I am a 35-year-old man.
Sorry.
35-year-old baby.
That’s confusing.
Isn’t it?
So, this is what happened.
I died a few minutes ago.
Then…
My consciousness slowly returned.
I opened my eyes.
The bright light made me squint.
It took some time for my vision to return.
“Ohh…
You are awake!”
I saw a young lady looking at me.
It was a familiar face.
A face I wanted to see for decades.
My mum!
I tried to get up.
Nothing happened.
My entire body felt sluggish.
I could barely move my arms.
I moved my hand in front of my face.
My palm entered my vision.
It was short and chubby.
I tried to raise my head.
But I could barely move my neck sideways.
I was confused.
“uvvu uvvu vooo…
Why are you not crying?” She asked playfully.
Wait.
This is not right.
I am a baby!
Why am I a baby?
This is not the afterlife!
I got scammed.
I was prepared for the afterlife.
Then this happened.
It took me a bit of time to understand what was happening.
I had returned to the beginning of my life.
I returned to the days when I was a baby.
At first, I was angry.
But then, I felt happy.
This is great.
I am getting a second chance at life.
I could start living my life again.
I could correct the mistakes in my previous life and live a perfect life.
This time I will be able to achieve all the dreams that I failed to achieve in my previous life.
I felt more and more excited as I thought about it.
But soon, reality hit me hard.
This is not a novel.
This is real life.
I am stuck as a baby.
Unlike novels, where the main character goes and saves the world right away, I cannot even roll over in bed.
My mum kept talking to me.
I wasn’t paying attention to anything she said.
I was like this the whole time in my previous life.
She used to get angry at me for this.
I cannot make the same mistakes in this life, too.
I decided to pay attention to what she was saying.
“…
The elephant felt angry.
It started flapping its ears and flying towards the arrogant rock…”
What the hell?
Flying elephant and an arrogant rock?
Crap!
I will have to listen to all those stupid baby stories for the next few years.
I am not a baby.
I am a 35-year-old man!
I felt a huge headache coming.
Wait…
wait…
WAIT…I felt like my entire body was getting paralysed.
Does that mean I will be breastfed for the next few years?
Yuck!!!
I realised that I’m in deep trouble.
For the next few months, I will stay like this.
Drinking breast milk, listening to all those ridiculous stories and worst of all, the singing of my elder sister, Anu.
Ohhh…
She must be barely 4 years old now.
That’s going to be worse.
I decided to forget all those things.
For now, let me concentrate on the positive side.
Mum is not as chubby as I remember.
She was slim before giving birth to me.
After that, she became a bit chubby.
She was smiling and laughing as she told the story.
I hated the story.
‘I don’t want the story.’ I said.
“Ooo ooggu voo” That’s what came out.
Ahhh…
I can’t talk.
Thank God.
If I were to speak, then it would have given my mum a heart attack.
She might have even thrown me out of the window.
“What?
Are you hungry?”
“Aaaoo ooo” I wanted to say no.
But only gibberish came out.
“Wow…
My little baby is trying to talk to me.
How cute…
Ummmaa…”
She seemed very happy about the gibbering.
I got a nice, warm, soft kiss as well.
I really liked the kiss.
It had been decades since I got a kiss from her.
But what came after the kiss was not something I wanted.
She decided to feed me.
I tried to turn my head and deny it.
But she didn’t let me.
Despite all my protests, it ended up in my mouth.
So I decided not to drink.
I looked away and did nothing.
“Are you not drinking?”
“Ooo…”
“Hahaha…
What do you want then?
Chicken fry?”
“Ooo Ooo” I wanted 2 plates.
“Hihihi…
You are not getting any.
Now drink.
I won’t let you go without drinking.”
Go where?
I am a baby who cannot even roll on the bed.
I wanted to cry.
I tried my best not to drink.
I will skip the details.
In short, it was embarrassing.
Despite all my protests, she force-fed me.
It tasted good.
It was sweet.
But I would have taken those two plates of fried chicken instead.
She was always like that.
Making me eat all the leafy vegetables and stuff despite my protest.
I really hated it.
But later I missed it.
After drinking, she burped me.
I liked that part.
She laid me on my belly and slowly patted my back.
It was comfortable.
But once I burped, she stopped doing that.
So next time, I’m going to hold back my burp as long as I can.
Once she was done with me, she started yelling at Anu.
She came running and took a peek.
She gave me a kiss and ran away.
Her name is Anu.
With the attention span of a monkey and the energy of a wolf pup, she spends her entire time running around.
Anu looked really cute and chubby.
In my memories, she was the grumpy elder sister who was looking for a reason to fight with me.
