(no subject)

4.

By the time an hour had passed Mickey knew that there were more real creatures regarded as myths than there were hungry supermodels.

Yeti, Vampires, Extraterrestrial Aliens, Atlantis/Lemuria/Mu (three countries on one continent) and many more were all real. No mermaids though. He was kind of sad about that, he had always had a wish to see a mermaid. Oh, well. Some myths had to stay myths.

The most amazing group was the Immorti. People who were born, lived a life and then were reincarnated with all their memories in tact. People with generations of knowledge and experience that could be any physical age. Some of the most brilliant people in history had been among them. Franklin, Da Vinci, and even
Edison. He wondered abut Einstein, but hadn’t thought to ask.

His father also was one of the Immorti.

They were going to have to have a talk about this one.

But, the greatest of the things he found out was not just how the Immorti were so far ahead of their times scientifically, but that the things they “discovered” were only the things they thought the people of their times could comprehend.

The knowledge, sometimes little more than a rumor, that there were other breakthroughs that could only be guessed at, was a little daunting.

“The story of Icarus and the wax wings is one some of you know,” Doctor Thursday had told them, “But to know that it was attempt at spaceflight in pre-Christian times, one that only failed because of a lack of instrumentation, is even more startling. Imagine a single man trying to pull off a star launch without computers or assistants of any kind. It failed, but what a spectacular failure.”

It was at this point that Mickey really saw Doctor Thursday’s eyes. He had noticed, who couldn’t, that she was a strikingly beautiful woman, but her eyes were a miracle.

Her iris was the pool any human could fall into and find himself hard put to swim out.

The inside of the iris, nearest the pupil was a vibrant green. Then it shaded to a rust color and fast became golden at the edge.

Each eye reminded him of a small sun, erupting from the black surface, though the vegetation, the furnace and out until it licked the star’s entrance into space itself.

He had no idea how long he had been lost in those eyes.

Suddenly he heard her talking.

“ . . . Never like to use the word Human to differentiate ourselves from the other inhabitants of our world. We are humans, just as they are. No better or worse. We are only different. Remember 97% of all human DNA is just alike. We will always be more alike than we are distant.”

As he sat, eating his lunch, he had more than General Tsao’s Chicken to digest.

He hoped he wasn’t developing a crush on her. He had so much else to learn, and that might get in the way.

Besides she had to be at least 23 or 24. She was more than twice his age. That might matter to her.

“This is why superheroes don’t date,” He thought to himself and then began to peel his orange.

He found himself wondering if Doctor Thursday was seeing anybody.

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

(no subject)

5.

“It’s a small world, but it’s a big planet,” Benjy said, as he cleaned up the dinner dishes.

Mickey wondered why his mother wasn’t back yet, but his father looked in no mood to talk about it. He wasn’t real thrilled to talk about any of this, but appeared to be resigned to giving in to some of his son’s inquiry.

“Not all of us knew each other,” Benjy explained, “But there are always about a hundred or so of us around at any time.”

The boy looked at his father in a way he had never done before. It was an absolute and concrete realization that his father was, and always had been, a member of those known as “The Immorti.”

These individual were born with the memories of all their previous incarnations already in their heads. The minds couldn’t make use of the knowledge for several years, but would eventually
gain full cognizance of all that they had lived through out the history of years.

“So, who were you in the past?” The boy asked his father.

“Actually, no one you would have heard of,” His father stated modestly.

“Have you ever heard of Nikoli Tesla?”

The boy’s blank expression answered in the negative for him.

“Ahh, well, how about Andrew Jackson?”

It looked as if Mickey had been hit in the face with a chair.

“The President?” He stammered.

“Why don’t we talk about it when you’ve had a while to think about it?”

“You think of being the President after somebody else?” The boy said with disbelief.

“This is hard to understand,” The boy’s father began.

“That’s the rightest thing you could have said,” The answer came.

 “This is why we don’t talk about it,” Benjy went on, “People cannot have the same perspective on the process that we have.

“To them it is ‘What famous people have you been?’ and to us it is, ‘Which days in your long year come to mind first?’”

Mickey sat back in his chair.

“I’m trying to understand,” He said in a more reconciliatory voice, “But it’s a big step from thinking about your father as your father, to thinking about your father as someone who has
walked all over the pages of your school history textbook.”

“Most of our lives are not even remembered. We do not stand out. We try to blend in. We do what we can to make things better, but we still work within the realm of human ability. Knowledge and memory are great tools, but we are, in essence, still just humans,” His father told him.

“I mentioned Tesla,” The man continued, “First, because he was the most recent incarnation, secondly because I am proud of the scientific breakthroughs. It is sad that most of them are
still waiting to be instituted. And that is mostly because of human greed, rather than the flaws in the science.”

Mickey saw a genuine feeling of loss and defeat in his father’s attitude. He was going to have to look up Tesla on the internet.

“But, the things I have done are nothing compared to what your mother did.” Benjy stated with a matter of fact aspect that belied the seriousness of the statement. “After all, she, in no
uncertain terms, saved the life of the entire world.”

Mickey was stunned again.

“Mom?” He said, with the picture of the frail and nervous woman he had grown up with in his mind.

“She stood alone against Vadid Shastan, and turned away his personal Armageddon,” The man said with love and admiration welling up inside his being.

At that moment, Mickey’s mother walked into the apartment, smiled at her son and husband and went in to take a shower.

She looked like she wouldn’t survive a trip to the grocery store. She looked like she might crumble at a PTA meeting.

Mickey suddenly knew two things.

First: He was going to have a ton of questions to ask somebody.

Second: He was going to have to redefine what the word “Superhero” meant.

But, he also knew, as he listened to the water splashing in the other room, and watched his father cleaning in the kitchen, he knew there was something special in calling yourself a McCauley. What he didn’t know was that someone was, at that moment, rising who would make that name the prime target for destruction.

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens