Post by SummersProdigy on Nov 20, 2006 21:16:56 GMT -5
Somebody
I can’t really see right now, though I can tell you it must be daylight now. I can feel the warmth on my back. It feels real nice. At least, it feels nice on the parts of my body I can feel, which really isn’t all that much. I guess this is what I deserve really, for deciding to put on the old tights again. I knew what would happen, but I choose to do it anyway. Boy I’m such a fool.
I guess I must have been a fool all my life. First it was thinking I could get into the army to fight the dreaded Nazis with Captain America. I was a toothpick! I wouldn’t have stood a chance! But oh no, why not try anyway? Everyone’s doing it. So I did. And I’ll never forget what that man said.
“Thanks young man, “ the recruiter said, “but we’ve already got more recruits then we can handle right now. You know, we’ll always need good people like you here on the home front.”
And that was it. It was a quick look, and nope, don’t need you. That guy even had the nerve to say to the next guy in line as I left, “Well son, you ready to join the army?”
But I didn’t do anything about it did I? Nope, not a single thing. All I did was go back to my lousy job at the lab; washing beakers of failed experiments, and DNA twisted beyond any known living creature. I fit right in.
Can you believe I actually didn’t have the sense to go home and wallow in my embarrassment? No, I was responsible, like the good little soldier I was, and went back to the lab to finish scrubbing some Petri dish of its usefulness. I remember looking into the murky greenish foggy water wondering what the hell I’d tell the guys when they asked if I got in. I think I was probable still staring into that murky water when it happened. It wasn’t even that big really. I mean you’d expect this event which would give me my amazing powers to be real big, like a once in a life time thing, like a bolt of lightning hitting the murky water and entering my body, or an alien coming down from space and giving me some kind of magical piece of jewelry that gave me special powers. But stuff like that only happened in the funny pages. Nope, it was by pure stupidity that I finally became someone, or more like had the chance to become someone.
See, we couldn’t let that murky water just go down the drain. Too much stuff in it. So we had to boil it first or something before we could send it down the drain, but most of the people who worked at my lab were lazy, so we just dumped it out in the alley behind the lab. So there I was, carrying a big tub of greenish murky water carefully to the alley to be dumped, until a car nearly ran me over, making me jump back, dumping that tube of water with who knows what in it, all over me.
That pretty much did it for me. I began running home, covered in that slop, freaking out as I felt it seeping into my skin. That wasn’t a pleasant feeling. I remember running, and then a second later, I was home. Shocked, I looked back as saw a long line of dust, like you’d see after a car driving on a dirt road, beginning to fade. I think I stood in front of my apartment for maybe an hour, totally shocked. But that soon turned into excitement. I spent all night long experimenting, seeing what I could do. I could run faster, jump higher, think quicker, and best of all, I was stronger, much stronger, then anyone, anyone in the whole world! At least, that’s what I thought. Like any gift, mine came with strings. I remember the next morning when I looked at myself in the mirror; I couldn’t believe what I saw. I was 18 years old, barely out of high school and into collage, but in the mirror I looked, (and later on felt), like I was in my 20s.
Apparently there was this downside to my abilities no one told me about. The way I figured it, for every hour or so I used my powers, my body aged about a year. The upside though, was that when I wasn’t using my powers, my body wouldn’t age at all. Crap right?
Well, sure, I thought it sucked, I thought it sucked a lot, but I’m a fool remember? I didn’t care! I got the bright idea to dress up in tights and call myself something-or-other. It’s not like it really mattered what I called myself anyway, I mean I didn’t really last long.
Yeah, I did good, I stopped purse snatchers, bank robbers, murderers, Nazi spies, even got my own archenemy, and a segment on the 6o’clock news, but all that cost me 40 years of my life! By the time I decided to hang up the tights I looked like I should have had grandkids! But no, in my head I was in my prime, my 20s, those crazy years you wish would never end, but on the outside, I was a grandpa. So I stopped. I got a job, moved on with my life, and even dated a few women, though those ended quick, since I was always disgusted by the women who were turned on by older guys. It was just sick.
