one of them remember the last time they’ve all been together. Close enough to touch, to hug awkwardly. None of them live on the same continent, and flights being what they are these days, well. Plus, Linka’s been in jail since that Pussy Riot thing, so in the end, it’s easier just to get together on Skype. They’ve almost given up on Wheeler when he finally signs on with some excuse about it being too early in Brooklyn. Like every American, the world should revolve around him. They play a little of the catch-up game. Kwame has just divorced for the second time, Gi’s latest insemination has taken. It’s the kind of small talk strangers make when still masquerading as friends. They finally get to business. The pipeline, of course. In the old days, they’d organize a field trip, stage some rallies, sit down with the bigwigs and try to talk some sense into them. But it always ended up in the same bottleneck. Older and wiser, probably lazier, they now just skip to the point and pull out the big guns. One at a time, they angle laptop cameras to focus on their rings. The boys make sure their tattoos are showing, the girls make their best duck-faces before they shout the words. They’ll let their powers combine and settle back while the Captain minces about and does whatever needs doing. Smash the pipeline, educate the masses, coif his mullet. But when it gets to Ma-Ti, small and simpering as ever, something’s missing. His ring. The one they all used to snicker about. He had to pawn it to put the down payment on his new condominium in Rio. They get a bit exasperated, he whines about nobody respecting him. They talk about back-up plans, but they’re surprised to find that none of them really care. Who needs the aggravation? It’s all so 80’s spandex and 90’s grunge and Y2K. Now, you can fight it from inside the system. Slowly. Buy local, eat organic, say Monsanto in thinly veiled disgust at not-too-expensive restaurants. They have the power to make the kind of difference no one will notice.
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very time, he has the same question: what year? Enough with the 20XX bullshit, just tell me the year. It’s true, the defrost left him crabby and constipated. The Doc is looking old. A little less hair on top, the white in his beard whiter than ever, almost translucent. Like he was slowly fading away. They don’t bother to make small talk. He’s been in suspended animation, dreamless, and the Doc’s been buried in research and planning. They live to thwart, that is all. The year actually doesn’t even matter anymore. What is more important is the time. The iteration. How many times have they done this already? Nine? Ten? More. More than could ever be necessary. They spend some of that time going over his rust spots with steel wool and blue paint. The Doc doesn’t even bother with new gadgets anymore. Why fix it, if it ain’t broke. Just let it break. Let it stop. Eight more robot masters to fight. Whichever order you’d like. At first it was a novelty, now it’s a chore. The designs, the names, it’s all just a rehash now, like even their adversary is tired of the game. And who would it be this time? Some mysterious ‘other’ Doctor. Great. Do they really need the theatrics? No matter who is prancing about as the bad guy this time, however complex the back-story they’ve been sent, you always know it’s going to be him in the end. He might put on some sunglasses or dye his moustache, but when the curtains come down it’s always him. The Doc snaps the blaster on to his stump and yawns. He’d yawn too, if he were only human. They’d do it again, only to do it again. Sisyphus had it easy. Maybe this time, when it’s over, the freeze will last longer. Maybe forever. Maybe this time, he’ll finally get some rest. t was the cranky old man who told him to go into the volcano and stick his hand in that stream of lava. In retrospect it seemed like a stupid thing to do, but his judgment was probably skewed by some pretty serious PTSD. After all, a flying castle had just dropped down and massacred everyone he ever knew or loved. He was supposed to find some powerful weapon, but all he came back with were third-degree burns and a five-pointed star made of plastic. There were some rubies embedded in it. He was pretty sure they were fake. Honestly, it looked like some cheap movie prop, and it said “Made in Hong Kong” on the back, but the old man said it was magic. If he threw it, back it would come. Like a boomerang. He would have rather just found a sword. The old man told him he wasn’t allowed to use it until the time was right. This happened to be about an hour and twenty minutes later. Then he threw it and waited. It didn’t come back. Thirty years on, he was still waiting. Divorced. His kids were off ruling their own kingdoms. They never had time for him. Even his friends stopped coming over to play poker. They all landed bigger gigs and had their own fire mares now. Nothing came back to him that he threw away. Maybe he should have held on to the things that mattered. e’s been working steadily for weeks. Pouring the foundation, putting in the supporting beams. Lying on his back here, at the end of another sixteen-hour day, he stares up through the girders, dreaming. It will be three floors when it’s finished. Five bedrooms for the family he would find at last, the place alive with the voices of children. One room at the back for him alone, a den for all the reading he would finally get to in his retirement. Someday it will be the home he’s always wanted, but for now he sleeps outdoors. When he does sleep. He rests little, eats only enough to keep going. Life