Superman

What if I told you I was Superman? Would you laugh at me? What if I told you I knew I was Superman? Then you would surely lock me away in a padded room and strap me into a straight jacket. Not that I can say I would blame you, because I can’t help thinking that I am mentally loony for thinking of it, let alone have this feeling deep down inside that you know you are…

But I didn’t know of him until a few days ago. Shouldn’t that be odd to me? Shouldn’t I wonder how I know this as I stare at the symbol on my chest in the reflection of the glass of the towering structure in front of me?

I guess I can’t really answer that.

Wait a minute; what’s that noise above me? Is somebody screaming? I look above me where I swear the screaming is coming from, but I see nothing except for the dark sky and light gray clouds… I don’t get it.

Instinctively I stick my arms out like I am about to catch a bag of flour that my father Jonathan is tossing at me, and I feel a weight in my arms, but I didn’t see anything fall into them, yet somehow there’s a woman lying in my arms. Her black is hair disheveled and covering her face, but I don’t need to see her face to know who it is.

She is Lois Lane.

She was the love of my life, and I so very much wanted to get closer to her. Now that’s not possible because she’s dead, and I was powerless to save her as fear struck me paralyzed to move. My mind screamed at my body to move, but the impulses never made it to my joints in time. She died and I could have saved her… I should have saved her, but I let her down.

I wonder if she ever knew how much I really did care. Not that it matters much now, but I think it would have been nice to know if she could have felt the same way.

Now I have her in my arms and I could dream about us kissing above the city and I could dream about us hovering down to some rooftop where we could make uninhibited and passionate love for however long we wanted to.

I could do all of this, but I don’t.

Instead she looks up at me, lying in my arms, and mutters the words I’ve always wanted to hear her say. “I love you my husband.” Yet, this brings no joy to my heart, as I look into her dark and hollow eyes… it actually terrifies me! I jump in shock as the animated corpse of Lois tries to reach up and touch my face, and I actually let her go…

“LOIS!” I screamed, making the first actual words I’ve spoken in this dream, and I race against time to save her, to make up for failing her. God don’t let her die again…

What if I told you I was Superman? I know what, because I would laugh also.

Superman stood as still as a statue, with his hands on his hips looking at the two would be bank robbers. The bullets that they shot at him ricocheted off of his steel hard skin, going in multiple directions and causing many of the pedestrians inside the bank to dive for cover as if the shots where meant for them anyway.

A smile as white as those t-shirts Kal-El saw on laundry commercials shined as he parted his lips and spoke. “You guys must be new to my city, or you just don’t read the news. Now put down the guns.” Another bullet bounced off of his cheek but he didn’t flinch.

“Eat me, you big blue dummy!” one of the masked robbers shouted. “You ain’t takin’ us down!”

Superman shook his head as he inhaled a lung full of air and then blew it back out at temperatures well below freezing. The ice breath solidified into ice over the assailants hands, freezing their bare flesh to the cold steel of their guns… and they screamed.

“See, wouldn’t it have been much easier to just have listened to me?” asked Superman as he picked the two masked robbers up by the back of their shirts before they even registered him moving.

Exiting the bank, Superman looked out onto the sea of red and blue light that was thrown out by the Metropolis police cars. He dropped the two men to the ground where they clutched their still frozen hand with their free one. “There you go officers! Two evil doers caught thanks to the might of Superman!”

Kal-El took to the sky as the officers thanked the stranger from another world, with a great feeling in his gut. He was the righter of wrongs, the punisher of evil, he was an….

“Arrogant fool!” shouted a woman’s voice.

Superman barely heard the voice; instead, the only other indication he got that someone was with him in the sky was the immensely powerful pain in his jaw as something hit him. And as instantly as he got airborne Superman was now laying in a small crater of his own creation, in the middle of a park.

His mind hurt, struggling to understand what happened to him. Fighting to open his eyes, Kal-El found himself staring up into the cold blue eyes of his cousin, Kara Zor-El, the heroine known as Supergirl.