So life went on for me. I mean, it had to. Once or twice, I’d think about getting back into the crime fighting stuff, even whipping out the old tights and going so far as to get to the scene of the crime ready for action. But I had slowed down. My body was old, and weak, not to mention very un-suiting for my sharp young mind. By the time I’d manage to get out the door and to where all the action was, it would all be over, taken care of by one of those new heroes. Iron Man, or that web head Spider-Man, or those mutant guys, the X-Something-or-other. And all I’d end up doing is making myself older. And so I’d go back to my mediocre life of mornings working as a telephone operator at this music company, and evenings watching TV, occasionally flicking over the news, just to see what I was missing. It all probable would have stayed like this for a really long time, being that I was basically immortal if I didn’t use my powers, if I had never met her.
She was a girl who lived with her mom in the apartment building where I lived. I had been living there for a long time, being acquainted with all the apartments’ occupants, and I had basically watched this young girl grow up into a woman. She was always nice to me, either because she genuinely was nice, or because her mother made her. As she grew, we formed a type of friendship, the one you make with the man across the street, who you never say anything to except for a good morning, or a hello every time you saw each other. As she got older, this soon grew into a more real friendship, sharing conversations in my apartment about life. She really brought some light into the gloomy world I lived in.
Now I knew that she wasn’t all perfect, witnessing some of her shady activities outside my bedroom window some nights. She’d sneak out, and ride off in some car waiting for her, then return at dawn, barely able to even get out of the car, let alone back into her room, but somehow she did it, night after night. Fool I was, I ignored it. Id’ hear roomers that she’d be doing drugs, shooting up, and getting high, buying drugs from some guy who sold them to kids, but still I didn’t believe it. Boy, I should have listened.
One night, I was looking out my bedroom window, thinking, when I saw her begin crawling out of her window. Like usual, she’d hit the ground like a cat, silently moving in and out of the shadows. It was almost like a show for those watching, seeing how skillfully she moved. Then out of another shadow, two arms grabbed her by the waist, and pulled her to the ground. As she struggled, my body was already in motion, whipping out my own costume, and pulling it onto my aged body. I was moving like I used to, like I had moved when I first began. I pulled on the mask, and opened my window, leaping into the air with the grace of a high diver, making an arc through the night sky, the peak of which perfectly made so that the full moon was at my back.
I landed on the side of a building, pausing there for a moment, appearing stuck to the wall, before leaping off of it to another wall, then leaping off of that, flipping, and landing on the back of one of the attackers. I had my powers on full blast, feeling my body age years in minutes, but focusing past it to take down this gang of boys. I leaped off of walls, flipped over there heads, and jumped around like in my youth. I was happy. I was happy and excited that I was doing this again, even if it would kill me. I was still happy even after one of the boys pulled a gun, and shot me three times in the chest, once in the arm.
Down, and out, I was bleeding bad. I remember hitting the ground and thinking, wait, wait! I’m not done yet! I remember hearing the boys getting up, and swearing to each other. All I worried about was how Laura was. Didn’t I tell you her name was Laura? Well, yeah that’s her name, and just when I was about to call it out, I heard her voice.
“Who the hell is that?” she said.
“I don’t know L,” another voice said, “you think we should forget the drugs for tonight?”
“Hell no!” I heard her say, “You know how crazy those kids are for that shit? Man, they’d probable sell there families into slavery to get high. Lets get out of here before the cops come. Get rid of that gun or else…”
I didn’t hear the rest. I just let my wounds take me and blacked out. A couple hours later, here I am.
I wonder how long I’ve laid here. The asphalt around me is really starting to get hot. I can’t really see because my eyes pretty swollen up, but I think I must be behind a dumpster or something because someone was bound to have found me by now. And when the hell am I going to die? I can feel my blood flowing out of my chest. It’s like I’m a frickin facet. I think I should have died by now, with all the blood I’ve lost. Unless…
Damn it, it must be my powers again! That has to be it! My stupid powers are keeping me alive. Even at my last moments of life, there still a curse! Hell, I’m probable just kidding myself. I’ll probable be dying any second now. Come death, come and get me! I’m ready! I’m ready to leave this all behind!
No…wait, I didn’t mean that. Who am I kidding? I’m not ready to die, no one is! I can’t go out like this! I wanted to live, I-I…I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be someone, somebody great, but now, now I don’t know what I am.
I can’t feel my arms now. I can still move my neck a little but I don’t know what good that will do. I’ve got no hope of getting up anyway with no arms or legs.
There goes the feeling in my chest and neck. I’m starting to feel a little light headed too. Why didn’t I try calling for help? Stupid, I could have shouted for someone! Oh well, I mean what can you expect from someone like me?
You know, dying isn’t bad actually. I feel like…well I feel like the water going down the drain. There’s no other way to explain it. Slowly I’m sinking into death. I guess I really am dying. Man, out of all the ways to go, I guess it’s only suiting that I go out like this. A meaningless death, probable behind the dumpster, with absolutely no one to spend my final moments with, holding my hand, encouraging me to hang on because the paramedics are coming and will some how shock me back to life or something. A lonely, sad death for some stupid guy who thought he could change the world by dressing up in tights and jumping around.
Hell, I didn’t even get that part right! My final big heroic deed and I didn’t even save anyone! I mean she wasn’t being attacked! Not only that, but she was the drug dealer! I saved the drug dealer so that she could sell drugs to kids for another day! Like I said, I’m a fool.
Well this is it. I can feel my consciousness beginning to fade. It’s weird; I can feel my thoughts fading. I can barely hear myself think now. Oh well, just another story on the 6 o’clock news, just like how I wanted.
You know what? I don’t care anymore. I don’t care that I’m dying looking like a 90 year old, I don’t care that I never got to be anybody, and I don’t care that instead of stopping a drug dealer, I saved her. My life was a failure, yeah, but I was a hero. That’s more then a lot of people will ever be.
I can’t really see right now, though I can tell you it must be daylight now. I can feel the warmth on my back. It feels real nice. At least, it feels nice on the parts of my body I can feel, which really isn’t all that much. I guess this is what I deserve really, for deciding to put on the old tights again. I knew what would happen, but I choose to do it anyway. Boy I’m such a fool.
I guess I must have been a fool all my life. First it was thinking I could get into the army to fight the dreaded Nazis with Captain America. I was a toothpick! I wouldn’t have stood a chance! But oh no, why not try anyway? Everyone’s doing it. So I did. And I’ll never forget what that man said.
“Thanks young man, “ the recruiter said, “but we’ve already got more recruits then we can handle right now. You know, we’ll always need good people like you here on the home front.”
And that was it. It was a quick look, and nope, don’t need you. That guy even had the nerve to say to the next guy in line as I left, “Well son, you ready to join the army?”
But I didn’t do anything about it did I? Nope, not a single thing. All I did was go back to my lousy job at the lab; washing beakers of failed experiments, and DNA twisted beyond any known living creature. I fit right in.
Can you believe I actually didn’t have the sense to go home and wallow in my embarrassment? No, I was responsible, like the good little soldier I was, and went back to the lab to finish scrubbing some Petri dish of its usefulness. I remember looking into the murky greenish foggy water wondering what the hell I’d tell the guys when they asked if I got in. I think I was probable still staring into that murky water when it happened. It wasn’t even that big really. I mean you’d expect this event which would give me my amazing powers to be real big, like a once in a life time thing, like a bolt of lightning hitting the murky water and entering my body, or an alien coming down from space and giving me some kind of magical piece of jewelry that gave me special powers. But stuff like that only happened in the funny pages. Nope, it was by pure stupidity that I finally became someone, or more like had the chance to become someone.
See, we couldn’t let that murky water just go down the drain. Too much stuff in it. So we had to boil it first or something before we could send it down the drain, but most of the people who worked at my lab were lazy, so we just dumped it out in the alley behind the lab. So there I was, carrying a big tub of greenish murky water carefully to the alley to be dumped, until a car nearly ran me over, making me jump back, dumping that tube of water with who knows what in it, all over me.
That pretty much did it for me. I began running home, covered in that slop, freaking out as I felt it seeping into my skin. That wasn’t a pleasant feeling. I remember running, and then a second later, I was home. Shocked, I looked back as saw a long line of dust, like you’d see after a car driving on a dirt road, beginning to fade. I think I stood in front of my apartment for maybe an hour, totally shocked. But that soon turned into excitement. I spent all night long experimenting, seeing what I could do. I could run faster, jump higher, think quicker, and best of all, I was stronger, much stronger, then anyone, anyone in the whole world! At least, that’s what I thought. Like any gift, mine came with strings. I remember the next morning when I looked at myself in the mirror; I couldn’t believe what I saw. I was 18 years old, barely out of high school and into collage, but in the mirror I looked, (and later on felt), like I was in my 20s.
Apparently there was this downside to my abilities no one told me about. The way I figured it, for every hour or so I used my powers, my body aged about a year. The upside though, was that when I wasn’t using my powers, my body wouldn’t age at all. Crap right?
Well, sure, I thought it sucked, I thought it sucked a lot, but I’m a fool remember? I didn’t care! I got the bright idea to dress up in tights and call myself something-or-other. It’s not like it really mattered what I called myself anyway, I mean I didn’t really last long.
Yeah, I did good, I stopped purse snatchers, bank robbers, murderers, Nazi spies, even got my own archenemy, and a segment on the 6o’clock news, but all that cost me 40 years of my life! By the time I decided to hang up the tights I looked like I should have had grandkids! But no, in my head I was in my prime, my 20s, those crazy years you wish would never end, but on the outside, I was a grandpa. So I stopped. I got a job, moved on with my life, and even dated a few women, though those ended quick, since I was always disgusted by the women who were turned on by older guys. It was just sick.
So life went on for me. I mean, it had to. Once or twice, I’d think about getting back into the crime fighting stuff, even whipping out the old tights and going so far as to get to the scene of the crime ready for action. But I had slowed down. My body was old, and weak, not to mention very un-suiting for my sharp young mind. By the time I’d manage to get out the door and to where all the action was, it would all be over, taken care of by one of those new heroes. Iron Man, or that web head Spider-Man, or those mutant guys, the X-Something-or-other. And all I’d end up doing is making myself older. And so I’d go back to my mediocre life of mornings working as a telephone operator at this music company, and evenings watching TV, occasionally flicking over the news, just to see what I was missing. It all probable would have stayed like this for a really long time, being that I was basically immortal if I didn’t use my powers, if I had never met her.
She was a girl who lived with her mom in the apartment building where I lived. I had been living there for a long time, being acquainted with all the apartments’ occupants, and I had basically watched this young girl grow up into a woman. She was always nice to me, either because she genuinely was nice, or because her mother made her. As she grew, we formed a type of friendship, the one you make with the man across the street, who you never say anything to except for a good morning, or a hello every time you saw each other. As she got older, this soon grew into a more real friendship, sharing conversations in my apartment about life. She really brought some light into the gloomy world I lived in.
Now I knew that she wasn’t all perfect, witnessing some of her shady activities outside my bedroom window some nights. She’d sneak out, and ride off in some car waiting for her, then return at dawn, barely able to even get out of the car, let alone back into her room, but somehow she did it, night after night. Fool I was, I ignored it. Id’ hear roomers that she’d be doing drugs, shooting up, and getting high, buying drugs from some guy who sold them to kids, but still I didn’t believe it. Boy, I should have listened.
