[Analcuck]

The Born Again
by S. Michael *****

Chapter 1

Martin was swimming in a pressure cooker of warmth, moisture, and the aroma of life at its most basic chemical high. The muffled sound of reawakening into a world that had always been far beyond his understanding was both terrifying and inviting. Was he ready to face life again with the same mind that had led him to get it so wrong on so many levels the first time around?

The rhythmic, constricting sensation he experienced was perplexing yet strangely comforting and reminded him of similar physical states during which he had felt safe and both physically and existentially loved.

He thought of his head trapped between his father's knees when he was a toddler, Evan Samuels in his early 20s applying pressure to both sides of Little Marty's oversized, toddler head—the feel of the denim against his tender ears, the vibrations of a drunken hero reverberating through Martin's fragile, almost emaciated frame as his captor waited to hear the only words that could unlock the makeshift cage: "Help me! Help me! Please!"

Martin knew that those were the magic words he could say at any time, and his father would immediately cease the game and find something else for Marty to do. But usually, the only thing Marty wanted to do was keep playing he game till he could play no more.

Martin thought of the otherworldly sound of the surface world continuing to make surface noises while he tilted his head back in the bathtub and allowed the water to cover his ears, something he liked to do at least once during every bath.

To this day, he still preferred baths to showers, he had just gotten too large and uncoordinated (some, including Martin, might say "old" and "fat"...and he often did) to take them as often compared to the number of showers he took just to keep clean efficiently...

His consciousness, veiled in a fog of bewilderment, grappled with a barrage of new sensations. He wondered if this was some peculiar form of afterlife, a surreal purgatory where souls lingered post-mortem.

The abrupt transition from warmth to the chill of the air jolted him. His ears, newly attuned to the world, pieced together fragmented sounds into a dissonant symphony of human activity. Fierce brightness prodded at his closed eyelids, coaxing them to part, revealing a world of indistinct forms and overwhelming light.

Gently cradled in arms that held him with a mixture of awe and caution, Martin felt an inkling of recognition in the softness of the skin that embraced him. A voice, quivering with a cocktail of love and bewilderment, reached him. It was a familiar melody, laden with emotional depth. As his blurry vision attempted to focus, a face began to materialize out of the haze. It was a visage that stirred deep-seated memories, yet it was part of a reality he couldn't fully grasp.

In that instant, as he looked upon his mother's face with eyes struggling to see clearly, a profound realization struck Martin. This wasn't the afterlife; this was a rebirth into life itself. He was an infant anew, yet his mind was a tapestry of experiences from a life already lived. The paradox of his infant brain, filled with adult thoughts and memories, baffled him, defying all logic.

As his mother's eyes locked onto his, a glimmer of surprise flashed in her gaze. The intensity of his look, uncharacteristic for a newborn, momentarily unsettled her. Her warm smile wavered, touched by the oddity of her child's piercing gaze. In the background, the faint memory of his maternal grandmother's soothing voice provided a stark contrast to the tension in the room.

Lying in his mother's arms, Martin's heart throbbed with a mix of trepidation and wonder. He was on the precipice of an extraordinary journey, a second chance cloaked in mystery and impossibility. As the overwhelming nature of his situation swelled within him, he cried, a raw and primal sound that was oddly reassuring.

His mother's immediate reaction to his cry was a mixture of relief and maternal instinct. She cooed softly, her soothing voice a beacon of comfort. In this moment, Martin realized the enormity of the path ahead. He was a mind filled with a lifetime of memories, encased in a body yet to learn how to express them. This was his new dawn, his unlikely rebirth, and the beginning of an unfathomable journey.

As the initial shock of rebirth began to ebb, Martin found himself being gently cleaned by the nurses. Among them, one seemed particularly unsettled by him. Her eyes lingered on his face, etched with concern. Was it the depth of his gaze or the faint hint of understanding in his eyes that troubled her?

His mind was elsewhere, racing through the implications of his extraordinary situation. The concept of an adult consciousness in an infant's body was a paradox that defied the natural order. How could his mature neural pathways coexist with the undeveloped brain of a newborn? How would he navigate the complexities of speech and infant development with the knowledge of a grown man?

