Ch 14 – Exegesis
"Wow. I really didn't get a good look at this place the last time we were here," Lois said, scanning the cave walls with her flashlight. "In my defense, though, you're not really at your best when you wake up from being possessed. Hey! I think I found a picture of you!"
Clark frowned and walked closer to her. "What do you mean?"
"This one," Lois answered, centering her beam on the drawing of a figure holding a large circular item on his back.
"Can't you see the resemblance? The Titan in Greek mythology who was doomed to carry the world on his shoulders- then there's you and your Atlas Complex; running around Who-Ville trying to save the world." Lois laughed at her words.
When Clark didn't respond, Lois turned her light on him.
"That was a joke, you know."
She turned back to the wall. "So, what's the story?"
Clark moved to a different area and focused his light on another image.
"These caves are Kawatche. They're the people that made these drawings. According to the legend, a man fell from the sky in a rain of fire. With him came some pieces of stone that had strange effects on the people. This cavern hadn't been seen in hundreds of years until the day I fell into it."
"You fell?" Lois looked up at the ceiling. "From where, up there?"
"Yeah, me and my friend were riding motorbikes and I fell through the ground above this cave. The Kawatche people believe that they are descendants of this man. Before he returned to the sky, he promised that he would send someone to take his place. Someone called Naman. When he comes, he's supposed to protect the whole world."
Clark pointed to another image, which showed the figure bearing the weight of 10 people stacked in a pyramid. "He has the strength of 10 men…"
"And apparently shoots lasers out of his eyes," Lois said, with raised eyebrows when she caught sight of another drawing. "Look Smallville, this is really fascinating, but it sounds more like a Scully and Mulder type thing. I don't understand the connection with the Luthors."
Clark walked over the bag they'd brought and pulled out a candle. Setting it on the ground, he walked back to Lois.
"Watch the candle," he told her.
Within seconds, the wick was enflamed.
"Whoa. How did you do that?"
"Heat vision."
"Heat what?"
Clark merely shrugged and shined his light on the wall drawings again.
"Wait, wait, wait." Lois walked over the candle and extinguished the flame. Stepping to the side, she said, "Okay, do it again."
After briefly narrowing his eyes, the candle sparked and relit. Lois walked back to him with her mouth agape.
"All right, you've got the strength thing, and somehow you can command fire, but that does not make you a Nama… whatever. It's probably just those meteor rocks. I can buy that they caused some weird stuff to happen to people… strange bio-chemical reactions to previously unknown interstellar material that fell to the Earth…but it's a large jump to thinking your supposed to be the next messiah."
"Kryptonite."
"What?"
"Kryptonite. That's the name of the meteor rocks because they are pieces of the destroyed planet Krypton."
"Riiight," Lois replied, unconvinced. "And you would know that because…?"
"I was born there."
"Um, I know you act a bit strange sometimes, current situation included, but thinking you're an alien is going a bit far. Are you sure nothing was fried when you got struck by lightning?"
"The date my parents put on my adoption certificate for my birthday is October 18th. That was the day that the meteor shower happened, and the day they found me in a field."
"Huh," Lois grumbled, musing the irony of her first meeting with Clark occurring in a similar setting. "You seem really convinced, and I want to believe that you're not going Cocoa Pebbles on me, but it's getting hard. First, you tell me that the Luthors have done a Freaky Friday, and then you tell me that Mr. All-American is really an upgraded version of E.T.?"
"Lois," Clark groaned.
"Okay, I take that back. You are much, much more attractive than E.T."
"Look, I know it sounds crazy, but it really is the truth. My real parents sent me away because the planet was about to explode. Somehow these meteor rocks followed the ship and caused all these problems."
"You have a ship?"
"Had. I destroyed it. It was too dangerous that someone could find it, and find out the truth."
Lois narrowed her eyes and stepped closer to him. "I know I tease you a lot, so if this is some of elaborate payback scheme, I repent. Now, do you swear that this the truth and that when we get back to the farm, your parents would say the same thing?"
Clark nodded. "Yes."
"Okay," she simply stated, stepping back.
"Okay? You believe me?"
"Yes."
Clark looked at her warily for a minute. "You don't have any questions?"
"I'm going to need a minute to synthesize this new information, but then, yes. I'm sure I'll have a million questions."
"There's more."
"I was afraid of that." Lois sat down, bracing her back against one of the walls. "Well, bring it on."
Clark chose a spot across from her and sat down. With a sigh, he launched into a narration of his connection with Dr. Swann and The Foundation, and the Kent family's history with the Luthors. He finished with the legend of the crystals as told by Edgar, and related the story of Lex's body switch. Clark noticed a number of times when Lois looked as if she was about to ask a question, but in the end, she remained quiet and allowed him to finish uninterrupted.
