True Heroes

by Gann, Myles

  “Is it okay if I read this? It’s nothing new, just interesting to read it like this. The other boxes are in my room by the way. The room’s less cluttered that way. How was work?”

  “Lovely, and yeah you can read it. There are some new, more fun things in there.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Caleb sat down on the couch cushion closest to her. “About?”

  “Work. Your face lied about work then went to neutral when you talked about this thing.”

  “Sorry that was sarcasm. It was boring and pointless; like preschool for a high school kid.”

  “Sarcasm is always hard for me to decode. They’re complicated lies. I’m not good at those.”

  He smiled at her while letting his hand drop on the rest. “Well, you will get plenty of practice between me and my blue friend.”

  She closed the folder and smiled. “You look exhausted.”

  “I haven’t slept for a while. I’m getting good at functioning though.”

  She stood up and moved over to the couch with a blanket over her head. Caleb reached over and slowly pulled it off, mussing her hair greatly and covering her eyes with the thickness of her brown forest. ‘It feels so wrong to not see those eyes.’ As she smiled and chuckled delightfully, he pushed her hair into its proper order again, allowing his hand to drag across her cheek.

  She mumbled quickly again. “Why did he do that?”

  “Because your eyes are far too beautiful to not be seen.”

  She smiled shyly and took the blanket in their combined hands. Hers pushed against his to drag the heavy comforter across Caleb’s body until the side of her right cheek was directly in front of his lips. Her eyes closed as he breathed warmly across her skin. His hand let hers balance on the couch while the other softly queried under the depths of her hair, both relaxed and steady as his lips barely braved the canonic half-inch to her warm shell. Stars died, the sun rose, a tree lost the final crusted leaf of spring’s bloom, all before the soft kiss finally relinquished and the two separated.

  She recoiled from his hands and face, but looked back to him without distaste or disgust. Her lips didn’t mumble and her eyes didn’t seem to know what detail to focus on first. Caleb made no move towards her or smiles to influence her. He sat back. ‘She’s deciding everything now.’

  Her body flopped back to the couch as her arms raveled around his and her eyes continued to stare forward. “I’ve never had anybody kiss my cheek before. Kiss me period. My parents did a few times, but it didn’t feel like that. It didn’t last like that. They never…I loved that.”

  She looked up to him suddenly—‘Could her face conform any more symmetrically to my shoulder?’ “I’m glad you loved it.”

  Caleb let his head fall back, feeling some relief, but feeling more the pounds of fatigue lower his lids. He felt her warm breath and raised smile as he slipped over the edge of exhaustion, her physical imprint dated unto his last imagined image.

  - - -

  Caleb was drowning in a sea of people. His senses snatched at the thin details he was allowed: suits and dresses surrounded him between a wooden basketball floor and low hanging hoops that garnished hanging boas and streamers across the rainbow. His hand twitched at his side, and was suddenly flexed with a drink glass hanging between two fingers. The air was buzzing; men of the room wore their penguin suits with cummerbund belts across each slightly obtrusive stomach while the women all showed V’s of skin and gloves of white, silver, grey, and wore diamond shimmers that crossed their slender necks. He could barely move through the congestion, and yet he stuck out sorely with a missing tie and unbuttoned, disheveled jacket. The low light of the room did nothing to stammer his observation of the sea of humanity that smothered any avenue of travel.

  The spinning balls of light and reflection suddenly stopped and a loud snap halted every movement. A bright line shone across an empty lane of the polished floor, and the hollow underbelly could be heard as the rhythmic clicks of high steps made the gym seem empty. Caleb craned his neck side-to-side to catch a tiny glimpse of the production that was so gallantly met by the many confines of the one room. The tail of a silver dress, a small wave of deeply brown hair, a shoulder: pale to the tan, but tan to the pale. Through an ever changing window, Caleb could finally see the face, and the eyes, and the small nose, and the bangs of deep brown, and recognized Alice’s smile from a time he couldn’t quite recall.

