The last tiny vestiges of dusk had left its amber and violet mixed signature over the swinging weeping willows out past the Kent's acres-spanning farm, and the soothing sounds of night began to call. A calm breeze wafted through the autumn evening, and somewhere a cricket began a multi-legged concerto. Soft, comforting murmurs came from the barn, and Jeb Jackson's tractor, the one with the familiar cranking and thumping verse to it, steadily began to drift off, engines ready to cool till daybreak tomorrow.
Martha loved this time of day, for reasons other than the perfectly obvious; it was that time when her beloved husband would breathe easy, sipping fresh lemonade or sometimes iced tea on the back veranda, the one he and Clark spent countless nights contemplating life and their places in it. Martha had many things to be thankful for in her long life, but the three things she held most dearly were her husband Jonathan, their son Clark, and this part of the day that represented the ties that bound the three of them into one.
"Hey there, handsome," she half-whispered, "I brought you some tea." She set the tray, uncluttered by anything but two tall, full glasses, onto the birch table that sat between two matching birch easy chairs.
"Hey there, y'a self," muttered a relaxed Jonathan, a stocky, soft-spoken man in his early seventies, eyes rimmed by specs that outlined the happiness inside his soul. He smiled up at his wife, and suggested, "why not join me?"
"Was plannin' on it," she said and sighed as she sat beside him and listened to the noises of the night. He reached over and cupped her right hand in his left, and they sat there for almost an hour, silently sipping the tea and listening intently to nothing in particular; it was comforting for each hearing the other's soft breath.
Suddenly, a heavy pounding at the front door jarred them from the evening's calmness, but what startled them both more so was how quickly the pounding became slow knocking and then faint tapping, all almost in a heartbeat. In this rural part of Kansas, visitors at this hour of the day were rare, but anyone crass enough to batter on the door was cause for caution.
"Well, whatd'ya suppose that was, Martha?" asked Jonathan as he hurried to his feet and accidentally tipped his empty tea glass over. He was already quite on his way through the foyer to investigate the clamor at the front of their ranch.
"Wait for me, Jon—I just wanna grab somethin' first," Martha insisted.
Jonathan smiled nervously at his wife, stopped at the gun cabinet in their dining room, grabbed a rifle from its perch and shoved some shells into his coverall front pocket. "Way ahead of ya, darlin'," said Jon in that charming way he knew would help her believe he wasn't as scared as she was.
"You keep that safety on, mister," chided Martha, whose state of mind hovered someplace between concern and dread. She didn't want Jonathan to forget a detail as simple, yet crucial, as the safety on the rifle.
The two of them approached the front door, Martha clicking on lamps as they passed her periphery, and after clearing his throat, Jonathan shouted, "Who's there?" The words sounded very small in his ears, nowhere near as threatening and in control as he had anticipated they should, and this realization made him back up an inch, clacking shoulders with his wife. "Sorry," he whispered.
"WHO'S THERE?" shouted Martha Kent, both a reinforcement to her husband's clarity and to let the door-pounder know he or she was dealing with two people here, two steadfast old folks who weren't about to be frightened off. At least, that's the message she'd hoped to get across.
The voice, small and low, that came from behind the door was like something out of a mist covered old dream, almost a déjà vu of something comfortable and well known. It was the voice of their son, but not as they knew it now, the one they'd hear daily over the phone or on Sundays when he and Lois would visit for early supper. No, they hadn't heard this intonation in some years, not in the many years since he left for college and his ensuing life and career in Metropolis.
Martha held back a gasp as she met eyes with Jonathan, and as one they reached for the doorknob. In a puddle of shadows hung their son, or at least their son when he was seventeen. He was drooped on hands and knees, his costume covered in soot, his vibrant red cape in tatters, the silky sheen nearly gone. His gentle black hair fell forward, carefully hiding bruises that seemed impossible to exist on the face of an indestructible boy. He'd been crying, it appeared, and there was a matting of dried blood at the corner of his upper lip. He lifted his head and squinted, sighed with relief, and muttered, "I thought you were dead… he said he killed you both."
