I’m still sane……right?

September 1977.

New Hope Orphanage, London.

Alexander Williams.

That is my current name. It was given to me by Sarah Williams, the founder of the then newly inaugurated New Hope Orphanage, when she found me as an infant on the doorstep of the orphanage. It has been five years since then.

Back then, it took me a week or two to finally accept that I'd been reincarnated. I mean, who in their right mind would come to terms with waking up in an infant's body when they were about die moments ago. I had almost believed that the virus which had taken my life was causing me hallucination.

The thought that I reincarnated didn't even cross my mind for a few days. It would be a person with questionable sanity who upon waking up as an infant would go like, 'Yay! I reincarnated.', and start doing a jig, mentally of-course, 'cause it would take a person with even more questionable sanity to try to jig physically when you can't even keep your neck straight without support. Even though I was lazy, ignorant, careless, addicted, socially isolated, depressed and a master procrastinator, insane I was not. Or at least I'd believed so.

Even if I accepted my physical state and that I reincarnated, my common sense dictated that I should have been born in the futuristic world or at least the same world that I know of, but then why were all these caretakers and lovely Ms. Williams wearing clothes of a bygone era, why did all these furnishings look antiquated, and why everything around me looked so vintage? I swear that if I could have moved at that time, I would have pawned off a few things for some quick bucks. Anyways, my money-making schemes aside, the question that arose in mind at that time was, 'Did I time-travel too?', quickly followed by, 'What's next, isekai'ing?'.

The word 'confusion' didn't even begin to describe my feelings at that time. If the people around me spoke a language that I had known, then that at least would have soothed my nerves…

… or so I thought until I realized that they were speaking English all the time. They just had a different accent than mine. It was when a caretaker was feeding me something that seemed like water, felt like water, and even tasted like water but was being called as 'wotah' I realized that I somehow reincarnated as a British citizen in the fu**ing twentieth century.

I would have realized it sooner if I had a calm state of mind but, as I had said before, I consider myself sane and keeping calm would be the last thing in the mind of any sane person in a situation similar to mine. Despite that, I believe I did an admirable job in getting my shit together in a week's time. Definitely. Surely. Completely.

Didn't I?

By the end of the second week, I'd come to terms with my situation and the third week brought forth hope for the future. I did feel remorse for my family left behind but by then I couldn't do anything for them. By the end of the third week, everything was looking bright, happy, and cheerful.

Then…

… I got to learn some lessons in subjects that I hadn't ever studied deeply in.

Psychology and Biology.

The first lesson of psychology taught me that people tend to ignore smaller problems when they have bigger dilemmas to face or when in shock. Being in the body of an infant while having an adult's mind isn't a child's play, believe it. Every time I had my diaper changed, every time someone had to feed me, make me burp, bathe me, and put me to sleep, a part me died of shame. I even had to force myself to laugh at weird faces all adults around me were making to make me laugh to be considered normal. I knew there were grumpy babies out there but, I would never ever want to be associated with anything grumpy. So, at the cost of my already minimal sense of humor, I just laughed.

I couldn't even find any distraction to keep my mind off these things. I couldn't just get up say, 'Hey! Ms. Sarah, you looking gorgeous this fine morning.'. A talking baby would be creepy in any era and it wasn't even possible to speak with undeveloped vocal cords. I'd come to know that when I'd tried to speak to Ms. Sarah due to a momentary lapse in my sanity. All my words had come out as gurgles.

At least that had made her laugh.

That was my first lesson in Biology: Babies can't (and for the sake of everything sane, shouldn't) speak.

After three months of suffering, I was dead inside…

…Still, I had considered myself sane.

When I had become four months old, I learned the second lesson in Psychology: People Adapt.

Everything that was suffering to me had become my norm. I had started to pee when I wanted, had cried when I wanted, and even had slept when I wanted, but I still had to eat when others fed me. That was but a minor problem in the grand design of my life which had become the embodiment of sloth.

Due to my acceptance, I had an easier time living and preserve whatever that was left of my sanity.

By the age of one, I'd learned my second lesson in Biology: It takes three months for an infant to be able to keep the neck straight without any support, another three to sit without support, another three to start crawling, and another three months to even consider walking straight.

So if you ever read about a six-month-old reincarnated person walking and everyone around considering him a prodigy, question their sanity, not mine because even with whatever dregs remained of my sanity, I was still considered sane.

Barely.

