Phil RedBeard

League of Justice #1.1: “The Thousand Natural Shocks”

Central City, Missouri

Barry Allen hated running. He really, really hated running. As a young man he had been more interested in reading and school work, and as a result, never made time for athletics. The other kids on the playground used to love to race and run about, but the naturally slow Barry preferred to sit under the trees and work math problems. By the time he was a teenager, Barry had minted a catchphrase: “The quick of mind will always beat the fleet of feet.” It didn’t save him any harassment from the bullies, but it helped sooth his wounded feelings when his peers laughed at his discomfort.

As a young scientist, and PhD candidate, he was sometimes forced to run, especially when he overslept and was late for class. Again. Skidding to a halt inches in front of the large, glass doors that led into Garrick Hall, Barry stopped to take a few deep breathes. Garrick Hall was the main math and science building on the Midwestern University Campus. MU wasn’t as big as Metropolis University across Missouri in Kansas, but it was known for being a more intimate community of scholars. While every bit as prestigious, the “other” MU as Midwestern students called it, catered more to the rich and the famous and the upper class. Barry was a farmboy from Fallville, Iowa, and the smaller MU suited him perfectly.

Barry smoothed down his hair and absentmindedly tried to tuck in his shirt, but failed completely and completely failed to notice. Taking the steps two at a time, he scaled three flights of stairs, and walked down the empty hall to his classroom. He tried not to make eye contact with students in the other classrooms as he walked by. Finally he reached room 312 and opened the door as quietly as he could. He slipped into the back row of chairs and sat down.

The class was some variant of Organic Chemistry, and while Barry half listened to the lecture in progress, his mind worked an entirely different problem. Barry was currently obsessed with a new method to produce heavy water that would take half the time and a fraction of the energy currently needed to produce the coolant for nuclear reactors. He had been conducting an experiment all night, which is why he had slept late for class. He felt he was close to a breakthrough.

Later that night…

A bluish flame burned atop a chemical burner, and a cauldron-like flask bubbled. Elsewhere on the lab table, chemicals oozed through pipes or gradually mixed into compounds. Barry Allen was hunched over a laptop entering a large amount of data and simultaneously monitoring his experiments. He doubled checked some results, and toiled over a maintenance program on his supercomputer mainframe that was running a simulation. If he didn’t get the results he was looking for, he would be in serious trouble. He had procured a grant from the prestigious Wayne Foundation for the Sciences, but one thing foundations that granted grants wanted were publishable results. Without them it was hard to secure funding from their wealthy donors. None of that would matter, however, if Barry did succeed. He had secured a conditional contract for use of his formula from LexCorp, the industrial giant run by businessman Lex Luthor. Conditional meaning on the condition that his heavy water synthesis method was useful in some way. Luthor paid well, but only for working prototypes and applications. Otherwise he would blackball a scientist into oblivion. That was the danger of working for Lex Luthor: rich if you made it, forgotten if you didn’t. But Allen was running out of options to continue his education and fund his research, and couldn’t afford to turn down funding, no matter how shady the source.

Outside Allen’s lab, a heavy rain had begun to fall and in the distance, thunder rolled ominously. Barry barely heard it. He rushed from one side of his bench to another. Grabbing some large rubber gloves he grabbed some forceps and carefully lifted a test tube half full with green liquid. He slowly poured it into a flask that contained a purple powder, and ever so gently swirled the two substances together until they mixed. He turned to check the bubbling cauldron and noted the temperature on the attached gauge. Just a few more seconds. He set the flask down and removed his gloves. He pulled a tattered notebook from his pocket and opened to the first blank page. He scribbled a few notes before putting it down. Consulting the thermometer again, he saw that the liquid had reached the desired temperature. He picked up the flask, and stepped up onto a stool next to the lab bench. From here he was able to peer through the steam and into the cauldron. Taking care not to spill or splash, Barry poured his mixture into the boiling liquid. Instantly a thin stream of blue steam lifted into the air, but Barry ignored it. This was expected. What came next was entirely unexpected.

A loud crack of thunder shook the entire lab. From the corner of his eye, Barry saw a bolt of lightning descend from the dark clouds and arc towards the skylight in the lab. Everything afterwards seemed to take place in slow motion:

The lightning jumped to the skylight’s metal frame, shattering the glass. Barry hunched his shoulders and ducked his head against the rain and descending shards. From the frame, the lightning leaped to the top of the chemistry apparatus. It immediately spread throughout every metal frame and connection. It arced through the air, exploding the Bunsen burner and instantly boiling the liquid and the mixture therein. Barry felt a pricking in his thumbs and every hair on his body stood on end and repelled each other. A second and a third flash of lightning hit the exact same point on his set-up and this time shot right through his body. The flask he was holding shattered and for a nanosecond, the mixture within seemed to coalesce into a single point before expanding rapidly in every direction. Barry simultaneously inhaled the gaseous mixture, swallowed what was left of the liquid form, and felt the substance splash onto his skin, leaching into several slashes made by falling glass. A fourth bolt of lightning struck and with a loud bang everything went dark after a final eye searing flash.

League of Justice #1.0: “The Law’s Delay”

Gotham City

“Scum.”

The word once uttered was more growl than intelligible speech, not that it mattered. Once the gloved fist impacted the side of the head, the explosion of pain triggered a deep ringing that made hearing difficult.

“That’s the last time you’ll mess with the Phantom Stranger!”

Phantom Stranger? Is this guy for real? Despite the pain, scattered thoughts still filtered through the would be mugger’s mind. He would have followed that thought up with an audible retort, but the masked man that had gripped his shirt with one hand was landing another blow, this time across the nose, with the other hand. There was a crack and blood spurted. The crook decided cowardice was the better part of criminal enterprise, and blacked out.

The Phantom Stranger released his grip. His former punching bag sagged against the alley wall and slid to the ground like a bag of broken bones. In all likelihood, that was bound to be not just metaphor.

The Phantom Stranger reached down and retrieved an expensive looking leather handbag. He offered it to the woman standing on the other side of the alley, frozen in place.

