New story (just the beginning)

Stories like this often start out, “It was the last thing J. Sandolph ever thought would happen to him.” Whatever the thing was, he had not even contemplated the occurrence.  Well, that is not the case in this tale. Mickey McCauley had thought about having superpowers from the first day he read a Fantastic Four comic book. If anybody deserved to have powers, he was the one. Flight, super strength, invulnerability, the whole package would have come as a natural response of the universe to the purity of his heart. But the powers he got were, as it happened, not what he conceived. In fact, he doubted that anyone had ever thought of giving any hero these powers.

But, for this to make any kind of sense, we need to go back to the beginning.

It was the kind of electrical storm you don’t find anywhere but Kansas.

The Earth threatened to throw out all its physical laws and rely on sound and fury to fill its nights.

Mickey watched the display flash across the horizon with little angst. He didn’t mind thunder, instead he felt energized by it. While others cowered in their beds, he always felt like climbing on the roof and standing with his arms outstretched to welcome his brother the lightning to
join him on the ground.

He was not, however, going to do that.

He always remembered the flying episodes.

When he was younger he repeatedly took to the roof of their two story house and leapt into the air, assured that one of those leaps would result in flight. After several jumps the stinging at the bottom of his feet confirmed that the superpower that was going to escape his grasp might,
indeed, be flight.

Oh, well, there were plenty of other powers, and he would find his.

So while the sky was lit by the ionic palate of storm, he was wondering when he would finally become a superhero.

For a while now he had considered the Batman route.

He knew that not being an orphan and not being phenomenally wealthy would be a set back. But it was nothing he couldn’t overcome, if it meant that evil would finally have a foe worthy of battle.

He was studying chemistry and criminology. Not in school, since they didn’t cover those subjects in the sixth grade the way they should.

When the subject of his “What I Did This Summer” paper had been “Studies of comparisons between reactions to different poisons,” he had ended up in the Principals office.

When they found a copy of “Explosives and Politics” in his backpack, they had sent a note home.

He had wished he was jumping off the roof again.

Or, he wished to be taking off from the swing when it reached its highest point. Those were glorious flights. The landings were never good, but the flights were magnificent. He had once gone over a three foot fence and landed in the middle of the street. On coming drivers were not
happy.

He was banned from the swings where ever they knew him.

Somehow, for him, being banned from the swings became a badge of honor.

He knew better than drawing the lightning, even though it worked for The Flash & Captain Marvel. Flash was a chance mixture of chemicals mixing with the lightning, so that was out of the question. Captain Marvel’s lightning was mystical and what was threatening to rip the sky above in half was majestic, but not magical.

But, that did not stop him from watching in wonder as the bolts stopped time in its tracks with their eruptions. It seemed like the entirety of existence ceased to move during each streak of lightning. What power that was.

Then, it happened, just like in the stories.

Lightning reached out of the sky, reached through an open window he was watching through, and lifted him about three inches off the ground.

You could smell burnt hair all around the room.

Mickey stood up slowly, in a bit of confusion. His mother and father were stunned. His younger brothers were speechless.

“I think I was just hit by lightning.”

His mother shook her head, not knowing what to say but, “Yes, baby, I think you were.”

“Are you…” His father began.

“Shazam” Mickey said with a big smile, and then fell unconscious to the floor.

When he awoke he was in a hospital bed.

(c) 2005 by C. Wayne Owens