  His hand released the glass and his feet arched forward. He pushed away the first man from behind, but everyone else began to move again. A couple was slow dancing to no music, making Caleb slide around them while aware that the time of the moment wasn’t quite consistent. He spun up quickly then ran slowly as a talking group of gentlemen closed in around him. They rambled loudly against his progress, and Caleb’s power suddenly burst them apart. He ran quickly. A waiter turned with a tray of drinks at Caleb’s waist; he spun while bending his back and knees enough to duck slowly under, and quickly unfolding up, he jammed his wrist into two men’s chests that were running at him. Another one sprinted forward. Caleb pushed him under an arm and continued. Three of them launched their bodies in the air aimed at his chest. As Caleb ran, he dropped and slid beneath them, not standing again until he could no longer see any faces under the widened beam of the spotlight.

  He stood slowly and turned quickly: Alice was there with her hand awaiting his, her look one of expectance and rye impression. He felt his lips form a smile as he walked forward. Her dress sparkled brilliantly under the light as she kicked off her heels and took his hand. He looked down as they came closer and saw a large ruby around her neck; shaped and chiseled around the perfect heart with the tail slightly elongated and the left hump skewed delicately upward. They spun only once—so swift—before Caleb’s lips were suddenly placed against hers in a soft, imparting kiss that turned the room quiet again. There was no telling who initiated the contact, or why Caleb had fought so hard to get it, but the reason for this moment had never crossed Caleb’s mind; the moment simply was without rhyme or reason.

  Her hand stroked the light-brown hairs on the back of his head as they broke. He focused on her eyes. Behind him was a growl. A group of growls suddenly rose from behind the curtain of blackness cast by the light above and was accompanied by red glares that appeared all around them. Caleb scanned them with Alice at his back, but wasn’t ready for their slow pounce. They all invaded the lighted column, even as Caleb suddenly felt his feet lift from the ground. He faced Alice again; the wooden floor at their feet had become a plot of grassed dirt that rounded at the precipice. He looked back down to the raving, thirsty hoards, and the land began to break from beneath them. Alice held both of his hands so tightly, but he knew they would fall. Their hands stayed locked as he fell away from the rising, crumbling rock, and as he hugged her close, they struck water and he lost his grip on her. He began flailing and breathing heavily as his head seemed destined to fall beneath the inactive waves.

  Alice was far beneath him; his lungs and pores filled with a salty fear that was as palpable as her kiss. Caleb dove and tried to swim, but a suction to the sky kept him from going any farther down. It kept him mere inches from her all the time he reached and internally pleaded and bargained with anyone that would listen for the chance to reach just a little farther. Finally, Caleb lost his patient abidance of Alice’s drowning. He resurfaced for only a second before he was screaming; releasing the water from around him for over a mile. The walls of water stretched over the sun as he yelled and focused everything he had downwards, drilling through the brine and death of the black shelves of the ocean, but the faster he dug for her, the faster she plummeted. Earth and Caleb had each opened a hole specifically for Alice, and as he tired and the walls came crashing down upon him, it became apparent that Caleb was over matched.

  ---

  “No, he was tired. I want him to sleep.” Caleb’s hand twitched violently. Power looked down at it and then away to the wall. “What was that?”

&
nbsp; “He’s dreaming.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of what you two are, what he wants you to be, how he will fail you in the end

  Chapter 14

  The loose gown covered Stephen’s muscular chest, but not his eyes. Doctor Ancel caught them looking up. “You look terrified of something.”

  “Maybe the surgery that’s about to alter my life forever, or the unpaid parking ticket from last month. Not sure.”

  Ancel pulled the sheet back to allow Stephen to lay on the gurney. “I don’t think it’s either.”

  “Well feel free to let me in on my own thoughts, Doc, because they’re obviously lost on me.”

  “Why have you been rabid lately?”

  “I told you I want to beat that bastard.”

  “It’s far more fundamental than that, I feel.”

  Stephen lay down as the doctor swabbed his inner elbow. “The floor is yours.”

