This reporter sat tapping her coffee cup in agitation. He was late, of course he was.

From a distance I heard a low rumble. The coffee shop door flew off its hinges and hit the opposite wall. I coughed the white plaster in the air but was covered head to toe.

"Hey, you look like you've seen a ghost!" He played the coffee cups and drank whipped cream from the tube. "Let me get that for ya" he inhaled deeply, his chest expanded to four times the size "'Murrica" he added as an aside, pumping his engorged arms and blew a gale which left my previously coiffed hair looking as though I'd been in a wind tunnel.

"Bravo." I slow clapped stoically.

"Pfft, him?" He waved a hand. "Sounds like Elvis on dope. Jershey SHORRRE orange BORRRE."

"I was warned about you."

"I didn't know Arkham did PSAs on Redtube."

"Speaking of white messes" I cast an eye about the coffee shop.

"Ah, gotcha" he winked and turned from me. He turned back around lit by a singular spotlight, head down. He raised his make-up covered face slowly "Ya wanna know how I got - this guitar?!" He grinned manically and began playing Spongebob Squarepant's Goofy Goober Rock wearing Joker facepaint. The patrons of the shop didn't know whether to laugh or scream. He used the power of rock to blast rubble from all visible surfaces and finished wearing The Hogwarts Sorting Hat on the counter. The place applauded, someone threw roses, one tiny fuschia thong.

Freakazoid bowed, The Sorting Hat took the opportunity to spring from his head and bounce out, muttering "worse than Peeves."

I stared at him dejected. No wonder everyone else stepped back when they said who we were interviewing for the Superhero Section. "Could we move this along, please?"

"Aw don't look so sad, we can't all be like those Disney superheroes" he scoffed.

"Shall we begin with origin story? You're some net nerd from before the time net nerds became cool, right?"

"Oh no" he backed away. "Not the Fuckerberg angle."

"Ok, you talk, I'll write."

"Aw, that's no fun." He looked out the window. "Let's get our drinks to go, I think faster when I'm moving."

I rolled my eyes "Sure, whatevs."

He proceeded to give the Liberal Arts barista an order with at least 15 separate directives "...but don't make the marshmallows too big or there won't be enough room for the cream, wait, wait for the cream" he stared intently.

I got a machiatto with a topping of panda art.

"He looks like a sad panda. Pandas shouldn't be sad, their entire job is fucking to save their species."

"I hate pandas." I stirred the face until it looked angry. "They're not even hardcore enough to be real bears. They're like hippy Care Bears. And how fucking conceited are we as a species to say who needs to be saved? On a long enough time line, the survival rate drops to zero."

"All the world is, is ones and zeros." He smirked.

"What?"

"...What?"

"What are you hiding?"

"You're crazy."

"I'm not the one with Rogue hair and a Syndrome wardrobe."

"Hey, they copied me. Crazy is copying other people in the hopes of finding yourself. People don't have courage nowadays, they always wanna be someone else. They see someone else who's cool and think that's how they'd like to be, they don't have the courage to see themselves accurately and just, you know, run with it."

"You're what, an authentic superhero? Can how that be? Superheroes by definition are hyped up versions of themselves, compared to their normal alter ego."

"Superman."

"Yeah he's boring as hell, met him once backstage at The Soup. And what kinda man in their right mind wears all primary colours at once?"

"A gay man?"

"OOOOOH."

"My point being, Superman is Superman. His human side is fake, it's supposed to fool people into treating him with indifference in society whenever he's not off scooping some damsel out a helicopter."

"Wait, what you're saying is, being normal is fake?"

"Yeah, exactly. Everyone pretends to be normal and hides what makes them special because they're too scared everyone will think they're a freak."

"Is that why you're called Freakazoid?"

"Yes it is. Ooh phone booth!" He pointed excitedly.

"What's so great about phone booths?"

"Time machines. That's why the Government keeps 'em around."

"You meet any time travellers?"

"Yeah, I think so. Then again, they could've been stoners. Guy in the pinstripes once was fairly convincing."

"Guy sounds like a real character."

"Oh definitely, solid 10 for zany. We went for ice cream."

I slowed my pace. "Who are you? There's nothing I can really pin down about you."

"I'm myself, not a butterfly in a display." His eyes caught a sausage dog being walked, he followed along behind it cooing "come here little sausage" to its jiggly hind legs, when the snooty owner gave him a look "I've got buns, hun!" and hit him with her handbag. The swollen cheek went down almost instantaneously.

He stepped back in line with me. "It's so rare nowadays to meet someone authentic, when we do they get written off as weird or nuts." He shook his head. "No way to Nirvana."

"You're nutty."

"Fruity, with a little spice." He touched his derriere, which hissed on cue.