Solution for Hal

Chapter 1
Solution for Hal

Chapter Description: Parents of two teenagers fix things when she gets pregnant

Solution for Hal

Hal walks the four blocks to his girlfriend Misty’s house very slowly. His shoulders are slumped his eyes pointed down at the ground. It’s turning fall he hates this time of year, everything starts to turn dead, it depresses him. He’s a Goth kid just turned seventeen everything depresses him. He pauses to listen to the crunch of a dead leaf he grinds under his foot. He runs his hands through his unkempt black hair nearly pulling it out.

He’s stalling. Just a couple of more houses and he’ll have to sit down on the couch next to Misty and they’ll tell both of their parents that he got her pregnant, and she’s only sixteen. He almost turns around to go a friend’s house instead but they set this up a week ago and he can’t really back out now.

What where they thinking? What was Misty thinking? This was all her idea. Not the getting pregnant part the talking to the parents’ part and both of them at the same time. Hal just wants to run away, maybe with Misty maybe not.

He’s standing outside of her house. It’s starting to get dark, dark and cold. They left the porch light on for him. Hal watches the silhouettes of Misty and her parents through the window. He can here them laughing. Misty and her parents are actually laughing and having a good time and he and Misty are about to give them some very heavy news. They won’t be laughing in a minute. That thought appeals to his dark sense of humor.

Hal stops stalling. He might as well get this over with so everybody can move on with their lives. He rings the doorbell and waits a long time listening to the three of them throwing what sounds like a party. Misty answers the door she looks like a girl twin of Hal. With a little red mixed in to her all black clothes and her black shirt a little short so her pale skin peaks out when she moves. She’s smiling, she’s happy. Hal can’t remember ever seeing Misty smile before. Why’s she so happy now?

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Misty’s mother yells, “Come in!” She almost runs to the door like their all in the middle of a party game and Hal’s just in time. She looks just like Misty only forty and natural blond and a yuppie. Hal thinks she’s hot and loves that Misty is going to be that hot at forty too. She’s all smiles just like Misty. She puts her arm around Misty and grabs Hal by the shoulder to urge the young man inside.

Misty’s dad is sitting on a couch. He smirks at Hal when he sees him. “Have a seat young man!” Packages are stacked up to his knees. All of them are wrapped with babyish cartoon paper, mostly blue. He’s staring at Hal, so is her mom.

Misty must have told them. Hal gets almost red with frustration. They where going to tell them together, at least their taking it well. Misty sits down almost on top of Hal and runs her fingers through his hair, she’s smiling. Hal watches Misty’s mom sit down.

Everyone’s staring at him and their all happy. Hal clears his throat and asks in his deadpan voice, “are my parents here?” Misty’s mom doesn’t seem to understand him at first and there’s another awkward moment of her staring at him, then she comprehends, “oh no, their on their way!”

Hal turns to look at this new bubbly, happy Misty who he’s never seen act like this before. She’s looking at her parents, “Can I get him a drink now?” Her dad nods his approval. Her mother leans forward and smiles. She’s as excited as Misty is, “of course you can sweetheart!”

Misty rushes to the kitchen without looking back to Hal. He’s left alone with her parents. He pretends to care about the wrapped gifts to ignore talking to her parents. It looks to him that their excited about he and Misty having a baby and judging by all of the blue paper their hoping for a boy.

Misty plops down next to Hal and hands him his drink. He drinks the whole glass while still looking down at the packages. Everyone’s still staring at him, smiling like happy idiots. They all sit there a long time. It seems to Hal they want him to start the conversation. The longer the silence lasts the less Hal wants to tell them about his and Misty’s situation, maybe Misty will go first. She doesn’t. After a while Hal gets so uncomfortable his hands start to sweat, Misty is holding on to one hand she doesn’t seem to notice or maybe she doesn’t mind.

Hal is so uncomfortable now he’s starting to make himself sick. He starts to sweat so much he’s nearly drenched and he thinks he may be having some allergic reaction his lips seem numb.

By now he’s afraid he’s going to puke. He turns to Misty and makes a little point to the hallway to try and get her to follow him so they can talk a little more private. Misty takes the hint. “Were going to go to my room for a couple minutes ?kay!” Misty tells her parents. Her parents start talking to each other and ignore the kids.

Hal stands up and it makes him dizzy. He leans against Misty for support. He collects himself and they head to Misty’s room. She’s clinging to him and holding his clammy hand.

Hal shuts her bedroom door. “You told them,” Hal whispers to Misty. It’s a fact not a question. Misty gives him her cutest but I couldn’t help myself look. Hal doesn’t care he’s starting to feel sick and he just wants this to be over soon and everything to be ok. “There ok with this?” Hal asks anyway but he knows there very excited about the baby.

Misty smiles with her eyes. “Yeah there ok, both our parents got together and worked everything out. We’re still going to be together at least on the weekends and I’m not going to have a baby!” Misty shrugs her shoulders and smiles, happy thoughts dance across her face. Hal is floored by what he just heard. “not going to have a baby?” He just doesn’t understand. “How, why, all those presents?” He’s about to pass out and leans heavily against Misty.

“Hal, you’re so sweaty, let’s sit you on the bed.” Misty wrangles Hal’s weight to the bed and sits him down. She brushes his hair from out of his eyes.

The doorbell rings softly. They can hear both of their parents in the living room laughing and carrying on.

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Misty leans in and presses her lips gently against Hal’s ear. “I’ll be right back ?kay.” Hal’s lips feel like balloons and all of his muscles ache. “’kay.”

Hal’s looking up at the ceiling. He doesn’t know how long he’s been laying here but it seems he’s been listing to the five of them carry on in the other room for hours. Now he hears them pad across the carpet. There talking the whole time and loudly. It’s a lot of effort for Hal but he balances himself on his elbows.

Coming into the room he sees Misty then her parents, a young couple are coming through the doorway. It’s hard for Hal to make much sense of anything he’s seeing his visions starting to blur from all the sweat pouring into his eyes and a young couple coming into Misty’s room doesn’t make much sense. At this point gobs of drool are trailing onto his black shirt and he’s mumbling without realizing it. He does recognize his parents though, there so young, they shouldn’t be in their twenties they should be in their forties. They should be old.

Hal’s mom runs up to Hal to help hold him up. She puts her free hand against his cheek she smiles at him. She’s not that much older than he is. “Hal honey, do you know what’s happening to you?”

“’Na, na rally?” Hal blubbers, “”whyre soyung?” Hal’s mom pauses to try to sort out the best way to explain. “Your getting young again now too sweetheart,” She turns back to the rest of the party. “Misty, will you please get me a wet washcloth for Hal?” Misty rushes off to obey.

Hal leans his head into his mom’s breasts and collapses while she strokes his hair. He’s burning up and he feels like he’s going to vomit. After a while Hal’s mom takes the washcloth from Misty and cools Hal’s head. “Your burning up,”

Hal starts to convulse and he tries to ask what’s going on at the same time. It just makes a small amount of vomit run down his chin. “Shhhh baby, let me tell you,” Hal’s mom thinks on the best way to explain a complicated idea to her aching son. “Last week when Misty told us she was pregnant we had to fix this somehow. The best thing we could come up with was to make it never happen.” She motions to Misty to come sit down next to Hal.

Last night Misty’s parents gave her a regression serum, she’s not sixteen anymore she’s just a little older than fifteen now, and she’s not pregnant anymore.” Misty smiled “It’s true I’m not.”

Hal stops the story short by hacking, he leans his body out of his mom’s embrace and starts to throw up. When he’s through his mom whipes the vomit off his mouth with the washcloth. “Whyar yo yung?” He can barely make any words come out of his swollen lips and throat. He’s miserable and he’s not sure but he thinks he’s peeing on himself and he may have pooped.

His mother keeps patiently holding him. “Your father and I are young again now too, that was Misty’s parents idea and we all loved it. We all thought if we became young so we could look after you again, and you became a baby again, well then you couldn’t get Misty or even another girl pregnant again at least not for a long time.” She smiles so sweet at Hal. “That drink Misty gave you, that was the regression serum, it’s making you my little baby again.”

Hal sits up and does his best to violently shake his mom off of him. Now he knows why he’s sick and why he feels so numb and smaller. His mom lets him shake free more out of respect for his attempt than his overwhelming strength. “annidot!” He froths at his mom.

