No Man's Land

“…You know what I’ve been thinking, Roy? I would kill for a petty crime right now, anything! I remember when I was exclusively called for world ending events and my sponsors would vomit money to have me wear their logo whenever some Dr. Danger or Professor Ruthless would go on air with a doomsday weapon but I’ve been so bored lately; I wish petty crime were still a thing. What I wouldn’t give to stop some thug from stealing money or food or to bust some trespassers smoking weed in a park tonight… …Roy, am I an asshole? Be real with me, I just…look, I know that sometimes the ‘criminal’ was stealing to feed his family but what about all the times he wasn’t? Sorry, Roy, I’m not being gender inclusive, all the times he or she wasn’t? Lady crooks were definitely a thing. Anyway…I forgot what I was saying…also the park was sacred and they knew what they were doing… Nah, I think I’m a pretty good guy…”

“…Mr. Perfect?! Is that you?” the voice of a young woman emerged from seemingly nowhere, she approached the rambling super hero whilst stepping around the scattered pieces of concrete and glass that littered the ground. “Oh my god!” the woman continued, “I can’t believe you’re alive! I could’ve sworn I was hearing voices in my head, I’m so glad its really you! Wait…who were you talking to just now?”

“Why, I was talking to Roy over here.” “…The charred corpse leaning on that rock?” the woman asked with concern in her voice. Mr. Perfect turned back to the body, charred and boney, most of its clothing had been vaporized but surprisingly a small plastic name tag had survived the devastation and lied near the body, it read ‘Ro_’

“Yeah…it’s kind of uncomfortable to be left alone with my thoughts” Mr. Perfect responded after a pause, “I know he’s not talking back, I haven’t quite gone that crazy.”

“I get it, its been getting really lonely around here. My dad had a fallout shelter; he was able to get me in there but he went out for my brother and didn’t make it back in time…so yeah…sometimes I talk to myself too.” She paused uncomfortably then continued, “Umm anyways, I hate to be so bleak, you have been my hero for my whole life! I’m so glad to meet you, I really can’t believe you’re alive and that I’m still capable of being star-struck. I’m Tia by the way.”

“Thanks, I’ve been feeling awful about this whole thing but I’m glad that I haven’t lost everyone. It’s great to meet you, Tia.”

“What happened here anyways? I’ve been living underground for months…also, what happened to your clothes?” Mr. Perfect looked down at his mostly naked body, took a long breath, “Well it’s a long story; I had an off-day really and made a few wrong moves.”

“I’m sorry, what? What do you mean? What happened?”

“Ah well, you see, I had a girl I was dating for a while that turned out to be a world renown jewel thief. Truth be told, I thought it was kind of hot, so I was just going to let it slide, but then she goes and runs off with this hedge fund ass clown, Darkman. I was pretty upset about the breakup and went day drinking with my alter ego’s co-worker, Jimmy James. We were about to finish our fifth pitcher when I got a call from the pentagon about some sort of doomsday weapon or something. When I got to the situation room, this army fellow was pretty angry and went off on me. In the middle of his tirade, a video call comes in; it was Wolfblood, the guy that had the weapon. He started talking about how he was tired of society, was mad that people thought he was a crappy magician…maybe he said musician, I’m not sure, he was rambling and I was kind of in and out. Anyway, he explained his plan to destroy life on Earth unless I could stop him…”

“Dear god…” Tia muttered. “I know, right? What kind of plan is that? Best case scenario, he succeeds and doesn’t survive to experience it.”

“Are you saying that everyone on the planet is dead?” Tia asked freshly mortified. “Wait, let me finish, so the Feds that were in the room were able to trace the call to a warehouse in Kansas of all places. I flew over there and busted through the roof. The room was practically empty with the exception of a letter addressed to me and a laptop on a desk in the corner; I opened the letter and read it. Now, Wolfblood is a great name for a villain but I feel like he couldn’t figure out what his ‘thing’ was going to be because the letter was a riddle with a badly made origami animal crammed inside.”

“What was the riddle?”

“If you lose what was found…no wait, share it and you won’t have it…ego of a man…I don’t really remember, to be honest, he wasn’t very good at coming up with the riddle, there were a bunch of scratched out lines and smudges. I tried figuring it out for like 20 minutes before I remembered the computer in the corner. I moved the mouse and the screen lit up, no lock screen or anything. He must’ve left in a rush and not remembered to grab his laptop because he had his Internet browser open with a bunch of tabs on making origami figures, lists of hard riddles, and mapped directions to some address near by.”

“…I…you…but…” Tia began but was unable to put the words together. “Yeah, so I went to the address, smashed through wall proclaiming loudly that the riddle was too easy, you know, to demoralize him. Unfortunately, Wolfblood was standing on the other side of the wall that I broke through, so he just kind of…well, he exploded all over the place. You know, he was probably really book smart but just the worst criminal.” Mr. Perfect said feeling mildly embarrassed.

