A Plank In Her Eye

Not your typical superhero story.

Plank In Her Eye

There is only black. Darkness. Nothing. All we hear is an alarm clock beeping somewhere not too far away. Suddenly we can see a messy apartment. There are clothes strewn haphazardly across the room. There is a sink full of dirty dishes on the east wall and they’re starting to sell just awful. We then notice a man. He’s sprawled across an unmade bed and we can tell that he hasn’t shaved in quite some time. This man isn’t old, he can’t be more than forty at most but his graying hair and the crinkles on his face tend to suggest otherwise. The beeping of the alarm stops and is replaced by the voice of a police radio. The voice informs us of an emergency at 12800 Mango Street. It’s a fire. Just like in all the typical superhero stories. This is not a typical superhero story. The man stumbles out of bed and, looking for something in particular, begins to rummage through the piles of dirty clothes. He finds the shirt he was looking for, pulls it on, and stumbles out the door and down the stair. We see that the emblem on his dirty wrinkled shirt is a rock. He turns the corner and is out of our view. We decided to follow him but for some reason feel the need to be sneaky. We go quietly down the stairs, tip-toeing carefully, afraid to make any sound. We reach a landing and he turns around, thinking he heard something. We stop abruptly bracing ourselves for the questioning but he gives no acknowledgement of our presence. That’s when we realize that we, you and I, are invisible to the man from the messy apartment. We continue walking, infinitely more curious. As we walk past the doorman and out the door, we thank him briefly. He too gives no indication of his knowledge of our existence, for we are from a different time, a far away when, and we are not a reality to the people of this time, this when. This spikes our curiosity but more so, our fear.  We follow him, more closely now, not as careful to be quiet. He walks down the street hurriedly but not quite in a panic. We look up and see that the man has led up to the building at 12800 Mango Street. We see in front of us the fiery scene just as it was described on the radio. We are in shock and find it hard to catch our breath. The man is inside, wandering around, looking for someone to help. He seems to be in no hurry. All he has on his mind right now is the leftover Meat Lover’s pizza in the ‘fridge at home. He doesn’t actually want to be here on Mango Street. We are taken aback and very disgruntled at the thought of a superhero who doesn’t love his job. But there he stands, right in front of us, the superhero who was born to do something else. He feels not only a human but also a moral obligation to save these people. He knows it’s the right thing to do. He’s just not quite sure that it’s the right thing for him to do. We watch him amazed, not at his incredible strength or his fine-toned arms; we gawk at his absolute boredom.

How could someone with such an adventurous job be so apathetic? we ask ourselves.

How does he not love it?

We become lost in thought as he becomes lost in the flames. For just a moment we think he is truly gone. He reemerges with a small girl in his arms and we breathe a sigh of relief while his sigh is that of a man whose mind is preoccupied. The man continues to work with the fire department for hours upon hours, as we all watch, until finally, at log last, the last of the embers is extinguished. Everyone in the building is accounted for and safe. The firefighters thank our superhero but he waves them off. The news crews beg to speak with him but they all are rejected. He walks home alone, shoulders slumped, head down. It’s not could outside but he shoves his hands deep in his pockets and shivers. We watch as he slowly, somberly climbs the stairs up to his fourth floor apartment. Every move he makes is slow and robotic. We see him open the door to his apartment and crash onto an old, threadbare recliner. He’s still for a moment, sulking. He gets up and walks to the refrigerator, opens his box of leftover pizza, seems to study it for a second, puts it back, and grabs a beer instead. We are in the room with him, standing between him, around him, beside him, but he does not see us. We become more afraid every time we remember this. We do not know why we are here, with this man, in this when, and we are scared. We watch him pour his beer into a frosted glass, grab the remote and fall into his chair. We watch him as he turns on the television. He flips through the channels and settles on the one with two men arguing. They appear to be smart and sophisticated. The man in the chair grunts angrily when the man on the right in the TV says something. Our superhero removes his shirt forcefully and he is no longer a superhero. He is once again just the man in the messy apartment. The beer in the glass disappears quickly. The shirtless man gets up and grabs another beer. On second thought, he takes two more in his other hand. He doesn’t bother using a glass this time. As the beer cans get lighter the yelling at the TV becomes louder, slower, slurred. As the night drags on, we stay, motionless, trying to figure out just exactly who this man is and who we are in relation to him. With every beer he slumps further in his chair, his breathing becomes more labored, and even through our fear, we start to get bored. Following my lead, you step out into the hallway. We lean against the wall, look at each other and let out all the feelings we’ve been trying to hide.

“What…How…Ughhh,” you start but you can’t find the words to express just what you’re thinking. It’s okay though, I know, I understand. I feel all the same things. We cuddle up together and fall asleep. What we think is sleep anyway. What we don’t know is that here, in this when, we can’t sleep, and we can only cease to believe for a few hours.

 

When we regain our sense of belief, we see that the man has made his way to the floor and is beginning the struggle to consciousness. We feel something very different from what we felt yesterday. We can’t quite put a finger on it but I can tell that we’ve both grown in some sense of the word. I have to make a conscious effort not to walk over to you and hold your hand and that confuses me greatly. The man pulls himself up onto the chair and I snap back to reality.

 

            

Author's Note

Unfinished. Started for NaNoWriMo, never really got going.

Reviews

[mattefox]

I'm intrigued as to where this is going; I can really appreciate this style, I think it's beautiful.
I have no idea what you are planning to do after this but I'd love for you to complete it :-)