Free Translucent by Nathaniel Beardsley

The body where there was no Sandman, where she had actual friends, where there wasn’t a care in the world. That was what she wanted.
    But it was useless to wish for such things, and she knew it. She was here, lying in her crib, as baby, and there was nothing she could do about it.
    The light turned on, which was strange, because she hadn’t been crying and so her parents wouldn’t have known to come in to check on her. And then she looked up and saw who’d turned on the light.
    It was the Sandman.
    She’d forgotten that he’d be here too. He looked like he was at least 80 years old now, but in every other way he looked exactly the same as before. Karena stared, wide-eyed, helpless, as he lifted the hourglass out of his pocket. The sand was all at the top now, just starting to fall down. Karena knew exactly what sound she be hearing next , and she closed her eyes.
    Clink. Clink. Clink.
    When she opened then he was gone and the light was off, as it had really been the whole time , but she still felt like his presence was still around her, watching everything she did. She would feel that way for a very long time.
    She didn’t cry out. Her parents would find out that their 11-month year old daughter could speak in the morning. She decided that she’d at least take advantage of her new, sleepy body and get some rest for the very first time in a very long time.

21
    When Karena woke up in the morning, Harold and Christi still had no idea what had happened to her. To them she was still merely a normal baby, and they acted like she was when they came in to greet her late in the morning, when the sun was already high in the sky. They came in quietly, so as not to wake her if she were still to be sleeping, when in fact she’d been awake for quite some time now.
    Before her parents could start talking to her and treating her like a baby, Karena spoke. “I have something to tell you,” she said.
    As she’d expec ted them to, her parents gasped and reeled back as if struck.
    “And I just did,” Karena said. “Since I’m sure y ou find it strange that your 11— month old daughter is talking to you like an adult, and believe me I would too. As a matter of fact, I am an adult, of 30 years of age, and this is the third time I’ve been in this body, and the second time it’s happened with me having been a grown-up. Please don’t freak out right now, even though you probably will, but I can explain everything, even though you probably won’t believe me. Then again, I am a baby who couldn’t speak English just a few hours before, at least in your world, and now I can, so what could possibly be more outrageous than that? Perhaps you’d believe any story I told you, though I won’t test it out. I’ll only tell you the true story, and hopefully you’ll believe that. If you don’t then please don’t send me to a mental hospital, because that would be awful and…”
    Karena was practically out of breath from all this rambling. She hardly even knew what she was talking about, and was mainly talking simply for the sake of proving that she could talk, even though her speech was impeded upon b y a thick layer of baby slobber and a high-pitched voice.
    Harold a nd Christi merely stared at her, jaws hanging open. I’m not sure anyone would know how to react in a situation such as this , or at least any normal human being who’d never been through anything like this before.
    Karena knew that by speaking she was going to freak her parents out even more, but she did it anyway. “Please don’t just stand there staring at me,” she said. “It’s freaking me out just as much as I’m freaking you out, well, maybe not quite as much but I’m sure you understand what I mean. The point is, you’ll get used to this eventually, so why be surprised now? Ok, that doesn’t make any sense. Look, just please, please don’t send me to a mental hospital, or any kind of hospital for that matter, because I assure you I’m perfectly okay