“Why?” Superman asked as he picked himself out of the crater, oblivious to the numerous eyes of the parks visitors transfixed on the two Krytponians.

So entranced by his cousins glare, Kal-El didn’t see the crumpled paper Kara threw at him in disgust until it was three inches away from his face, but with his speed he snatched it while it was still three inches away. “That is why,” she sneered.

“You’re an arrogant fool!” Supergirl’s voice was full of contempt. “I’ve been away from Metropolis for eight years, and this is who comes to fill the vacancy? Why didn’t you come to me first when you arrived here?”

“How am I to approach you when you take up residence on the moon?” Superman asked as he wiped a hand along his split lip to clean the blood from his face. His cousin was stronger than he was, having been under the yellow sun longer.

“Don’t give me that, you know you can survive in a vacuum.” Supergirl shook her head, the long golden locks falling in a wave over her shoulder. “That doesn’t matter to me now. Your words in that paper are what bother me.”

Superman grabbed the crumpled paper, stood, and opened it to the front page where his interview was. “These are my words and I meant them all. You have no right to interfere with Metropolis anymore,”

“I have no right?” Supergirl’s eyes flared red and the paper burned in Kal-El’s hand. “Your arrogance gives me the right! You have absolutely no idea what life amongst humans is like, do you? You have no concept about the human spirit.”

“Human spirit?” Superman scoffed. “What does one such as I have to know about the human spirit? I do what needs to be done without question.”

“Why?” Supergirl asked, realizing that Superman was unintentionally contradicting himself.

“Why what?”

“Why do you do what needs to be done?” Supergirl elaborated. “How do you know what must be done?”

Superman stood straight upright, his jaw grinding his teeth together under the force of his concentration. He did not like to be questioned for answers that he did not possess. Glaring at Supergirl in contempt, his eyes glowed with fierce frustration.

“I am finished with you,” he said finally. “Do not approach me again unless you are prepared to realize that I will not be questioned. And if you hit me again, I will be forced to strike back. This human spirit you seem to proclaim has no effect on me, and it will not prevent me from the fists of my fury.”

Supergirl shook her head silently before she pulled back her arm and swung at Superman. The resultant sound of the contact her knuckles made across Superman’s jaw blasted windows inward within a hundred foot radius. Shock consumed Superman’s face as he recoiled from the hit. Gripping his jaw in pain, he flew into the air, deserting Supergirl to be alone.

For all of his bravado, nothing saved him from the discomfort of what had just happened to him. Despite the physical assault he had been given, he had been introduced to an impossible conundrum. As he flew, he thought of why he did the things he did and came up failing to come to a conclusion.

Moving his tongue around within his mouth, he tasted the unfamiliar tang of blood pouring from his gums. Further probing knocked a tooth from its root. Searing pain razed through his face as he spit the tooth out of his mouth.

His body was hurt; his head was swimming with questions. He knew only one thing to do. He needed to find Clark Kent, the only man who had questions that Superman could answer and perhaps the only man who could answer the questions he now asked himself. Ignoring the pain in his mouth and the buzzing in his head, Superman veered in the direction of the Daily Planet.

Clark pushed the door to Mickey’s open; the pressure created by the air conditioning that normally worked against the door making it tough for poor Clark to push was barely noticeable to him today. Inside the bar was a mix of faces, people that he had never seen before; those that existed on a different schedule than Clark, and those that were always here. Kent often wondered if they even went home.

“Kent!” yelled out the bartender Mickey Plick, “you’re in here awfully early, what’s the deal?” Mickey asked as he reached behind the bar and pulled out a clean glass.

“Took the day off Mickey. Perry finally got under my skin and I gave him the riot act. So I took today off to rub it in his face.”

Mickey put the glass on the counter in front of the sitting reporter. “You buy a new set of balls, Kent? You’d usually jump at your own shadow and now you’re some irresistible force of nature.” Mickey smiled and poured the Clarks normal, milk. “You’ve been working out?”

