Clouds Between My Knees
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Clouds are cold. I mean,
it’s already kinda chilly up here but the clouds are even more chill.
They don’t really look cold from below. I used to pretend that clouds
were really soft and fluffy, and that they were really warm. See, if
they spend all day soaking up sunlight, they gotta be warm right? Like
bread fresh out of the oven. But then you actually touch one and not
only is it cold and wet, but your hand goes right through it. Like an
illusion. I feel that way about a lot of stuff lately.
I pretend to sit on
them. That’s an illusion too, but I do it anyways. It isn’t very hard. I
just float at the surface of one, and pose like I am sitting in a chair
or sitting on a hill or something. The darn things keep moving, but
depending on the wind it sometimes isn’t that hard to keep up with them.
Those are the days I sit on clouds. Days with fluffy clouds and no
wind.
I come up here to think.
It’s really hard to think down below. I mean yeah, after a few years of
practice I’ve learned to avoid beast headaches from the noise, but just
because 99% of my brain is ignoring the noise doesn’t mean it isn’t
there. There is noise up here too. Sometimes there is a LOT of noise,
from the wind or whatever. But that’s different. One loud sound is way
better than a billion small sounds. I don’t sit on clouds during windy
days anyways.
It is calmer up here.
Peaceful. I don’t feel a lot of peace most of the time. I know a lot of
people deal with stress and pressure and insecurity and blah blah blah,
but they are not me. It’s different for me. I have this vague awareness
that is how every teenage girl on the planet feels, but I choose to
ignore that.
I think I’m more or less
justified in feeling that nobody understands how it feels to be me.
Shut up “vague awareness”, just shut up. There is like, unusual
circumstances okay? Most people are put into the group “most people”
because they are similar to most people. But nobody on the planet has
ever dealt with the same issues I have to deal with. Well, maybe one
person, sort of. Not really though. He’s similar in a couple ways, but
way way different in others.
Anyhows, the point was I
come up here to think. I don’t accomplish much during that thinking. I
tend to just mentally ramble forever and go in circles over and over.
Kinda like I was just doing a moment ago. Or is it rather what I am
doing right now? Or rather... Oh God, this is getting out of control, I
need to change my train of thought, like, right now.
People often say that
the world looks like a bunch of toys and models when you look out the
window of an airplane. Like dollhouses and matchbox cars and model
trains. I don’t think it’s true at all. I think people only make that
comparison because of subconscious resemblance to looking through the
glass windows of a toy store. Or looking at their phone camera. I think the whole glass window thing is a
big factor. If they could see the world like I can see it, without a
piece of glass or plastic between the world and their eyes, it doesn’t
look like toys at all.
To me looking at the
world from way up above is a lot like sitting at the food court in the
mall, and watching people do stuff, except like, a million times more
variety of stuff to look at. The people driving fast on the throughway
over there are like people rushing by through the main atrium. The cook
who just walked out the back of that restaurant for a cigarette is
exactly like the cook that walks out the back entrance of the food court
place for a cigarette. The middle school kids playing soccer over there
are just like the little children running around the mall fountain
while their mothers discuss what store to go to next.
It’s way better than
toys and models. Those things don’t do anything unless you make them do
it. I like my idea better. My way has more life. Or maybe I am just
obsessed with malls. I imagine that is what my friends would say, in a
joking way of course.
I wonder sometimes about
that. Everything else aside, do I fit in the group “most teenage
girls?” Like, if you take away the powers and the backstory and the
fame, would the stuff left be anything resembling the average “Moster?”
Haha, “moster.” Now I am starting to talk like the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. God, she would be like my favorite person if she was real. Focus, fooocus. So yeah, if you took away the stuff that makes me
different from most, would I be average?
Wait. I just repeated
that. Duh. Of course it would, that applies to every person ever. Take
away the stuff that makes them different and everyone is like everyone
else. That isn’t what I meant. I meant like, I meant like the other
parts of me, that aren’t the parts that make me me. Oh, that doesn’t
make any sense!! See, sometimes I’m not that great at expressing myself.
Like, I get so flustered, and then I get all upset, and I get even more
flustered, and I... uh... I... I...
Oh bother.
One time, I was all
surrounded by these reporters and news people, and they were all asking
me questions at once, and I was trying to answer but this was back when
my English was not very good, and I was getting really really upset. I
was all confused and scared and I was one step away from leaping
straight up into the air even though I knew I couldn’t control my flying
yet and would have crashed.
