/ I need a shero

I met the most fascinating girl today along the coast, a comic artist who created a superhero version of herself to fight the looming threat of science lecturers who stood upon the brink of destroying her favorite subject: marine ecology! Other than that, she said, her superhero's main nemesis was boredom, as she had yet to draw any bad guys, not wanting to get to those characters before she had a chance to come up with some sidekick. "Ooh," I offered, "You should give the sidekick an alter ego who in fact IS your superhero's arch enemy! That would be clever."

It really didn't seem as though she was considering this possibility.

"And really," I continued, because she herself said she was looking for a creative partner, "Stay with me here. And REALLY, the sidekick/arch nemesis isn't REALLY a bad guy, it's just that these two superheroes realize some basic quirks about human societies, namely the consideration that people who cannot identify some external threat are generally unproductive and bound to fall into a state of social liberalism. So the superheroes must stage large scale fights with each other in order to keep up the illusion that we could lose all that we have at any given moment. That the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge proves that you should not take for granted your loved ones. That the toxic cloud released from the detonation of the BP tanker is symbolic of our tenuous grip on clean living. That the super ray gun aimed square at the center of the San Andreas fault...you get the picture."

And then she proceeded to explain how she got into comic book art, but she didn't need to. She is her own inconspicuous alter ego, trying to melt anonymously into the crowd at the high school where she has few friends, trying to freeze time at the end of the day before she makes the perilous journey over booby-trapped feet to her regular seat on the bus, trying to steel her resolve to a night where most of her drawing time must give way to taking care of younger brothers and sisters.

“This superhero,” I ask, “Does he talk to the people he saves?”

“She.”

“I'm sorry. Does she talk to the people she saves? Or does she simply drop them off at their doorsteps and steal away? Or does she bill them? Does her sidekick send a bill for services rendered? How would you respond to that, I wonder? Let's say you fall while hiking up a mountain, and just before you hit the craggy rocks below, this superhero catches you, returns you to your friends and a week later you get a bill for $75 in the mail. I mean, you'd pay, right? I mean, if the doctor cures your cancer, you generally have no problem paying the bill.”

“That wouldn't make her much of a superhero.”

“Yes, I suppose superheroes are supposed to be kind of communist about the whole thing.”

“You're funny.”

She seems surprised, I think, because I am dressed as my alter ego, as well, and in my hip new suit, underneath my superhero hair and walking remarkably tall and straight these days, she seems entirely fooled that I was not very much like her when I was 17, that I fell on my own dark days and turned away from those in need, fought myself to maintain a bit of productivity.

Or maybe I am just telling myself that I was like her, because it wouldn't make my story very remarkable if there wasn't some barrier, social or otherwise, that I had to overcome. Maybe my superpower is the unmatched ability to delude myself, so persuasive my supercharms that I actually believe half the shit I think about my childhood, or even the last few years.

Or not.

(Wow. I'm good.)