Chapter 3: Supersonic

Could I fly?

For me, that was the natural first question, after finally absorbing the fact that— so far, at least— it looked like I was invulnerable, and after asking myself if there was more to what I could do than that.

Flying— the idea of flying— was always one of those daydreams that I had had as a kid. Hell, I think the majority of boys under the age of 12 had had that daydream, that wish to be able to fly under their own powers. Superman, Wonder Woman, Iron Man, Green Lantern, Falcon, Icon- all different ways, but the same result. Admittedly, not everyone on that list flew under their own native abilities, but they flew just the same. They were some of my ‘heroes’ as I grew up from childhood, and I had had plans to one day not only fly- maybe by way of a flight suit, complete with jet engines- but perhaps even build my own suit similar to an Iron Man suit.

Building the suit would have been the easiest part of things; the ‘plans’, such as they were, for building a replica of the Iron Man suit could be found on the internet, and with a lot of money and a 3D printer that could print metal, that was simple. Even the jet engines, bulky as they were, weren’t a problem. Making the whole contraption actually fly, though, that was hard.

But the idea of flying, especially under my own abilities, made me wonder just where those abilities might come from. That lead— of course— to wondering about where my invulnerability had come from, too. It wasn’t like I had grown up that way— hell; it wasn’t like I had been invulnerable even as recently as the last Valentine’s Day. At the time, I didn’t even think that it had anything to do with Malkin’s asteroid, and at the time, I certainly wasn’t paying attention to the devastation that our society was going through, nor the scattered but growing reports about others who had gained powers as well; I wouldn’t stumble onto that little gem for another three or four days. I was still reeling— or, maybe I should admit that I was wallowing in my emotions, by that point— from the death of my wife; she was barely a month gone, then, and less than a full day had gone by after my suicide attempt. So, I think maybe I should be cut a little slack for not seeing the obvious, or even thinking of it.

So, I wondered.

Admittedly, I didn’t wonder for long, not about where my power had come from, anyway; I was quickly distracted by warring ideas about trying to find out just how invulnerable I might be— and a part of me still hoping to discover a way past it— and trying to find out if I could fly. Call me crazy, because when I think back on the matter, that’s all I can think of myself as. I mean, what man who manages to survive trying to kill himself, gets into a debate with himself about whether to go jump off of a building to try to kill himself again, or go jump off of a building to see if he could fly?

I ended up nixing the idea of jumping off of a building altogether— again; if I managed it, someone might see me doing it, and I didn’t want the attention; I’d read too many stories and seen too many movies about people who could suddenly do things, and how the world feared them and wanted to control them or experiment on them, and I just knew that if that happened, I would really be living in hell— with the emphasis on living. On the other hand, if I didn’t fly, and instead I fell again, I was pretty sure that someone would see me, and if then that really would draw attention that I didn’t want. So I would have to go somewhere where there were no other people around, to try that.

I ended up going back ho— well, not home; back to where I had been living, and where my plan to kill myself had been born. Back to Tuskegee, Alabama. Why there? Because I at least knew of somewhere I could go, out in the countryside, where I could satisfy my growing curiosity, and find out if I could fly. It certainly wasn’t home, not anymore if it had ever really been; home had been with my lady love, and without her, I was almost literally homeless; I definitely felt that way.