One of the Best People

Three days ago, I was bitten by a mosquito. It was an especially painful bite, and the mark it left was more swollen and itchy and alarming than anything I’d ever seen on my hand. I even spent time researching online to learn if there are different kinds of mosquito bites. Like, had this one decided to lay eggs in me? Or, is there such a thing as a queen mosquito? Oh and, does malaria show up in the bite mark? It was a painful and sort of desperate three days.

Until the morning when it was gone and I realized that I am strong. Not just “I feel better now” strong. Not just “stronger than ever” strong. Super strong. Comic book strong. Inhuman strong.

It started in the morning, when I woke up and picked up my phone to check the time. I almost flung the phone all the way to the ceiling, it was so light! And then I tested the book on my bedside table, and it, too, felt lighter than a feather. The comforter, my pants from the night before … everything I owned was no harder to lift than a penny. Even my own body’s frame was nothing, as if I were filled with helium, but without the squeaky voice. I spent some time bounding around my room and reveling in my newfound ease with the world.

This might sound stupid, but my first thought was that something had messed with gravity, and that the planet’s mass had, I don’t know, shrunk? So we were all lighter now, like the astronauts on the moon? It made no sense, but then neither did the way the world felt.

A few experiments in my kitchen ended this theory, though. I dropped some cups and plates to see if they would fall more slowly and bounce harmlessly off the tile, but even though they felt so much lighter, they crashed and shattered just as they would on any other day. Thankfully, sweeping up the mess felt unaccountably easy, even pleasurable, so I didn’t mind the loss of a few cheap ceramics.

Then I tried to lift my couch, and I could! I lifted just the front edge, testing my capabilities, and this was something I could do before with effort, but now it was so easy I had to restrain myself from tossing it over my head like a pizza dough. I repeated the test with a few chairs, and my television, and my dog, who hated it. No problem. No sweat. No resistance.

And that’s when I got a bit obsessed with crushing stuff. Not the dog, of course, who was barking at me like mad all morning while I ran around the house doing all this. I picked up a candlestick I never bothered to buy candles for and that I’m pretty sure I got at a garage sale. It was made of brass, maybe, or some kind of brass-colored metal. Whatever it was, I squeezed it and it snapped in half instantly. I got a full bag of flour from my pantry and squeezed it until it popped and flour went everywhere, which made me laugh out loud and really got the dog barking and jumping around in circles.

I ran out of my apartment building and approached a big oak tree planted next to the road on the other side of the sidewalk. I stood there a moment in my robe and slippers, considering how best to test my powers. I didn’t want to tear it down or anything, because I had nothing against the tree. I worried that climbing it might accidentally damage it somehow, given my grip strength and everything. My excitement conjured up an image of yanking the tree straight out of the ground roots and all, but I settled for just scratching my initials deep into its bark with my finger.

Or, that’s what I tried to do. Turns out strength doesn’t prevent splinters. I yowled in pain as a thick piece of bark broke off and impaled my pointer fingernail. I went inside to run it under cold water and find a bandage, being extremely careful to turn on the tap with the lightest feathery touch, because I didn’t need plumbing problems today.

So I discovered that my mosquito bite strength was muscular, but that I didn’t have bulletproof skin or something like that, so I was still quite vulnerable. This bummed me out, and I was pretty sad while I was putting the bandage around my bleeding fingertip. What good was all this strength if I was just going to hurt myself with it?

That’s when the idea hit me: armor. If heavy metal was like paper to me, I could go around wearing the heaviest, thickest, most powerful armor and feel like I was wearing normal clothes, or maybe thick winter clothes at the worst.

And, yeah, this idea was absolutely connected to the bigger idea that I had to be a superhero now. What would you do? I mean, I also entertained the ideas of winning all the Olympic weightlifting medals in the world or becoming the most famous football player of all time, but those required a multi-step process with all sorts of gatekeepers who would obviously learn my strength and want it studied by doctors and scientists … the nice thing about being a superhero is you get to keep your powers a secret and nobody can tell you what to do. Plus, if I played sports for fame and fortune, I was probably going to hurt people on the other team, on my own team during practice, maybe even kill them. I wanted to be responsible. I wanted to do good.

I am a good person.

I am now one of the best people.

I am a hero.

And that’s why I needed armor. But armor isn’t something you can just buy at the hardware store, especially the impenetrable kind that they wouldn’t make because it would be too heavy for anyone to wear. I’d have to make it myself. And unfortunately muscles don’t suddenly gift you with the abilities of a tailor or an engineer or anything like that. I work at a gas station. I flunked math. I’m not Spider-Man with that extra bonus superpower of being a school nerd. The armor would have to be a long-term project, something I built slowly and in iterations. Maybe by finding an abandoned dumpster and pulling it apart into sheets that I could tie together with bike chains or something? I don’t know, like I said, this was a new problem to solve.