Shaking his head no, Clark turned the glass around a few times on the counter before picking it up. “No, must be the vitamins finally kicking in.” Clark mused, not putting much thought into his more tanned complexion, or growing bulk. “Or milk really does do a body good.” Clark took a swig and put the half empty glass on the counter… then his face clouded over.

Mickey noticed as he moved on to serve another customer. “What’s on your mind, Kent?”

Clark shook his head, like he tried to literally shake the thoughts from his own mind, but couldn’t. “I’ve been having some odd dreams, an obsession with being Superman…” Clark drifted off, but regained his composure. “I even dreamt that I had Lois in my arms,”

“Lois? She was your hopeful girlfriend, right?” asked Mickey.

Clark looked at Mickey’s eyes, his own fighting off the tears. “Yeah, I was actually about to make my move the day she was murdered.” He wiped his eyes to beat back the tears before they started. “It was horrible, Mickey, she didn’t deserve that,”

The bartender instinctively began to wipe the counter top with his damp rag. “What happened, Kent?” Mickey asked. “The details were rather sketchy.”

“Well, we were… we were?” Clark’s face morphed into pure confusion and struggle as he fought to find the words to say.

“It’s okay, Clark.” Mickey patted his friend on the shoulder. “I shouldn’t have pried.”

Clark looked up at Mickey. “No, it’s not that,” his voice pained. “I can’t remember!”

Kal-El hovered in front of the window, staring at it in some uncertainty. He reached out, and placed his palm on the window and pushed on the frame, but without gentleness he busted the frame, and the glass shattered onto the floor of the janitors closet. With the obstruction no longer obstructing, Superman hovered through the windows threshold and landed in the closet.

To find that he wasn’t alone.

“Hello, Superman, what do I owe the pleasure?” asked the man, who was leaning against the opposing wall.

The Kryptonian’s eyes narrowed. “I am here to see Clark Kent, take me to him immediately.”

The man smirked, and shook his head. “Can’t do that, you see. Clark isn’t here today,”

Superman looked at the man for a few seconds in silence before turning to the window. “Then I have no further business here.” Superman didn’t get a step away before Perry White reached out and clamped a hand on his shoulder, and it felt like a vice grip. Kal-El tried to shrug the hand off, but it was futile.

“No, don’t go anywhere yet, Kal-El, I am not finished with you.” Perry White smiled like a shark that had a guppy in his sights. “I want to talk about an old love of yours… Lois Lane.”

“I do not know of this woman that you speak of, you are mad?!” Superman’s voice raised, and the power behind it would have caused most men’s ears to bleed, but Perry didn’t so much as flinch.

“You don’t remember her raven black hair, the way it felt as your hand ran through it? You don’t remember the soft touch of her skin, the way her laughter warmed your heart?” Perry snickered and pointed a scolding finger at the Man of Steel. “You would forget the disappointment in her eyes as she died because you weren’t there to save her?”

Superman’s eyes widened in fright and he backed away from Perry White, who let go of Kal-El’s shoulder, as memories he never knew he had flooded his mind. “No, this Lois Lane doesn’t matter to me.” But there was something in Superman’s voice that wasn’t convincing: it was denial.

Perry White raised an eyebrow and took a step closer to Superman and jammed a finger into the Man of Steel’s chest. “You let her down, Boy Scout. You let her die! Remember your wedding day? All of your good friends were there,”

Superman looked down at the floor, the memory of holding Lois in his arms, but it confused him, as he knew he never lived these moments.

“The sun was shining through the colored glass. It was the best day of your life, wasn’t it? Finally getting the love that you always deserved from the woman you’ve always wanted,” Perry pressed on.

Kal-El looked up from the floor, with tears in his eyes as the memories overwhelmed him. “You’re lying… None of that happened…” Superman didn’t want to believe the editor of the Daily Planet. “What are you doing to me?” Kal-El cried out.

“What I have been trying to do for years,” Perry grinned as he watched Superman break.

“What d’you mean you can’t remember?” Mickey asked, full of confusion. “You were right there when it happened, weren’t you?”