And then out of nowhere
Clark appeared. He put his hand on my shoulder and everybody shut up
immediately. He didn’t even need to say anything, and everyone shuffled
around so they were only in front of us, and nobody spoke without
raising their pen or hand first and waiting to be acknowledged. Not one
person took a photo without direct permission. It wasn’t just that
though, as soon as Clark was there, every single person stood up
straighter. Every woman present touched their hair by reflex and I even
saw one guy straighten his tie.
Clark asked me if I was
alright, and when he smiled, it was like suddenly I believed inside that
things were going to be okay. The news people spoke more quietly and
politely asked me questions. Clark helped me understand some of the
words, and everyone smiled when he made a small pun. After a little bit
Clark asked for us to be excused, and everyone thanked me for my time,
and left. Right before we walked off, a camera-man nervously asked me if
I could please sign something for his daughter, since she was a big fan
and it was her birthday next week.
Nobody had ever asked me
that before, and I was like, all embarrassed. I broke the man’s pencil
twice and ripped the paper trying to control my strength. So Clark
helped me hold a pen, and I signed the cardboard back of the man’s
notepad. He was really grateful, and apologized for how rude his fellow
news people had been at first.
That was slightly over a
year and a half ago. I like to think I have changed, and improved, a
lot since that day. But I still look back on that day often. It is the
day I first realized what I wanted my future to be like. I tell myself
that my goal in life is to have the effect on people that Clark does.
I don’t just mean the
way people act when he is around. Sure, everyone is instantly nicer and
more respectful. People square their shoulders when he approaches,
nobody ever argues in Clark’s presence. But it is way more than just
that politeness thing. When people see Clark, you can literally see
their entire mood change for the better. Clark brings hope wherever he
goes.
When he arrives on a
crime scene, only the absolute worst criminals do not immediately turn themselves
in. When Clark walks into a soup-kitchen, you can tell that for the
first time in a long time every downtrodden and broken person there
honestly believes their lives will get better. I once witnessed a woman
pull out her cellphone, call her husband, and apologize for something,
with no other prompting than watching Clark fly past up in the sky.
I want to be like that. I
want to have that effect on people. I want to bring out the best in
others just by being myself. I want my actions to inspire and motivate
those around me to strive for, and to reach, the potential for greatness
and for goodness that Clark has always said they have. I want to be a
light. I want to be like the sun that means so much to me. I guess what I
am using a whole lot of extra words to try and say is like; I want to
be a hero.
I guess that is the crux
of my dilemma. The reason I come up here to think. I desperately want
to be something I am not. I don’t feel like a hero. I feel like a dumb,
ugly, useless little girl. Oh my, that sounded sooo emo! Gosh, can I take it back? Not to mention
outrageously cliché. Is that what I sound like out loud or only in my head? I mean surely I sound more like, suave than that right?
Still, the point is how can I inspire others around
me to be better like Clark does, when I cannot even convince myself I
am better? Wait, no, that isn’t what I meant. I didn’t try to imply that
I am, or need to be, better than others. I meant like, personally I
don’t think I am very inspiring, so why would anyone else be inspired by
me.
All that internal jazz
aside, I don’t think I look much like a hero. I’m really skinny and I’m
still losing weight. A couple months ago I weighed forty pounds more
than I do right now. I suspect I am underweight. At least I’m pretty
sure I am. It’s hard to tell, since I have nobody to compare myself to. The differences in biology and such means human standards for health
don’t really apply to me. But old ladies tsk when they see me, so...
I literally break normal bathroom scales when I step on them. I break a lot of stuff. Heh... I weigh myself using farm equipment, the big scales used for livestock. Ironic right? Girls insult each other by calling each other cows. I actually weigh as much as a cow. Last time I checked, I was 1,093 pounds. The most I have ever weighed was about 1,250.
When I look down I can’t
help but see my ribs, and my legs. My knees are kinda knobby, and all
of my ribs are visible, though the upper ones you can only see at the
sides. But this thinness is like, made even worse by the muscle. I have
basically no body fat. The couple of scientists that are the closest
thing me and Clark have to a real doctor say this is a side effect of my
digestive process. That doesn’t make me feel better about having tiny
breasts. Breasts are a really bad subject with me. Well actually I think they are great! So like, my breasts are a really bad subject with me.
But yeah, anyways,
another side effect of my internal processes is muscles. Thankfully this
is not like, you know, grotesque body-builder or anything. More like a
thin boxer, or a thin distance runner, or a thin soldier. Or something like that. Something thin. I like
to tell myself I have the physique of a wild cheetah. It helps. A
little.
