Inspiration: DC Comcis
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.
Summary: Who is a man when he has lost the defining features which made him who we was?
Note: This expresses some of my feelings about a recent DCnU development through the eyes of a character I've admired since I was a little girl. There are some intense themes depicted, so please note the trigger warnings below.
In the compact apartment smelling of mold and sawdust, a brawny man sat alone.
Square glasses reflected the blueish tinge of his computer screen as he typed away, and the soft tapping of plastic against skin was the only sound in the dark room. Taking a moment to reach into the bag at his side, the plastic crumpling loudly, he threw a pretzel in his mouth. His teeth crushed the snack to sloppy dust against his tongue.
Minutes turned to hours, hours to days. But even when the news reports with headlines reading "Where Has Our Hero Gone?" dominated the internet, crying out the question no one could explain, his red-rimmed eyes never left the computer. He had to finish this piece.
Even if city crashed around him, he would complete this task.
His typing speed could aptly be described as superhuman, so it did not surprise him when he finished the 545-page document in a little over a month. He even had time to meticulously comb through the draft, polishing it to a fine and sharp edge. It would barely need a glance from his editor before it was sent to the publishers.
However, the man's face held no satisfaction for his finalized magnum opus. All his dull eyes betrayed was the wear and strain of consuming obsession, a sad and defeated finality. An old man's face on a young man's body.
All the book needed now was a title.
Leaning back against his office chair, he considered the title page of the document. Now that the adrenalin of writing had passed, he could feel the cramps in his back and butt. The writer's eyes watered reflexively, but only because of how much he had abused them, he told himself.
The fat droplets trickling down his face had nothing to do with the woman he couldn't get out of his mind. Nothing to do with her dark hair, bright eyes lit with intelligence, the voice he would never hear speak his name again. No, they had nothing to do with the job he had lost, the displacement of everything he had loved and cherished.
He'd written an entire book about himself, knowing with bitter irony he had lost the virtues he held sacred along the way.
The man removed his glasses, roughly swiping the water off his chiseled chin and cheeks. His eyes didn't need glasses for adjustment, but he wore them out of habit when he was doing this kind of work. Setting the frames on the wooden desktop, he turned to focus again on his blank cover page.
A title. What kind of title could describe his strange existence? He couldn't think of the right words, even when he mentally lapsed into the alien tongue of his homeland. Nothing seemed sufficient. While he brainstormed, he opened the top drawer of his desk and set a metal object down beside him with a heavy clunk.
Then, when the simple idea came to him, he slowly typed six words:
I
Am
Superman
by Clark Kent
Blunt, straight, to the point. Perhaps a bit cliche, but it would do.
Then without further fuss, Clark attached the file to an email for his editor and sent the message.
As he reached for the thing on the desk, the dim computer light revealed the tool to be a shining revolver. He carefully loaded the gun with one glowing green bullet, a pellet of pure Kryptonite.
Lifting the revolver, he pressed the gunpoint to the wet roof of his mouth.
And as he pulled down the trigger, he prayed that just today, the Man of Steel would not be invincible.
He prayed his luck would run out.