Mark Daniel Taylor
“Hello little girl, and what’s your name?”
“Doctor Sandra Phillips, PhD.”
“Oh! And how old are you, Sandra?”
“Right now? Well, I guess the most accurate answer is that I am nine and three-quarters.”
“That’s a very good age! And is that your mommy standing over there on the porch, Sandra?”
“Yes.”
“And what’s her name?”
“Elizabeth Phillips.”
“And what does your mommy do?”
“She’s a slave of our corrupt government.”
“Is… is that right?”
“You might call her a civil servant.”
“And what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“When I grow up, I will be a quantum physicist.”
“A quantum…?”
“A quantum physicist. I will study the properties and behaviors of sub-atomic particles on a molecular level.”
“That sounds very grown up!”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Do you want to know what Mister Bubbles likes best about meeting little boys and girls at birthday parties like Jimmy Sinclair’s very special tenth birthday party?”
“No, Mister Bubbles, what is it?”
“It’s seeing their faces fill with joy when they hear all the smart and incredible things their children say!”
“Is that right?”
“It sure is! Your mummy, in particular, is a very pretty lady. I bet you can’t wait to grow up and look like her!”
“I take more after my father, Mister Bubbles.”
“I don’t want to make all the other mummies mad, but I’d go as far as to say that your mummy is one of the prettiest mummies that Mister Bubbles has ever seen!”
“I bet you would.”
“Tell me, Sandra, how long have you known Jimmy?”
“That depends.”
“And what does that mean, Sandra?”
“Well, Mister Bubbles, have you ever heard of the theory that time is relative?”
“Y-yes—yes, I think I have.”
“You’ve heard of Einstein? Well, my answer to how long I have known Jimmy depends on how you might look at it relative to my timeline. I’ve either known Jimmy since I met him on my first day of school, which would mean I have known him for five years, or I’ve known him since I met him on my first day of school, in which case I have known him for forty-five years.”
“I’m not sure if Mister Bubbles understands what you are saying, Sandra.”
“Have you ever heard of Doctor Isaac Higginbotham’s theory of genetic reincarnation?”
“Um… no I haven’t. I mean, Mister Bubbles has never heard that theory!”
“It’s the theory that with the right high speed, electrical magnetic impulse, a person could send their consciousness back through their genetic timeline.”
“This sounds like a very complicated idea for Jimmy Sinclair’s tenth birthday party, Sandra.”
“It’s very simple, really. As long as you are willing to sign a waiver that states you accept no liability on behalf of Doctor Higginbotham and his team and that they are not responsible for any loss of hand eye coordination which may occur as a consequence of the process, then it is possible for a person to have their consciousness sent back to some previous point in their life. They could—theoretically—wake up with all their thoughts and memories from who they were when they entered the electromagnetic chamber, but in the body of their younger self.”
“Is that… is that right?”
“Of course, the usefulness of such a shift in consciousness is very clear. A great mind, on the edge of death, could return to a younger body to continue their work. Mortality would effectively be a thing of the past. But there are other applications. Say, for example, that you are a woman—a scientist perhaps. You have a marvelous career which has included numerous awards and accolades. However, no matter how many accomplishments you have accepted in your life, you have been unable to process an incident which occurred when you were a child. It is an incident that has caused you to keep people—particularly those you love—at an arm’s length.”
“Um… Mister Bubbles is starting to think maybe he should speak to one of the other children.”
“An incident that may or may not have involved the female scientist’s mother and father breaking up when she was young.”
“That sounds very… challenging. Mister Bubbles is not sure if he… um…”
“You look unwell, Mister Bubbles. I don’t think it’s the white face paint, either.”
“Mister Bubbles is feeling a little dizzy.”
“Here, why don’t you eat this slice of birthday cake?”
“Um….”
“Sorry, butterfingers.”
“It’s okay, Mister Bubbles has it!”
“While you eat that, I can tell you about my father. As you’ve probably noticed he is not here today. If my memory serves, he is in Majorca right now. He is with a twenty-four-year-old legal assistant who he will eventually leave for a twenty-three-year-old legal assistant. My father didn’t use to be such a weak-willed, insipid philanderer. He used to be a very strong, very present member of the household. For a long time, I hated him, and blamed him for our parent’s divorce, but recently I’ve started to understand that he may have been overcompensating for something.”
“This is a very nice cake. Do you happen to know where Mrs. Sinclair bought it?”
“I don’t know, Mister Bubbles.”
“It’s very good! Although I think Mister Bubbles detects a slightly sour aftertaste.”
“I likewise wanted to blame my mother. Afterall, she was the one to cast the first stone, as it were.”
“Mister Bubbles has noticed that no one else seems to have cake.”
“It all started when my father came home from work one day and found a pair of oversized gloves in the bedroom.”
“In fact, Mister Bubbles can see the cake for Jimmy’s birthday sitting on the table at the back of the room. There are no slices taken out of that cake.”
“He would later find a quadruple-X sized pair of polka dot trousers and a bright red nose that made a honking sound when you squeezed it.”
“Mister Bubbles keeps wanting to cough. Like Mister Bubbles has swallowed a bit of the cake down the wrong hole but… Krrr… Cruhhh… Uhhh…”
“I don’t know when my mother discovered that she had a very strong, very uncontrollable sexual preference for men in brightly-coloured face paint and size twenty-eight shoes. It may have been a secret she carried for some time.”
“Urrrk… Akkkkk…”
“But what I have been able to figure out is, through a process of elimination, whose tenth birthday party from that time incorporated a clown into the list of activities arranged to keep the children busy while all the parents stood out on the porch and drank gin-based liqueurs with lemonade.”
“Urrgghhh… Mister Bubbles… Mister Bubbles can’t…”
“Breathe? No, he can’t.”
“Wha… But I…”
“Are you trying to say that you didn’t have sex with my mother? Well, no, I guess technically you didn’t.”
“…”
“You wouldn’t have sex with my mother until tomorrow night, when she calls you on the number listed on your yellow-and-red business card and asks you to meet her at the Hilton for what she calls a very private and very intimate event.”
“Arrrgh… arrrgh…”
“A very private and very intimate event which would continue into a month-long affair and climax with Mister Bubbles accidentally leaving several items of very identifiable clothing in my mother and father’s master bedroom.”
“I… Mister Bubbles says… Please…”
“But then I guess that’s the trouble with so many things in life.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“It’s all so relative.”
Mark Daniel Taylor is a writer from London. He is an alumnus of the 2020 New Orleans Writers’ Residency and placed as a finalist in the 2023 Killer Nashville Claymore Award. He is currently working on his debut novel, Infinity Land. You can find him on most things as @katmazov or via his website www.markdanieltaylor.co.uk.
Featured photo by Capotina Entretenimientos (Pexels)