Something else that
bothers me all the time is how pale I am. I literally soak up the sun
and I never, ever, get even a little tiny tan. A tanning bed has
absolutely no effect even if I turn it to max and spend hours in there.
So I am like, doomed to be pale forever. My hair is really pale too, a
whitish blonde. Same with my eyes, they are like, the palest blue you
can possibly be without being albino.
What makes this worse is
like, Clark and Dianna and stuff and the way they look. Clark is almost
seven feet tall and Dianna is at least six-foot six. He is seven darn
feet tall and I am five-foot two-inches on a good day. I look so
ridiculous standing next to them. They make me look like a child for
Pete’s sake. I mean I understand the basic reason, conceptually. He grew up on this planet with this star, I had a different one of each until post puberty. But that doesn't make it less unfair!
Clark is like a walking
statue. His face is "chiseled", his hair is perfect. He has the ideal
amount of muscle to be sexy without looking too bulky or beefy. He is a
little pale but his hair is brown, and he's still noticeably darker
skinned than me. I am mostly okay with this, he’s a boy and all, so we
don’t really overlap, but man, people often don’t even believe we are
blood relatives, and you know, that kinda hurts.
It’s worse with Dianna. I
know it sounds so totally immature, but like, I get
so anxious comparing myself to her. She is completely gorgeous! The
woman is a real life Greek goddess. Tall yes, but what is that local saying,
all the right curves in all the right places? I don’t know if it’s the
ethnicity or the tropical island she grew up on, but she has the perfect
exotic skin tone, and luxurious wavy pure black hair. Her jewelry and
clothing are always like, the coolest blend of culturally traditional
and stylish, and her voice is smooth but hard.
Gah. It’s like, I mean,
it’s not even fair! It’s like she was born perfect, it’s like she
doesn’t even have to try! Wake up like, "oh, what a coincidence, I look like a supermodel this morning. Better go say something wise to the U.N." I try to sound commanding and assertive like
she always is, and I end up sounding bossy or bitchy. She can be all
alluring and stuff when she wants to but when I try doing the exact same
thing it doesn’t work and I just come across as either slutty or stupid.
Okay, okay, enough being
lame. I am not like, a giant blubbering crybaby inside,
honest. I'm not. I just go on and on like that since I just get really gosh darn
frustrated. It’s frustrating to spend all your time with pillars of
perfection. I mean fitting in is freakin’ hard enough without spending
all your time with goddesses and international superstars. High school
‘aint got nothing on this, and I still have issues dealing with high-school sometimes.
Sigh... And these people
really expect me to handle vicious bloodthirsty murdering criminals all
by myself? I can’t even handle the trials of lunch-period and birthday
parties. I mean seriously? I'm not even allowed into bars!
There is a plane going
by. It’s probably flying in circles, waiting for its turn to land. It’s
at least half a mile away, but if I focus I can see every tiny detail. I
can see every single scratch on the paint. I can see inside the
windows, read the crossword puzzle that lady is working on. I have no idea what language that is. I can’t see
through the metal though. Not this far away.
My eyes can track the
spinning blades of the engines. I tried explaining this to a couple of
my friends. It’s not like watching something in slow motion, since it’s
moving really really fast, but there is no blur. None. No transparency,
no stuttering effect, no afterimage. I get the same thing with car
tires. Bullets too. It’s hard to explain. Well, it's easy to explain with words but like, it's hard to really "get it".
I don’t think my friends
really understood. Like, they knew what I was saying, from a scientific
and intellectual perspective, but they didn’t really understand.
How could they? It is not something they are physically capable of
seeing. I don’t know, maybe their brains, like, couldn’t process that
type of visual input. Or maybe it could, in theory, but they never had
to for their entire lives, and so that part of the brain didn’t grow? I
don’t know. I’m not very good with how brains work.
I’m not very good with
how any part of me works. I know a bunch about how normal people... No
wait... Aunt Martha told me to use the words, “other people”, not
“normal people.” Anyways, I know a bunch about how “other people” work. I
took classes in school. I read books. I even get to look inside them
whenever I want, though it’s not like I don’t have plenty of experience
seeing what is beneath the skin without looking through it.
But me, my body, it is a
giant mystery. Only a couple people in the whole world know much of
anything, and they only know a little bit. Clark’s creepy handsome friend says it
is better that way. If bad people knew how I worked, they could make me
not work as well, or worse, make me stop working. Well, that isn’t
exactly how he said it, but I like my way better. It’s shorter, and
nicer. I tend to paraphrase a lot. It makes Clark’s creepy handsome friend
annoyed. (Ugh, it makes me uncomfortable that I find him attractive.)