"Dear God, Jonathan!" exclaimed Martha. She was incredibly confused, but she was focused enough to kneel beside her son, albeit a much younger version of the grown man she'd raised. She wiped the hair from his forehead and noticed he felt feverish, something that was also quite puzzling; Clark never got sick, at least not with fever or the like.
Jonathan was a bit slower getting to her side and assisting the boy up off the porch, but he managed all the same, and the two of them helped young Clark to his feet and into their home. Though the situation felt strange, it also felt very right. Neither Kent doubted this was truly their son, and with all the weird occupational hazards Clark had encountered in his career as Superman, why should his being reverted back to a teenager be any weirder?
Martha gave the door a soft kick from behind to nudge it closed as they headed for the sofa, a cushiony fabric couch covered by pillows and a hand knitted quilt; it was one of Martha's best works. Clark's breath was shallow in her ear, and he was mumbling words she couldn't quite make out. What she did hear made her heart pound even faster than it had already been these past few moments, and she looked over to Jonathan to see if he had a reaction. Apparently, though, Jon hadn't heard the words; he was intent on getting his bruised, and not exactly featherweight, son over to the sofa. The two of them set the boy down as he nuzzled into a position that was familiar to all three of them. There was no mistaking that this was their son as he quickly fell asleep, cradling a pillow.
"Didja hear him, Jon?" asked Martha. Her voice trembled. "Didja hear what he asked me?"
Jonathan shook his head and shrugged. He hadn't heard much of anything from the time of the loud pounding at the door. The rest had become somewhat blurry, a surreal dream in real life. "What'd he say, love?" he responded, securing a pillow behind Clark's head and shaking off some dust from the quilt to wrap it over the boy.
" 'How'd you get so old'," she imitated. Her eyes glassed up with anxious tears, and she cleared her throat and said, "He asked how we got so old."
Jonathan smiled and chuckled a little, then ran his hands over his son's head. "Maybe he hasn't seen us in about as long as we haven't seen him!" said Jon as he stood and went to the phone. "I'm callin' his wife," he continued, "she has a right to know that her husband's just turned up at our door wearin' his old face and a boat-load o' bruises."
Relief sighed past Martha's lips, and she went off to the kitchen to fetch a cold cloth to pat off Clark's face. She could hear the connection being made through the telephone lines even from where she stood in the kitchen; this new phone was equipped with a tone enhancer to help Jon hear better, but alarmingly anyone else in earshot was subject to an audible two-way phone conversation. Not that these two folks needed to keep any of their phone conversations private, but she could see how that might be an inconvenience to other folks. In this immediate case, however, it was sort of a blessing.
She heard the automated voice tell her husband he'd been connected through their long distance carrier, and thank you for using us, and she clearly heard the phone ring twice over there in Metropolis. She heard Lois answer the call, greet her father-in-law, and energetically ask how he was doing.
"Fine, Lois, just fine," Jon responded, making eye contact with Martha on her reentry to the living room as if to get nonverbal permission to pass on their bizarre news. He continued, "but I fear Clark isn't in such great shape."
Martha snarled, shrugging and shaking her head. Not too smooth, she thought. She knelt beside her sleeping son and damped his forehead with the cloth. She'd have segued more smoothly onto the fact that Lois' husband was now seventeen years old and looked like he'd been beaten by a sledge-hammer, as if such a tool could harm the man of steel. Martha steadied herself and listened for Lois' voice through the phone wire.
"What do you mean, Jonathan," said the voice on the line, "Clark's right here with me." Jonathan's eyes went wide and his forehead tensed as Martha's jaw dropped. "You want to talk to him?" questioned the Lois-voice on the line as Jonathan nearly lost his grip on the receiver.