Lost in these thoughts, Martin was only distantly aware of being brought to his mother's arms for nursing. The act, fundamental to his new existence, was a grounding experience, yet his consciousness seemed to drift away, providing a respite from the sensory overload.

As the nursing session came to an end, Martin barely registered the shift. He was grateful for the brief escape into his thoughts, a sanctuary where he could grapple with the staggering reality of his existence. A sense of urgency began to build within him. He needed time alone, a moment of solitude to strategize his next move.

In the quiet of his mother's arms, Martin's mind was ablaze with thoughts, plans, and urgent priorities. He yearned to write them down, to organize the chaos into a coherent list. There were developmental milestones to track, strategies to consider, and countless nuances of his extraordinary situation to document. Yet, this simple act of writing, so effortless in his previous life, was now an impossibility.

The frustration gnawed at him. His infant body was an inadequate vessel for his mature mind. His tiny, uncoordinated fingers, the underdeveloped muscles, the lack of fine motor skills – all conspired against him. The words were there, clear and articulate in his mind, but they were trapped, confined within a brain still learning the basics of sensory processing.

Martin realized the irony of his situation. Here he was, a mind teeming with knowledge and experience, yet bound by the limitations of a newborn's body. His thoughts raced ahead, contemplating the intricacies of language acquisition, the gradual development of motor skills, and the slow, inevitable journey towards being able to communicate effectively. It was a waiting game, a test of patience that he was forced to endure.

He imagined the list in his mind, prioritizing tasks and setting goals. Topping the list was learning to control his body, to master the basic movements that would eventually lead to walking, talking, and writing. He contemplated the importance of early childhood development, understanding that each phase he would re-experience had its own critical role in shaping his future capabilities. But for now, all he could do was wait, observe, and plan in the silent confines of his mind.

Martin’s new world was a blur of shapes and sounds, a kaleidoscope of sensations that he struggled to comprehend. His adult mind grappled with the limitations of his infant body, a constant reminder of his vulnerability. Yet, amidst the helplessness and the sensory overload, his thoughts often drifted to the life he once lived – a life marked by love, loss, and a struggle for redemption.

As he lay in his crib, staring at the dancing shapes of a mobile, his mind wandered to Jeannine, his wife and high school sweetheart. He remembered her smile, the way her eyes lit up when she laughed. The pain of missing her and their children was a dull ache in his tiny chest. Lenore, his eldest, with her fierce independence and managerial prowess; Mona, the creative soul lost in her melodies; Nichele, whose blunt humor could light up any room; and Orrin, his miracle baby, the embodiment of a second chance he had so desperately craved.

Then, a feeling he was not expecting at all began to creep over him: the horror of The Butterfly Effect. He had traveled back in time, albeit in a unique fashion, and any little decision he made would alter the timeline of his 46-years-and-change of existence...and suddenly he knew. He knew deep down that the life he'd lived was already gone - his wife, his babies, his everything...gone. He wept. Every night for weeks on end he lay awake and wept, bitterly, the grief more painful than any sense of loss he'd ever experienced.

In these moments of reflection, his thoughts often veered towards that fateful day – the day that had brought his life to an abrupt end. He remembered Travis, the troubled teenager he was trying to help, and the chaos of that morning. His decision to climb through the window, driven by a desperate need to protect his charge, now seemed foolish, a fatal error in judgment. Otis’s face, contorted with rage and misunderstanding, haunted him. The sound of the gunshot still echoed in his mind, a stark reminder of the fragility of life.

"I forgive you," those were his last words. Lying in his crib, Martin pondered the weight of that forgiveness. It was a moment of compassion in the face of injustice, a testament to the depth of his desire to do good, despite his flaws and missteps.

His bipolar disorder, a relentless companion throughout his adult life, had shaped so much of his journey. The highs and lows had dictated the rhythm of his days, but in these quiet moments of infancy, he found a strange sense of equilibrium. It was as if the reset of rebirth had granted him a brief respite from the tumultuous swings of his emotions.

Yet, even as he lay there, lost in thought, his infant body was a constant buzz of activity. He practiced focusing his eyes on the mobile above, following its movement with a concentration that belied his age. Each small movement of his hands, each attempt to turn his head, was a deliberate exercise in control. He was laying the groundwork for the milestones he knew he needed to achieve.

