It begins with a spot on the wall.

I’m eating dinner with my wife when I notice a white speck on our red dining room walls near the wooden baseboard molding around the floor. My wife and I are having cold left over pizza for dinner because we’re both tired from a long day at work and we want to spend the little time we have in the evening with our toddler son as he throws applesauce at our heads. But there’s this little spot, just a speck, on the wall. I bend down and scratch it with my fingernail.

A chip of paint falls to the floor. “Hmm…” I say, leaning forward to avoid a flying cheese-covered piece of macaroni. “I guess I’ll have to touch up the wall tonight.”

This one room studio cottage soon grew to a 437 room castle after the owner’s wife said she’d like “a little rack for my spices.”

My wife, never missing an opportunity to keep me busy and off the streets, says, “If you’re going to fix that spot you’ll probably need to touch up other spots to match it.”

My agenda for this evening revolves around drinking beer and making fun of people on the TV so I don’t really want to spend those precious few hours sitting on the floor painting baseboards. I try a clever excuse: “Those baseboards are fifty years old, they’ll need more than paint to look good.”

“So why don’t you replace the baseboards?” my wife asks. D’oh! This is getting worse, not better.

“Because if I replace the baseboards I’ll first have to update all the trim around the doorways to know how short or long to cut the baseboards.”

“Why can’t you do the trim and then the baseboards?” she asks.

“I can’t do the trim because we’ve already planned to widen this doorway into the kitchen sometime. There’s not point in putting the trim up if I’m just going to take it down a little while later,” I answer. This is when I realize that I’ve completely lost this game. She has already analyzed this entire conversation and has easily figured out the thousands of possible ways it could go. Like Gary Kasparov playing chess with a chimpanzee, my wife has planned out the whole game before I even have a chance to unfold the board.

“What’s stopping you from widening the doorway now?” my wife asks innocently.

“Well, I’ll have to replace the kitchen cabinets before I widen the door because they are in the way.”

“So why don’t you replace the cabinets now?”

“Because I really need to fix up the slanting floors before I put new cabinets in.”

“What’s keeping you from working on the floors?” my wife asks.

I sigh. “I can’t get to the floors from the basement right now because the ceiling down there has that old sheet rock installed.”

“Can you remove it?”

“Sure, but it will make such a mess that I’d probably have to remodel the whole basement after I tear everything out.”

“Why can’t you do that?”

“Because I don’t have any place to put all the stuff we have in the basement now,” I answer with a sigh. I could mention to my wife that we really don’t have the ability to pay for any of these ideas, but I’m almost afraid she’ll reach under the table and bring out some sort of Carlton Sheets Easy Home Improvement Financing Course book and DVD set.

“What about that addition we keep talking about?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I say slowly. “I guess if we built that addition we could move the stuff from the basement into it while I worked down there.”

“Okay,” my wife responds with a smile. “So now we have a plan.”

I nod, removing a pea that is stuck in my hair. “We’re going to build that addition so that we can remodel the basement so that we can fix the slanted floor that will allow us to replace the kitchen cabinets that will make it easier to widen the doorway that we’re going to put trim around that will make the baseboards easier to replace so that I can paint that speck on the wall.”

“Sounds like a plan!” she says with a smile.

Damn.

2 Comments » | Email Link

Part of the advantage to having a blog which isn’t very popular is being able to “publish” just about anything I want to without actually worrying about how it will be “received” by my readers. I don’t really have any readers, and I certainly don’t expect any other bloggers to read this.

So… here it is for the world to read. A superhero short story. I never bothered giving it a title. I think I will now…

I Never Would Have Done It…

“I never would have done it if I had I known he couldn’t fly,” said the tired young man in the skintight yellow outfit with a giant red ‘V’ splashed across his chest.

Detective Charles Wembley grunted at the statement as he continued to untangle the cord for the small tape recorder in his hand. He separated the mess until it was just long enough to reach the wall outlet and plugged it in. The detective held the machine up to his face and looked carefully at it through his reading glasses. “Dammit,” he muttered as he began rooting through his pockets for a blank tape. He grunted again when he found one in his trench coat that was slung over the back of his chair. The tape slid into the machine half-way and stopped. He pulled it out and put it in the other way and closed the door. Satisfied that the technical work was done for the moment, he looked up and across the table at the only other person in the small police interrogation room.