“Here you go, ma’am. And next time, I’d park in a more well lit area if I were you. Gotham’s dangerous enough in the daytime.”

She took it without a word, and walked as fast as she could back towards the street. The Stranger watched her go.

The Phantom Stranger turned and climbed up a fire escape. Reaching the building roof, he strode to the edge and looked over the street. He watched as the woman made it back to her car, and only when she was safely inside and pulling away did he relax. He pulled off the ski mask he was wearing and ran a gloved hand through his hair.

Bruce Wayne flexed said hand, and vowed to sew more padding into the glove when he felt the familiar sharp pain of bruised bone. Criminals may be stupid, but skulls were still too hard to hit without consequence. Bruce briefly remembered the mugger in the alley. Usually he preferred to leave the thugs for the cops, trussed and waiting, but without evidence of a crime there was little point. Besides, Bruce was noticing that most of the crooks he did deliver to the police, evidence helpfully pinned to their clothes, didn’t end up behind bars. Someone seemed to have sway over the law which meant little jail time for offenders. Bruce was still working up his list of suspects, but it didn’t take a genius detective to connect dots. Crime in Gotham was a family business, and the Falcone family was large and prosperous and slightly beyond the reach of a seventeen year old vigilante.

Bruce’s phone buzzed. He edged back into the shadows before picking it up. The caller ID showed as “Wayne Manor”. Only one person ever called from that line.

“Yes, Alfred?”

“Ah. Master Bruce. How nice of you to answer. May I assume you are still at the library?”

By library Alfred Pennyworth meant Gotham Public Library, where Bruce had said he was going to be.

“Uh, yeah. Still studying.” Bruce was distracted, watching a bum in a ragged coat shuffle down the street. He couldn’t decide if the man was drunk or suspicious.

“That would be an achievement indeed as the library closed an hour ago. Where are you, Master Bruce?”

Bruce cursed. Caught again, and by his butler!

“Oh, right, uh, I mean I’m in the parking lot of the library. Still, uh, studying.” Bruce cringed. What a stupid excuse.

“Indeed. Shall I come collect you?” Alfred’s voice was cold as ice. He was upset. Because Bruce’s mother was dead and his father a coma patient, Alfred had assumed the role of surrogate parent.

“No. I’m on my way home.” The bum had collapsed against a dumpster and had presumably fallen asleep. No real threat there.

Bruce hung up on Alfred and retreated back down into the alley. By the time he emerged onto the dimly lit street, he had removed the mask and gloves of the vigilante known as the Phantom Stranger and had morphed back into Bruce Wayne, aspiring high school graduate. As a matter of fact, he should have been studying. Alfred was pushing him to finish with the same good grades he had always gotten so that he could apply to the prestigious Metropolis University, not that a Wayne would be denied entrance to any university in the country. Bruce’s family fortune guaranteed admittance.

Descending into the Gotham Metro, Bruce contemplated his chosen life, and not the public one that everyone knew. Even Alfred was unaware of the Phantom Stranger and Bruce’s penchant for late night pummeling. Ever since he was a kid, Bruce had felt a churning rage and frustration. He hated injustice and couldn’t stand criminal violence. He often wondered why it seemed more people didn’t stand up for themselves and fight. Without being fully aware, Bruce always felt like his parents’s death was preventable, and hated his younger self for remaining frozen while they were gunned down. He had promised himself he would never be that scared kid again.

He still remembered the first time he actually intervened against a bully, at school one winter a few years ago. The power and the sense of justice he felt was potent. Soon after, Bruce started looking for fights, and not just with school bullies. Leaving a Gotham Raiders baseball game one summer evening, Bruce noticed two guys grab a backpack from a older man after savagely pushing him down. They ran off with their prize, and without thinking Bruce was after them. Three blocks from the stadium he caught up to them. Up close, they were bigger than he was, and not at all intimidated by a kid, but Bruce didn’t even think. He demanded the bag back, and when they refused, grabbed for it. He acquitted himself well, but failed, and had to explain the blood and bruises to a curious butler later. After that night, he trained harder and decided to give himself a bit of an edge. Also he realized it wouldn’t do to be beat up as Bruce Wayne. He was, after all, fairly famous. And thus, the Phantom Stranger was born.

Arriving at the library stop, Bruce, exited the metro car and climbed the stairs to the outdoors. Summer was nearly here and he would soon graduate. Alfred would insist on another summer long journey to some far off country for a three month vacation or “cultural learning experience” as he called them, and then it would be off to Metropolis and college. Soon the Phantom Stranger would disappear from Gotham’s streets.

For some reason Bruce couldn’t quite pinpoint, that burned somewhere deep inside.

He swung his leg over his motorcycle, left in the library parking lot, and revved the engine. Pulling his helmet on, he glared into the darkness. With a spin of the tires, he gunned off for Wayne Manor. For tonight, the Phantom Stranger was off the clock. Bruce Wayne had finals to study for, and this time, for real.

World Mental Health Day

Hi. My name is Phil. I have a mental illness.

It just struck me as I was typing that line that mental illness is often the punchline of a joke or having a mental illness is played for laughs in some circumstances. I know some people would be upset or indignant about that, but I don’t care.

Not caring is a symptom of mental illness, in my case, depression. It takes feeling and a certain level of self actualization to generate outrage and moral fiber and the will to do something, even if it is to say “hey, maybe there really are mentally ill people and they don’t like being made fun of or something”. Also, I find mental illness jokes funny. A consequence of my long association with depression is a very dark and subtle sense of humor. Mental illness jokes appeal to me on a very wrong level. Well, not wrong so much as abnormal.

Anyway, today is World Mental Health Day. I started writing about my experiences with depression a long time ago as a way to help myself articulate what I was feeling to everyone who knows me and bothers to read what I write, and also as a way to destigmatize mental illness. It is a condition anyone can have, just like anyone can break a bone or get cancer. I am an otherwise normal person who is depressed.