But this time, it is going to be different.
This time, I will be the younger brother she wants, and things should be better.
Finally, there is one more person.
That’s my dad.
He is probably at work and won’t be back till evening.
He is a calm and silent guy.
I will tell you more about him when he returns.
Now, let me make a list of things I have to do in the future.
I have to study properly in school.
With all the knowledge from my previous life, I will be able to do that without breaking a sweat.
Then I will make my love fall in love with me again.
That is going to be awesome.
Once I am…
Wait…
I am not thinking straight.
It could be because of the baby brain or maybe because of waking up just now.
I have to arrange things in the proper order.
Right now, my first priority is not studying or something far in the future.
There is a very serious issue that must be addressed right now.
My dignity depends on it.
It’s pooping.
How am I going to poop?
I am not going to poop on the bed like a savage.
No.
Savages don’t poop on the bed.
Babies do.
I am not going to poop on the bed like a baby.
Well…
I am a baby.
But I am not going to poop on the bed.
How am I going to tell her that I want to poop?
This bad.
Why do kids poop?
I only drank milk.
So it could be just pissed.
This is annoying.
God has done a bad job designing babies.
There is no need for babies to piss as well as poop.
Just one of them is enough.
Wait a second.
I have to piss too…
This is going to be worse.
“What are you thinking so much?”
Mum asked me curiously.
I am thinking of an efficient way of pooping and pissing simultaneously.
“Why are you not crying as usual?”
Because I am a mature baby, I wanted to reply.
But decided to keep quiet.
She continued talking.
I was half-listening.
Occasionally, Anu would peek from the side and let me know of her presence.
At the same time, I could feel the trouble brewing inside me.
There was a small pressure building up in my bowel.
I knew this was not going to end well.
There was nothing I could do.
My bowel has turned into a small time bomb ready to explode in my mum’s lap.
I cannot let it happen.
I am a man of principles.
No.
It is not about principles.
It is about dignity.
I cannot poop.
No.
I can poop.
But not like babies.
Ahhh…
My thoughts are messed up.
This must be because of the baby brain.
As time passed, the pressure increased.
In between, my mum put me on the bed and went to take care of something.
Then Anu came running and started talking just like Mum.
It was gibberish.
“…
Appa does not eat it.
So Mum makes me eat it.
She will make you eat it too.”
“Ohh…
Appa promised to buy chocolate today.
But I think he will forget again…”
She was cute.
Soon, Mum returned.
She placed me in her lap.
Then I realised that I missed a great opportunity to poop.
She started talking again.
The pressure in my bowel reached uncontrollable levels.
I could even hear the beep-beep sound of the time bomb.
I made sounds to get her attention.
I even tried a fake cry.
I tried kicking and wriggling.
Nothing worked.
It felt like she believed that babies don’t poop.
Slowly, it reached a point where I could no longer control it.
Then, with no more control, the bomb exploded on my Mum’s lap.
***
I woke up about 3 hours ago.
After waiting for 3 hours, my dad came home.
He looked handsome and healthy.
Anu ran to him and started playing with him without giving him enough time to change.
She knew how to handle Dad.
I was never this close to Dad.
After giving the attention Anu demanded, he came to me.
I was in the cradle, watching everything with a serious look.
He started cuddling me.
He was quite awkward.
His singing was horrible.
His stories were even worse than Mum’s.
He didn’t know how to talk to babies.
“He looks like he is judging me.” He complained to my mum.
Yes.
I am judging you.
I wanted to say.
But decided not to get scolded at our first meeting after many years.
Not that I can talk.
“I think he is not feeling well in his stomach.
He hasn’t cried since this evening.”
“Shall we go to a hospital?”
“No.
Let’s wait and see.
Maybe he is just having an upset stomach.”
“What did you give him?”
“2 plates of fried chicken.”
What a liar!
“What?
You think this is a time to joke?”
“What do you think I fed him?
You are overreacting.”
“Maybe the milk had spoiled.”
I facepalmed with my tiny, chubby palm.
He is dumb and presses all the wrong buttons.
As expected, Mum got angry, and Dad just went silent.
Anu just watched while giggling.
Days passed in the blink of an eye.
Life was amazing.
I had nothing to do.
Cry whenever I want attention or food.
Drink as much as I want and poop whenever I want.
And whenever I have nothing else to do, I get to watch and judge the family drama.
So let me tell you my story.
Thank you for giving my book a try!
This story was originally published elsewhere and is now being migrated into Webnovel.
It is a story about second chances, heartwarming moments, and the growth of our MC as he experiences life once again.
I hope you enjoy the journey with him!