Conductivity and, well... bears

A while back I had a dream where I'd developed a superpower. I was pretty secretive about my power, not because of any real fear of discovery for the sake of those I loved (spiderman style), but more because my ability was a wee bit embarrassing. Somehow, I'd even managed a nemesis, and one whose power was actually quite impressive.

His power was fire, and one would think that in a dualistic world, I'd probably have some really incredible water powers, able to extinguish his flames. Unfortunately, and embarrassingly, my superpower was the capacity to transform into an oil slick.

I didn't have any real edge on my nemesis, or on anyone for that matter. A random nobody starts robbing a bank, and what can I do? Try and slip him up on his way out? A clever superhero might sabotage his vehicle somehow, using my magical oil powers, but really I don't think my dream self had that kind of intellectual prowess.

In truth, at the first sign of my nemesis I turned into an oil slick and slid away into the ocean.  I remember getting carried away by the current, and finding myself deep at sea, but so enamored of the endless stars, I'd never swim for land when I saw it (how do oil slicks see? magic). I didn't have to eat, because my oily self wasn't hungry, or even sleepy. So I just watched the stars, and formed a thin residue, a patina of filth on the ocean.

Recently, I started contemplating a new story about a couple of characters with reasonable superpowers, but they had a couple of huge negatives: 1, they can only tell one other person 2, if they tell anyone else, they lose the power 3, they don't know who that person is 4, their superpowers isolate them, even though no one else knows. As I started writing it, I got sidetracked and have so far written very little of the actual story, and mostly just meandered aimlessly through CS Lewis land between worlds.

I wonder if there was a grand mistake, a baddie of a bungle when someone composed the components. Ah, started the probable trainwreck of thought, usually only the finest dust, but for this one, a different strategy: sulfur. The bones will be small, the sinews crumbling, the fingers brittle like chalk. The stench, why of course! That’s unique, I think, a truly remarkable obstacle to overcome.

Eyes like a dormant volcano, hair a muddy residue, words the phantom fumarole leaking malodors from the earth indigestion.

The others, why, gold, silver and copper were more conducive for the normal, and what advantages the coinage persons had! But this blunder? Even lightning couldn’t electrocute a mouse held in the hands of sulfur – the capacitance is too high a demand. So here it is, without charge, without current to follow, merely a stench and yellow streak, a bubbly piece of stone riddled with holes like a petrified moon-rock cheese. That one science project a third-grader did alone, without help from the home, and it’s a moldy sandwich left from an old lunch, covered in mustard.

Mustard, like sulfur without energy, melted into mush.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. ~ Walden - Thoreau

A fish struggled against the current. As he watched, its scales glistened and burned with prismatic sheen, like opal armor in plaited sheets. Mighty it swam, coiling and springing each muscle in a taught waveform – the tenacity of the ocean drove it upstream, to die, to gift life.

                It leapt free from the dragging rapids, up a single terrace of stony steps, the tiny falls only an arm’s length beneath the arch of the bridge.

                Only a few more stairs to go.

                El was tempted to scramble down to his knees and collect the fish from the air, depositing it at the top of the cascading stair, where the water smoothed and streamed gently – but he was enthralled. The scene seemed metaphorical, almost mythical.

                     Life in us is like the water in a river.

                The water pushed the fish down a rung, and El felt his spirit slump, and time outside the river stooped to a crawl: the doe frozen nibbling at the grass, her fawns unmoving beneath her thin-limbed legs; the birds halted in spring song; the air empty of wind. Still the fish battled, soaring back up each small waterfall, resting in an eddy, and then surging again at the next obstacle, until only one remained.

                El held his breath. You can do it.

                The dedicated life is the life worth living. You must give with your whole heart.

                The fish burst into motion, swiveling its form like a snake, a lightning bolt of zigzag motion, a flash of color and then a thwip into the air, leaving its own breath behind in a beautiful struggle. A great paw swung from nowhere, smacking the fish out of the air and onto the bridge.

                Elian fell backwards in surprise with a yelp, falling onto his rump, and found himself staring into the volcano-ember eyes of a great, black bear, large as anything he’d ever seen.

                This had better be a dream.

                Come away, O human child!

                To the waters and the wild                With a faery, hand in hand,                For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

                The fish flopped and spasmed on the dry bridge planks, until the bear violently grabbed it in its teeth and slapped it against the railing.

                Wherever this metaphor is taking me, I don’t appreciate it anymore, thought El.

                As if in response, the bear smiled, a great crimson grin as wide as the wink of the moon, El imagined; as wide as the rim of the world, he suspected. All he saw was teeth.

 (Yeats, Annie Dillard, Thoreau)