The Bad and Me

Jay's Mom

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This time I could see Jay, I was above him, like an angel looking down as his guardian.  He was smiling, but breathing heavily, like he had just run a marathon, and he was happy that he beat his friend. 

            “I’m going to catch you,” a womanly voice hooted from behind.  “Then I’m going to mush you up into little pieces and eat you up for dinner!”  I heard a giggle and spied on a toddler Jay, as he hid behind a faux fur coat on a jacket hanger.  At this age Jay was about four foot eleven and had messy brown curls.  His nose was curved and his skin had the smoothness of a baby’s bottom.  His eyes were held in a black liner, surrounding his multi-shades of glistening hazel. He was squinted in the shape of a sideways crescent moon, as he grinned with holes in his smile.  He appeared to be about six years old, and he was the cutest thing I had ever laid eyes on; I could barely hold in my fan girl.  

            I realized they were playing hide and seek, but I still didn’t know who the graceful woman was, as she chased Jay around their mansion.  

“Mommy, come and get me!”  Jay tattled.  “You can’t catch me!”  I had forgotten his mom.  Jay was playing with his mom, back when she was alive, or still with them.  Jay had finally escaped the reach of his mom’s arms and hid in a dark office, piled with dusty, used up books on towering bookshelves.  Jay dashed underneath the wooden table in the middle of the room, but just as he did, he bumped into the side with a quiet “Ouch,” and a frame crashed from the desk.

Glass shattered on the ground around him, glittering in the pale light that came through the curtains between the bookshelves.  Jay, being young and curious, slid the page out from under the pieces of glass and plopped in into his tiny lap.

He began to recite the scribbled words from the page;

“We shall become the last of this race,

hidden in the rubble of our minds.

They will not come back the same,

for the stars have become aligned.

You will see only what you want,

the good has now declined.

Say farewell to those who stand–”

His mom suddenly walked in and gasped, gawking at the mess. But Jay hadn’t noticed her, so he continued on with the poem;

“their position has been resigned.

Think what thoughts you may,

but decisive and picky must unwind.”

Jay remained sitting and glared at the poem, he looked taken aback at the wordy puzzle. His mother began to worryingly walk toward him at a fast pace.

Unexcitingly, an invisible force lifted her from her feet and she floated into the air, her back arched in an awkward shape.  Jay finally looked up and banged his head from underneath the desk, gaping at his mom as he fumbled to his feet. 

She dropped with a loud thud.  Jay sprinted to her assistance up, failed at carrying almost double his weight. 

“Mommy?” Jay cried. “MOMMY!” He dropped her arm, tears now violently flowing down his delicate cheeks. His mom moaned, and I was relieved she was still alive, Jay now hearing her as well.  He jumped away from her as she shakily stood back on her feet.  

“Where am I?” she demanded, strangely confused.  “Who are you?”

Jay appeared to be confused at his mother as he answered, “It’s me, Mommy, you just hit your head really hard.  Does it hurt, are you okay?”

She didn’t look anymore convinced, “Mommy? Whose mommy?”

“You are, silly!” Jay half-heartedly laughed.  

A man wearing a business suit thumped in with a loud yelp as he saw the fragments of the frame spattered across the floor.

“What have you done to my poem?” he commanded.  I immediately recognized the voice of a younger Jay’s father.  “Oh no…” he muttered.  “Did you read this poem, Jay?!”

“Yeah Papa, but it was really weird, it made Mommy fly.  But she fell, and I think she’s hurt,” Jay panted.  

Jay’s dad burst into tears as he landed on his hands and knees, shaking his head and repeating the words “No” and “It can’t be.”  

            “You moron!” he whimpered.  “Don’t you see what you’ve done to her? She’s lost her memory, she won’t remember…!”  Jay began to drown in a sea of his and his dad’s tears as they stood around the mom.  She bewilderingly studied them, not knowing what to make of the situation.  This is what happened to Jay’s mom, I thought, and I knew I was crying as I arose from my deep sleep.

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