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The second year of my life here had been smooth sailing. Teetering on the edge of my sanity, I just had to act my age. This means no sleeping alone, being hyperactive, getting excited and curious about mundane things, being demanding, playing with toys, destroying them, getting into a fight with other children, making up the next moment, and NO talking with clarity. The last one had been fairly easy as it had taken me a while to get their accent right.

By the end of my second year, I'd become able to walk straight to a caretaker, with my chest puffed up, and demand to get 'Wotah', with all the dignity of a two-and-a-half feet tall, two-year-old child. I'd felt proud of my achievement until all the adults around laughed and cooed at my….cuteness?

I had been teetering at the edge of my sanity, remember?

Another problem during the second year of my new life was to somehow stop adults forcing me to eat meat, fish, or any other food of non-vegetarian variety. I'd been a Brahmin all my last life and a measly one year of a new life wasn't going to change that. It wasn't that I had a problem with non-vegetarian food but it's hard to change something you'd been doing all your life. That was one of the few times I'd thrown a tantrum in my new life. That had resulted in a few of the older caretakers claiming to have seen everything in life. 'Cause according to them, 'a child demanding to eat vegetables is as rare as unicorns'.

Ha! They hadn't seen all that much after all…

The third and fourth year at the orphanage had been a lot tamer for me. I'd secretly taken a sigh of relief when Sarah finally started to teach to read and write by the end of my third year there. It allowed me to have an excuse to be alone in a library even if doing so portrayed me as a studious, if somewhat odd child. That alone time had helped me to collect the remaining vestiges of my sanity and had become my cover for me to at least act a bit more mature than others my age without being overly obvious.

The last year had bolstered my studious image among the adults at the orphanage and thus not many doubted my long time stays in the library. Even if I spent a lot of time in the library, I spent an equal amount of time while playing (overlooking) with children around my age. There aren't that many of us anyway due to the orphanage being newly founded and being in the suburbs of London. It still warms my old heart when I remember watching them from a distance, fighting over the last piece of dessert…

…while eating it.

Ah! Good times.

Last week marked the end of my fifth year at the orphanage. I've started doing small chores around the orphanage. I still spend a lot of time in the library, play with my surrogate brothers and sisters (children), tease them, pat their heads, while admiring Ms. Sarah from the corner of my eyes.

Ah! Best times.

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Now that I think about it, I don't even remember why I'm being nostalgic about the dark times. I surely don't miss them. Maybe it's because I don't have anything to do for now except standing near the door to my room, which I share with three others, and wait for Ms. Sarah to arrive for our trip to London.

I couldn't even sleep last night due to excitement. It would be the first time that I will be going farther than a block from the orphanage. I'm just too curious to see what London would have looked like in the 1970s. So here I am, pacing around the door to my room, wearing a black shirt matching my eye and hair color, and grey colored shorts, two hours before our previously determined time of departure.

Perhaps that's why all the others are still sleeping. Oh well! Let's try to catch some sleep.

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Traveling through London streets in the 1970s sure is interesting. All the vintage cars, weird bicycles, antiquated architectural styled buildings, and weird fashion trends combined together to paint a truly unique, but nonetheless appreciated picture of the old London. At least to my modernized standards.

I was never an admirer for traveling in my past life; instead even leaving the house seemed a tedious chore. Add kids into the mess and you wouldn't even get to invite me. But now, even while looking after all the other children of the orphanage, being more mature sure have its cons, I was truly enjoying myself. Seeing them skipping around, looking at everything new with curious innocence shining through their eyes is an enjoyment in itself.

Just as I was about to declare this as the best trip of both my lives, to myself at least, I caught sight of something that shocked me to a standstill and begin questioning my sanity once again after all these years…

There, across the street, between two seemingly newly built buildings stood a dingy small pub. The pub wouldn't look out of place in the 18th century, but it stood out like a sore thumb among the clean and new buildings of the current day London.

Or it would've looked out of place if the people around were capable of noticing it. And that's where the problem began. It didn't seem like people were ignoring the pub or were used to its presence, instead, they seemed to be incapable of even noticing it. It seemed like the pub was hidden in plain sight, as if through…

…magic.

After noticing all these details, my breathing turned laborious, my sight started dimming, and my body started swaying due to the shock of the realization that my mind came to. Just before blacking out, I managed to see the sign at the entrance of the pub which further bolstered my suspicions. The sign read…

'Leaky Cauldron.'

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