Detective Wembley saw a lot of wackos around the Christmas season like this, but he rarely saw superheroes hung over from office parties. The detective didn’t know much about this guy except that he was one of the few heroes running around that didn’t wear a mask and didn’t worry about a secret identity. He leaned over to the tape recorder, pressed a button and then sat back.

“Let’s begin with some preliminaries, shall we Mr. - uh - Mr. Vibron, is it?”

“Yes. That’s right. My name is Vibron. I’m the master of vibrations of every sort.”

“Uh-huh,” Detective Wembley nodded looking the bedraggled hero over. The detective blinked a few times. “Umm, Mr. Vibron…”

“Oh, sorry, detective. There’s nothing wrong with your eyes. I’m just vibrating again. Sorry. I guess I don’t even notice when I’m doing it. I know I tend to look a little blurry to normal people.”

Detective Wembley thought he heard a note of contempt on the word “normal.”

“Uh, yeah. Keep it to a minimum, could ya?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay then. Let me just ask you exactly what your powers are, just for the record here.”

Vibron rolled his eyes and drooped his head as he began to recite as though he was reading it off and index card, “I am Vibron, master of all vibrations. I can vibrate any part of my body at amazing speeds and produce a number of startling effects. Among these effects are throwing blasts of vibrations, knocking down walls by shaking them to pieces, flying by vibrating the air around me, and producing sonic blasts with my entire body. And because of my special abilities, I can make a mean martini.” Vibron allowed himself a small smile with the last line.

Detective Wembley just nodded, clearly only half-listening himself. “Okay, Mr. Vibron, what is your real name and how did you become a superhero?”

“I was born Mark Anthony Sherman. I got my powers in a freak accident involving an electric toothbrush, a nuclear reactor, and some damn bastard who installed a bathroom doorknob so it could be locked from the outside.”

“Now, now, Mr. Vibron. No need to get excited here.”

“Look, this is all on file at the SuperHuman Records Center. Can we just get on with this? I feel bad for the Amazing Man, but I do have a date tonight.”

“Hmm… You have quite a reputation as a lady’s man, don’t you Mr. Vibron.”

“I can vibrate any, I repeat, ANY part of my body at any speed. You’re the detective, you figure it out.”

The detective blinked at this and smiled. “Nice power you got there,” he agreed.

“You bet, Pops. I’ve been known to make women faint just by walking past them.”

“Okay, okay. That’s enough of that. While I would love to talk to you about how much of a young stud you are, I think I really want to hear about Amazing Man.”

Vibron’s shoulders slouched. “Yeah, okay. Where do I begin? It was a party, ya know? Things got out of hand. All the superheroes in the city thought it would be a good idea if we got together for a Christmas bash. We work hard, you know, and we all really thought we deserved to blow off the steam. Especially after that whole alien invasion in November.”

Wembley nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“So we organized a party in the offices of S.U.P.E.R. and decided to have it today, the last Friday before Christmas. Then we-”

“Wait,” cut in the detective. “What’s S.U.P.E.R.?”

“Oh, that. I’m surprised you hadn’t heard. We’re unionized now. S.U.P.E.R. stands for Superheroes United to Protect Employee Rights. It happened about two years ago and we admit we’re still a little unorganized. We just established the office on the top floor of the Hamilton building in August. So this was our first real organization party. I guess you were there tonight, huh?”

“Yeah, I was one of the investigating officers. Nice place you all have there. Why did you pick the top floor? I mean, 80 stories up is a little inconvenient at times, isn’t it?”

Vibron smiled. “Not when over half your workers can fly. Besides, what better place is there to watch over the city than one of the highest buildings around? It suits us well.”

“Except it didn’t work with Amazing Man,” added the detective.

“Look, I said it was an accident. I wouldn’t have done it if I had known…. really.”

“Just continue with your statement.”

“Okay, okay. The party began at 2 in the afternoon because some of us still had nightwatch. I wasn’t one of them, by the way, so I began drinking fast and heavy. Most of us fell into that pattern. It was one wild party real quickly.”

“How wild? What sort of things were going on?”

“Don’t worry, detective, there weren’t any drugs there. Allergy Man would have picked it up anyway. He’s allergic to all illegal substances, you know. Breaks out in hives if he gets within 50 feet of them. Much better than any drug-sniffing dog. I understand he’s going to be working for the D.E.A. from now on.”

“Anyway, there was just a lot of wild stuff going on. Phlegm Boy and Mucas Man were have a loogie contest out an open window, Invisible Guy was running around lifting up all the skirts of the superheroines, Lazer Lad was trying to light cigarettes from across the room, but he kept missing and burning tiny holes in the walls and furniture. Thunder Dude and Lightning Lady snuck off to have some intimate fun in one of the supply rooms, but everyone knew what they were doing because the entire east side of the building was caught in a nasty hurricane…on the inside. We were all relaxed and having a good time.”

“And most of you were drunk.”

“Yeah. That, too.”

“And what was Amazing Man doing?”

“He and I were sitting in the middle of it all, playing drinking games. He and I didn’t know each other very well until tonight. I never had patrol with him before, but he always seemed like a pretty cool guy. So we got to talking and one thing lead to another and we ended up playing a drinking game called ‘Physical Challenge’… But we played that we had to challenge each other’s powers.”

“How much had you each had to drink at this point?”

“Let’s see, I was flying pretty high, no pun intended, so I’m going to say that I had about 10 bottles of beer. I only drink beer because I need all the calories I can get. My vibrating body burns an average of 10,000 calories a day, you see and-”

“What about Amazing Man?”

“Umm, that’s hard to say because I think he was a little toasted when he arrived, but I know for a fact that he had a least two empty kegs beside him-”

“You’re saying he drank two entire kegs of beer?”

“Not beer, whiskey. The man loves… umm, loved… his SoCo! See, what makes Amazing Man so amazing is that his body is super dense and efficient. He’s fifty times stronger than the normal man and a hundred times as quick. Unfortunately, his metabolism also burned alcohol at an enormous rate. He needed ridiculous amounts of alcohol to get a buzz.”

Detective Wembley shook his head in amazement. “Where did he put it all? I mean, two kegs of whiskey, didn’t he have to…umm.. you know?”

“He was pissing every hour or so. He had a super bladder, so I guess he could hold it a while. A few other superheros were beginning to get angry with him towards the end because every time he went to piss he ended up blowing a hole straight through the urinal and down through several floors. I don’t envy the maintenance people after New Years. I have a feeling that alone might get us evicted.”

Wembley winced at the thought of peeing so hard it tore through several layers of ceramic and cement.

“Anyway, he was pretty tanked because a little earlier he began singing ‘Louie, Louie’ to Kenny G’s ‘Christmas in the Country’ that someone had put on. Thankfully the stereo was promptly destroyed by Witch Woman. I think she cast a spell and turned it into cottage cheese. We had to rely on the radio after that.”

“And then your drinking game began?”

“Umm, yeah. We didn’t get very far, though. He challenged me, first. He bet me I wouldn’t pick up two bottles of beer, shake them as hard as I could, and then hand them to Immersia, Queen of the Water. I had told him earlier that I had a thing for Immersia, you see. Only she doesn’t drink because she believes in some nonsense about beer being impure water.”

“Did you do it?”

“Sort of. I pulled out two beers from the cooler and began shaking them using my vibrating ability, but I just ended up shaking them incredibly fast for a few seconds before one blew up in my hand and the other flew right out of my hand and exploded on the far wall. Amazing Man was rolling on the floor laughing, so I thought I would try it again. And again. And again. I ended up going through a case of beer before Thermo finally came over and pushed me away. A couple of the bottles did crash near Immersia, though, so Amazing Man accepted it.”

“And then it was your turn, right?”

“Yeah, I sat back down and we laughed some more. I had just made one heck of an ass of myself, and I wanted to do the same to him. I was looking around the room for a challenge, when I saw a pigeon land on the ledge outside. We were about 30 feet from the window and I began thinking that even though pigeons aren’t very smart, they are pretty quick.

“‘How fast do you think you are, Amazing Man?’ I asked.