I am not sad because of life circumstances, although I do have plenty of those to feel pretty sad about, the reality is I am sad even when everything is great. Case in point: it is currently October, and I am a baseball fan, and October is the time for the MLB postseason. Usually this is my favorite time of the year. It has magic, wonder, the best teams in baseball, and exciting high stakes games. I have to force myself to enjoy my most favorite thing in the world outside of Star Wars. And I haven’t watched Star Wars in over a year, either. And I love Star Wars most. Most people enjoy what they enjoy. They don’t have to try, they don’t ever think about it, they just enjoy it. I have conversations in my head: “Hey, Phil, look: Star Wars!” “Oh, that’s cool. I guess. I mean, it isn’t not cool.” “What?? That is a salt shaker shaped like a Darth Vader PEZ dispenser on a super fluffy blanket that is also a Jedi cloak!! That is mega-Star Wars-awesome!” “If you say so. Hey, is that the ground? It looks like the ground.” Er, something like that. My point is: depression robs me of my chance to feel and to enjoy.

I am on medication, which is why my depression no longer completely debilitates me. I used to live in a black fog where nothing ever was anything other than a painful haze. Now, sometimes, I do enjoy things. Sometimes the sun breaks through and I have a good day. Those days are still rare. What is worse, I have absolutely no control over when I have sunny days or when I have hazy days. They happen when they will.

Because of this I cannot hold a job, most days I cannot bother to look for a job. A month ago I did look for a job. I found a job. I got excited about a job. I even got called to come and interview for the job. I then emailed two days later and turned the job down. In the space of two days I went from feeling like I would be able to engage in an awesome month long job (it was working in a haunted house) to feeling like it was the biggest mistake I could make and there was no way I could handle it. Ever since I have gone back and forth over anger at myself for turning down work when I need the money, disappointment over turning down a cool haunted house job, or being so glad I did because I can’t bother to take a shower much less get out of the house and into makeup and feel any sort of enthusiasm for scaring anyone. Although the reality is most of the time I feel nothing one way or the other about the job.

And the struggle with mental health goes deeper than me. I lost all of my close, emotional support because of my mental illness. My wife left me, being completely unable to understand or cope with my mental illness. I don’t blame her, usually because, like with most things, often I don’t have the ability to be mad or sad about losing my wife. In my few moments of clarity, I acknowledge that living with someone who is completely debilitated by something entirely in their head is not easy at all. It takes a supreme amount of patience, love, and self-strength. I should know, most of the time I hate being me. I wish I could get away from me. But I can’t. I never will. And nothing I do can change that. She could leave, and the truth is: I envy that she could.

So I do my thing. I struggle to get out of bed, to do something on any given day. My dishes go unwashed, my house goes uncleaned, my hair goes uncombed. Then, every so often, I get a breakthrough, a surge of energy and of feeling and I can do some or all of those things. Right now I struggle to pay bills and afford what I need because I have no job and employers aren’t eager to hire people with mental problems, even if I could find a job I could con myself into applying for. Life is tough and you would never know it because I seem so normal, I can write well, when you ever see me I am putting on a terrific acting performance to hide from you what I really am. I smile, I converse, I do things, I seem completely normal. It is entirely an act. I rarely feel anything I emote. And the act so completely exhausts me that I spend the next few days in a fog.

I am strong, I am resilient, which is why I am still here, but being that takes everything I have on any given day. And that is why I am a twenty-six year old man living with a dog in an apartment that I rarely leave and struggle enjoying the best sport in the world at the best time of the year: I have a mental illness, and it is crippling.

Today is World Mental Health Day. Remember that not everyone is obviously ill, but many are suffering in ways you cannot imagine because you are normal. Be the best friend you can to everyone you know, because you might not always know who needs that the most. Don’t try to fix a mentally ill person. You can’t do it. Just be their friend and never stop, no matter how hard that seems. That is the only thing that works. Spread love as far as you can. Some of us need it more than you could possibly imagine. Above all, know this: mental illness is real, and it is just as damaging as cancer or any other human condition.

Search my blog for “depression” to find other posts about my struggles.

League of Justice #0.9: “The Pangs of Despised Love”

I like girls. I always have. I like everything about them. I love the female body, that is just the most obvious part of their loveliness. And I don’t just love the bits that seem obvious to love: of course perky, round, bouncy breasts are enticing. Of course a firm butt is adorable. Of course smirky smiles and smokey eyes are dreamy, but you know, guys have those things too. When it comes right down to it, girls are just rounder more attractive guys. Men are the half finished, flat and hard precursor to humanity perfected: the woman. The one thing that sets us apart are our particularly naughty bits down below. I mean, hello! guys have nipples (it just is an unfair society that let’s them show them off whenever they feel like it). But girls have the sweet, magical, confusing, mysterious, lovely, and quite controversial (to some old white men) baby dispensers. Give a woman a little genetic material, nine months, and bam! a brand new human ready to be molded by society.

So do I love women only because they can make little humans? Please, I am not that simple. Besides, I love vaginas even when they aren’t birthing babies. I even love vaginas when once a month the machinery goes completely haywire, chemicals burst out of their containment fields, and the resulting blown fuses make a girl weep, laugh, rage, and whimper like the world has ended in the same ten seconds. How much fun is that? A girl gets to be a colossal bitch or cry about anything and get away with it because PERIOD: the do-anything-and-get-away-with-it badge of humanity. To make it even better, girls usually get chocolate and wine and space when this monthly meltdown occurs. Be crazy and get gifts? why don’t more girls enjoy their periods?

Anyway, I caused a little bit of turmoil in my house even before I got a body that went nuts for no reason on a regularly scheduled cycle because I told my parents that I liked girls. I wasn’t supposed to do that, but I didn’t know that then. My parents were these religious, buttoned up, southern Protestants. So to have their seven year old daughter walk up to them one Sunday afternoon after church and announce: “I love girls” and then flounce away to play Barbies was a little shock to them. My parent’s Bible told them that boys loved girls and girls loved boys but not any other combination. Carefully, over the next few days, my parents pried out what exactly I meant by what I said and when it became clear that this wasn’t the normal “eww, boys/girls have cooties” thing that every kid has at that age, they freaked out. But, because I was not a “butch” (what a stupid description) girl, they didn’t know how to “fix” me. I already loved dress up and make up and Barbies and pink so thankfully they just sort of let it go. They never acknowledged that the girls I started bringing home when I got to middle school and high school were anything other than “playmates” (hehehe) or friends, but I guess since a lot of my other gay friends were being disowned or worse by their parents, indifference wasn’t that bad.

What? Am I a lesbian? Well first: duh. And second: what the hell is up with labels? I happen to think there are some gorgeous men out there, and dicks don’t bother me, I just prefer playing with girls. It’s inborn, it’s a choice, it’s a sliding scale and a fluctuating identity. Boys don’t like girls until they do. Otherwise no one would have cooties. I am who I am.

It is like me being a military aviator. Does that make me a soldier? Well, yes, I suppose it does. But I don’t really feel like a soldier. I just love to fly, and Uncle Sam lets me fly as much as I want. In some ways I had more of an issue with “being a lesbian” once I enlisted. My recruitment officer didn’t ask, I didn’t tell, but everyone knew. In my experience, gay guys in the military have it slightly easier than gay girls. For one thing, the overzealous frat boy bro culture of the military allows for male bonding and affection that gives a homosexual soldier the opportunity to express his feelings but not get caught doing so. But girls are relatively rare in the military, and thus are the object of every non-gay soldier’s affection. The girl that doesn’t respond so well to such affection is noticed immediately. Also, I tend to catch the eye of straight chicks, too, so I narrow the available dating pool and that isn’t preferred either.

But I do what I’ve done my whole life: I do my thing, I live my life, and I don’t care. Besides, who I love or what I’m labeled doesn’t matter when I am cruising at 30,000 ft at twice the speed of sound. When that is happening, nothing else matters. Oh, and by the way, that is one time I absolutely love having a hard stick between my legs.

Anyway, my name is Hallie Jordan, United States Air Force test pilot. But you can call me Hal.

Who are you and where am I? What?

Last thing I knew I was in an inverted dive over the North Atlantic, having taken off from the U.S.S. Enterprise twenty minutes earlier. My avionics went crazy, the stick went dead and I was diving towards the deck about to be crumpled like a tin can. I see wreckage over there, which apparently means that part of my aircraft survived the impact with planet earth and given my parachute and everything I must have ejected, but I didn’t see any island when I was up there.

What? Invisible? We’ll just move right past the part where the whole island is invisible, are you telling me that the NAVY has no way to locate me? Great. So how am I supposed to tell that pompous design nerd that his plane can’t fly worth a damn? I had $20 that said the altimeter would fritz first and I can’t wait to make him pay up.

Anyway. Hi, Diana. Thanks for saving my life. You got anything to eat around here? I’m starving and I’d rather not eat my rations unless I have to. Great. Lead the way…

Enter Sandman

The ear crunching chords of heavy metal music shattered the quiet, Kansas evening. The music crackled a bit, coming as it did from old, creaky speakers. When these speakers were designed, heavy metal hadn’t yet been invented. It was no wonder the rhythmic bass and electric guitars strained their mechanical limits.

Karin jerked awake and sat up straight in bed. From her bedroom on the second floor of the farm house, the music roared into the dark corners and echoed off the walls.

Say your prayers little one,

Don’t forget my son
To include everyone

Karin threw back her covers. A faint light was filtering in through her bedroom windows. The ballpark! Karin grabbed her bathrobe from the chair by her bed and shrugged it over her shoulders as she ran down the stairs.

I tuck you in
Warm within

Keep you free from sin

‘Til the sandman he comes

When she was a little girl, Karin’s father Ray plowed a corner of his cornfield and built a ballpark. At first it was a left field only, finely manicured Bermuda grass and a rickety old section of grandstand. Over the summer he labored and tilled and planted and painstakingly built a baseball diamond. Just across sagging chain link fences and creaking bleachers, tall ears of Iowa corn reached to the starry skies.

Sleep with one eye open

Gripping your pillow tight

The screen door banged against the door frame as Karin breezed out of the house. Her bare feet slapped against the brown dirt path that led from the front door to the left field seats. Though her father had long ago completed other sections of the grandstands for spectators, she always sat in left field. It was where the magic had first manifested, and though it had spread, it still always seemed strongest there.

Exit light

Enter night
Take my hand
We’re off to never never-land

Karen stomped up the bleacher stairs and sat down, out of breath and staring into the night. Her breasts were heaving as she gulped air. Her flaming red hair was unkept and tangled from sleep and the midnight wind. There, in the centre field wall where on enchanted nights the ghost men walked in to play baseball and out to rest until the next mystical “Play ball!”, a new shimmering baseball player was entering. His cleats shifted from translucent and grey to solid and black as they crunched the dirt of the warning track. Head down, he tucked his glove under his arm, and began to jog from centre field towards the pitcher’s mound.

At first, Karin didn’t know who he was. His pinstripe uniform wasn’t immediately distinct, but then she saw the bold big numbers on his back. 42. Karin gasped. Could it be?

Her gaze remained locked on the new pitcher emerging from the cornfield, but she acknowledged the arrival of her parents with a distracted wave of her hand. Annie, her mother, was an aged, mirror image of her daughter, though her red hair had faded and was streaked with the silver of age. Her father moved with the slow, creaking joints of a lifelong farmer. Though his face was deeply grooved from long days under the summer sun, his smile was still bright.

“Did I hear ‘Enter Sandman’?” he asked, a slight rasp in his voice.
“Yep. I wonder what Joe thinks of ‘modern music’?” Karin replied.
“Is it…?” Ray let the question tail off into a whisper.

Karin just pointed to the pitcher warming up on the mound. He was focused, quick, deliberate in his delivery to the catcher. His number was clearly visible, and though there was no name on the jersey, Ray immediately knew who was making warm-up tosses on his cornfield ballpark mound.

“Mariano Rivera.”

He didn’t so much say the name as breathe it with a holy reverence. From left field, Shoeless Joe lobbed a toss to the centre fielder, and turned to throw the Kinsella family a wink. He had heard Ray’s whisper. Joe enjoyed introducing new players to his magical baseball fans.