  “I don’t think you can slow down. I think doing that requires you being inside yourself, which means you’ll be lonely because you have no self.” He gently depressed the plunger as the liquid perforated into Stephen’s rushing blood. “I think this will be the scariest time of your life because you’ll be alone for twelve hours. Look around as you fall asleep, and tell me when you wake up what you saw.”

  Stephen’s eyes tried and forced the bar of artificial fatigue above his head, but no matter the strength he showcased, it inevitably only caused a greater crash into blackness within moments.

  Ancel watched the sterile doctors roll him quickly away and through swinging metal. He rubbed at the back of his neck while ascending the stairs, the last joint of measured steps taking him into the glass observation room. The black back of Major Howard offered pastel brightness in the teeming light from below as Ancel walked next to him. “You didn’t tell him how risky this was did you?”

  Ancel shook his head. “He knows, I’m sure. Even if I did, he’s not backing away from this. This is something he’s devoted more than his life to. He no longer just exists to succeed, but he succeeds to succeed further. Every step is a leap broken into parts, and every leap is blind and absolute. Major, we could order, plead, and push him from this as hard as we could, but I promise the days of him feeling defeated are coming to an end.”

  The Major looked over. “You really think he’s that hungry for this?”

  Alarm monitors started sounding violently. Ancel looked at the monitor inside their room. “His heart rate is falling rapidly.”

  “They just got started what happened?”

  “One of them wasn’t watching the connection leads. When they attempted to insert the first pin, current caused his heart rhythm to fluctuate.” Ancel looked back down as the constant bleating steadied and wouldn’t stop its flat whine. “His heart’s stopped.”

  Paddles were rolled over quickly. “Can they even shock him with his back open like that?”

  “They can shock his back, but it will be less effective….” The heart monitor suddenly sprang to life before the paddles could be placed across Stephen’s bare, open flesh. “He’s stabilizing on his own.”

  The intercom next to the Major’s head suddenly crackled to life. “Sir, he was awake. He was gritting his teeth and clutching at the sheets like he could feel the pain.”

  The Major exchanged curiosity between him and Doctor Ancel. “Is he out now?”

  “Yes sir,” the shaken surgeon responded.

  “Well, keep going. Get the pins in more carefully this time.”

  The doctors below moved more slowly as the normal bumping of time resumed as a steady monotone. “Yes, Major, I do think that.”

  - - -

  “We were moved into position by battalions. The sun found no home in the sand, and instead scorched us under our bronze dressings. Across the closing gap was a microcosm of Hades’ play room; tall walls tanned from the sun’s beat, devilish imps with flame-tipped bows across the brim, and armored servants within the cul-de-sac of the bottom….”

  ‘I thought he was supposed to be good?’

  ‘He’s not bad.’

  ‘The outfit is the best part. A Roman Legionnaire with shorts under his loin cloth is a gift from heaven.’

  ‘You could do better?’

  ‘We could both do better. Since you asked, allow me to impart upon you an imagined story.’ Caleb tilted his head down and closed his eyes. His lids held the projection of a blowing storm, sweeping sand into lungs and eyes, all the while the depth of the blue sky increased the sun’s focus. ‘And here we are. Noble robes, of course. We’re no Caesar, but we have no worries of a dirt bed either. The worry of betrayal would never touch our armor; not that it would make a difference.’ He watched from a detached view as his robes were pushed aside, eyes inflamed through the storm while an army charged at him from across a tanned, closing gorge. His noble colors were blown and carried off. ‘Look. Around our waist lay ten filled scabbards, concealing death and triumph up to the Gladius handles.’ Rage surged on the wind created by the rushing thousands; a chipped spearhead with a wobbly shaft. Caleb’s hands moved into an open stance, the swords coming from their cases at once and floating feet from his hands. ‘Watch. This is what would happen.’ Three enemies reached him. Their swings were cut short. Five more came headlong, and were doused by their own flame. Ten men found a sword in each chest. Twenty took caution in their charge. Caleb simply increased his reach.

  ‘You’re enjoying this aren’t you?’

  Power smiled inside of Caleb’s head as the colors faded away. ‘This is all there was to the world then, and we would’ve been the best at it.’