is work, working is living. He doesn’t find room for anything else. It can wait. The ground rumbles underneath him. Oh no. Rumble. Not again. Then the shriek of rending metal. The wall to his left is torn away, showing the cavern beyond. He watches helplessly as this chunk of his home rises into the dark far above him. He is paralyzed by terror. Then he hears it. The crunching sound of giant teeth. A fine radish dust settles over him like snow. The final result of all the unending hours he sunk into this place. Already, he can hear others approaching. This place, his home, would be completely gone in minutes. He runs out, screaming into the darkness. Homeless again. Most would give up. Most had. But as he crouches in hiding, listening to his home being eaten by giants, he’s already planning the rebuild. He can do better. Bigger. He’ll take longer with it and be even more careful, next time. There’s no time to think about what was lost, or even the warmth of family and good times ahead. For now, it’s work. Work is all there is. There is no room for anything else t’s like hitting puberty. Everyone around him blossoms into his or her true self: tall, cool, beautiful. All that potential that’s been boiling inside just explodes. Transforms them. That guy gets to be a Trans Am, that chick is a fully-loaded pink convertible, even the weird smelly dude who sounds like a throat cancer survivor gets to be a giant tape-deck. Ten years ago it would have been lame, but retro is in again. Sure, there are all those foreign exchange students that nobody talks to, but at least they get to become dinosaurs. Giant, world destroying lizards. And then, or course, there’s the big guy. The one they all look up to, crowding around to tune into that deep sexy baritone. He gets to turn into an 18-wheeler. It’s hard not to feel inadequate. It’s all about the touch, the power. Everyone’s got it. Everyone, except for him. He never got his growth spurt. His acne won't let go. So, he lurks in his mother’s basement, playing Tunnels & Trolls and dreaming about bigger things. High-speed jets and tanks and construction vehicles and he gets to turn into a microscope. Like something from a lab. He can’t even move. He has to nag and whine until one of the dump trucks comes and picks him up. It’s enough to just make you want to turn grey. he sees the girl through the crowd. Even in the dim lights of the club, she can pick her out. It’s that stupid winged Viking helmet that gives her away. Funny how the past can cut through the haze like a razor. They finish off the set with The Thrill is Gone. She purrs the last words, letting her lips wet the mic, as Al plays out the song. There’s some clapping, not as much as there used to be, and one annoying asshole whistling at the bar. She puts the mic back in its cradle, running one hand down the stand like a lover’s spine. It should be her moment. It is when you really win them over, but the club’s already refilling with noise. She looks back at the guys. Al just shrugs. He used to say “Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues.” Now he was the first one packing up. She’s not sure if they’ll play another set. She looks for the girl as she makes her way off the stage. She moves through people like water and puts one foot up on the rail. Pruitt slides a fat ounce of bourbon in front of her, one rock. He’s got a bar towel over one shoulder, bone white and ironed crisp. It takes the attention away from his claw hand. “That’s the last of your rider, Chris.” “This is my first one.” He jabs his chin at the room. She knows it, too. It’s a one drink crowd. Even for an old friend. She scoops up her bourbon and minnows back through the crowd. Nobody high fives. She searches through faces as she moves. They’re all familiar faces but no one she knows. She puts a dart in her mouth but doesn’t light it. All this clear air is just killing the blues. The steel door bangs open as she steps out into the alley. A deep dish Chicago rain rattling down through fire escapes. She lights the cigarette and leans back against the brick. “Hey, Chris.” And there she is. Long strawberry hair, matchstick legs. All grown up but still a little girl to her. “You still wearing that thing around?” Sara snatches the silver helmet off her head and laughs. “I pulled it out of storage. I was at a costume party.” "What’re you doin here?” “I came to see you play.” Nobody she knew came to see her play anymore. Babies and marriage and mortgages and old friendships die in that slow sagging way, so you don’t even notice. But she lets the lie sit. “How’s your brother?” “Oh, good.” Sara tucks her hair behind her ears and stares down at the rain splashing off the pavement. “He just got divorced.” “I thought he was already divorced.” "Yeah, and now he is again.” Sara giggles. “You should give him a call.” She tries to laugh with her, so they can share the moment. But the sounds rub up against each other like sandpaper. Then Sara’s laughter puckers up quick and she can feel a shift. “I was wondering, Chris.” But Sara doesn’t finish the question. It hangs. She’s holding the helmet with both hands, turning it slow. It reminds her of those old cowboy movies her dad used to watch. Men holding their hats at a funeral for the sheriff. When the good passes on. “And what’s that, kiddo?” Sara breathes in and her mouth sets into that stubborn line, a posture so familiar that all of a sudden she can see her as that little girl. Her and her brother in their little desert island suburb and all those late nights babysitting. “I was wondering if I could score some E off you.” It’s like a punch in the stomach. No. Like a skewer straight through her guts, the guts of all her years, pinning her and every past version of herself against that brick wall. She leaves the girl there, behind her, and pushes back through the doors into the heat and noise of the bar. Somewhere in there she’ll find the boys and she’ll drag them back on stage. Forget the covers, she’ll sing something that means something. She’ll sing the blues. Maybe they’ll listen this time. Maybe she’ll never leave. ears after, they were still words she did not speak aloud. It was an area of her mind and memory she’d surrounded in razor wire. She was too old to believe in things. She’d gone to school relentlessly. She’d sought explanations for the unexplainable and laughed unkindly at people who indulged in phrases like “the cosmos.” She’d used her adult life as a strip of sandpaper to wear down any sense of wonder into a dull acceptance that things just were. They are. They always will be. It hadn’t always been so. There was a time. She’d picked her nose and run through grassy fields and stayed up all night and invented secret names for things. She’d believed. And imagined. And dreamed. And spoke. But now, she did not say those words. Abracadabra, Open Sesame, Shazaam. These were silly words for snake oil salesmen. But those words, she would not incant. She would not make room in her life for not knowing. She had given up on the power and magic of three words. Three small words that would open up the sky and cause green slime to fall. Why? What was she afraid of? I don’t know. hen she opens the door her uncle is there. “Your doorbell’s broken,” he says, like it hasn’t been more than five years since the last time she saw him. “I don’t have a doorbell." “You really should get that looked at,” he says, pushing past her. She suddenly remembers the dishes piled everywhere, the laundry on the floor, the stains on the carpet. And then she remembers it isn’t the kind of thing he’d notice anyway. It’s all too obvious. He stands in her front hallway, hands behind his back, bouncing on his toes. Wrapped in his grey trenchcoat like he hasn’t aged a day. It’s all so familiar that she reaches up to tug on her pigtails, before realizing she hacked them off years ago. “How’s retirement?”She’s surprised the words come out as an attack. He looks at her, as if the words she’s said have no meaning. “I’m always on duty.” Then he points at a photograph on the wall. “That man looks just like me.” It was a picture of all of them with the Chief back when they were all working together. “That is you.” “Don’t you think I know who I am?” He harrumphs a bit, trying to figure out if he should be offended. There are pale shapes on the wallpaper where other frames had lived for years. The photos and degrees and awards, fellowships and doctorates. She’s torn it all down, one at a time. Like some kind of striptease of memory. This was the last thing left. One photograph. She doesn’t have the heart to take it down. He’s still staring at the photo. “You were brilliant.” And his tone’s so soft she can’t quite be sure he’s talking about himself, or her. “I’ll make some tea.” “I can’t stay,” he says, wheeling toward the door and heading back outside. She chases him down the front walk, weeds poking out from between the flagstones. Even now, as an adult, she has a tough time keeping up with his long strides. The minivan is parked on the lawn. The red paint trim looks hopelessly dated, but at least it matches the rust spots. He’s rammed through her mailbox, a pile of flyers and magazines sprayed out over the lawn like a flock of dead birds. He goes around to the trunk of the van. He starts fumbling through pockets. “Where did I put my—?” “I’m sorry I never called,” she says, feeling guilty and angry at her guilt at the same time. He’s on his hands and knees searching in the grass. “I just…” And she leaves it there. I just didn’t think you’d notice. And he doesn’t. He never did. “Go go keychain!” he says, jumping to his feet and jabbing one finger in the air. They both wait several long moments. Nothing happens. He kicks the bumper and the trunk opens with a puff of air. Inside is an orange shape. Fur. Long ears. Stretched out stiff. There’s not even a smell. It takes her a moment to recognize it. “He won’t wake up,” her uncle says. Not it. Him. “No.” “You were brilliant,” he says, turning to her. His words are so sincere this time, they sound like they’re welling up from her own mangled heart. You were. She sits down on the lawn. He turns back to the dog. “Maybe you can wake him?” “No.” She lies back in the grass, so long she almost disappears. “Wowsers,” he says, bouncing on his toes again. “He must be really tired.” She nods. The smell of earth. They’d bury him here. She just needs to rest awhile first. he’ll be back in a few hours, she says. He doesn’t even turn around. He just stays hunched on the stool, the rhythmic sound of the milk splashing into the pail. She repeats herself, as she always must now. There’s a long pause, his rough hands frozen around Abby’s teat, more intimate than anything they’ve shared in the last ten years. He grunts. As you wish. And returns to his task. He still doesn’t turn around. She walks out of the barn and heads down the hill through the pasture. Overgrown now, strangled with weed. Those three words, the same three words. Words that had been romantic when they were young. More than the typical I love yous most young lovers toss at each other. As you wish. It had meant, whatever you desire. Now the words were a bad caricature, like the scarecrow she passes at the edge of their field, dancing in the wind. Inconceivable. As you wish. I don’t care what you do. She gathers her skirts as she hops the old cow fence, broken here where rustlers made off with most of the herd last fall. When they’d first returned to the farm it had seemed like some magical game. The swashbuckler and the princess, playing farmboy and maid again. But games always end. They were good at impressions, but never at the real thing. She pushes through the old orchard. Fat dead apples litter the ground like small bodies. Babies. There’d been three miscarriages. She finds the trail and climbs the hill to the woodcutter’s cabin. She goes around back first and fills a bucket from the pump. She doesn’t knock. Knowing he’ll be there. Where else would he go. When his friend, the giant, died, he showed up and they’d taken him in. Given him work to do. Which he never did. It’s dark inside. The smell of bad cider and urine. She feels her way over to the shutter and bangs it open. He groans. Curled up naked on the floor like an autumn leaf after the colour had passed out of it. His long beautiful hair was mostly gone now. He wasn’t ugly. But at one time, he’d been beautiful. Weren’t they all. At one time he’d had a passion, a fire inside him. More fever than fire. One that could burn you if you stood too close. But then he killed the man that killed his father and now he was prepared to die. Weren’t they all. She lets her skirts drop to the floor. It hardly makes a noise, and he doesn’t open his eyes. e watches the kids go by on skateboards and scooters, bicycle and training wheels, only the bravest stopping to peer through the untamed rosebushes at the peeling paint and crumbling brick that he calls a home. He drops the curtain. How quickly heroes become monsters. He’s about to head back to the kitchen to pop a TV dinner in the microwave when he hears the shatter of glass behind him. He turns to see a rock rolling across the floor and the busted maw of his front window. By the time he gets to the curtain, the culprits are gone. He picks up the rock. Nothing special about it. Just a rock, a careless thing. He pads down the hallway, the shag carpet underfoot thick like the silence in this old place. The basement door creaks with the ghosts of thousand bad horror movies, reminding him to remind that damn woman to bring some WD-40 the next time she’s in. He takes the stairs one at a time now, with his damn hip. Still aches sixty years after the crash. It’s where he left it, there on his workbench, covered in an old painter’s tarp. Once, everyone from the Nazis and the mafia to the Feds wanted what’s under there. Hell, even Howard Hughes came calling, first with a carload of cash and then a carload of thugs. He pulls the tarp off like a magician with a bad trick. Metal fins polished to a shine, leather straps oiled and soft to the touch, the faint whiff of fuel lingering in the air. It’s heavy for him now, but he slings it over his shoulders like a large baby. Or a bomb. He lost the helmet. Betty backed the car over it a few dozen times when she found out he was still flying on the sly. He gave up the air shows after that. Then he gave up flying altogether. But it was too late. They were already too far gone. She always told him the helmet made him look like a hood ornament anyway. It’s harder going back up, it always is. The pack’s only about twenty pounds, but he’s dragging a lot more than that behind him up the stairs. He pushes out through the torn screen door into the backyard. The grass still dead from the leak at the chemical plant all those years back. He leans a ladder up against the house and peers up at the curling shingles. He always hated heights, funny being a flyboy, but it was different on solid ground. It takes him a while, but he makes it to the roof. It’s only a bungalow but he can still see the better part of the neighbourhood. Almost unrecognizable now. Most of the old places either bulldozed for condominiums or covered up in that crap they spray on like cotton candy. He straps in tight, the pack snug against his back, and straightens up as best he can. He inches down to the edge of the roof. He runs his thumb over the ignition. He could go back downstairs. Back to the same old. Back to that pantheon of TV dinners. He doesn’t even feel his thumb twitch. He’s already fifty feet up before he remembers how to control the damn thing. And then it all comes back and the years burn off in the roar of the exhaust. He pulls a loop-de-loop and zooms back down for a pass over his neighbourhood. Any minute those kids’ll come running out into the backyards, pointing and cheering. Who is that? Superman? Their parents will nod knowingly, their own childhood twinkling inside them. He makes another pass, the sun dying low over the hills. They’ll be calling the newspapers now. Helicopters and crews on the way. The tank’s starting to sputter as he turns around for a third time, this time flying low, brushing trees. Nobody. The backyards are silent. Even if they came out, those kids, what would they see? An old man stuck in a future long past. Hovercrafts, UFOs and jetpacks. The world moves on. Heroes become monsters. Not monsters. No. Even worse. Forgotten. The silence is everywhere now. He’s floating on it. He stretches out his arms like a superhero. Blue sky above, green lawn below. He’s never felt so light. Like he doesn’t even exist. |
8bitmythsRemember when you were a minipop, and you saw that film, you know, the one you loved that never had a sequel? Well, let's say it did. And it was just like you imagined it, only a little bit worse.
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