I know a little bit
though. Our bodies make stuff happen by using energy that we get from
chemical reactions in our cells. That’s why we eat, so that we can get
the right stuff to break apart and put back together. I need to eat,
just like “other people”. I get hungry. I get a belly-ache if I eat too
much. But it doesn’t really seem to matter all that much what I eat, as
long as it is vaguely nutritious. So I don’t think I break the same
stuff apart that other people break apart, or at least I break the same
stuff apart but do it in a different way.
There’s something else
though, that probably makes a much bigger difference. I eat sunlight.
That sounds so weird when I put it like that. But I do. I take sunlight,
and I break it down, and I turn it into energy in my cells. A lot of
energy. A lot.
My first thought after
learning this was pretty depressing. I was all sad since I was more like
a plant than an “other” girl. But then I found out a bit more and I was
all happy that it wasn’t really true. I don’t have any chlorophyll or
anything like that. Plants use sunlight too, but I use it in a different
way. I’m more like an animal that eats sunlight than a plant.
Sometimes I wonder if
that means there is always sunshine in my brain. Haha. That sounds like
something from a hipster song. I don’t know if my brain eats sunlight
the same way my body does. I don’t think anybody alive knows. If there
really is sunshine in my brain, I wish it would shed some light on the
issue. Haha. I feel poetic.
Actually, I feel kinda
annoyed now. I was thinking in the back of my head about how it would go
if I tried explaining how I eat sunlight to my friends the way I tried
explaining to them about the way I can track moving objects. And it
occurred to me the first thing they would say in reply wouldn’t be
anything about the actual explanation, but rather the way I explained
it. My friends say I speak like a child. That I use too many small words
and not enough big ones. They laugh and say I should not talk the way I
talk because all I am doing is encouraging unfortunate stereotypes
about dumb blondes.
I don’t think it’s true.
Not the blonde thing, the way I talk thing. Well actually the blonde
thing kinda bothers me too. My hair was blonde way before I started
talking, so like, how is that connected? But that’s not the point. I am
not stupid. I know a lot of big words. I know how to spell
metabolism. I know the difference between catabolism and anabolism. I
know how enzymes work. But I like the way I talk better. My way of
talking is simpler and friendlier. My way of talking is “sunnier”.
I don’t really let it
bother me though. Lois said I often sound silly, and Barbara said it is
hard to take me seriously when I am talking about serious stuff, and I
am not perfectly happy with that, but I am okay with it. It is “normal”
for friends to joke and tease each other. That’s how it is supposed to
be. The only time it truly got to me was the one time Dianna mentioned
it to me.
Dianna is always so
formal and sophisticated. She told me once that: “Eloquence is not
decoration for language Kara; it is a method through which we may
express ourselves on a level of comprehension more lasting and
influential than the minimums required for communication.” Then she
carried on her conversation with Clark like I wasn’t even there.
I spent all night
sitting on the roof thinking about it. I cried a little too. Dianna is
one of my two biggest heroes. I admire her so much, it’s not even funny.
I want to be like her. To have my icon rebuke me for something so
integral to who I am as my manner of speech, it was just totally
crushing. I felt so hopeless and lost, thinking to myself that it was
surely a sign I would never be like Dianna.
Yeah... I wasn’t really at
my best that night.
I eventually came to
terms with the fact that, for the moment at least, I am not very much
like the person I want to eventually be, and changing my manner of
speech, while a step in the right direction, would not drag the rest of
me up to those lofty heights. So I told myself that when I felt I better
resembled my heroes overall, I would form a way of talking that better
suited and matched the rest of me. It was enough to make me feel okay enough to speak in Dianna’s presence again, at least.
Sometimes I wonder if
Dianna knows how I feel towards her. A woman like her, I think, just
sorta naturally assumes everyone around her will respect her, and I bet
she is used to having like a billion fans all over the world. So like, it would not particularly mean anything special to her that I idolize her, since half the planet already was doing that before we met anyways.
I don’t handle fame very
well. I don’t think I deserve like, “fans,” and I get all uncomfortable
whenever I interact with them. Thankfully I rarely ever am forced to
talk to anyone. See, I rarely act independently in regards to society as
a whole. I attend some parades or dinners from time to time, but always
alongside other, more prominent members of the meta-human community,
who naturally do the talking, and draw the eye.