  Alice suddenly punched his arm as applause sounded. Caleb recovered with a few quick claps, but was under heavy scold from Benny’s eyes. David seemed to give Caleb and Alice a long glance before moving all four lenses to the door. Alice stared at Caleb until he looked up and smiled to her. She attempted a glare, but it wouldn’t stick between their shared eyes as everyone else shared there’s with them. “Alice, you changed seats.”

  She looked pointedly at David. “This is a better seat.”

  “Well, if you change seats, you must have a reason.”

  She looked around to everyone. “I wanted to sit next to Caleb and make him feel more welcome.”

  “David’s right, it’s weird. I don’t like it.” A slight murmur clamored to gain volume.

  Caleb shifted slightly, and everybody suddenly stopped moving. ‘Oh this is going to be fun. They sense you more than regular people, and they’re terrified.’

  ‘You’re not using this for your entertainment.’

  ‘I’m an “it”: an object that has no bias towards its use. I’ll be used in whatever manner I please.’

  Caleb straightened his back. “I asked her to sit with me.”

  The room was quiet and downturned. “Why?”

  He turned to the girl half of the oft-attached couple to his left. “Why do you always hold his hand?”

  “I like it.”

  “Well, that’s pretty much the reason I wanted her to sit next to me.”

  David set his board on the ground. “On that note, let’s take a break for a few minutes.”

  Everyone but David and Alice stayed seated, he nearly running outside while she standing next to Benny. ‘A former conquest?’

  ‘Funny on so many levels.’

  She gently rubbed her hand across the fake shoulder pad. ‘Perhaps not.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Oh we both know it does to you.’

  Caleb shook it away while Alice turned back and smiled down to him. Other people had begun to move around now, but all stayed very close to their seats with tethered ankles and shackled minds. Their bodies were all quickly feeling the autumn intrusion with assorted long-legged garments while only his and Alice’s arms showed any skin above the wrists. His attention varied from quiet group to quiet group, only Alice’s particular voice sticking out. “Well what kind of story do you want to wr
ite for us now, Benny?”

  Caleb scanned over the man—‘His eyes aren’t on the ground,’—and glowered with help from his power. “Well, I want to do something bigger, better. We’ve got some couples, so maybe I will do the big love story I was thinking about.”

  “We’ve only got one couple, Benny, but I’m sure they’d love that. All of us would.”

  “You and him?” Benny looked up for a second as she shook her head playfully. “Oh, I thought…that you’d be able to help me with the context. But never mind.”

  “I couldn’t help you I’d only drag you down. I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Love is a constant exhale…,” Caleb raised his voice to drag the attention of Alice and Benny, hooking the ears of everyone else along the way, “the frothy white before the curl, a naked meadow before the dew. It’s a simple sparkle in the vast, and a sweeping wind before the crease. It is that one moment when the nature of life itself forgets its purpose, its place, and its entire reason for existing, and all it can do is breathe out, and, at that moment, there’s nothing in the world that could be more perfect for life itself. Does that help?”

  Benny and Alice stared straight into his blue-cusped eyes while the extroverts around took in the area closest to his staying shoes. David returned to the scene with a curious look that made him smile a slight while the man that appeared behind brought Caleb to a scorn. ‘Another new one? Your disease is everywhere.’ Everyone shuffled to their seats. Alice, a suddenly cutting smile touching his heart gently, sat in her recliner heavily while subtly leaning closer to Caleb than before, her arm upturned on the rest and hand with fingers spread apart.

  ‘What would happen if I took her hand here, now?’

  His power didn’t respond as David, before sitting down, grandstanded. “I’d like to introduce a very special guest and friend who will be teaching us how to deal with real-life situations starting tomorrow.” The man standing by the door walked over, his shoes quiet on the boards but appearance loud across the empty space. He wore brown pants, coat, and vest with a gold chain dangling from the small jacket pocket and a pair of fine, black dress shoes. He shook hands with David briefly and sat across from Caleb. “This is Doctor Dyllo.”