hells_half_acre (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hells_half_acre) wrote2006-10-12 08:15 pm
hells_half_acre) wrote2006-10-12 08:15 pm
Entry tags:
Superhero
Just because I can bend gravity to my will, doesn't mean I'm a superhero. Perhaps I lack imagination, but I just don't see the appeal of wearing spandex and tracking down enemies. Mostly I just use my ability for mundane things. It's easier to find your car in the parking lot when you can jump up and hover a bit and get a birds-eye view. Sometimes when I'm in a particularly nasty mood, I'll rise 20 feet above my friends head and yell "Try getting me to talk about it NOW!!" and then wait until they furrow there brows in frustration, clench their fists, and storm off like some character from a japanese anime. I usually feel bad after that, but not quite enough to actually stop doing it. A nice thing is that I can choose exactly how much I want to weigh when I get on the scale. It impresses the girls at the gym, but deep down I know that controlling weight doesn't affect mass.
I suppose if I wanted I could save suicide jumpers. There's that one bridge in town that everyone uses, so they are easy to find. I tried it a couple of times, but they were never thankful, and most of the time they just waited until I was gone or killed themselves another way. What did everybody expect? I'm no psychiatrist, I can't REALLY help those people. I prevented a couple of rock climbers from dying, a couple of kids from breaking their necks. I didn't prevent them from falling completely, I still let them hit hard enough to knock them out or break a leg. It's important that they know they are mortal after all. I wouldn't want to prevent people learning from their own mistakes.
Still, I can't be everywhere at once. I've got no sixth sense for danger, nor can I hear a woman screaming from across town. It's not like in the comic books where the superhero is always just in the right place at the right time either. If you think about it, how much of the stuff on the news are you usually eyewitness to? I guess it depends where you live and what your habits are, but I'm horribly average, and looking for trouble goes against all my basic instincts. Really, the only exceptional thing about me is that I can bend gravity to my will. it's not like I have skin made of kevlar as well, or that my reflexes are any better than average.
No comic book superhero ever talks about the downsides either. The dreams where I'm so heavy that my bones are breaking. I can't move my jaw and I can't wake up. I can't move and there's a stranger in the room. I try to talk but my tongue is plastered to the side of my mouth, my ribs are pushing down on my heart and my lungs are deflating. When I wake up I overreact and now the ceiling is cracked where my head hit, and I have to where a bandana to hide the bruising. Honestly, who would be in the mood to fight crime after a rotten nights sleep and a fresh headwound?
Oh sure, when I first discovered my ability I was excited. Everywhere I wanted to go I jumped to - leaping tall buildings just like the original superman. The novelty wears off when you spill your coffee all over your suit. They just don't make those cups to withstand gravity experiments. Besides, walking is better anyway. There's something about the sunshine on your face, the anonymity of being part of the crowd. I didn't mind the blurry photos in the paper and the speculation, but then someone said I was "slightly chubby for a superhero." It was just uncalled for. I only weigh 80 pounds...at the moment.
Some of my friends that know about it think I'm just lazy. They keep bringing over design sketches for increasingly bizarre form-fitting outfits. They keep pointing out puppies and kids that I could have saved if I'd been there. But just because I can bend gravity doesn't mean I can see the future, I can't just show up at puppies' and kids' houses and hang out "in case" something should happen to them that day. They'd put me in jail for being a creep, and I'm sure the puppy or kid I didn't hang out with would be the one that fell off a cliff chasing a frisbee.
Another friend once told me I should dedicate myself to science. It's suggestions like his that keep me from telling people about any of it. I've never been good at science. I nearly failed chemistry in high school, and the only reason I passed physics was because it's mostly math. Naturally, my own skills on the subject wouldn't matter in the long run, because no matter what good intentions people started off with, I would surely just end up another mutant rat in the lab. Something to be poked and prodded and sent through mazes with various tasks to fulfill in order to obtain my proverbial cheese. There is also the worry of what they might use the information for. It would be great if I could cure cancer, but, call my crazy, I think gravity might just be the one thing on earth that DOESN'T cause cancer. No, I'm sure whatever knowledge they gained from me would be put towards mankind's great pursuit of killing each other. Just imagine crushing your enemies using nothing but their own weight. More cruel than mustard gas for sure, but it takes a few examples before new rules of war are implemented, and a few is too many in my opinion. As I told my friend, I may not want to be a superhero, but that doesn't mean I'm evil.
They don't understand. There are other ways to better the world. My gifts aren't going to waste. I just don't advertise. I sit on my front porch and I see the girl down the street bring her new boyfriend home to meet the parents. Little skinny kid and I can tell he's nervous. He goes to the trunk to get the bags, show her stern father he's strong enough to protect his only daughter, the bags are feather light in his hands and for a moment he's baffled, but smiles and doesn't ask questions. The father goes to take them and they are dead weight, "you're stronger than you look son!" The old lady next door and I both know that she shouldn't be able to carry all those groceries home at her age, but wouldn't you know it the bags seem so much lighter, and suddenly her knees barely hurt at all. Her grandchildren show up, and her husband gives me a wave, and suddenly he can swing his grandchildren up into the air just like he did when his own kids were young.