He sits up shakily by grabbing all over Misty’s body for support. She looks to the adults for a clue as to what she should do. Her dad points his finger up and whispers, “go ahead.” Misty helps Hal to his feet.

The regression serum works fast and when Misty helps Hal to his feet he’s not much taller than her shoulder. His pants fall to his ankles with his underwear loaded down with the age and size he lost turned to poop by the regression serum. He skittles across the room leaning heavily against Misty to keep him up and trying not to trip on his pants wrapped around his ankles.

Hal doesn’t look anyone in the eye while he passes them. He heads into the living room. Down the hall the serum makes him poop enough he can’t drag his heavy pants anymore. He Clutches Misty’s hips and shakes off his pants, shoes, and socks. After that he just drops poop behind him down the hall. No one bothers to clean it up yet, he’s still a little boy and he’ll make even more of a mess before the serum returns him to a baby again.

After his long journey to the living room Hal has finally made it to the glass Misty gave him. He stands over it and his confused mind tells him, ?now what?’ He picks it up with the shaky hand that isn’t holding on to Misty and turns to show the group. “annidot!” he yells.

Hal’s mom runs to him with the most sympathetic look in her eyes. “Honey there is no antidote.” She almost cries. Misty’s mom places a plastic sheet on the floor behind Hal. She piles some guest blankets and pillows on top so it will be soft. Hal’s mom lifts the glass from his hand and eases him down onto the blankets.

“Honey you’re almost my little baby again and there’s not a thing that can be done about that.” She wipes tears of joy from her eyes and leans in close to tell him what she thinks are comforting words. “You and Misty are still going to be together. She promised she’ll come over on the weekends and babysit you. She’ll even bring your friends over too so they can see you.”

Everyone takes a seat on the couch and for a while stares uncomfortably at the small boy getting younger on the blankets at their feet. Misty’s mom breaks the tension by asking Hal’s parents to open their gifts. They go through each gift and make a huge show of how excited they are to get a new baby blanket or bottle warmer.

Hal lays on the floor the whole time listening to them go on and on about how they’ll use this gift to keep his bottom from getting a rash, and this one for when he’s teething. He’s only half listening though, he’s gotten very small and his butt’s on top of piled poop and he’s very uncomfortable.

His mind is clouded by the fever and pain and he’s very angry. He’s angry that Misty betrayed him to, what it looked like to him, save herself. He’s angry that his friends are going to come and see him reduced to a helpless baby. He’s angry that his parents want him to be helpless again. He’s angry that Misty who was going to take care of their baby was going to take care of him instead and she’s ok with that. Something starts to happen inside of Hal and the anger starts to soften. Nothing got better for him. He didn’t figure it all out. He just can’t hold all of those frustrated thoughts. Now just like all the poop that left his body and took all of those years away with it his mind started to release all of those seventeen year old feelings and thoughts. Hal knew he was loosing all his memories and intelligence. He knew the moment right after a memory was gone that he had been cheated. He could only feel cheated for a moment then he was loosing another memory, then another. Soon they all leaked away.

Hal lays on the floor a six month old baby completely in body and mind. Everything that he had spent the last seventeen years growing into gone in a few hours nothing more than memories to the other people in his life. He becomes fascinated with his feet and curls his toes up to his mouth. He cooes and giggles. Everyone else stops opening presents and looks at the smiling baby boy on the floor. The women all smile at once.

Hal’s mom says with beaming pride, “Well that’s it he’s my baby again.” She moves off the couch and scoops him in her arms. “Misty do you want to come with me and help get Hal cleaned up?” Misty follows Hal’s mom into the bathroom.

They give Hal a long bath and get him squeaky clean. He can’t get embarrassed anymore. He giggles uncontrollably when Misty blows on his belly. “This weekend I’ll show you how to change a diaper Misty.” Hal’s mom says while she puts one on him.

The two men are in the living room picking up the last of the gifts when the women walk in. “Hal’s dad asks, “are you ready to go, it’s been a long day.” Hal’s mom agrees. They say their goodbyes and Misty’s parent’s won’t let Hal’s parents help them clean up.

Hal gets buckled in the car seat. He gets driven the four blocks back to the house giggling the whole time as his mom plays with his toes.