This doesn't feature Superman, but be assured, it's about Superman. It's kind of my love letter to the Man of Steel and why I adore him so much. Perhaps this shouldn't be here, but I really wanted Superman fans to read it.
It's a still night. Almost as still as the train station. The platform is almost empty. A woman, in her early thirties, sits on a bench. She watches the distant track. She waits. There are slight wrinkles under her eyes. A couple of grey hairs are visible in her roots. She rubs her left hand with her right. An old habit. Her face is lit by the yellow light of the lamps. She fights the bitter cold with her shivers. She rubs her goosebumps on the inside of her jacket. She closes her eyes, as if trying to imagine she is somewhere else. But when she opens them, she finds she is still on the train station.
A man walks onto the platform. He wears a dusty trench coat. Under it is an old hoodie. It has seen better days, and it's colour is clearly not what it once was. He wears over -sized glasses and has messy, tangled black hair. His every other step hides the hole in the sole of his left shoe. He smiles as he walks. He passes a number of empty, available benches till he gets to the one the woman is sat at. He sits down right next to her. She sighs. Cursing her luck.
"Sorry To disturb you, mam," he starts, "Is there a train coming through here soon?"
The woman forces a reluctant smile.
"There is one that comes through in ten minutes." The woman looks away, an attempt to end the conversation.
The man just smiles.
"No worries, I can wait that long!"
There is silence between them. There is silence everywhere. The man is the next to speak.
"Can I tell you a secret?"
"I don't know, can you? I certainly hope not!"
"It's something not many people know about me!" The man never breaks his smile.
"They must be blessed people indeed!"
The man leans in.
"Okay, here goes...I'm Admiral Awesome!" he whispers.
The woman frowns, then rolls her eyes. Dismissing him almost right away.
"Yeah… right…."
"I'm serious!" the man persists.
"Your Admiral Awesome! The famous superhero!"
"Yeah! The very same!" the man is, clearly, very impressed by himself.
The woman is starting to grow impatient.
"Look, I've not got the ability to humor a drunk idiot like you!" She states.
"I'm not drunk!" the man defends.
"Well, you're certainly not Admiral Awesome either!"
The man considers this.
"How do you know?" he asks.
The woman sighs.
"Well, Admiral Awesome can fly, so why would he take the train?"
"You have legs!" the man is back on the defense.
"I knew you'd notice"
"So, why don't you walk home?"
"Because it's far away and I can't be bothered!"
"Well, there you go. Same with me!" the man smiles.
"Okay" the woman rubs her eyes "... but why would Admiral Awesome look like that!" the woman points to the man.
"Like what?"
"Like a homeless hipster!"
"Hey!" the man smiles, "and this is my alter ego!"
"That's just nonsense! Why would Admiral Awesome have an alter ego! The only reason he does what he does is for the fame and money! He does it to make himself feel important He wouldn't need a dirt skint alter-ego. No one would humble themselves like that!"
The woman thinks on it more.
"Also," she re-starts, "Admiral Awesome doesn't wear a mask, so his alter-ego would be spotted straight away!"
"Well" the man considers this, "Maybe more people would see through my alter-ego if they didn't just think I was in it for the fame and money."
The woman pauses.
"Whatever," she screws her eyes annoyed, she draws a breath to continue. "and why would you want to be Admiral Awesome anyway? He's lame. He's out of date. An old relic of a golden age of his kind. The world has changed! It's a darker place. We don't need heroes like him anymore!"
"What hero does the world need now?"
"We need a hero like Night-killer! Now there is a hero that is relevant. He doesn't mess around. He finds injustice, and kills the bad guys! That gives theses terrorists the message. Put the fear in their mind!"
The man looks at the woman, studying her.
"If we kill the terrorists, does that make us any better than them?" he asks.
"It's not about being better than them!" she replies "We need them to stop killing us! That's what we need. And there is only one message theses fear-mongers will understand. We need to become fear! We need to fight fear with fear!"
The man frowns as he scratches the back of his head.
"Call me old fashion, but I always thought we should fight fear with bravery!" The man leans in, "there was a time America thought fear with fear. It was called the cold war and it was against the Russians. They both built nuclear weapons to scare the others into not firing. And guess what, everyone in the world was scared!"
The woman avoided his eye contact. The man looks up at the sky.
"You said the world is a darker place today," he breathes in, "I think you're wrong. I think the world has always been dark. The nazis were scary. But we still believed in bravery then."
"Maybe I am naive!" the woman states, clearly without believing it so "but I think that no one is more scary than The Jester! A man crazy enough to dress up and kill so many people. If Admiral Awesome just killed him, he would no longer be a problem! If Admiral Awesome had just killed The Jester as soon as he met him, that would save so many lives! The Jester would never have blown up a whole school bus full of kids!"
There is a silence. The man draws a long breath.
"That is a very specific example," the man points out.
The man looks down at the woman's hand. Her right hand is cradling her left. The truth hits the man.
"Your child was on that bus. They died in the fire. You are rubbing a thin line of pale skin on your ring finger. So, the death of your child destroyed your marriage."
The man looks up and down the track.
"The train…" the man continues, "it doesn't stop here. It just passes by."
The man looks at the woman.
"But you don't need it to stop do you. In fact, you'd rather it just rushed passed by"
The woman looks at her finger. Avoiding the eye contact of the man. The man nods.
"So, I guess there is nothing I can say to talk you out of it?" He bites his lip.
"Not a word." The woman's eyes water.
The man nods again. He groans as he looks up at the clear night sky. So many stars can be seen.
"It's such a nice night, maybe I will just fly home" He smiles.
The woman remains silent.
"Do you look much at the stars?" the man looks at the woman.
"No"
"Why not?"
"It makes me feel small"
The man looks back up.
"I guess it is quite scary, looking at how big space is. And there is no way to make the universe afraid of us…"
The man rests his hand on hers.
"But you can be brave enough to look up, anyway" the man smiles.
The man lets go of her hand, and gets up.
"I guess I will fly it back home!" he whistles to himself.
The man starts to walk away. When he is half way across the platform, he stops and looks back.
"What's your second name?" he shouts.
The woman looks up at him.
"Glover" she whispers.
"So your son was Chester Glover?"
The woman looks puzzled.
"Chester Glover. Eight years old. Loved history, especially Vikings. Loved the colour blue. His friend, he was Adam Marshall. Seven year old Adam was more into rockets and space ships. Little Adam sat next to Chester on the bus"
The man looked sad, he glanced up at the night star.
"Did you know Chester had a crush. On seven year old Kirsty Harrison. She liked arts and crafts. It was her moms birthday. Her mother would be waiting for her when she got off the bus. She made a card. It had a drawing on the front. It was supposed to be a picture of her giving her mom a thousand balloons." the man smiled, "She could only fit five on the card"
He looks at the woman, right in her eyes.
"Chester wore a bag with a logo on it. My logo. The symbol of Admiral Awesome. But you knew that cause you brought it for his Christmas. He was bragging about it to his friends behind him on the bus!"
The man placed his hands in his pockets and walked away.
The woman was left on the platform. She started into the middle distance. A gust of wind rushes over her. Like a speeding bullet rushing over head. She thinks for a moment, then looks up at the sky. She smiles softly as she looks at the stars.