Hero

"How is he?" Asks my sister as she walks into my room.

"It's not good." Our mother is standing at a window, her shadow shining like a beacon in the middle of the city. "During the day, you're fine. Even smiling. But at night." As he turns, our mother's gray face moves. "I'm running out of options here, Maggie."

My sister wraps her arms around my mother's shoulder, pushing her as gently as possible from a nearby chair. Our mother's body is like a sack of potatoes. The room they are staying in, a room I have not been in for a full week, smells like rotting lumps. In the darkness of the concrete wall, I think I can even see mold-like eyes popping into the ceiling.

"You need to rest," said Maggie. "I can take it here. You look like Hell. Are you infected?"

"He's just clenching his fists," he said, shaking his head and falling into his arms, moaning. I look at my hands, big and thin. I slaughter them at once.

In the darkness of this room where I am sitting curled up in a corner, there is nothing in me but the memory of my victory like the eyes from the roof, on the walls. I wish I could clap my hands because every time my fists come together they break like a gunshot. Behind the closed eyes I see black and blood and red lines coming out of the theater door like skid marks of a car. His car, the shooter's car, which he had parked outside, was still running, exhaust smoke smelled of sweat and blood that would have told me where I was going, where I had found him. I already found him.

He killed them all, everyone in that theater. And I bruised his neck; his bones came out of his hands.

The walls are crashing in the dark. When I stop, I feel like fainting again. My head is light, but I have been eating what my mother gave me. My muscles ache because the area I turned into a ball of limbs and skin, pressed against the point where the wall meets the wall. Call Me a Wonderful Ball. Call me Failsafe. Call me anything but a nickname that makes me laugh at the headlines.

And who was this man I was called a Hero for murder? The man did not go well, he is not so different from me. Same hair color, even. In my corner, my body is shaking. I can't stop you. It will not stand.

In the red lines, I thought I saw the future. It was me in this corner, in the ball, and the world was burning outside. Red flames.

Her sister brought a plate of mashed potatoes and nutrition for yeast gravy. If it were up to her, she would cook the food of her childhood: chicken broth and sausage. But his brother has long since avoided meat, cheese, fat. She thinks as she serves him, Maybe that's why he's having so much trouble, he's so sorry. You need protein, little brother. As soon as he thinks of it, he nods. Did he hear her? Was that one of his powers, the ability to read minds? He does not remember them all well.

"I don't know," said his brother.

You are embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it," he said.

"It can't eat. It's too dark for you to eat." In his corner he is no longer the brother he knew as a child, he is no longer the hero on the front page of all the pages. How could the man tear down the buildings like an onion in the dust? She shudders quietly, and she hears his amazing sound humming on the floor. It shakes the tile under him. "Wait until it is light," he said. "I will eat light."

She wonders in the dark. It used to be his playground. He once rode each night like someone from a television program that they used to watch until midnight on the weekends. He once managed to turn on the TV and saw their old heroes change his brother's face. This made him smile so much that he thought his face could tear.

"I'll keep it," he said, but he doesn't leave the room. He kneels next to her and presses his forehead against hers. His sweat-filled him. Pain moves in his brain like a spear. He does not back down. This is the only way he knows how to help her. For she, for she is always the sister.

I can't hear my sister's heartbeat. It scares me, how cold they are. It is often very hot. The walls are also cold. They leave my hands bitten by snow. I ask them why it is so cold, and they do not talk to me. I can not hear the roar of machines, the sound of cars on the streets outside, the roar of hearts. I feel the future, and it is full of screaming.

Knowing all is not one of my strengths. I'm not a prophet. I repeat this to myself, but if one man can do it, five guns and tear gas and a closed room of people thinking it is nothing but, one man can do anything. Soon the heart becomes bitter. That's not right.

I can't stop everything forever. Every time I stop one, there will be another one I fail. My sister's heart will stop beating, whether I hear it or not. Mom in the next room will sleep. People out there, on earth, will turn on one another. They will destroy each other to be bigger than the last boy.

The night will stretch our city like a veil. Competition for them. Who will give me my attention? What horrible crimes will I have to let others do just to stop it? Sick. I take off all my shoes. A reek of broccoli and peanut butter and an edible vegetable with juicy branches fill my nose until I cough.

My sister kissed me on the forehead and left the room, saying that she would be back. In this, you will do it. Next time, who can say?

"Are you sick again?" Their mother is already lying on the couch, raising her head to look at her daughter as she returns to the living room. "There's already a coupon in the sink there."

"It is said that he fell asleep." Her daughter shakes her hand as if shooting a fly. It is an act their mother always despises. She wants to spit in her daughter's hand, but she has no strength. He has been sleeping for four days. You think you can feel the skin under your eyes disappear. By the time he last looked at himself in the mirror, the circles were as dark as if he had a black eye.

"You must live your life. Let the old woman take care of her son."

Her daughter is not listening at all. Suddenly the door slams shut, and there is no more noise in the living room but a soft clock sound on the clothes. It could be a bomb, thought her mother. It may always be a bomb.

She used to wonder what it was like to raise a bored child. If only he would make her proud as the son she is. He no longer wonders this. These days he just wonders if the world could be a better place without him. The light in the corner remains bright, closing his eyes toward it. To be a hero's mother requires energy that you do not have right now. We need a woman who can take care of herself, who can put herself to sleep. Their mother fears that if she falls asleep she will die. That he will die. That her son would get better. That the wicked will again have reason to harm him.