion that there might be intelligent civilizations on Mars digging broad canals.

I sat down in my seat, And Amanda Rosebud (yes, that was her real name) looked at me with the tiniest smile on what even at the age of ten or eleven I knew was a pretty face.

Afterwards she quite boldly came up to me as if we were best buddies, though hitherto I’d hardly spoken a word to her.

“You are brave, Roger,” she said, “I don’t think I’d have dared ask to go to the toilet in the middle of reading my exercise.”

Then, sadly, the dream faded and I opened my eyes. Professor Dingle was looking at me curiously.

“Well?” he asked.

“It was so easy,” I said, “and it’s sorted. I never wet my pants after all, and now when I think back I cam remember going to the toilet in the middle of reading my essay to the class. And there are no wet pants in the memory, none at all, I can assure you of that!”

“And,” he asked slowly, “were there any lasting effects? I mean, like my friendship with Ricky?”

“There was Amanda Rosebud,” I murmured, a bit shyly despite my age. “I’d forgotten all about her, but she was the prettiest girl in the class. All the boys said so. And she came up to me afterwards and told me I was brave!”

“It must have seemed that you were,” he said.

“The bad thing is,” I said soberly, “it can’t have been long after she was knocked down by a car on her way to school. She was in a bad way for ages, but eventually recovered her health. But she never recovered all of her pretty looks, and that was a shame.”

“Stuff like that happens,” he said, “and doesn’t need my chair to help it on its way. Come on, it’s fine now and I want you to meet Ricky. He was a good friend.”

“So was Amanda,” I whispered, remembering more months, maybe even years. “Can I, one day, have another go?”

“We’ll see,” he replied, “but first: Ricky!”

© Peter Rogerson, 10.06.20