Rivera, the greatest closer to ever pitch in organized baseball, was warming up for the 1918 Chicago White Sox in a cornfield in Iowa.

“Watch this, Karin,” Ray said, leaning down from his seat to whisper in his daughter’s ear. “Mariano Rivera is the greatest pitcher to ever close a game. He throws a cutter, primarily. It comes in hard and straight like a fastball and at the last moment cuts hard. He discovered it by accident, they say. Chipper Jones, he played third base for the Atlanta Braves in Mariano’s time, called the pitch a buzz saw. They said Rivera broke more bats in a single season than any pitcher before him.”

Karin listened and watched with rapt attention as Mariano Rivera stood tall on the mound. He stared into the catcher for a brief moment before turning, and hurling a pitch towards home plate. Even from left field, above the crickets and the leathery flapping of corn husks, Karin heard the zip of a baseball, and the loud *snap* of the baseball smacking into the catcher’s mitt.

“Striiiiike one!” the umpire yelled. Mariano simply caught the ball from his catcher, kicked the dirt on the mound, and stood, foot pressed against the rubber, ready to go again.

“If you build it, he will come,” a ghostly announcer once said. Then “he” was Shoeless Joe Jackson. Tonight it was Mariano Rivera, the last ball player to ever wear number forty-two, and the greatest to ever pitch the ninth inning.

Karin smiled. The magic was still alive in the Iowa cornfield.

League of Justice 0.8: “What Dreams May Come”

Smallville, Kansas

The spacecraft was easy enough to hide. Jonathan Kent merely dug a bunker beneath the barn, and concealed the capsule within. But a baby was harder to contain. Martha Kent was determined to keep the child, and wouldn’t hear of any other strategy.

“What does a space baby eat?” She wondered aloud. She was rocking him, that much was easy enough to determine as he had been placed in his capsule naked. She had since wrapped him in a red blanket she found in the hall closet. Surprisingly the child wasn’t crying. He was staring around curiously, and Martha was struck with the feeling that he was more aware than any other babe she had been around. His age was hard to determine. His size made him to be a few weeks old, but his manner was that of an older baby. He had a handsome, chubby face, and thick black hair.

“Well, same as any other baby, I suppose. Give em milk, don’t you?” Jonathan was practical, as ever. That the baby had apparently come from outer space either didn’t register or didn’t perturb him in the least. Martha snorted from the rocking chair. “You do if you have mother’s milk. I guess we need some formula. Look in the cupboard. I think Mary left some the last time she was here.” Mary was Martha’s older sister who had six children of her own. They hadn’t visited in a few months, but when she had she was bouncing a fat new addition to the family. Martha walked into the kitchen, cradling the baby. Jonathan had found the formula, a powdered blend, and was mixing it according to the directions. “Oh! Goodness!” Martha exclaimed. “We don’t have a bottle.” “Yes we do.” Jonathan replied calmly. He walked over the corner and lifted a bottle out of a tattered cardboard box that was sitting by the door. “Just bought them. I was thinking of breeding a few calves this fall, maybe starting a herd.” The bottle was a little larger than the typical human infant bottle, but it would serve.

Martha sat back down, and introduced the bottle to the baby. Without hesitation he started sucking and drinking the milk with gusto. “Well, he certainly seems hungry. What did you do with his spaceship?” “I threw a tarp over it for now. What do you think, should we contact the government? Do you suppose they saw this thing come down?” Martha was cooing at her new charge, and didn’t answer right away.

“Well, I figure if they knew it had come down, they would be here by now to check it out.” “Maybe.” “And all they will do is take him away and study him. I doubt whoever placed him in that thing and sent him our way meant for him to live in a lab like a mouse and be studied. He needs a family.”

It was Jonathan’s turn to be quiet awhile. The baby had finished his milk and Martha was burping him against her shoulder. Jonathan stared into the child’s eyes for a moment. Then, in a moment, he came to a decision. He knew the right thing to do, and he knew what he had to do, and there was no contest between the two.

“How are we going to explain a baby? People tend to notice when you ain’t been pregnant and then have a baby.”

Martha stood up, love and joy shining from her eyes. Hiding an alien baby was not something done lightly, and her husband had done it for her. She blinked back tears and she bounced the babe in a rhythmic whole body bounce and thought. Jonathan was amazed at how nurturing was something women seemed to know instinctively. He was of course forgetting about the many children that Martha had practically raised, being the caregiver of the community that she was.

“We found him on our doorstep, didn’t we? My daddy always did say that honesty was the best policy. He just came in a big, shiny basket from out beyond the stars. But we can leave out that last bit. I never saw the need for total honesty.” Martha said this with a smirk and twinkle in her eye. It was Jonathan’s turn to feel a swell of love. “Works for me,” he said. “What are you going to do with the big, shiny basket?” Martha asked. Jonathan shrugged. “Always been meaning to dig a bunker under the barn for an additional tornado shelter. No time like the present, my dad always said.”

The baby had fallen asleep in Martha’s arms. She sat down again in the rocker and glided gently back and forth.

“What do we call him?” She whispered.

“You know, I’ve always liked your maiden name. It’s suitable for a boy, isn’t it? And then we give him our name.”

Martha patted her new son on the back.

“Welcome to earth, Clark Kent.”

All of Martha’s dreams came true, in an instant, when a mysterious capsule crashed to earth from the heavens.

League of Justice #0.7: “Sea of Troubles”

Bermuda, September 1941

Once upon a time, in a mysterious triangle of the Atlantic Ocean, on a hurricane battered bit of rock, a boy was born. The island has many names, and isn’t terribly large, but it is part of the Bermuda archipelago. The baby was born to a British submariner and an island beauty. Her skin was dark and beautiful, a blend of many hues and shades, like her heritage, a deep blend of the many strains of humanity that at one time or another had made The Islands of Bermuda their home. The young sailor grew up on the shores of the Thames and dreamed of an endless expanse of ocean. The girl grew up on shores of sand, always waiting for what the tides would bring. Their love was every bit as wild and tumultuous as the sea, but every bit as deep.

