They come at me, all those who can fly. I slide through them, light through air, gravity but another shade.
Thor is the mightiest. His hammer tears through time and space, rips through logic, raw and exposed. I admire it, more so than I do its owner.
When the hammer hits, I’m carried back two miles before my board catches up, arching me to the left, the hammer returning to the right. I barely feel a thing.
We, the board and I, beat Thor’s weapon back to him. I’m bored, lazy. Holding back my cosmic power, I crash into the Thunder God with my body, as if letting a wave raise and dump me on shore.
Still, I barely feel.
Some of his allies come at me with parlour tricks. They seem so fragile, like ghosts. I must be careful dealing with them, try to care.
Thor is shouting something, like always, as if angry, offended. I can’t be bothered, so set the air on fire. With any luck it will stop his bragging, smother his lungs.
Iron Man and Reed Richards make their play. Such egos tripping over each other, they are my real foes. Science. I am born of it. But a science that, like the calcium in their teeth, and iron in their blood, was born of the Big Bang, made in the heart of suns.
I am tapped into the wonder of exploding stars.
These two are far more cleaver than me, but they don’t have the speed of a nova.
Cosmic rays take out Richards, I watch his chin, and they follow my fingers there, pushing through the fabric of atoms on jagged, lightening lines. I strip Iron Man of his mask before he can unravel me, sending him, panicked, earthward, looking to breath.
A momentary diversion. I try to care.
There is a fungi on this planet, in the tropical forest. It will infect an ant, eating all non-vital organs, taking over its muscles and nerve systems, forcing it down, like a zombie, into the north-east facing vegetation of the lower canopy, where the climate and morning light suits the fungi’s growth. It then slowly consumes the ant from the inside leaving nothing but the tendons to its pinchers, so that the last thing the ant does before it dies is bites down on the underside of a leaf, locking itself on. The fungi then eats the rest of its insides, leaving the ant’s outer shell for protection, like armour, from weather and rival fungi. Then repeats the process by letting off its spore. In this, one microscopic fungi, can wipe out an entire colony.
Fungi.
I see these things.
And solar systems with five rotating suns, and planets with creatures of liquid fire, that whisper such poetry with their flame. I bask in a space whale’s song, play with the speed of light, marvel at the lives of microscopic creatures that live off dust...
And find it all more interesting that Iron Men and bores.
Thor charges again, as persistent as he thinks he is relentless. Like me, hard to stop. I watch him, his scrunched face, its anger. Watch his mouth, teeth, tongue as he roars.
Daddy’s child. A spoilt boy.
We collide again, then again, like moths at war. The sky around us bleeds and dies.
Thor is the mightiest. His hammer tears through time and space, rips through logic, raw and exposed. I admire it, more so than I do its owner.
When the hammer hits, I’m carried back two miles before my board catches up, arching me to the left, the hammer returning to the right. I barely feel a thing.
We, the board and I, beat Thor’s weapon back to him. I’m bored, lazy. Holding back my cosmic power, I crash into the Thunder God with my body, as if letting a wave raise and dump me on shore.
Still, I barely feel.
Some of his allies come at me with parlour tricks. They seem so fragile, like ghosts. I must be careful dealing with them, try to care.
Thor is shouting something, like always, as if angry, offended. I can’t be bothered, so set the air on fire. With any luck it will stop his bragging, smother his lungs.
Iron Man and Reed Richards make their play. Such egos tripping over each other, they are my real foes. Science. I am born of it. But a science that, like the calcium in their teeth, and iron in their blood, was born of the Big Bang, made in the heart of suns.
I am tapped into the wonder of exploding stars.
These two are far more cleaver than me, but they don’t have the speed of a nova.
Cosmic rays take out Richards, I watch his chin, and they follow my fingers there, pushing through the fabric of atoms on jagged, lightening lines. I strip Iron Man of his mask before he can unravel me, sending him, panicked, earthward, looking to breath.
A momentary diversion. I try to care.
There is a fungi on this planet, in the tropical forest. It will infect an ant, eating all non-vital organs, taking over its muscles and nerve systems, forcing it down, like a zombie, into the north-east facing vegetation of the lower canopy, where the climate and morning light suits the fungi’s growth. It then slowly consumes the ant from the inside leaving nothing but the tendons to its pinchers, so that the last thing the ant does before it dies is bites down on the underside of a leaf, locking itself on. The fungi then eats the rest of its insides, leaving the ant’s outer shell for protection, like armour, from weather and rival fungi. Then repeats the process by letting off its spore. In this, one microscopic fungi, can wipe out an entire colony.
Fungi.
I see these things.
And solar systems with five rotating suns, and planets with creatures of liquid fire, that whisper such poetry with their flame. I bask in a space whale’s song, play with the speed of light, marvel at the lives of microscopic creatures that live off dust...
And find it all more interesting that Iron Men and bores.
Thor charges again, as persistent as he thinks he is relentless. Like me, hard to stop. I watch him, his scrunched face, its anger. Watch his mouth, teeth, tongue as he roars.
Daddy’s child. A spoilt boy.
We collide again, then again, like moths at war. The sky around us bleeds and dies.