“Wait…so you won?” Tia asked incredulously.

“Well ‘won’ is a little premature, he set a timer on the device, which was the size of the building by the way, I have no earthly idea how he managed to build it in the first place. The counter was at 27 seconds when I came in. In retrospect, I probably should’ve tried the ol’ freeze breath or tossing it into space, instead, I panicked and did what I did every time a machine was going to do evil; I punched it. That was definitely the wrong move. There was a big flash and I woke up to a desert planet with no pants.”

Tia stared at her superhero idol; she was trembling. “This is…I don’t...but” Tia began hyperventilating, “So everyone is dead?”

“No, no, no you survived and I’m sure there’s a bunch of other people out there too. This doesn’t have to be the end.” Mr. Perfect gestures to give Tia a hug. Tia, consumed by emotions, embraces him tightly. Mr. Perfect hugs her back; the two feel human contact for the first time in months. A loud sound of a crack splinters the air and Tia gasps. Mr. Perfect lets go immediately and Tia falls to the ground.

“What…the…hell? Why?” Tia asked as she gasped. “I’m so sorry! I forgot how fragile bones are. Ah! No! This can’t be happening, what to do?” Mr. Perfect spoke frantically.

“Help…me…”

“Okay, um let me think, I can see that you have a bunch of broken vertebrates and your liver’s bleeding, it wasn’t doing that before, right? Oh, of course not…ahh! Let me think…that’s…I could try freezing your…no, that’s stupid…umm fire breath? No that never works…damn it, think!” Mr. Perfect stammered. “Don’t just stand there, do something, Roy!” he gestured.

“Who…are you doing this bit for?” Tia asked, she struggled to stay conscious. “No one! I’m sorry! I use humor sometimes when I’m nervous!” He answered quickly. Tia passed out and after some time passed away. Mr. Perfect sat and watched her for hours.

__________________________

Three months pass, Mr. Perfect sat a top a rock facing the fractured face of the statue of liberty.

“You wanna hear something crazy? I’m not an alien. The media would say I was from another planet all the time and I never bothered correcting them about it. I’m actually from Grand Rapids. My family had a modest cottage in the suburbs, I don’t remember much about the house other than the pear tree we had in the backyard. The way the sunlight peaked through its shade, the way it would sweat fruits through the seasons; it was truly a beauty. My favorite book as a kid was The Giving Tree, after I read it; I went outside and talked to our tree. I would sit and talk to it every day until I was about 11 years old. One night, I had a bad dream, so I went outside to tell the tree, as one does, and I saw a bright light in the sky. It grew enormous and blinding and then suddenly went back to normal and there was a figure floating in front of me. It looked as if it was constantly shifting between being solid, liquid, and gas. It floated there for a few minutes and then reached up and grabbed a pear from the tree. It didn’t speak but I heard a voice in my head, it said, ‘Eat this fruit, child, and become a god amongst men.’ It dropped the pear in my hand and vanished as I took a bite. I devoured the rest of it; it was the best fruit the tree had ever made. I felt horribly sick afterwards and in a weird twist the tree withered away the next night. As my sickness went away I started being able to do incredible things. One day I learned I could fly; a few days later I was lifting my mom’s mini van and absolutely dominating the schoolyard in arm wrestling. The older I got, the more stuff I could do. I’ve been living on nutrients from the sun ever since the world went to hell, I didn’t even know I could do that before! Crazy, right?”

“That is really neat, Mr. Perfect.” An older man said as he stood up from the rock beside Mr. Perfect.

“…Please, call me David, Mr. Perfect is starting to feel like a bad joke.” Mr. Perfect requested in a somewhat somber tone. “Well that’s fine with me, Dave, you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself though. You saved the world a whole lot of times, you were bound to slip up eventually.” Said the man as he skipped a stone across the field made of sand. “Thanks, Josef, that’s very kind…do you think that was God that gave me the fruit? I wish I could’ve asked questions before it left, it would’ve been such a game changer,” David pondered.

“Maybe it was the devil.” Josef said casually as he skipped another stone. David and Josef made eye contact for a moment and then laughed together. “Maybe I should’ve went the devil route, definitely offers more street cred than the alien business.” David said light heartedly. Josef and David’s laughter died down, Josef wiped away a tear and after a pause spoke.

“…Hey David?”

“What’s up, Josef?” David asked as he picked up a stone to skip.

“I’m sorry that there’s no one left.” Josef said softly.

David looked down at the stone in his hand, “Don’t say that, man. You survived and I’m sure there’s a bunch of other people out there too.” David claimed as he threw the stone, it skipped for miles until vanishing over the horizon. “Ha! Not bad, what did you think of that one?” David asked as he turned to realize he was alone.