Baby Jay

Jay’s thoughts race—until he stops on one.
Michael’s physical form is an inconsistent thing. When Jay isn’t here, Michael says he’s no more distinguishable than any other patch of Twin Lakes’ earth. He can shift and alter himself, though Jay’s never seen him attempt it. If that’s true, does he need to have a whole, human-like body?
Grabbing Michael’s head, Jay grunts and tears it from the ground.
“What the hell are you doing?” Michael asks. As Jay hoped, Michael isn’t hurt. He doesn’t need to be connected with his body.
Jay runs to his bike, tosses Michael’s head in the basket, rolls up the dirt path ’til he hits pavement, and hops on. If he can reach the cleaning supplies under the sink, or better yet the greater supply in the downstairs storeroom, maybe he can save Michael.
“What’s going on? Where am I?” Michael’s voice frays, words slurring.
“We’re going home.”
“To Mom and Dad? I can’t. We… can’t show me. Can’t show them… me.”
Jay can explain that Mom and Dad won’t be home, that they transmuted grief into workoholism and alcoholism, respectively. He can explain his plan or implore Michael to trust him. But adrenaline steers every spare thought into pumping the bike’s pedals. It isn’t until he reaches the driveway that he speaks again.
“We’re here.”
He cups his hands around Michael’s diminished form, bursts inside, and races to the bathroom. There, he stoppers the drain and lays Michael in the tub. Michael is less a head and more a lump. He whines and grunts, beyond speech. Every sound is prolonged, pained.
In the kitchen, Jay collects Kleenex, Windex, Febreeze, and Lysol. Back in the bathroom, he opens the window, hits the vent fan, and dumps the fluids into the tub, two at a time. The mound that is Michael lies at the bottom of a chemical puddle. The stench needles the back of Jay’s throat. He collects fallen bits of Michael from the floor and tosses them in the puddle.
Whatever magic holds Michael together coaxes the bits toward his lumpen form. Eventually, they settle into him.
Best not to stop, now.
Downstairs, Jay scours the storeroom’s shelves, shoving aside spare packs of napkins, Keurig pods, and bottles of Tabasco he shares with Dad. Behind all that: Lysol, Tide Pods, and dish soap.
He makes it upstairs into the living room where the flash of headlights stops him. A red Accord pulls into the driveway, the wheels half on the lawn.
Dad.
Jay’s weight shifts. He wants to manage Dad, explain why a lump of filth soaks in cleaning fluids in the tub, but that’ll waste time.
Charging down the hall, Jay sets the cleaning fluids in the sink and locks the door behind him. A minute later, the front door opens, and Dad’s business shoes smack the hardwood.
“Jaa-aaay,” Dad says, “save any pasta for the old man? Don’t wanna cook, tonight.”
“Sorry. No leftovers.”
“You in the bathroom? Havin’ a poop?” Dad giggles. “Sorry, sorry. I may have ingested some ‘illicit substances’.” Dad’s footsteps thunder down the hall. His shoulders strike the walls every other step, rattling family portraits.