Portrait of the Speedster as a Young Man
Some people call me the fastest man alive. Some women call me "God." Everybody else calls me Wally.
Yeah, that's me, Wally West. Twenty-one years old, single, and a freelance courier on extended leave from undergraduate studies at the University of Missouri. I live at home…with my mom and my little cousin. Some people might not think it's cool to live at home, but what the hell? Free room and board, free meals. Of course, I help with the bills and little things that need to be done around the house. My mom's on my back about going back to school, but I don't think I'm ready to do that just yet...even if I only need twenty-five credits to graduate. I've had enough school for now.
Oh, did I mention that I can run faster than anybody else on the planet? Believe it or not, I've got a top speed of eight hundred miles per hour. It's sort of a by-product of a childhood "accident" and a "gift" from my dear departed uncle. Man, Uncle Barry is the only man I ever looked up to. He was kind of like a big brother AND a dad to me. Rudy's my real father, but he and my mother have been separated since I was in primary school. Rudy is sort of a player according to my mom…among other things, but I guess I never had the "father-son" relationship with him that boys are supposed to have with their fathers.
But anyway, I can run really fast and shit. It definitely helps me out with the courier thing (yeah, I'm a courier)…especially since I don't have a car or anything. Of course, nobody knows about the running except Barry…and Bart, the little cousin I was telling you about.
When it first happened, I could go about 500 miles per hour, and as the years went by and I grew, I just kept getting faster. I try not to use my speed too much mainly because when I use it, I get really, really hungry, and sometimes I have to crash. No shit, one time I ran out to California to visit some friends on spring break, and after I got there, I slept about 24 hours. I woke up in a hospital because my friends thought I'd gone into a coma. The doctors wanted to keep me in the hospital for my entire break, but I had to get out of there. I don't want people all in my business
But yeah, when I use my speed I get really hungry. The longer I use it and the faster I go, the hungrier I get and the more time I need to rest. While I was at Mizzou, I figured out that my metabolism was a lot higher than everyone else's. I mean when I do things normally, my metabolism is normal, but sometimes…well, it's crazy.
Like the other night, I had to get a package over to Keystone City and back for a client in forty-five minutes. You know I put away three large meat lover's pizzas right after that? It's funny that I never remember seeing Barry eat like that; he was always so normal. If it was a problem for him, he never said anything about it.
Another thing about the speed is that I usually don't go as fast as I can…at least not while I'm in the city. I did that exactly once, and when I broke the sound barrier, people thought a bomb had gone off. It's a different story when I'm outside of town in the country. I mean, this is the Midwest, and there are military bases in the middle of nowhere; so when people hear me booming, they just think it's another military test.
So that's me, and that's who I am. When you get down to it, I'm just a slacker at heart. I even have a slacker's job. I do regular old couriering stuff, but every once in a while, I'll get a call to help transport, say, an organ for someone who needs a transplant. I've helped save a few lives that way.
Barry saved a lot of lives. He was a cop, and so a lot of times it was part of his job. No, he wasn't a member of S.W.A.T or a shoot-'em-up or a negotiator or anything like that; he was more like one of those C.S.I. types. Still, though, he saved a lot of lives on and beyond his job. The guy criss-crossed the world about a million times, and he saw and did things most people—myself included--can only imagine…and he died a hero.
Me? I'm not a hero. One day, maybe, but not now. I'm twenty-one years old, and I'm just trying to take it easy.