On the other hand, just
because Clark soaks up people’s attention, being so similar to him means
that a lot of that attention leaks over to me. I was happy when I found
out I had a Wikipedia page. I was less happy the first time I typed my
nickname into Google’s image search without the Safe-Search filter on.
Sigh... See, the problem is that being like me gives you all the bad
side-effects of being really famous, without giving you very many of the
good.
I am poor. Thus far I
have found it impossible to get a job that pays anything, since aside
from like, you know, constantly breaking stuff and being forced to hide
my powers, I am really really busy with both school and training. So
basically I live in a tiny studio apartment paid for by my aunt and
uncle, and eat a lot of ramen noodles. And sunlight.
The most valuable things
I own are all gifts from others. Like my custom made keyboard that
doesn’t break when I type on it I got for my birthday, or the three and a
half thousand year old pair of gold earrings Dianna gave me when we
celebrated the first time I ever saved a person's life. But like, in terms of
actual money, my wallet has moths in it.
Now there is in theory
the merchandising thing. Clark has a really expensive but really really
good lawyer and his assistants handle everything in regards to
copy-right and legal stuff that I don’t really understand. He also has a
couple bank type dudes oversee money. When I first arrived here, Clark
asked them to also handle those things in regards to me as well. They do
an awesome job, so far as I can tell, but the thing is, none of those
people know that the man in the red cape is actually Clark, or that
the short skinny girl who nervously tried not to break their hands when
she met them is actually Kara.
So I can’t actually
access any of that money. Not a single penny. If I want to buy a t-shirt
with the “S” symbol on it I don’t even get a discount! And of course
nobody on the planet would ever ask a relative of Clark’s to
pay for food, or a bus ticket, or ask them to show ID, or whatever. But
no-name-who-gives-a-crap Kara can darn well cough up. So while
people gladly give money to fundraisers where me and Clark clean up a
downtown city street, nobody donates to the Help Kara Buy Concert
Tickets Charity.
Still, I think it is
worth having another identity, though I don’t like to call it a secret
identity. Dianna does not have one, but she has Themyscira to be normal
in. But she is one of the only exceptions. I didn’t understand at first,
but Clark and I took a long walk around Metropolis once, and he
explained it to me. I agree now, it’s important, very important, to have
a normal life outside of the spotlight. Especially a spotlight as
harsh, and violent, and high-stakes as the one we are in, for the sake
of others if not ourselves.
It can be hard to keep
that kinda secret at times. There are so many parts to the issue. The
temptation to use my powers all the time in everyday situations is
brutal. I am short and skinny and a girl, so I always like have to ask
people for help carrying stuff to keep up appearances, and pretend that
pushing open the thick office doors is hard. I’ve got like a telescope
in one eye and a microscope in the other, but I wear glasses most of the
time, and pretend I can’t see very well without them. I have to let
things spill when my real reflexes are fantastic, or let myself slip and
fall when I can levitate. I even miss the bus and am late for things
when I could have just flown there. Or ran.
But worse than all that,
way worse, is willingly not helping people. When I see a little kid
across the street about to fall and scrape his knee up, and I know, I know
I could catch him, it feels awful to just let him get hurt. I watch the whole thing in 4K HD with no motion blur... I mean
there would be no way to explain how I magically sped across the busy
street to catch him, particularly if I was standing right next to
someone I know. Okay, I know a scrapped knee is totally not the end of
the world, but like, it’s the concept that really gets to me.
When people get accidentally locked out of their car and I could forge a key out of melted
pocket change, when an ambulance gets stuck in traffic and I could have
carried the person to the hospital, when I know a couple of my
classmates are cheating because I can hear their tiny whispers all the
way across the room. All day, every day. Little things. And I do
nothing. I just observe but choose to never help.
And it bothers me so
much but what choice do I have? That stuff, while obviously not good, is
not a life or death thing, not something that would ruin an innocent
person’s life, not anything that would traumatize a person for years. If
I did anything about those little things, I would never, ever be able
to have a life away from that blazing spotlight. I could never go to a
classmate’s birthday party. I could never just hang out and have silly
fun at the arcade. Sure yeah maybe I could slide out of it once or
twice, but if I did it every day the larger half of my life that is Kara would fall apart. Larger half? Whatever!
Heh. The sad part is
that half it may be, but it’s not much of a life. Don’t get me wrong, I
have a couple of mundane friends. We hang out. We Snapchat. But truthfully,
we are not that close. Not really. It’s not realistically possible to
let them spend too much time with me without cluing them in to who and
what I am. And you know, aside from that, it’s outright dangerous to be
associated with me sometimes.