Their love was not to last. After surviving many daring underwater raids and sneak attacks, the sailor’s sub was caught in open water surrounded by German u-boats. The battle was valiant but futile, and the sailor and his mates never rose above the ocean waves again. Unknown to him, back on the shores of Bermuda, his wife was pregnant with their unborn son. When the commander of the base delivered the sad news, she wept for the brave father who would never know his son.

That fall, an ordinary healthy baby boy was born and took his first breath of salt tinged air. His first cries echoed across a stormy sea. He was a striking newborn: not overly large, but well formed and possessed of the same gorgeous skin of his mother. But atop his head was a wild tuft of golden hair. One of his eyes was dark, deep brown, the other was grey and blue, like the shades of the ocean, tossed together. His mother named him Arthur Curry, after his father.

Little Artie grew and thrived on the ocean, only dimly aware of the larger conflict that spanned the world around him. He was as often under the waves as on them, diving and swimming as strongly as any fish. However, as he grew into a bigger boy, he often grew sick and weak. His muscles failed him, and soon he could neither swim nor walk. The military doctors could not discern the cause of his affliction, and flew in experts from around the world. Never had a little boy had more love and attention, growing up among sailors he had more uncles and big brothers than most boys could ask for. He became their little mascot, and given how much time he spent in the water, the sailors had nicknamed him AquaBoy. The origins of his condition was never conclusively identified, but the result was clear. Artie’s muscle mass, and most of his bone structure, had partially liquified. He could not move or stand simply because he had nothing to stand on or move with. It was a grizzled old salt who proposed what would be Artie’s salvation: an aquatic environment. To protect his skin from over saturation, Artie was fitted with a suit. He was placed in a pool of water. Buoyed by the water, Artie could move with only the barest of movements, and the water held him up in a constant embrace. AquaBoy swam again, and the water became his forever home.

The old salt continued to look after Artie, who learned and grew like any other child. The salt, having a keen mind, devised an exoskeleton for Artie to help support his soft frame and to amplify his movements so that he could swim and move with greater ease. Living in an aquarium was a lonely existence for a boy, though the sailors joined him whenever they could. One day a orphaned dolphin wandered into a Bermuda bay. Worried that without a mother she would die, the sailors placed the dolphin in a tank and fed her. Someone then had the idea to bring Artie to the dolphin, and from then on they were never parted. He named her Sula. She would would propel him around and gently float beside him when he slept, and they played together. Spending every second in each other’s company gave them a bond and a communication that few companions of a single species could ever hope to replicate, let alone one aquatic, one terrestrial.

Arthur, on achieving his teenage years, not only surprised every medical professional by being alive, but astounded everyone with his brilliance and his mental agility. Being unable to travel, the experts in many subjects and fields came to him. By the time the AquaBoy became a man, he was one of the best minds in the world. He had been relocated from a small pool in a small building to a large complex with many areas and with outlets to the sea. Sula, herself only in her young adult years, had an passageway that led into the open ocean from the main aquarium in which they both lived. This was added after Arthur’s insistence, his caretakers feared she would leave and either be killed or never return. But Sula showed no signs of ever wanting to abandon Arthur and into adult life, they remain inseparable.

Into the 1980s, Arthur continued to astound those who cared for him. At this time chronologically in his forties, he still resembled a young man. Some attributed this to his lifestyle, but using the newest medical technology, his genes were sequenced and examined. Arthur’s main condition, a gelatinous skeleton, remained a mystery and was blamed on a mutation. But a side effect was discovered: Arthur aged at almost half the rate of a normal human. By fifty he was genetically closer to twenty five. Sula, however, remained a completely ordinary dolphin. Though well into her sixties, she was nothing more than a prime example of the species. Sometime around their combined sixty-second birthday, she defied some odds of her own by finding a love of a dolphin kind and later that year she gave birth to pair of calves, one male and one female. She had apparently mated with a false killer whale as her offspring were identified as wolphins. Arthur named them George and Gracie. As they grew, they formed the same strong bond with Arthur that their mother had. Aquaman seemed as happy with his aquatic family as they were their human companion.

As the world entered the 21st century, Sula died at the old, even for a dolphin, age of 70. Arthur, meanwhile, was still in his thirties and was becoming extremely interested in current events on the American mainland, mostly in the dark, crime filled Gotham City and just outside of Metropolis, in a small town called Smallville.

A Thousand Cuts

My name is Phil, and I have clinical depression.

Last night I tweeted this:

“Life is a death of a thousand cuts. The question is: can you find meaning before you bleed to death all over the carpet? Me, I don’t know.”

A twitter friend, a fellow nerd and author, asked his followers to tweet to a woman who truly believed she was ugly and to tell her the truth. I perused this woman’s feed, and was deeply saddened to see that her voice was almost gone. Most of her recent posts were retweets from suicidal accounts. [Author’s note: A suicidal account is an account on social media that is almost entirely thoughts, pictures, and poetry about suicide. They are everywhere on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Most are run by truly desperate people. Take a break from kittens sometime and read the pain that no one sees. It will sober you up in a hurry.] I felt so lost and so small. I had nothing to say to this woman that would ease her pain in the least. But I couldn’t back away, I couldn’t just be silent. So I said this:

“You are beautiful and you are not alone. I know your pain and it can get better.”

It was as honest as I could get. Every woman is truly beautiful. Depression is not something you suffer as the only depressed person on the planet. I do know that pain. And it can get better. Why didn’t I say “it will get better”? Because I do not know that to be true. I have been in therapy for nearly two years now. I am on medication. I have worked through so much pain and childhood trauma. But I still don’t feel much different than I did when it all began. I don’t have the black fog, but I am rarely happy or positive or upbeat. I certainly believe that things can get better. I simply lack convincing evidence that things will get better. I was frustrated that such a small truth was all I had to offer a woman in pain.

