In Brightest Day, In Darkest Night

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 4:

At that moment Jimmy was not the only one who was speechless. After entering his house Ernest had paused in the entryway to consider the events of the evening. He was certain – almost – that Cindy and Libby had not been serious about what they had been telling him, but there must have been a reason for their actions. Were they trying to make the other boys jealous? Or trying to make him so uncomfortable that he would leave them alone from now on? Ernest did not know the girls very well so the possibilities were almost endless, and he spent some time mulling over a number of them. After considerable thought the only conclusion he could come to was that there was no conclusion he could come to, and so he turned to head upstairs to bed. The nearly dark house told him that his parents were not yet back from their evening out, and as was his wont when home alone he ran to take the stairs three at a time.

He cleared the entire flight in one leap.

At the top of the stairs he froze, too stunned by what had just happened to even think. He turned slowly and mechanically descended the stairs back to the first floor and at the bottom he paused, turned, and jumped. Again he found himself on the second floor landing in a single bound. Be it said that Ernest was a logical person, and he allowed himself a moment or two of cool and rational analysis before delivering his reasoned assessment of the situation.

"Wow," he said.

For the next quarter hour he performed a number of experiments and quickly learned that he now had powers that were nothing short of miraculous. The first and most obvious of his new abilities was herculean strength, and he spent nearly a minute in the garage bench-pressing the front end of his mother's car before the novelty wore off. Further testing revealed that he had gained phenomenal speed in addition to his incredible strength, and that he could drop a nickel and race to the end of the block and back to catch it before it hit the ground. The most incredible power, however, he learned quite by accident. In an attempt to learn just how high and how far he could jump he attempted to leap over his own house. He easily cleared the eaves, but his exuberance quickly turned to apprehension when he passed over the peak of the roof and continued to ascend. After some seconds of uncertainty he suddenly realized that he was no longer jumping, but flying.

Ernest recalled hearing once that fear is the purest form of excitement, and the next few minutes convinced him that it was absolutely true as hanging high in the air without any visible means of support was decidedly unnerving. With practice, however, he found that by concentrating he could move forward and back, up and down, or remain motionless in the air, with how hard he concentrated determining how fast he went. He flashed through the air, performing somersaults, loops, spins, and other aerobatics until he suddenly realized that he was in public and might be seen. Regretfully he settled back down to earth in his own backyard and thought things over.

It's incredible, he said to himself. It's like I've been asleep my whole life and just woke up. With that thought came a sudden dread that he might actually be asleep and dreaming everything, and he pinched himself to convince himself that he was actually wide awake. Reassured that he was awake he then turned to the next matter at hand. He had somehow gained fantastic powers, but what was he to do with them?

His first thoughts consisted briefly on ways to teach some classmates a lesson about pushing around the new kid in school, but to a 12-year-old with super powers the final answer was obvious. He had been given great power, and with great power must come great responsibility. He would have to conceal his abilities and adopt an identity in which he could use them to help the weak and oppressed. His first step would be to adopt a suitable name, and the next to fashion a costume that would conceal his identify.

The first step proved to be harder than he expected. At best the names that came to him seemed trite and derivative, and at worst they infringed on any number of copyrights and trademarks. Finally, just so he could get on to the next step, he selected the name Dyno Lad. It was not particularly inspired but was better than such names as Amazing Boy, Super Lad, and E-Male (the 'E' standing for Ernest).

The second step proved even harder than the first. In all the years of reading comic books featuring stylish yet gaudily clad superheroes it had never occurred to Ernest just how difficult fashioning a suitable costume could be. The well-muscled heroes with whom he was familiar wore their outfits like a supple second skin, but the best uniform that Ernest could devise from his wardrobe and some judicious super-speed tailoring fit him like the skin on a bloodhound. To further conceal his identity and provide him some protection while flying he put on his bicycle helmet and pulled the cowl of his costume over it. The costume looked much like what it actually was – an altered red sweatsuit – and the overall effect was that of a small but brightly garbed scarecrow with a gigantic tomato for a head.

In his room Ernest looked over his reflection in the mirror while striking various heroic poses and sighed. "I guess I don't really look the part yet," he admitted, "but hopefully it will be the results that will count." He thought over the various superhero origin stories he had read and considered what his next step should be. A general theme seemed to be that the superhero took an oath of some kind to help define his purpose in life. What sort of oath should he take? After a few moments of thinking he struck what he thought was a suitably determined pose and uttered the following:

"In darkest night, in brightest day,

In any place where I may stay,

Let all who'd follow evil's way

Fall to my might without delay!"

Needs work, he thought. But the thought is there. Evil-doers of Retroville, beware. Dyno Lad is here to -

"Ernest?" a voice downstairs called.

The voice snapped Ernest out of his reverie. "Yes, Mom?"

"Did you remember to take out the trash tonight?"

"Right way, Mom," Ernest answered and began reluctantly removing his costume to comply. Evil-doers 1, Dyno Lad, 0.

End of Part 4.

Author's Note:

Comic book readers will have already noted that the title of this story is an homage to the oath of the Green Lanterns, as is Ernest's oath. There are other references to Spider-Man and Superman in this and previous chapters (such as the title of Chapter 1) and this story will be riddled with them by the time it concludes. While Superman and Spider-Man have consistently been my favorite heroes the Green Lantern oath nonetheless stand out in my mind as the best expression of the super-hero's creed:

In brightest day, in blackest night,

No evil shall escape my sight!

Let all who worship evil's might

Beware my power – Green Lantern's light!