When he was done, they sat in silence, both idly staring at the flickering candle; it's flame valiantly fighting to stay lit.
"I'm sorry."
"For what?" Clark asked, meeting her gaze.
"I'm sorry that there is no one who can truly understand what it's been like for you."
He was actually relieved that she hadn't tried to claim to understand. No matter how well meaning people were, honesty was better than false empathy any day.
"But you need to keep in mind that you're not alone. Every person that loves you, whether they know everything there is to know or not, is a part of your story."
Lois looked away from the intensity of his gaze and pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
"So," she began, shining her flashlight on the walls above his head. "You really believe that this cave somehow embodies the consciousness of Jor-El?"
"He said so. What else is there to believe? If the Kryptonians could send a ship through space, who knows what else they could accomplish?"
Lois looked doubtful. Clark's story had expressed a bleak outlook for his future. In that moment he had transformed from the easygoing, small town farm kid she was used to, into a broken-spirited man with little desire to seize the day.
His brooding pulled at something in a hidden corner of her heart, and she longed to see that megawatt smile again. After a long silence, Lois felt the need to evaluate his story from a different perspective.
"These drawings go back how long ago?" she asked.
"At least 500 years, I think."
"So, an ancient Kryptonian lands on Earth and promises that one day another one like him would come. I guess that kind of makes these caves a base of some sort. Maybe he did some traveling, visiting with other ancient civilizations and he leaves some crystals along the way. His plan was that when the next super powered guy came along, he would put the stones together, and learn everything he needed to know about life on this planet. And because knowledge is power, that would make him the most powerful being on Earth... I mean, that could fit into what your friend Edgar said, right?"
Clark thought about that for a minute and shrugged. There really was no way to know what to think. "Naman could have been scoping out the planet to get ready to conquer it."
"You mentioned finding a journal of some sort that gave you glimpses into Jor-El's memory. Why was he here? Was he supposed to be the second Naman?"
Clark frowned and shook his head. "No. I don't think so. He hid his journal because he didn't want his father to see it."
"So maybe he was supposed to study the place and the people to see if it was suitable for takeover. Do you have any idea what he found out about it?"
"I know that he fell in love."
Clark turned his attention to his hands. Thinking about Jor-El's feelings reminded him that he had yet to fully experience love himself.
"When I felt his flashback, it was like he was experiencing love for the first time. It was almost as if he'd been repressing all these emotions and being here freed him to… feel. It's hard to explain, but I think he was trying to protect that freedom from his father when he left the pendant here."
"Hmm. You know, one of the biggest complaints people have about how technologically advanced we get, is that we are less emotive and social than we used to be. Sure we can talk to each other across oceans with cell phones and computers, but we do less face-to-face stuff. On the other hand, some scientists say that there's really no need for it. It's supposed to be safer to grow babies in a jar because you can cut out diseases and defects."
"You think that the Kryptonians were so advanced that they had already reached that point, and didn't use their emotions?" Clark tried to follow the logic. It could explain why Jor-El had been so affected by everything when he was here.
"Maybe. One thing doesn't fit though. If Jor-El made the decision to protect the planet from people like his father who wanted to conquer it… why would he change his mind and now want you to do it?"
"Who knows? The only thing I know about him is that he's a monster. He tried to kill my father and only stopped when I agreed to let him take me."
Lois could see him getting angry at the memory, so she attempted to redirect the conversation.
"Okay, think about this. You were in his mind through those flashbacks. What was he like then? Was he like this 'entity' that's been calling to you from these caves?"
"No… actually he seemed nice. I suppose that's why my grandpa helped him. It felt like Jor-El trusted him. I think he wanted my mom and dad to find me in that field."
"So maybe it's not really Jor-El that's in this cave," Lois offered quietly.
"Who else would it be?"
"I don't know… maybe it's a computer program gone a-wire or something! Whatever it is, it was here long before Jor-El. It could have figured out who you were and decided to use you to fulfill some ancient Kryptonian program."
"That's a pretty far stretch."
Lois laughed. "No more than believing that a baby falls from the sky and is raised by farmers until the day he's reprogrammed by his biological father to become the embodiment of the Great Emperor Nero."
"There are some things you just can't avoid." His reply was quiet and sad. "Don't you believe in destiny?"
"Destiny? Sure – I mean, if there's a shirt I've been looking for, and I see it on sale, then I know I was destined to buy it!"
"Lois, I'm serious."
"I know. Sorry. I just wanted to get you to smile. Yeah, I believe in destiny… that life has a purpose. But not in the sense that I have no control over what direction I'm headed in. Everyone has uncapped potential and amazing things that they can accomplish, but it's not written in stone. There's just as much potential to make the wrong choices and miss opportunities."
She picked two rocks from the ground and stood up.
"Look at these two rocks. Right now, they can have the same destiny." She threw one of the rocks into the darkness of the cave to her right. "One of them has gone that way. This one can go the same, or it can go down there," she pointed, indicating the opposite direction.
"Or, I can put it in my pocket and carry it out of here." She dropped to the ground, sitting next to him. "Outside of this environment, a whole new set of destinies opens up."
"The signs were pretty clear…"
"Signs can be misinterpreted Clark, even when they're written on walls."
When he just shook his head in response, she sighed. "What exactly did they say?"
"The one in my ship said I was to be a god among men. 'Rule them with strength. That is where your greatness lies.' That's the basic gist. They all say that my quest is to rule the Earth."
Lois flicked the switch on her flashlight to turn it off. Sometimes too much light blinded people from other possibilities.
"Kent, what do you know about the Greek language?"
"Nothing."
"Well, there are a whole bunch of words that don't directly translate. Take the word 'love' for example. They have a word that means unconditional love, one for brotherly love… passionate love… but in English it's just love. The message in the ship said 'rule,' but another word for rule is 'serve'. Serve them with strength, Kal-El. Takes on a whole new meaning, doesn't it?"
"What do you do, read a thesaurus?"
"Sometimes... at night, when I can't sleep," Lois said, nudging him with her elbow.
"Anyway, you said that the Kawatche believed that Naman would come to save the world. They didn't feel threatened by him. Maybe the truth is somewhere in between the two extremes. Maybe Naman would come to help. Help the world save itself. I don't know, Clark. I'm not saying that I'm right. Given everything that we've been talking about, I'm surprised that I'm coherent at all. I just don't think you should assume that whatever greatness you have inside of you is bad."
Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, she continued. "My mom used to read me these stories by Rudyard Kipling. The 'Just-So Stories' is what the title was. She bought me this picture book of my favorite one so I could follow along. After a while I knew it so well that I could tell her the story from the pictures. It's called The Elephant's Child. Have you everheard of it?"
Clark shook his head in response.
"She always said I was just like the little elephant in the story because he had an insatiable curiosity. I remember putting the book in the casket… so she would still be able to read it." Lois smiled at the memories.
"Okay, so the story takes place before elephants had trunks. They had these little stubby noses instead. The littlest elephant in the village was always asking questions and he would get spanked for them. One day he asked why the elephants were supposed to stay away from the crocodile pond, but instead of answering, they spanked him again, so he set out to ask the croc himself. The croc decides to eat the elephant and bites him on his little snub nose. He pulls and pulls, but the elephant is trying to stay on the riverbank, and he's pulling in the opposite direction.
"In the end, his nose stretches longer and longer until the croc gives up. The elephant goes back to the village, and now he's got this long trunk. The other elephants want to spank him, but he's got the upper hand, because he uses his trunk to spank them. Plus, he's got other tricks. He can reach food where the others can't; he can spray water, and scratch behind his ears. This is all really advanced stuff for an elephant, you know, so the entire village decides that they need to go see the crocodile so they can get new noses too."
Lois laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know why I felt the need to tell you all of that. I guess, my point is, you never know how something is going to turn out. It pays to be a little curious sometimes. For the record, it's hard to fight something when you're running from it."
She got to her feet and stretched.
"You asked me about destiny. It's not about the end. It's about the journey and the choices that you make along the way." Tossing the rock she still held to him, she smiled. "You decide… Now, we better get out of here and see what Chloe was able to turn up."
Clark followed her lead and stood, brushing the dirt off of his pants. He looked at the rock in his hand. He had many questions, questions that had only been getting more complex. Looking up, he watched as Lois blew out the candle flame and tucked her flashlight into the bag.
Somehow, she had understood that in believing that Jor-El was evil, Clark was convincing himself that he couldn't fight that potential in himself. She hadn't given him any answers, but how could she? She had given him something else. Hope.
He slipped the rock into his pocket.
"Lois," he called, walking over to her.
She stood and turned around just as he pulled her into an embrace. Surprised, she momentarily hesitated before wrapping her arms around his waist. They stood there silently for a few moments before he pulled away.
"Thank you."
Lois smiled and placed a hand on the side of his face, framing the wide grin that appeared.
"Anytime," she replied.
At that moment, she realized how dangerously addicted she had become to his smile. Wrapping her arms around herself, she sucked in a quick breath. "Is it cold in here to you? Must be getting late."
Turning, she picked up the bag and headed for the cavern's exit. "Smallville, you coming?"
With a final glance at the walls, he jogged to catch up.
High up on a wall, in a far corner, the symbol of Naman's destined mate - a box surrounding a diamond - glowed briefly before receding back into the surrounding darkness.
tbc
