Birthday Gift

A wise man once said that there are as many different worlds as there are people in this one.

I guess that's suppose to mean that no two people see the world the same way, that everyone has their own interpretation of this world. That explains why sometimes, when dealing with another person, it can feel like you're talking to someone who was born on another planet.

It's comforting to know that even people from the same planet can feel this way. For the longest time, I thought it was just me.

My name is Clark Kent, by the way. I'm 13 years old. I live in Smallville, U.S.A. And I actually was born on another planet.

I think my planet's name was Krypton. I say "think" because I'm not totally sure. It sounded like "Krypton" in the message my real dad sent me.

Let me start over.

I'm adopted.

I've always known that I was adopted. And that's because, despite the fact that I was only a toddler when my adoptive parents took me in, I remember it like it was yesterday.

I remember every day of my life like it was yesterday.

That's because I have what I call "Super Memory." It's one of my abilities, of which I have several. Most of them begin with "Super."

That wasn't intentional. I'm not really that vain. But I do have several… I prefer the term "abilities," that I've been forced to use on occasion to help people. People caught in burning barns. People who lose control of their cars and drive into trees and/or power lines. People in trouble.

I use my abilities to help people. I try to do it secretly, and not cause a fuss. But sometimes I'm seen. Sometimes people actually remember being lifted out of a car at "Super Speed" by a flying boy. At first, it was easy for other people to dismiss these claims as trauma-induced. "How hard did you hit your head, sir?" But after a while, the reports started to add up. People started comparing stories and sightings. People started asking questions.

Reporters. These people are paid to ask questions. After a while, legitimate newspapers started running stories about "The Mid-Western Super-Boy."

Just not on the front page.

Most people still just laugh it off, especially city folks. "Those hicks from Smallville saw what?" Super-Boy is just an urban legend to them, like Bigfoot or UFOs.

And that's fine by me. I don't want the attention. That's why I don't wear a flashy suit, or a sign on my chest or anything. I like to keep a low profile.

But anyway, the point I was trying to make was that the name "Super-Boy" wasn't my idea, and that referring to my abilities sometimes as "Super Powers" is more of a reflex.

Now where was I? Oh, yeah. Super Memory, that's right.

I use the term Super Memory to refer to my ability to remember and account for every single moment of my waking life.

What were you doing at 10 a.m., November 10 of the year you turned seven? Can't remember? Well I can, in vivid detail. I remember what I was wearing, what my Ma was cooking for breakfast, what toy I was playing with. I could go on.

There is only one problem with my Super Memory. It doesn't go back far enough. If I retrace my steps all the way back to the beginning of my memory, the furthest thing back I can remember is my parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, lifting me out of my rocket ship and into the sunlight.

Not that I knew what a rocket ship was at the time.

So while I always remembered the day my parents found me, it was some time before I realized that the "basket" they found me in wasn't typical.

But that is as far back as my memory goes. Everything before that is a jumbled hazy. The one area where I'm like everyone else is that I don't remember the first year of my life.

What I wouldn't give to remember.

See, even though I've always known that I was "special," it wasn't until recently that I found out just how special I might just be.

Like I said, I've always had a good memory. Better than anyone else's. I'm also faster than anybody. And stronger, and tougher. I don't mean that like I'm a tough-guy or anything. I just mean tough like sturdy, hard to knock down. I don't break.

At first, it was fun. What kid doesn't want to be the best at everything? And who needs cable TV when you've got Telescopic/X-ray/Heat Vision to entertain you.

I can fly.

My parents always warned me to keep my abilities a secret. They were afraid someone from the Government would try to take me away. I'm their only child.

But when I was a kid, we treated it like a game. Hide and Go Seek, or something. Keep your powers a secret. "I know something you don't know!" Lots of fun.

But now I'm 13. And keeping secrets is starting to be not-so-fun. Now all the boys are going out for sports and stuff. I'm 13, and I could be on the High School Football Team if I wanted. I could beat the High School Football team by myself, if I wanted. But I can't. I'm the best at everything, and I can't show anybody.

Not only that, not only do I not get to be my best, I can't even try because I might hurt someone. Whenever I'm asked to play a game or anything, I have to decline, without any good reason.

I've got Super Hearing, too.

Everybody calls me a chicken.

Even the girls.

Add to that a super memory that lets you relive every insult, and it becomes pretty easy to feel alone in this world.

I guess that's why I became more interested in where I came from. And why I was here.

Ever since I saw a rocket ship on an old cartoon show, I recognized the method by which I came into this world. But it wasn't until I finally got my real father's message that I realized I was an alien.

I know, that should have been my first guess, right? Rocket ship equals Alien, duh. But I just looked so human. And it's not the 1950's anymore. Most people get that aliens aren't supposed to look just like humans in silver jumpsuits.

At first, Ma and Pa thought I was an NASA science experiment. Some new way of testing the effects of space travel on humans. Maybe I was so strong because I was genetically engineered to be an astronaut? Or maybe I was mutated by cosmic radiation? But what ever the case, my parents were sure I at least started out as a human.

But after I became old enough to look at my ship, which Pa keeps in the storm cellar, it became pretty clear that the ship I arrived in contained technology way beyond even the most ardent Black-Ops conspiracy theorist's wildest dreams.

I then entertained the idea, for a short time, that maybe I was from Earth's distant future. And my enhanced abilities were simply the result of natural human evolution in a million years' time.

But then I remembered I could fly and shoot fire from my eyes. Hard to term anything like that as "human."

But then who was I? Was I unique in the universe, or do I have a people all my own. Maybe my family was even out there, somewhere, looking for me. I mean, somebody had to build my ship, right?

I had too many questions.

Besides me, the only other contents of my ship were several large blankets and two pieces of technology not actually attached to anything else. One was a device about the size of your palm, egg shaped, with a small crystal display like the face of a watch. The other was larger, flat and square shaped, about 8 inches wide and tall. It appeared to be nothing more than a small, flat, TV screen.

I couldn't get either to work.

I tried them separately. I tried using them together, inside the ship, far away from the ship. Nothing.

I had just about given up hope of ever getting either to function properly.

But one day, curiously enough, roughly 12 years since my landing on Earth, I awoke to find the Egg sitting on my night stand, a little red light blinking on and off at me, as if to say "You've got mail."

I sat for a few minutes and pondered my options. A life-time of body-crushing strength and closely-guarded secrets has led me to be fairly cautious. I always think things through, which is usually a speedy task. Again, super brain.

But this required some thought. Why was the Egg blinking now? Did it have something to do with the date? I'd landed on Earth 12 years ago, but this wasn't that anniversary, that wasn't for months. We called that date my Birthday.

But it wasn't. Not really.

No, it finally struck me that perhaps today was my birthday! My real birthday! This must be my 13th birthday!

The Egg must have been programmed to do its job on my 13th birthday. That fact made me feel very close to my real origin just then. 13 years old is a milestone on Earth. It must be the same wherever I was from.

I held the Egg in my hand, turning it over and over, searching for any way to activate it. Slowly, I noticed that it was getting warmer. Pulsing, in fact. Almost like a heart beat. Like my heart beat!

This Egg was moving into synch with my own body!

There was a flash of light, and suddenly I was in a strange place.

It looked like a laboratory of some sorts. Wires and machines everywhere. Along the wall were some stairs, that lead up to a raised enclosure.

There I recognized my ship.

A man's voice made me turn around.

What I saw thrills me even to this day.

I saw a very tall man, with dark hair and piercing eyes. I almost couldn't tell their color, his stare was so fixed he practically squinted. But they were a cold blue-gray. The color of steel. He wore a strange outfit, at once bizarre and familiar. What struck me most about him, though, was his jaw. It was a perfect square, just like mine. Ma always said I'd grow into my jaw, and here before me was proof that I would. I knew it the moment I saw him. This man was my father.

I will never be able to express the joy I felt at seeing him for the first time. It was an experience paralleled only by my shock and disappointment at the realization that I couldn't understand a single word he was saying.

As he talked, he gestured to me, and then to himself. And then he pointed my attention to the woman standing beside him. The woman was tall, regal, and dark haired like my father and me. But her eyes were different than his. Whereas his eyes were firm and determined, hers were open, and overflowed with love and warmth. Her eyes were blue, like the skies of my adopted world. I knew now that Earth was not my home. For this place, and these people, could not exist nor ever have existed on Earth.

But why had I not seen either of them until they were presented to me? I then realized something that I had only been half aware of up until now, that this was just a recording. The actions and motions of the camera had already been predetermined, long ago.

While my father was speaking, I became aware of what I can only describe as "subtitles" appearing under and in and around my sight. Like a stock ticker, a constant stream of alien symbols coursed through my sight. They appeared to be in synch with my father's words, as different groupings of symbols would light up with each word spoken.

I knew that this vision couldn't last forever, and I didn't know if I could ever make the Egg, which by now I'd realized was a video recorder/player of sorts, work again. I couldn't understand what my father was saying! Didn't he realize that!? Was he so smart that he'd built a space ship to carry me across time and space, but forgotten that I wouldn't speak our language!?

I desperately searched for something to hold on to. Something I could carry back with me into the real world when all this was over.

As if in answer to my prayers, my father pushed a button and up popped an image of a globe, with continents I had never seen before. There was a set of symbols hanging above the world. My father spoke one word, "Krypton." The symbols lit up.

He pushed another button, and the planet shrank. I realized that the view was simply shifting further back. Into view came a giant Red Sun. I could tell somehow that this star was old, and dying. The camera pulled further back to reveal a map of stars leaden with numbers and symbols. Coordinates. The camera zoomed in on a different section of the map, finally closing in on a world I did recognize. It was Earth.

The maps disappeared. I stood before my parents, and they stared at me. My father said one last phrase and turned to head up the stairs. As my mother moved closer to the camera, I could see she held something in her arms. A baby. Me.

She looked into the camera and, with tears in her eyes, said to me in an alien language words that could only mean, "I love you."

She too walked away, up the stairs and towards the ship, beside which stood my father. The vision began to fade and I awoke in my bedroom. Back on Earth and 13 again.

As I stared at the Egg, the word returned to me. Krypton. The name of my home planet. I was from the Planet Krypton. I was a Kryptonian.

The name of my home was Krypton.

This was my 13th birthday. I now knew the name of my home. What a birthday gift!

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S-Shield's Notes

Thanks for reading. I wrote this some time ago. So it's not in a style that I would write in today, but I just recently found it again and thought that I should post it and see if anyone likes it. Please continue on to chapter 2.