“I think so,” Clark replied, confused as Mickey. “I remember her dying as if it were minutes ago, but for the life of me I can’t remember what happened.” He stiffened up his slouch as he thought. Something felt terribly wrong.

“You said the details were sketchy, right Mickey?” Clark asked the bartender, who nodded affirmatively. “Why would the details be sketchy concerning the murder of Metropolis’s most famous reporter? Wouldn’t that get more than a little press in her own newspaper?”

“What are you getting at, Kent?” Mickey asked as his brow crumpled under the stress of his heavy thinking. “You saying it never happened?”

“We both remember it happening,” Clark said. “I just don’t think we’re supposed to believe that it happened the way it happened. Something isn’t right.”

“Damned right something’s not right and I’ll start by saying that your head ain’t right,” Mickey quipped as he failed to understand what Clark was explaining.

“Maybe, Mickey. Think about it. There’s this Superman guy in town. Can’t there be something else out there that’s trying to confuse us for some reason? Is there a being like Superman or maybe one of Superman’s foes that wants us to forget something about Lois? If someone like Superman can exist in this world, then there’s no reason to believe that there aren’t an uncountable amount of devils, rogues, villains and imps out there that are equally as powerful. What if one of those things has a problem with me? Or you?”

“Me?” Mickey asked in self-defense. “Why would an imp have a problem with me?”

Clark, with blinding speed, grabbed Mickey by the collar and effortlessly yanked him from the ground. Clark held the bartender inches from his face as he realized what was going on.

“Because you aren’t Mickey Plick?” Clark asked. “You’re an imp yourself, Mxyzptlyk, and your game’s over.”

Mickey Plick shook in fear as Clark accosted him with the ludicrous deduction. Mickey’s state of confusion was completely replaced with horror, as if Mickey were terribly lost. His horror while dangling from Clark Kent’s vice-like grip disrupted Clark’s concentration enough to perceive the truth behind the entire debacle. Mickey Plick was not Mr. Mxyzptlyk at all.

“Great Caesar’s Ghost, Clark,” Perry White whimpered in Clark’s grasp, “what’s going on?”

“Perry?” Clark gasped in fright as he set Perry to the ground as carefully as possible. Clark was once again confused, mere seconds after he had believed he had figured it all out. But this was confirming his primary suspicion. Something was most definitely wrong.

“If you’re Perry, then…” was all Perry White heard before Clark Kent streaked through the door of Mickey’s Bar and was gone. Quickly moving to see where Clark was heading, Perry looked out into the street and saw no trace of Clark Kent.

“The other one said you know nothing about the human spirit, Superman, and I’d hate to have to disagree with her,” ‘Perry White’ announced as Superman leaned against the wall of the broom closet. “Without your human spirit, it is easy to finally get what I need out of you.”

“Why do I feel this way, human?” Superman said through his tears. “I was unstoppable only to be brought to my knees by the thoughts in my head and the stinging words of an old man. How is such a thing possible?”

“You’ve obviously lost your connection with Kent, Superman, otherwise you’d know that I make things possible. All things and anything I want.”

‘Perry’ raised his arm and bashed his closed fist into Superman’s face. Superman stumbled back in pain, disoriented from the blow. Superman was no longer in any condition to defend himself as ‘Perry’ dealt another blow to his midsection.

“The only thing I want right now, Superman, is for you to fall,” ‘Perry’ demanded. “Fall and keep falling until you are out of my way forever.”

‘Perry White’ picked up Superman effortlessly and tossed him from the hole that Superman had so recently made without a thought. Superman tumbled from into the sky as ‘Perry’ watched, victorious after all of his efforts and attempts. Metropolis and this reality now belonged to him.

To Be Continued...

Next Issue: “Who is Perry White?”, Good question isn't it? I bet you all thought you really knew, but none picked up on our clues until this issue gave them all away! Oh well, we feel better, and you all should feel like asses. Read in two weeks for the dramatic ending of ALTERED EGO!

Previous Issue | Next Issue