A drunk man with a gun
is scary and dangerous enough. Take a vicious psycho and give him
meta-human abilities, and you get a horrible monster. I know a couple
monsters. They hate me. Totally hate me. If they knew who Kara Kent was,
they would go out of their way to hurt and destroy everything that's
part of her.
Okay, so sure,
relationships are an issue, but it’s not only that. I go to school, but I
often like, miss weeks at a time. I could be doing something important
with Clark, or something. And I have to lie about it. I hate lying and I
do it all day every day. For example, this time a while back when I got beat up by a meta-powered fugitive I was helping look for. I
tried my best to defend myself but by the time help got there both my
elbows had been dislocated, I had internal bleeding, and there were
way big bruises on my face and stuff.
Like, how was I supposed
to explain that to my math teacher? How was I supposed to explain that
to my supervisor at work? Cops would ask me if there was anything I wanted to talk about going on at home. My friends have no idea, they would be
horrified and insist on like, I don’t know, taking shifts staying in my
hospital room or something. Which of course I had, but in a secret
meta-human specific hospital with private doctors. So I had to lie, to
hide. I told everyone a relative in another country had suddenly died,
and I would be gone for a while. It sucked.
Okay, enough of this
gloomy ultra-serious stuff, there is another much lighter issue I deal
with. Basically, well, I am a healthy teenage girl. You know... like... oh heck, I can't even talk about it without getting red... It is so darn
frustrating, like, I can’t even touch a boy, any boy, let alone kiss
him or... you know, "other stuff". Kissing me would be like kissing a hot stone statue. Cuddling me would make you start to sweat. Is it so wrong to want a guy to run his hand
through my hair as we snuggle watching the sun go down? Is that wrong?
Is that too much to ask? I mean, I know it sounds super-lame and
super sappy, but still.
But no. No no nope no nadda, it’s not
going to happen. My hair is stronger than steel wire. I use a titanium
comb and brush every night and every morning, and often have it in a
braid to avoid tangles, but even then, it happens. An "other" boy wouldn’t even
be physically capable of running his hand through my hair, ignoring how his poor
fingers might end up all sliced up.
Sigh... And people
wonder why I am so emo. How would you feel if you had to use an
industrial strength laser to remove the hair on your legs since shaving
them was ridiculously hard? On the one hand I have horrible people
trying to kill me and on the other I have creepy perverts buying blow up
dolls that kinda look like me. Like, man, I don’t even know my real
birthday because Clark and I are not 100% sure how the calanders of the different planets line up.
But, well, there is the up side too.
It is all worth it.
Clark first showed me that I suppose, but the others proved it. It’s
worth it. I have saved lives. A lot of lives. Clark says that we have
been given a gift from a higher power. That we are blessed to have not
only the opportunity, but the means to help others. I complain a bunch. I
whine. I get jealous. At times I am sure I must seem very shallow. But
there are freaks and sickos rampaging in the streets, and I could just
never live with myself if I did nothing about it.
Uncle Jonathan told me
shortly after I arrived that Clark would never, ever admit it, but he
was so grateful I was around, because for the first time in his life, he
had someone he could truly lean on. That was two years ago and I am
still not sure I believe it, but I don’t think there could ever be a
greater compliment than that. Uncle Jonathan went on to say that he
believed I was a gift to the world from the Heavens, and that if I gave them a chance,
the people would, sooner or later, show how much they
appreciated that
gift.
I don’t think I am
worthy of the kind of exalted praise he was talking about. I mean come
on, I’m me, not a force of nature, not an angel, not a
paragon or champion or even an icon. But it does feel good. It feels good, you know, to reach
out my hand and pull a person out of a collapsing building. It feels
good to read a letter from a young mother, thanking me so much for
saving her child. It feels good to protect others.
Maybe someday I will
feel that good about myself. At the rate I am going, it doesn’t seem
like it will ever happen. I can leap tall buildings in a single bound. But I just, I just can’t make that leap from being
me to being what I want to be. The person people describe, that I am or
that I might someday become, it sounds like something that could only
exist in the imagination, in a dream.
But still... “even
heroes have, the right to dream.” Oh My God, my friends would say I was
soooo uncool for liking that song. I’ll just sing it where nobody can
hear me, up here with the sun looking down on me, and “clouds between my
knees.” Hahahaha... Ha ha... Ha...