Elementals

disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. Money made from this: zero dollars.

(brief) author's note: I borrow from comics continuity in this story, just a little bit. Long and short: you may feel a slight confused sensation if you don't know what Selina Kyle did before she became Catwoman in the comics. It's not a vital piece of knowledge, however.

***

Heart of Earth

earth stirred

from core to cover--

spring songs

-- Richard MacDonald

Five to 10 tons of animal life can live in an acre of soil.

***

You never know what's beneath the surface. Spring comes to Gotham each year just like anyplace else. As much as certain people pretend that it never happens, because it's easier to think of the city as the eternal dark. The seasons change differently, that's all. Light seeps down into the canyons between buildings in a gray wash. Slippery and snakelike, the city sheds its skin and inches toward the light.

I used to wait anxiously for the transformation and I was rewarded with the transformation of myself as well. My mistake was to try to mold myself before it was my time to be renewed. I realize this until I catch sight of my face in a mirror. All I need is a bit of reflection--a sliver of my face trapped against a mirror's silver surface--and the anger comes back. It was never my fate to be so ugly.

In the time before the accident, I could have had my pick of any woman I wanted. They fell for me so easily it was just like knocking down dominoes. I lost myself in the tangles of their hair fanned out across the pillows on my bed or in the space where their hips met their waists. I was the king of a narrow kingdom, but that never bothered me before. I can see that smallness now, but my heart still breaks for it and for the realization that I'd do anything to bury myself in it again.

Tonight I might have killed a woman. She was a beautiful slip of a thing with great, blue eyes that seemed wiser than she did. I was hidden in the deep shadows at the end of an alley, so she didn't see me as she passed. Maybe it was the way her breasts pressed into her sweater, or the way she swung her hips in her navy wool pants or the snatch of honeysuckle perfume. It was a lot of things. I compressed myself into a shape I thought she might like--that was intimate, trying to imagine the flow of desire inside her pretty head--and followed her into a coffee shop.

My forehead was sweating from the effort of holding myself in shape. I wiped it and little clods of flesh colored mud fell away. I slid into the booth behind the woman. She didn't notice me at first; she was engrossed in a textbook.

"Excuse me," I said, "could I get a few packets of sugar from you? I'm all out over here."

Her eyes flicked to my face, registering approval. She also saw my full container of sugar and a small wrinkle appeared on her forehead.

"Why don't you just come and sit with me?" she suggested. Her voice was a lovely, mid-range alto. She didn't have to ask me twice. "Your face looks familiar," she mused as I was settling myself.

"I think I'd remember if we'd met before," I said, falling into the rhythm easily. There's a knack to talking with women--witty but not overbearing. "You are...?"

She shook her head and strands of her hair fell across her face. "I'm sure you seem familiar. Aren't you that actor?"

I started back. I was out of practice making faces. It was possible that I'd reverted to my old one. After all, it's the one I'd been most accustomed to. "My name's Joe," I said, trying to sound confused. "Look, I'll be right back, okay?" I got up and headed for the back of the restaurant. My idea was to pretend I was going to the bathroom and then slip out the back door.

The woman was waiting for me in the alley. "I wouldn't go anywhere just yet, Clayface." Her voice was harder now and her legs were braced in a fighting stance.

I laughed a little and relaxed. My body expanded into its normal shape and then it happened. I saw it in her eyes, just an instant and then it was gone, but it was enough: revulsion. All I'd meant to do was knock her out and leave her in the alley, but when I saw that disgust in her face I couldn't stop myself.

She was quick and landed a few hits that stung. My body reached out and wrapped itself around her, crushing her into my chest. I could feel her there. She was closed up inside me, her lungs choked on my flesh. Just as I'd had Batman there in the past, I could feel her heartbeat slowing.

When I came right up against it, I couldn't kill her. It's as if I fell back into myself at some point and felt the horror of what I had been doing. I spit her out, dripping, and fled. My footsteps made squishy sounds in the alley. There were shouts in the distance. A distressed male voice calling, "Barbara!"