I am starting to refer to this year in particular as the year from hell. Ever since Christmas, when some things went horribly wrong and got very, very black, this year has been trending downwards. Me and my wife stopped drifting apart and started racing apart. Then she left, and at the time, I was glad to see her go. I got a job and lost it. I have been unemployed since July. I have sold half of anything I owned of value to simply pay bills. Only recently did I force myself to use a little to buy groceries. I lived for a month on hot dogs and microwave popcorn because the last time I afforded food both were on sale. Last night at my brother’s house was the first time I had a substantially healthy meal in months. I am so lonely I want my wife and my miserable marriage back just so I will no longer be alone. I have lost the ability to hope, to imagine a better future, or to dream of anything beyond my current daily misery. I don’t exaggerate and I don’t sensationalize any of that. I try to present it as mundane and boring, because that is what pain has become to me.

So you can see how that can resemble a year from hell.

Most days I do not know how I will endure until evening. Bedtime is a weariness. I toss and turn most every night and sleep badly.

At this exact moment, I have no idea how I will pay the next two bills that are due soon. It is hard to focus on anything else at the moment. If you are a friend and have been following any part of my social media life lately, you will see that on this blog I have been writing a little, and on Facebook I have been posting lots of Lego Portraits. I have no idea where the creative spark is coming from these days, but I jump into it whenever I feel the slightest twinge because it is all I have. I barely enjoy it, I certainly should, I love Lego, but enjoyment isn’t something I have much control over. I try my damnedest, but usually I only manage a lukewarm enthusiasm. But when you are freezing, lukewarm feels very hot.

This is turning into a bit of a ramble, so I think I will end it soon. The rambling fits, anyway. I’ve hit half of tank of gas and have no idea if I’ll be able to afford to fill the tank when it runs empty, but I’ve started to obsess again over how far I need to travel to do anything. I just want this all to end. Not in a slash-the-arteries and swallow-the-pills suicide ending, necessarily. I’d be happy if there was no tomorrow. If everything just ended. No fanfare, no heaven, no hell, no afterlife, just an end to existence. That wouldn’t bother me right now. I don’t want to die, I don’t want to miss the upcoming Ender’s Game or Hobbit films, but right now, I wouldn’t care if I did. I might even prefer a nothingness because nothingness isn’t pain and frustration and misery.

I’m living a death
of a thousand cuts
my blood spills slowly

I watch each drip
drop into the carpet
soaking microfibers and dust
dead skin cell fossils
splashed with the facade of life

given proper suction
you can drain the body of blood
in 8.6 seconds
so why has eternity
come and gone and I still bleed?

I guess that’s life
with blood and pain and carpet
stained corpses of a million dead cells
each having expended purpose, exfoliated

my purpose remains, I’ve yet to be scrubbed
from the skin of the world
so I endure the thousand cuts
seeking my purpose
and my dessication

That’s not very good, but I do get so poetical and more than a bit macabre during these times. Forgive me.

League of Justice #0.6: “That Flesh Is Heir To”

Near Smallville, Kansas

Thursday, August 12th

The hot summer night would have been oppressive were it not for the sweeping breezes that swooshed back and forth across the prairies. Kansas was beautiful in the summer: stalks of corn growing to the sky, thousands of stars lighting that sky at deep midnight when the summer sun finally set. The grass grew green under the summer rains, and the dirt turned deep red, rich with clay. One could smell the living earth and hear the countless souls that lived on the prairie: the endless cricks of crickets, the racketing of cicadas on the trees, the singing of the birds, the buzz of lazy flies.

Martha Kent relaxed on the porch of the Kent house, a low modest farmhouse rising out of a Kansas plain. Rocking back and forth in her rocking chair, she sipped on a lemonade, the glass slick with rivulets of sweat as the cool glass condensed the humid air around it. From inside she could hear the gentle clinking of dishes as her husband Jonathan cleaned up from dinner. The steak from last fall’s slaughter was tender and juicy, the corn from last harvest rich, and the greens from the spring garden were crisp. Martha loved eating what Kansas gave her, and what she and her husband had cultivated from Kansas’ bosom. If ever there was a woman of the earth, of simple things, it was Martha Kent.

She had loved her husband from the moment she saw him, an awkward gangly teenager just entering the ninth grade at Smallville High School. He and his family had moved from Metropolis, the midwest’s bustling city. Larger than New York and Gotham, the East Coast’s metropolitan jewels, Metropolis was a shining example of the American dream and prosperity. But things hadn’t worked out so well for the Kent family, and they moved into the country seeking a harder, but more rewarding, life. For his part, Johnny Kent noticed Martha Clark almost immediately: a wispy, but hard prairie girl. Lovely, but not beautiful, graceful, but not delicate. However it took a few years before his big city swagger turned into a country lope. John worked his way through almost every cheerleader and prom princess at the school before his city charms failed him completely. When he came back down to earth, Martha was there, as always, waiting. The two were passionate lovers throughout their final year of high school and married soon after graduation.

Jonathan and Martha moved onto the Clark family farm, at that point overgrown with weeds and neglect as her grandfather could no longer till the large fields. The newlyweds brought a breath of fresh air and blew off the dust of the plains. Soon the fences were mended, the barn painted, and new crops growing. Martha envisioned children, a large family, and a happy ever after. She got everything but the children.

Now nearing her 50s, Martha was content. She and Jonathan had lived a full life, and she loved only him more than Kansas herself. She missed the opportunity to raise her own children, but she became a surrogate mother in Smallville. Active in the community, at the schools, and in church, she always seemed to attract the kids that others didn’t know how to deal with. With the gentle love and persistent care of a farmer, she watered and tended those children until they grew into well-adjusted adults. Living on the plains was a hard life in more ways than one, but the honest labor and consistent love of the Kents softened many a growing heart.

The screen door creaked open and slammed shut behind Jonathan as he joined his wife on the porch. Leaning against the railing, back to the darkening fields, he sighed. He turned his head into the breeze and breathed deep.

“Kitchen’s all cleaned up.” He said just for something to say. That much was obvious.

Martha smiled. “Thank you, dear. It was nice to get off my feet.” John didn’t smile, but his eyes twinkled. To Martha it was the same.

“Beautiful evening.” He said, again to break the air. Martha giggled.

“I know it’s a nice evening. I’m out here enjoying it.” She teased. John wasn’t much for conversation, but he tried and that made Martha feel loved. She set her glass down, now mostly empty, and stood up. In a stride she was in John’s embrace. She relaxed into his chest, and stared off into the corn. As one, they breathed the warm Kansas air. There was no longer any need of conversation. John was relieved, as he had run out of things to say, and Martha was glad to communicate with love instead of awkward words. Some languages said things no words could convey.

*BOOM*

*crack*

Something flashed brightly in the sky before streaking behind the barn. Seconds later a fireball snapped into the blackness and a rumble shook the ground.

“What the hell?” John was already off the porch, running for the barn. A warm glow warned of fire. Martha went the other way, for the farm truck. She opened the door, jumped in, and twisted the spoon. The truck was old and beat to hell. Many years ago the key had broken off in the lock, and rather than fix it, Jonathan had welded an old spoon onto the ignition. The engine was worn, but it roared to life. Martha threw it in gear and sped off towards the glowing night.

She got there just as Jonathan was slapping out the last of the embers with an old blanket. Martha pulled a fire extinguisher from the truck bed and hosed down the grass, just to be sure. Fires weren’t anything to play with on an open field of dry grass and young corn. So intent was she with the putting the fire out, she failed to notice the shining capsule half buried in the dirt twenty yards away until she was returning the fire extinguisher to the truck.

“John: what is that?” Her voice was matter of fact. Being a solid woman of the earth, even the wildly unexpected didn’t usually faze her all that much. What John said next certainly fazed her.

“I don’t know. But there’s a baby inside.”

League of Justice #0.5: “By Opposing, End Them”

Gotham City, November the 15th

“Hahahaha! Eat it, suckers!”

The playground doors opened, and a bunch of middle school students ran out into the winter snow. Frigid temperatures and icy precipitation had come early to Gotham, dusting the usually dreary city in a covering of white fluff. For a time, the grit and filth of Gotham was buried. The pupils of St. Joseph the Apostle didn’t much care about anything but the snow. Recess was a chance to burn off scholastic boredom in a flurry of snow angels, snow men, and winter frivolity. Except today, a few high school students had remained outside during a free period following lunch.

Among the school’s bullies, they had carefully planned their afternoon torment of the smaller kids. They had built a wall of snow across the playground doors. Stockpiling snowballs, into which they had placed shards of ice, they lay in wait. The minute the recess bells rang, shrill in chill air, they armed themselves. Seconds later, the doors opened and kids ran out, expecting fun.

The first few, instead, got pelted. A snowball caught a girl in the eye. She stumbled and slipped on the ice, moaning. Two missiles of snow smacked into a young boy’s face. He screamed, and wiped away snow and blood. The ice inside the snowballs had cut into his face. A few more students ducked and weaved, but were assailed all the same. By now the front running children had scrambled to a stop, forcing the ones behind to run into them. The first wave of students tried to turn and run back into the school but were barred by those behind.

“I am Mr. Freeze!” shouted one of the bullies, standing up from behind the snow wall. He was unidentifiable behind ski goggles and a heavy white parka. “Die, sissies!” He threw more snowballs, most with cruelly accurate aim. He laughed as each snow bomb struck another small kid, forcing a whimper, a wail, or a shout of rage. His cohorts lay in the snow, mostly watching their leader, and lobbing the occasional snowball.

Seemingly from nowhere, a dark figure tore through the crowd and leapt across the snow wall. A blur of action, his long black coat swept behind his furious motion like a gigantic cape. Arms that ended in thick, black leather gloves were clenched into hard fists.

“Fuck you, Freeze!” The specter growled. A flying kick caught one bully in the chin. Kneeling in the ground, he spun and threw a punch into another antagonist’s groin, followed swiftly by a jab to the solar plexus. The boy crumpled into a whimpering ball. Standing up, the fighter faced the kid calling himself Freeze.

“Run!” The kid in black snarled at the kid in white.

“Not a chance, Wayne. Come and get it.” Freeze put up his hands in a mock boxer stance.

Bruce Wayne closed the gap in seconds. His fists blurred as he pummeled Freeze. The kid’s ski goggles cracked, and then were torn from his face. Soon bright red blood spurted from his nose, trickled from his lip, and gushed from a cut above his eye. He went down into the snow. Bruce didn’t let up. He slammed his knee into Freeze’s gut, and continued to smash him in the face. Freeze’s blood smeared across his leather gloves.

Fortunately for Freeze, teachers alerted by the middle school kids had pushed their way through the crowd. They rushed toward the fighting boys, and hauled Bruce away from Freeze.

“Bruce! Stop!” Two of them had to restrain the flailing Wayne. Three more knelt down over Freeze. “Better call an ambulance. This kid’s gonna need stitches.”

Twenty minutes later, Bruce Wayne was standing on the school steps, hunched in his black coat against the winter wind. A large Bentley turned into the school parking lot and pulled up to the front door. Bruce waited for a few seconds, but it soon became obvious that he had to let himself into the car. He walked down the steps and yanked open the back seat door. Swiftly he got in and slammed the door. He didn’t look up to see Alfred Pennyworth’s stern glare in the rearview mirror.

“Early release today, Master Wayne?” Somehow the old butler managed to make the casual observation into a sarcastic joke. Obviously he knew that his charge had been expelled for bad behavior.

“Yeah, snow day, Alfred.” Bruce still didn’t look up. After a few moments silence, during which the car remained motionless, Bruce looked up. His eyes met those of his butler’s. Alfred always appeared refined and gentle, but today there was a fire smoldering behind those eyes.

“You’re better than this, Master Wayne. Your father would be ashamed to have his son expelled for brawling.”

“I had to do something, Alfred. There were bullies -”

“There will always be bullies, Master Wayne. The trick is to stop them without being a bully yourself. Today you were no better than he was.”

Alfred turned back to the steering wheel. His foot pressed the accelerator, and the Bentley crunched snow and sidewalk salt as it pulled away from the school.

Bruce hung his head in shame. He’d beaten Freeze, but had lost the battle.