See this picture here? This, this's me and my wife Sylvie, that last summer. I let her wear that bikini for a bit longer than I should have. I didn't have the heart to tell her she was too young for it, she'd gotten so sensitive about her figure, you know.

It was just a couple years ago when that new-fangled virus struck. Nasty bug. No, Sylvie wasn't infected. But she sure wished she was. She hated to be in her seventies. One day, she read about drug trials, where they were trying to inoculate people, see if they could control the virus. They were looking for volunteers, especially old folks, so they had more time to observe them. Well, Sylvie could barely sit still. She almost gave herself a heart attack. I told her she shouldn't go, but she was angry at me for saying so, more bitter than I can ever remember. She said to me, she said, "Henry, I don't care what happens, I don't want to die an old bag of bones!"

So, so, she went to that there drug trial in some hospital. She wouldn't listen to me. Damn near broke my heart with worry. When she came back to me, she was looking a lot better, let me tell you. My old eyes hadn't seen such a sight in many years. She was a young woman again, in her fifties. Heh, young! Sure. Only, she kept changing, she did. It didn't seem like it at first, but after a few weeks, even I could tell. The color was back in her hair. It came back in streaks at first, then they thickened and all. Her skin got smooth as a baby's bottom, too, and she was all over the place with energy. No way could I keep up. She was so happy. She kept going back to the clinic, of course. She seemed more full of piss and vinegar after each check-up. She decided to sleep in another room, said that my snoring kept her up at night. That was okay with me, she tossed and turned too much anyway.

Well, it kept going, you see. I brought her in to see the doctor's because she wouldn't go herself. She felt okay, but she looked like she was only about thirty. The doctors said they couldn't help, that it was out of their control. When I started tearing a strip from them, they showed me the contract she'd signed, allowing them to do anything they wanted. Guess when she signed it she thought she had nothing to lose. And, truth was, she still wasn't worried.

At least, not until another week later, when she started to get very thin, and her beautiful new hips and breasts started to fade. She got to be so I'd never know if she'd break into tears or fits of giggles, when she was home. She started going out a lot, all day, sometimes most of the night. Not that I can blame her, there's nothing for a girl to do around our house.

Around the time she started getting shorter was when she started looking up to me. Heh, no joke. She teased me, calling me Grandpa, but she happily did whatever I told her to do. She cried terribly when I told her to get rid of the bikini. It was the worst two days of our lives together. But when it was over, she was twelve, and she went back to being cheerful. I guess I can't blame her, she looked and felt fantastic for someone in her late seventies.

Every day, she seemed just that little bit smaller, her voice that much higher, especially when she laughed. My own wife became the great granddaughter I'd never had.

The changes have slowed down so you can't see them any more. She looks about six. She's cute and sweet and perky, and ever so precocious, and I still love her to death. But the doctors say that with the virus they gave her, she may never 'bounce'. She nears the end of her life, just as before. But she is happier, much happier. As Frankie would have said, "She did it her way." The two of us, we're racing to the same finish line, from opposite directions. But we love each other, and we are going to be together always.


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