“‘Damn faster than you,’ he replied.

“‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Catch that pigeon that just landed.’”

Vibron stopped for a moment and shook his head. He continued. “So Amazing Man staggered up and try to focus on the pigeon. He gave me a confident smile and a wink and then BANG! he was off like a bullet. One moment he was right in front of me, the next moment he was a blue and red streak running towards the window. The sound of breaking glass startled everyone there, even me. A moment later we heard his distant scream that faded into silence.”

Both men looked down. Vibron went on. “The entire party stopped. All we could see through the window was a purple early evening sky, some broken glass, and a lot of pigeon feathers floating around outside. I’ll admit that I didn’t know exactly what had happened. I thought the scream was just a little joke of his. Honest.”

“What happened next?”

Vibron swallowed. “After about 30 seconds of everyone staring out the window someone mumbled ‘I didn’t know Amazing Man could fly…’

“The irony, of course, is that he couldn’t.”

The superhero broke down and began crying. “I’m sorry, detective, I didn’t know. I didn’t know! He was larger than life! He could throw a baseball twenty miles! When he sneezed he upset major weather patterns! How was I to know he couldn’t fly! Hell, he even wore a red and blue suit like that hot-shot from Metropolis. I just naturally assumed they had the same abilities! I guess I was wrong…”

Detective Wembley shook his head in disgust. “Ya know, you might have put two and two together. You said he was super dense. He couldn’t come close to flying. Christ, kid, we had to use a pound and half of chalk to outline his body. His crater left a four-lane road closed during one of the busiest times of the year. He was super strong and super quick, but not really all that super tough.”

Wembley reached over and pressed a button on the tape recorder and pulled out the little tape. He stood up and walked for the door. Before he left he turned to Vibron who was still sitting and crying.

“Mr. Vibron, I don’t think I’ll be able to charge you with anything because I have a feeling you’re telling the truth. There were plenty of witnesses, and from what I understand your story pretty much matches theirs. You are free to go, Mr. Vibron, but I want you to seriously consider all your actions from this point forward. Do you understand?”

Vibron nodded as the door slammed closed. He shook his head and whispered, “If I had only known…”

Technorati Tags: superhero fiction, short story

3 Comments » | Email Link

I don’t want you to think that my lack of blogging lately has anything to do with my own laziness, my complete exhaustion from being out of the house for ten hours a day and then coming home to play for several hours with my 16 month old son or my complete and total lack of anything interesting to write about. No, I want you to blame my complete and total disregard for this blog on my attempts at showing solidarity with the striking Hollywood writers.

I welcome the return of stupidity to our national airwaves.

Okay, sure, so I’m technically not in their writing union.

And it is true that I don’t actually watch any television programs on the web, which is what the writers were all striking over.

Yes, it is true that I think network television shows are generally a vast wasteland of mindless one-liners punctuated with insulting over used jokes and implausible plot lines that only serve to make viewers dumber by the minute. The only force on the planet that can make most of this writing seem as though it was written by Shakespeare himself are the “reality” television shows which try to put regular people into “real life” situations that like being stuck in a house full of strangers or being judged harshly by a British person or being attacked by a bear while jumping over a pit of fire.

But, dammit, I was in solidarity with my fellow writers and supporting them while they were sitting at home in their Californian swimming pools, sipping cocktails and not collecting six figure checks for taking scripts from 1950’s sitcoms, peppering them with Internet and cell phone jokes, and then passing them off as new material. I’m happy that these writers can now go back to their grueling 20 hour work weeks and produce more scripted television that is little more than canned laugh tracks layered over crude and obvious jokes with 5 minute plot lines that are artificially stretched to fill 40 minutes of programming.

Now that the strike is over we can finally all get on with our lives. We can finally stop spending time talking with our families, discovering new hobbies and reading new books. We can finally all sit down, turn off our brains and enjoy watching endless hours of people talking about and doing things on television that we’ll never do because we’re too busy watching them all do it for us.

With the writer’s strike being over I finally feel as though I can write again… as soon as I catch up on a few of these shows.

Technorati Tags: writer’s strike, television, why I’m not blogging

No Comments » | Email Link