In these early days of his second life, Martin understood the importance of patience. He needed to adapt, to learn, and to grow before he could even begin to think about making a difference or correcting the mistakes of his past. But the longing for his old life, for the family he had left behind, was a sharp pang that never quite faded. It was a reminder of what he had lost, and what he hoped, against all odds, to somehow regain in this new life.

As he drifted off to sleep, lulled by the soft murmurs of his mother nearby, Martin's mind was a whirl of past and present. His journey had only just begun, a journey of redemption, of learning, and of hope. But for now, he was just an infant, trying to make sense of a world he once knew, and a world that was now entirely new.

Then, a memory of his often absent father flickered in his mind. It was a disjointed image, symbolizing the fragmented and sporadic presence his father had in his life. This memory contrasted starkly with the nurturing touch of his mother and the distant, comforting recollections of his maternal grandmother's tender words. The lack of a consistent paternal figure was a gap in his past life that now seemed to echo in his new existence.

---

The tranquility of these reflections was shattered when Martin experienced his first bath at home. The event was marked by a violent outburst from his father. In a fit of rage, his father struck Martin's mother after stepping on a small piece of glass from a pickle jar he had caused her to drop during a previous argument. Despite her efforts to clean the mess, she had missed a tiny shard. The strike was swift and brutal, leaving Martin's mother reeling from the impact.

Martin's reaction was visceral and intense. His cry, unnaturally loud for a newborn, almost sounded like a plea – "stop" – echoing through the tense air. The raw emotion in his voice was a stark contrast to his limited physical capabilities. This moment imprinted deeply in his infant mind, a painful reminder of the chaotic and troubled world he had been reborn into.

His father's volatile behavior and the resulting turmoil in the household were things Martin, with his adult mind, understood all too well, but was powerless to change. The helplessness of being an infant, unable to protect or comfort his mother, weighed heavily on him. It was a stark reminder of the limitations he faced in his new life, the challenges of being reborn with the mind of an adult but the body of a baby.

As his mother tenderly nursed her wounds and cradled him back to sleep, Martin lay there, grappling with the complexities of his extraordinary situation. He was caught between two worlds – the past he could not return to and the present he was yet to understand fully. This paradoxical existence was his new reality, a journey filled with challenges, learning, and the hope of redemption. The road ahead was uncertain and fraught with obstacles, but Martin knew he had to navigate it, one small, determined step at a time.

[LadyNightmare]

OH! I like this!! Where is the rest?? I love this, I am a big fan right here and now! Please let me know when chapter 2 drops!!

[Analcuck]

Chapter 2

Martin’s thoughts began to drift outward, away from the immediate tyranny of hunger, fatigue, and bodily frustration, and toward something broader and more unsettling: the world itself. He did not know the date—only that it was summer, and that the year was 1975, a fact he held onto less as a number than as a sensation, a rough placement on a mental timeline that refused to stay fixed. The world, he knew, was different now.

Smaller. Slower. Quieter in ways that had nothing to do with his infant ears. There was no hum of constant information, no invisible lattice of updates and alerts. Whatever happened beyond the walls of this house would happen largely unseen, filtered through voices, newspapers, and television broadcasts scheduled at specific times. The idea unsettled him more than he would have expected.

He tried to inventory what he remembered of the future and immediately ran into the limits of his mind. It wasn’t a list. It wasn’t even a sequence. It was more like a handful of emotional landmarks floating in fog.

He remembered the Challenger disaster—not dates, not names, but the image of fire and smoke against a blue sky, the collective shock, the way it had lodged itself into the national psyche. He knew it was important. He knew it was coming. But he also knew, dimly, that it was years away, somewhere in the indistinct middle of the 1980s. Too far to act on. Too far even to be sure he wasn’t misremembering the order of things. Vietnam felt over. Watergate felt past. Or nearly past. The certainty refused to hold.