The day went on with me drawing stupid looking sketches and trying to solve the armor problem. Lunch and dinner went by without me noticing, and when the sun set, I realized it was my first chance to go out and be a hero by looking around for muggings and robberies, and I still hadn’t figured it out. I tried to look up the nearest Army Navy Surplus Store on my phone for bulletproof vests and helmets and stuff, but I accidentally jabbed my finger straight through the glass screen in my hurry to get equipped.

I settled for putting on lots of thick layers. I dragged out all my snow stuff, even though it was getting into spring and there was no chance of snow now for months. I put on several sweaters and a thick coat and snow pants and my work boots and two knit hats to protect my head and ears and a ski mask to hide my face. All that padding wouldn’t stop bullets, but it would provide some measure of protection against knives and punches, and disguise me besides. It was a very warm outfit, I won’t lie, and my mobility was a bit limited, but I figured my incredible strength would make up for any lack of dexterity. I said goodbye to my dog, who eyed with extreme suspicion, and dashed off into the night.

The first few hours were pretty boring. I walked all around town, turning into roads and alleys that I thought would be full of seedy characters, but only found brightly lit pathways and pedestrians who looked at me funny because of my outfit. I wished I could skulk better to avoid attention, or leap across building rooftops or something. It occurred to me that I hadn’t tried jumping. What if I could leap over buildings? But I didn’t want to try while people were still out, lest it scare them, and I was also very frightened that my muscle strength wouldn’t extend to my bones, and that I’d break my legs on landing, or even die. Later, I told myself, I would try with little hops and skips at a time to test my jumping strength. For now, the focus is on saving victims.

Because I am a good person.

I am now one of the best people.

I am a hero.

I settled down beside a gas station convenience store. Not the one I work at, because I was afraid someone would recognize me, and it would just be weird to go to work on my day off anyway. A different one, not too far away, and one that I knew had been targeted by some robberies because us gas station attendants pay attention to news about that. I was sweating and a little bit dizzy, so I posted up next to a cool dumpster waiting for anyone suspicious to go in and try something. I occupied my time by studying the dumpster, trying to figure out how to take it apart and fashion it into some bad-ass armor.

But I found I couldn’t keep my mind on it. I was starting to feel woozy, almost drunk. There were people coming and going from the convenience store, mostly single men buying lottery tickets and beer. I tried to keep my ear to the brick wall for any hint of disturbance inside that I could swoop in to prevent, but my ears aren’t muscles, and I do not have hearing superpowers. I knew that if I went inside, I’d immediately attract unwanted attention because of my outfit, especially if I were loitering for a long while. So I decided to scan the faces of the people going in for criminal intent.

It was hard to concentrate from my position on the other side of the dumpster, crouching a little and trusting in my obscure spot to keep them from noticing my head. How can you spot a criminal? Many of the men looked suspicious, but no more or less than each other, and I knew from my work experience that a lean, angry look was often just a need for a fresh vape or a cold forty. The odds were that none of these men were going to rob or kill anyone, but I still found myself blearily eyeing their faces, sizing them up for suitability.

I crept around the side of the dumpster, closer to the parking lot and the gas pumps, in a crouch that made me ready to pounce. I hovered and shifted back and forth in my squat, waiting for the right one, not sure what that meant but certain that I’d feel it in my bones.

I waited there for what felt like hours. My mind felt like I was fading into nothingness, and I began to fear I’d pass out there. Urges started to control me. Urges I could not name. A small man in his late fifties, a day laborer looking weary from his toils, caused me to spring into action. Nobody else was around. I leapt forward and snatched him in my powerful arms, squeezing them like jaws as I dragged him back behind the dumpster. I pushed him down and held him there with my leg, heavy as a steel girder. Yes, look, he would rob. He would kill.

I leaned forward to probe his eyes for the criminal inside. I probed and probed. My mouth fell open, the probing tube came out, reaching down and stroking his neck before finding a tender spot to penetrate and feed from, feed deeply, life rushing back, color returning, strength growing stronger. I staggered forward from the force of the pleasure and put my heavy hand across his mouth to stop the feeble screaming, crushing his skull even as I drew the last of his blood and the proboscis retreated like a whip into my throat.

I remained there for a while, hunched over, panting above the dead body I had drained. I felt my thoughts return to themselves, to coherence.

I straightened up, suddenly overwhelmingly hot. I stripped the coats and sweaters and hats and threw them down across the dead body, letting my bare chest drink in the cool air of the night as my head radiated steam. Yes, look at muscles. See how they’ve become firm and large. I flexed for myself and threw my head back at the sky, barely resisting the urge to let loose a triumphant scream. For I had done it! I had taken down a bad guy!

Because I am a good person.

I am now one of the best people.

I am a hero.