Adequate Man

It was a busy night in lower Manhattan. The hum of traffic, sea of yellow taxi cabs, and the hue of city lights in the night sky were nothing out of the ordinary.

However, there was something still odd in the air that Mike Donalds. However, tonight he wasn’t Mike Donalds as he stood atop of one of the skyscrapers on Billionaire’s Row. Tonight… he was adorned in his heroic splendor. Tonight, he was Adequate Man.

As he proudly took his first step before jumping off the roof, he tripped on his cape. This caused him to pencil-dive over the edge of the roof in a not-so-graceful matter. Eventually, he straightened himself out after falling for15 stories and he was soaring in the sky.

“Good thing nobody saw that” Mike thought to himself as he flew amongst the concrete towers where every-day New Yorkers carried about their normal lives.

After a few minutes of flying around the skyrise, he spotted a darker SUV speeding down the street. This vehicle was up to no good as he also noticed various bullet holes spread amongst the rear driver and passenger doors, trunk, plus the windows were blown out. Mike lined himself up with the vehicle and attempted to land on the roof. However, as he descended to the ground, he ended up running head-first into the hood of a taxicab coming from the opposing direction.

The impact was strong enough to cause the hood to crumble in around Mike and the engine also began smoking and caught fire. As he got his footing, he tripped on his cape again and fell head-first into the swinging driver door as the taxi driver was escaping. Mike then got back up on his feet, stretched his neck from side to side, ensured his face was okay and checked the taxi for passengers. The cabin was cleared, and the taxi driver was a few blocks away at this point.

However, the taxicab engine was only expelling more flames at this point.

Mike quickly picked up the taxicab using his superhuman strength and leaped into the sky. As he was soaring near the bay to dump the car outside of the city, the taxi exploded in his grasp. Sending Mike rocketing into the waters below and debris from the cab to rain down on the bay as well.

Mike soon broke the water surface, but miscalculated his flight path and banged his left shin on the railing of a nearby yacht. This caused him to ragdoll in the air and smack his backside into the concrete wall of one of the oceanfront midrise properties, then fall to the ground with some debris of the concrete wall joining him on the descent to the sidewalk below. After a few seconds of recovery, he eventually got to his feet and brushed himself off. Then, like clockwork, he tripped over his cape once again after his first step and was laying on his back once again.

“Why do I even bother?” he asked himself as he stared at the heavens, watching the night slowly turn to dusk. “Even in all the superhero games, I fly much better than this! Hardly ever trip over my cape too!”

As he willed himself to get back up, trip, then get back up again, he decided to call off the chase of the darker bullet-ridden SUV and head back home. A warm shower and his sweatpants were calling his name. Some take-out as well. It’s been a few days since he had sushi.

After crashing (literally) into his “meh” quality level of a 1-bedroom apartment and falling into his shower, he was eventually back on his couch playing his “superhero-modded” Grand Theft Auto video game on his TV. However, even in his virtual world of dreams-to-become-reality-someday, he still would occasionally crash into buildings head-first. Frustrated, Mike shut off the game and switched over to YouTube to find something funny to laugh at.

Little did he realize that the same bullet-ridden SUV he attempted to chase earlier was parked 3 block south of his position. The same criminals-at-large were also planning their next epic heist in a nearby building.

Morning came faster than expected for Mike as he awoke from his couch with YouTube still playing random videos on his TV. After tripping and falling into his TV, followed by shutting his TV and gaming PC off, he changed into a fresh set of normal clothes and jogged down the stairs to a nearby coffeeshop. He was so focused on getting a good “cup of Joe” that, when he walk through one of the intersections on the way to his destination, he failed to notice the bullet-ridden SUV parked further down the perpendicular street he was crossing.

Reaching his favorite “Brew 4 U” coffeeshop, Mike eventually got through the line and began placing his usual order. “Hopefully things will look up for me today, Ryan. Starting with this cup!” He said after striking a conversation with one of the workers he knew quite well and grasping his ordered beverage.

For some reason, when wearing normal civilian clothes, he hardly ever tripped over himself or broke anything. This really puzzled Mike as he said by his favorite window seat, overlooking the late-morning busy traffic. He could not fathom why he only tripped while wearing his superhero outfit and cape…

Finally, after finishing his caffeinated beverage, he headed back to his apartment. Whipping his phone out on the way to check the daily news & other reported events on Reddit. Of course, while too engrossed in his phone, the bullet-ridden SUV might as well have had an invisibility shield on as it drove by Mike. He paid no mind to it whatsoever.

“Man, I really hope I catch that SUV someday… that would get me some cred as a proper superhero.” He thought to himself as he neared his apartment. “It sure would be great if I could find something close by. Something that I could just pick out from the crowd of unaware city dwellers…”

Author Notes

Thanks ChatGPT for the story idea! Sometimes, you just need a good writing prompt to get the “juices flowing” and ChatGPT is really good at that.

I might continue with this later on, not sure yet. Will see what I can think of next…