That frightened him more than the physical helplessness. Foreknowledge without precision was not power; it was anxiety. He craved information with an urgency that surprised him. Not comfort. Not reassurance. News. Context. Proof that the world outside his narrow field of vision was still following some recognizable path. He strained to listen when the television was on, catching cadence more often than content, absorbing gravity without specifics. Newspapers rustled nearby sometimes, and the sound alone made him restless. He realized, with a bitter internal chuckle, that he had never appreciated how much effort staying informed once required.

The lack of access gnawed at him. He could not ask questions. Could not request a broadcast. Could not even reliably stay awake when information was being delivered. His body betrayed him constantly, dragging his consciousness under just as something important might be said. In his previous life, ignorance had often been a choice. Now it was imposed.

Lying in his crib, staring at shadows on the ceiling, Martin understood something that unsettled him deeply: pivotal events never announced themselves as pivotal. They arrived quietly, disguised as ordinary days. How was he supposed to intervene in a world he could barely observe?

The thought settled heavily. He was not a prophet. Not a savior. He was a man with incomplete memories, reborn into a time that demanded patience he was not sure he possessed. For now, the future remained out of reach, taunting him with the promise of meaning just beyond his grasp.

That was the night his father came home drunk.

Martin sensed it before he understood it, before sound even reached him. Something in the house shifted. The air tightened. His father’s voice arrived first, slurred and loud, spilling down the hallway in uneven bursts. There was an argument—Martin couldn’t make out the words, only the cadence. Accusation. Defensiveness. The brittle edge that meant the drinking had already gone too far. Lena’s replies were quieter, threaded with exhaustion, the kind of restraint that came from knowing escalation would only make things worse.

Then came a sound Martin recognized instantly: the sharp, wet crack of a hand against skin.

Lena cried out. Not loudly. Not dramatically. It was the sound of surprise more than pain, the noise of someone who had learned that drawing attention only prolonged things. Something inside Martin twisted hard, a pressure far sharper than hunger or discomfort. He screamed—not reflexively, but deliberately, pushing his voice past what his body should have been capable of.

Footsteps followed, heavy and unsteady. The bedroom door flew open. His father loomed in the doorway, face flushed, eyes unfocused, anger still burning but searching now for somewhere to land.

Martin’s scream changed.

He did not know how he formed the words. He did not know whether they came from memory, instinct, or something stranger. He only knew they left him clearly enough to shock even himself.

“Da da no hit ma ma.”

The room froze.

The words were small, broken, barely formed, but unmistakable. His father stopped short, confusion rippling across his face as meaning caught up with sound. For a moment—only a moment—Martin saw something like shame flicker there. Not understanding. Not transformation. Just recognition.

His father swore under his breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean…”

He backed out of the room, still talking to himself, still angry, but deflated now, the edge gone. The door closed more carefully than it had opened.

Lena crossed the room and gathered Martin into her arms, hands shaking. She said nothing. She didn’t need to. Martin felt her heartbeat slow gradually against his cheek, tension draining in cautious increments.

He lay awake long after she put him back down, aware that something fragile had been touched, something that could not be untouch​ed.

If anything changed after that night, it did so quietly. There was no apology, no reckoning, no spoken acknowledgment of what had happened in the nursery. Martin’s father never mentioned it again. But the house behaved differently, as though something delicate had been shifted and no one was quite sure where it now belonged. Voices stayed lower. Doors closed more carefully. The tension remained, but its edge dulled, blunted by uncertainty.

Martin sensed the change first in his mother, Lena. She held him longer now, lingered when she should have put him down, spoke to him with a softness that bordered on urgency. She talked more when they were alone, narrating her day, voicing worries she had no intention of sharing elsewhere.

Martin listened not for content but for tone. She was confiding in him, whether she knew it or not.

His father noticed. Martin felt it in the way the man’s eyes lingered on them, the way his posture shifted when he entered a room and found Lena absorbed in the child. It wasn’t hatred so much as displacement. Martin occupied space that had not existed before, drew attention that had once been uncontested. The jealousy crept in quietly, carrying a resentment that frightened Martin more than overt rage ever had.

The days continued in routine, but beneath the repetition something new stirred. Not power—he was careful not to mistake one moment for control—but influence. He remembered the hesitation. The doubt. It suggested the future was not immovable.

He began to wonder what could be nudged without being noticed.
The lack of information still frustrated him, but he learned to listen for repetition, for stories that returned day after day. Those, he reasoned, were still unfolding.

At home, the shifts continued. His father grew more sullen. When Lena laughed with Martin, even briefly, it sometimes provoked sharp looks or sarcasm. Martin sensed the resentment building, understood how easily it could be redirected toward Lena again.

And yet something held his father back. Not goodness. Not remorse. Just doubt.

For the first time, Martin allowed himself a cautious hope. Not that he could save everyone. But that perhaps he could change one thing.

Martin knew his grandmother before he remembered her.

Her presence announced itself with a shift in atmosphere. The house smelled different—cleaner, faintly floral—and Lena’s posture changed. Relief replaced tension.

Her name was Bea. Beatrice to strangers. Bea to those who loved her.

She held Martin with ease and warmth that startled him with its familiarity. Memories surfaced: afternoons at her house, the hum of appliances, a sense of safety he had never fully appreciated. Seeing her younger now, another realization struck him—she had been beautiful. Not in a way that demanded attention, but in a way that endured.

“Well, would you look at him,” Bea said softly. “He’s not just looking around. He’s watching.”

Martin met her gaze, steady and intent.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Bea murmured.

She spoke candidly with Lena then, about Martin, about her husband—a low-ranking sailor in the Navy whose weaknesses had shaped their lives more than his rank ever did. A man resentful of authority, unreliable, prone to drink and blame. Not evil. Just weak in the wrong places.

“You pay attention to that boy,” Bea said quietly. “He’s present.”

As she left, Martin felt steadier. Love, he realized, was another kind of information.

And if he could trust that, then perhaps the future was not entirely beyond his reach.

[Mecrupulent]

I'll just read and note some thoughts as they come, while I'm having them so as to not forget any :

To begin with, I find the whole concept great.


Chapter 1

- Cool depiction of a birth.

- I like the concept of Martin crying over his now-lost former life.
A baby cries, that's just what they do, but here it has a meaning, begging the question : does every baby cry for this reason ? If only in a "metaphorical" sort of way. Babies crying for all which they have lost by just being born this way, in this precise existence, again asking an existential question : are our paths already written, predetermined, or are they shaped by what is commonly called free will ?

- World he once knew / World that was new : nice !

- The contrast between his fond first memory of his father, the "knee cage" game, contrasts very violently with the end of the chapter when his father strikes his mother. This makes the scene, IMHO, even more brutal, in that the brutality is carried by words but go beyond them in the reader's mind, if that makes sense.

Chapter 2

- Interesting that you mentioned the way the world went before the Internet, social media and all that. "Slower, quieter", "without all the updates and reminders", "what happens outside of the house largely remains unknown", that's indeed something a person in this situation would quickly remark I believe.
Maybe you didn't even think about all the "modernity" side of things, and it's more a take on the isolation a newborn lives in, but it made me think of it anyway.

- It must indeed be terrifying and bewildering to diffusely know how things are about to unfold, without being able to change them. I suppose you hadn't in mind a sort of superhero that would prevent 9/11 and this kind of things, and I'm curious about how you plan to implement that into the story. Maybe he just won't be heard/believed ?

- “Da da no hit ma ma.” : astounding scene

- After all, he CAN have an impact on things. Beyond that he would have had if he was a "regular" baby ? The question lingers


I'm curious as to where all this is going. It will be a "pretty long short story" I suppose.
From my perspective of non-native English speaker, it's very well written, ornamental but very effective at the same time. "Un mot pour chaque chose et chaque chose pour un mot", lit. "A word for everything and every thing has one word". This translation sucks, nevermind
The depiction of a somewhat disfunctional, yet ordinary family seems to be rooted in experience. The fact that both your names are "alike" reinforced that feeling. Writing is always autobiographical, as I see it, it just depends to what extent. I wonder what's it like here.


Looking forward for the rest !

Thanks for sharing.

[LadyNightmare]

I would LOVE to be reborn into the 70's and keep all my memories that I have now! I love this story, and so happy to see a part 2 but hurry with the rest of it! I would love to read the whole book!!!