Just because I can bend gravity to my will, doesn't mean I'm a superhero. Like most things in life, it's not about what you do, but how you feel.
I suppose if I wanted I could save suicide jumpers. There's that one bridge in town that everyone uses, so they are easy to find. I tried it a couple of times, but they were never thankful, and most of the time they just waited until I was gone or killed themselves another way. What did everybody expect? I'm no psychiatrist, I can't REALLY help those people. I prevented a couple of rock climbers from dying, a couple of kids from breaking their necks. I didn't prevent them from falling completely, I still let them hit hard enough to knock them out or break a leg. It's important that they know they are mortal after all. I wouldn't want to prevent people learning from their own mistakes.
Still, I can't be everywhere at once. I've got no sixth sense for danger, nor can I hear a woman screaming from across town. It's not like in the comic books where the superhero is always just in the right place at the right time either. If you think about it, how much of the stuff on the news are you usually eyewitness to? I guess it depends where you live and what your habits are, but I'm horribly average, and looking for trouble goes against all my basic instincts. Really, the only exceptional thing about me is that I can bend gravity to my will. it's not like I have skin made of kevlar as well, or that my reflexes are any better than average.
No comic book superhero ever talks about the downsides either. The dreams where I'm so heavy that my bones are breaking. I can't move my jaw and I can't wake up. I can't move and there's a stranger in the room. I try to talk but my tongue is plastered to the side of my mouth, my ribs are pushing down on my heart and my lungs are deflating. When I wake up I overreact and now the ceiling is cracked where my head hit, and I have to where a bandana to hide the bruising. Honestly, who would be in the mood to fight crime after a rotten nights sleep and a fresh headwound?
Oh sure, when I first discovered my ability I was excited. Everywhere I wanted to go I jumped to - leaping tall buildings just like the original superman. The novelty wears off when you spill your coffee all over your suit. They just don't make those cups to withstand gravity experiments. Besides, walking is better anyway. There's something about the sunshine on your face, the anonymity of being part of the crowd. I didn't mind the blurry photos in the paper and the speculation, but then someone said I was "slightly chubby for a superhero." It was just uncalled for. I only weigh 80 pounds...at the moment.
Some of my friends that know about it think I'm just lazy. They keep bringing over design sketches for increasingly bizarre form-fitting outfits. They keep pointing out puppies and kids that I could have saved if I'd been there. But just because I can bend gravity doesn't mean I can see the future, I can't just show up at puppies' and kids' houses and hang out "in case" something should happen to them that day. They'd put me in jail for being a creep, and I'm sure the puppy or kid I didn't hang out with would be the one that fell off a cliff chasing a frisbee.
Another friend once told me I should dedicate myself to science. It's suggestions like his that keep me from telling people about any of it. I've never been good at science. I nearly failed chemistry in high school, and the only reason I passed physics was because it's mostly math. Naturally, my own skills on the subject wouldn't matter in the long run, because no matter what good intentions people started off with, I would surely just end up another mutant rat in the lab. Something to be poked and prodded and sent through mazes with various tasks to fulfill in order to obtain my proverbial cheese. There is also the worry of what they might use the information for. It would be great if I could cure cancer, but, call my crazy, I think gravity might just be the one thing on earth that DOESN'T cause cancer. No, I'm sure whatever knowledge they gained from me would be put towards mankind's great pursuit of killing each other. Just imagine crushing your enemies using nothing but their own weight. More cruel than mustard gas for sure, but it takes a few examples before new rules of war are implemented, and a few is too many in my opinion. As I told my friend, I may not want to be a superhero, but that doesn't mean I'm evil.
They don't understand. There are other ways to better the world. My gifts aren't going to waste. I just don't advertise. I sit on my front porch and I see the girl down the street bring her new boyfriend home to meet the parents. Little skinny kid and I can tell he's nervous. He goes to the trunk to get the bags, show her stern father he's strong enough to protect his only daughter, the bags are feather light in his hands and for a moment he's baffled, but smiles and doesn't ask questions. The father goes to take them and they are dead weight, "you're stronger than you look son!" The old lady next door and I both know that she shouldn't be able to carry all those groceries home at her age, but wouldn't you know it the bags seem so much lighter, and suddenly her knees barely hurt at all. Her grandchildren show up, and her husband gives me a wave, and suddenly he can swing his grandchildren up into the air just like he did when his own kids were young.
Just because I can bend gravity to my will, doesn't mean I'm a superhero. Like most things in life, it's not about what you do, but how you feel.