Jolly Good Curiosities

"Happy birthday, you dorks."

"Yeah." I was about to tell them I think I just died. Then with a hand slapped on my shoulder, I shook out of it.

Any other 21st birthday, I would have responded to Elias' friendly jab with a witty comment about the cake having too much cream or something. Give him a soft punch. Maybe laugh it off. Now, I just managed a smile after tearing away from Caitlin's gaze.

"Happy birthday, son."

"Thanks, Dad." With a pivot of my neck I turned up to face him. Instead I found Rebecca's beaming face smiling back down at me. Talk about a strong grip. Is that what years squeezing whip out of bottles did to you?

"Happy 21st, John," she congratulated. All the congratulations and claps and whistles were starting to feel like a tidal wave. "You're getting so much older now!"

"Oh please, Becky," Elias admonished, half-teasing. "It's not like you've known him for that long."

I sat there listening with my ears but thinking with my head. Which was already hard enough. Wooziness eclipsed my concentration. The empty plates seemed to blur together. Candle smoke, you weren't helping.

Next to me, Caitlin was chatting glibly. She dropped a joke, apparently, if the spirited laughter that followed was anything to go by.

"Right, brother? We heard the wine cellar at their cousins' is pretty stac--" She had turned to me, only to furrow her brow quickly afterward, voice effortlessly shifting into a tenderly lowered tone. "John?"

Attention was turned to me. The men halted their fervent discussion of bar hopping etiquette. My mother paused mid-slice, her face also cast in worry. "What's wrong, honey?"

Before I could blink, the image from earlier flashed through my rattling noggin.

You've been gifted, son. Imagine! A world, where women would love nothing more than to carry your children! A fantasy land... where you have the universal right to impregnate any girl you want!

"N-nothing's wrong!" I suddenly flushed, recoiling at Caitlin's caring gaze. It was our birthday celebration -- not just mine. I wasn't about to spoil the fun by sounding nauseous; let alone schizo-fucking-phrenic.

Squeaking the chair out from under the table, I rose to my feet. "Just, er... I need to use the bathroom." Lame, sure. But reliable. "Be right back!"

Hurrying away, I overheard a murmur corral the kitchen. Once I was in the bathroom, I shut it closed and washed my face. With a slap the birthday hat came off as well. Looks like it had been a little lopsided on me, too. So much for letting cliches die.

For a while, I just stared at the mirror. Maintaining my breaths. Collecting myself. I was tripping way too hard for a completely sober, non-baked birthday evader, and I wasn't sure how to approach it. Somehow it felt like the wooziness wasn't going to go away until I did something about it, either. But as I calmed down, I felt my feet grow steady and my pupils center. Yeah. Yeah, there we go.

Nice and easy.

A few minutes later, a knuckle rapped against the door.

"John, you in there?" Dana's muffled voice seeped through. "I need to use it."

Opening the door revealed a slightly fidgeting Dana. She scoffed at his doe-eyed stare. "Um, excuse me, birthday boy." Her tone was playful, even if her eyes had a slight bite to it.

"Oh, right." I nervously ha-ha'd. She passed me by, but not without showing her usually gilded concern.

"Are you sure you okay?" she paused, just half her body visible beyond the door.

With a nod I assured her I was -- just had a bad case of the bowels. She grimaced, but seemed to relax at the fact that it wasn't anything more serious, then closed the door and proceeded with the body's necessary release.

The return to the living room was met with some liveliness. My dad was setting up some kind of game in the living room, my mother was snapping pictures with that shiny new camera. Elias and Caitlin were at the table, eating cake and laughing.

"Hey, look who's back." I turned to my left to see Becky on the couch. The pretty young woman, and Elias' professed bride-to-be, had one leg crossed over the other as she ate a cake slice of her own. "Hope you're feeling better. I'm just glad it wasn't this that screwed you up." She gestured to the triangular delectable on her plate, laughing cautiously. "I would've felt pretty bad."

"Yeah," I laughed back. "No, it was just that, the, er, some taco I ate earlier. Those guys sure know the recipe to a good enema."

We both enjoyed a good laugh out of that. I'll be here all night.

"Hey Becky," suddenly spurred by curiosity and the weird hallucination from earlier, I found myself asking, "what are your thoughts on having kids?"

She looked at me and I looked at her. Belatedly I realized how out of the blue the question sounded and tried to loosen it up by clarifying I just meant, "Er, in general, that is! Like as a whole!" I winced while she thought it over. In truth, I was actually curious as to how she wished to go about things with Elias. She had always shown a liking for children, being great at managing her nieces and nephews, and her maternal instincts were already tailored for use. Just look at her baking prowess. Not to mention her adamant belief in a loyal and trusting relationship between a husband and his wife; when it came to family, work, or even setting up birthday parties, she was adherent to the idea that the one always had to support and care for the other. She stayed true to that, never skimping on events on the other side of the family for that very reason even before, when she and Elias had just started dating. Apparently, as she'd come to know, particularly after gleefully accepting his corny marriage proposal earlier that year, the eldest son of the Doe household was a good fit, which was more or less true -- he had grown out of his rebellious streak long ago.

"Well, John, if you really want to know," she set the cake down on the table, only to be cut short as the speakers blared out a horrendously loud rendition of 'He's a Jolly Good Fellow'.

The barrage of shouts and outcry towards my dad weren't that much quieter as he and Elias scrambled for the remote. Once the TV volume was lowered to a whisper, my dad apologized, saying he'd meant to save that for a later family game thing.

It was only then, while catching Caitlin's eye and rolling my eyes affectionately at the clumsy scene -- which she followed with a giggle and a plum-faced 'shaming' gesture -- that my ears caught Becky's voice below and I realized she had been talking without me realizing it.

"... but yeah, that's my take on it. Why you so curious, birthday man?" The woman nudged me in jest, grinning. "You interested in having a junior already?"

"No, it's not that," another chuckle left my lips. Leaning against the couch, I started to settle back in to the warm, tight-knit groove of the humble family life I was privileged to have. Really; it was a blessing, having such a decent group to hang around with for life. As far I was concerned, we were all jolly good fellows -- even when life sometimes turned out unfair.

The corner of my lips were tugged into another reflective smile as I watched Caitlin bend over behind the TV set to help disentangle a throng of cords while good 'ol Mom snapped another picture and Dad told her to plug that one back in, for pete's sake. Her primly brushed hair slung over her face, which was arguably born to look good in pictures, even with silly birthday hats on.

I sighed, giving in to a quick stretch of my arms. Having Caitlin by my side, both as a sister and a close friend, was the best part of all. Like iron sharpened iron, we sharpened each other; trusted each other; and apparently, had the perfect birthday parties together.

I know, I know. Cover me in cheese already.

"I just had this crazy dream the other night," I eventually lied, appeasing Becky's question as she took a bite out of her own cake and assessed it, "where I was told to 'go forth, and multiply'!" I laughed dismissively, venturing headlong into the role. "Endowed with the spectacular honor of extending the global populace, and fathering the children of all the fertile ladies of the night!" With a theatrical sideswipe I drew my arm towards Becky, "A lady as fertile as you, for instance, Becky dear! It, after all, is this ultimate alpha male's duty!"

Relaxing my face I broke into another laugh, expecting a light slap or something. It was probably a push, actually disclosing what my crazy mind had conjured (even if it was a little fabricated) right after they had blown out candles, but the jolly mood was filling me with an uninhibited jocundity.

Only, what followed wasn't a slap. Or even a tsk-tsk. Or a laugh.

What I found, after releasing my eyes from their lids, was Becky looking at me, her face whorled in surprise. She had dropped her piece of cake -- her fork was still on the way to her tongue. I swallowed, but for my throat was dry. Okay, so maybe I went a little overboard there. After all I forgot that this was Rebecca, soon to be Rebecca effing Doe, aforementioned spouse-to-be currently surfing through his phone on the other side of the room as we speak.

...aawwkward, anyone?

"Oh my god!" She got up, nearly spilling her cake. With haste, she briskly placed it on the table then looked back at me as I tried to stutter out something. Anything.

"W-wait! Becky--" But before I could say anything else, she had clasped her hands together and a near tearful expression cloaked her face.

"Oh my god," she now breathed, voice breaking. And just like that, a smile pried through her face as she placed a hand over her chest and grabbed my hand. It looked like she was about to cry. Like she just re-watched the ending of Lion King, or, damn, for that matter; exactly like the time she looked on as her lovely knight in shining armor knelt to the ground with one knee and extended his ring-topped palm while his and her friends caught it all on video. The glint in her eyes; it was unmistakable. One of hope, love, fulfillment, an unremitting acceptance of the future, all rolled into one. A fledgling young family woman's teary-eyed transition into a bright new life.

So.

Why was she giving me that look now?

"Oh my god, John," Becky continued, trying to control her flustered breaths. Did she just wipe a tear from her eye? "I-I'm... I'm just so..." She inhaled, breathed, then with another smile wrapped John in a warm embrace. "This is what I've always wanted!" she near squealed through her whisper. "For you to give us the ultimate privilege of... of..." She seemed to be in as much disbelief as I was. "...of having your baby, and raising it with Elias, I'm..." A hand wandered to her currently flat, decently tight belly. "I just know this won't be for nothing, John, I promise you! Elias can back me up," she then muttered, "I swear, if he doesn't..."

Wait! Wait wait wait! What?!

"Becky," I finally stammered out.

"Guys," Becky ignored as she turned to the family to draw their attention, giggling, "John and I have some great news to--"

"Uhh Becky, hehe, not so fast! We can't just tell them about the really cool party trick just yet! One more thing I gotta talk to you about!" Panicking, I grabbed her arm, shot a quick look at the family -- noticing the blank look on Caitlin's own unassuming face -- tried a smile that probably turned out resembling more of a diagonal S, and dragged her down the hall to an isolated room.

We had to get to the bottom of this, and as a confused Becky asked me what was wrong I thought of the white world dream, the vague voice fucker, the brief wooziness. Could it be true? Was I going crazy? Did I really fall into an alternate dimension where my sperm was my ultimate authority? Was it really happening?

And...

I looked at Becky, who now seemed to be recovering from her previous euphoria -- or at least, if biting a finger with her teeth and smiling dreamily as her eyes took on a distant cloudiness equated to recovering.

...how did I clear up this misunderstanding, if so? Should I?

I tapped my foot. It didn't help this was a fine-looking, attractive woman acting this way. But I had to get my head together.