One night, I was looking out my bedroom window, thinking, when I saw her begin crawling out of her window. Like usual, she’d hit the ground like a cat, silently moving in and out of the shadows. It was almost like a show for those watching, seeing how skillfully she moved. Then out of another shadow, two arms grabbed her by the waist, and pulled her to the ground. As she struggled, my body was already in motion, whipping out my own costume, and pulling it onto my aged body. I was moving like I used to, like I had moved when I first began. I pulled on the mask, and opened my window, leaping into the air with the grace of a high diver, making an arc through the night sky, the peak of which perfectly made so that the full moon was at my back.
I landed on the side of a building, pausing there for a moment, appearing stuck to the wall, before leaping off of it to another wall, then leaping off of that, flipping, and landing on the back of one of the attackers. I had my powers on full blast, feeling my body age years in minutes, but focusing past it to take down this gang of boys. I leaped off of walls, flipped over there heads, and jumped around like in my youth. I was happy. I was happy and excited that I was doing this again, even if it would kill me. I was still happy even after one of the boys pulled a gun, and shot me three times in the chest, once in the arm.
Down, and out, I was bleeding bad. I remember hitting the ground and thinking, wait, wait! I’m not done yet! I remember hearing the boys getting up, and swearing to each other. All I worried about was how Laura was. Didn’t I tell you her name was Laura? Well, yeah that’s her name, and just when I was about to call it out, I heard her voice.
“Who the hell is that?” she said.
“I don’t know L,” another voice said, “you think we should forget the drugs for tonight?”
“Hell no!” I heard her say, “You know how crazy those kids are for that shit? Man, they’d probable sell there families into slavery to get high. Lets get out of here before the cops come. Get rid of that gun or else…”
I didn’t hear the rest. I just let my wounds take me and blacked out. A couple hours later, here I am.
I wonder how long I’ve laid here. The asphalt around me is really starting to get hot. I can’t really see because my eyes pretty swollen up, but I think I must be behind a dumpster or something because someone was bound to have found me by now. And when the hell am I going to die? I can feel my blood flowing out of my chest. It’s like I’m a frickin facet. I think I should have died by now, with all the blood I’ve lost. Unless…
Damn it, it must be my powers again! That has to be it! My stupid powers are keeping me alive. Even at my last moments of life, there still a curse! Hell, I’m probable just kidding myself. I’ll probable be dying any second now. Come death, come and get me! I’m ready! I’m ready to leave this all behind!
No…wait, I didn’t mean that. Who am I kidding? I’m not ready to die, no one is! I can’t go out like this! I wanted to live, I-I…I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be someone, somebody great, but now, now I don’t know what I am.
I can’t feel my arms now. I can still move my neck a little but I don’t know what good that will do. I’ve got no hope of getting up anyway with no arms or legs.
There goes the feeling in my chest and neck. I’m starting to feel a little light headed too. Why didn’t I try calling for help? Stupid, I could have shouted for someone! Oh well, I mean what can you expect from someone like me?
You know, dying isn’t bad actually. I feel like…well I feel like the water going down the drain. There’s no other way to explain it. Slowly I’m sinking into death. I guess I really am dying. Man, out of all the ways to go, I guess it’s only suiting that I go out like this. A meaningless death, probable behind the dumpster, with absolutely no one to spend my final moments with, holding my hand, encouraging me to hang on because the paramedics are coming and will some how shock me back to life or something. A lonely, sad death for some stupid guy who thought he could change the world by dressing up in tights and jumping around.
Hell, I didn’t even get that part right! My final big heroic deed and I didn’t even save anyone! I mean she wasn’t being attacked! Not only that, but she was the drug dealer! I saved the drug dealer so that she could sell drugs to kids for another day! Like I said, I’m a fool.
Well this is it. I can feel my consciousness beginning to fade. It’s weird; I can feel my thoughts fading. I can barely hear myself think now. Oh well, just another story on the 6 o’clock news, just like how I wanted.
You know what? I don’t care anymore. I don’t care that I’m dying looking like a 90 year old, I don’t care that I never got to be anybody, and I don’t care that instead of stopping a drug dealer, I saved her. My life was a failure, yeah, but I was a hero. That’s more then a lot of people will ever be.