by Paris, Sevan
I straighten the bar stool and finish my sip. Milk leaf or not, this thing isn't half bad.
People run from the chaos. There's a suspended glass walkway from the museum into the coffee shop, crossing over Riverview Parkway. People run across the glass like ... well, like they're running from an explosion. Some run into the coffee shop and others run by it.
What makes people run to the closest shelter, regardless of its nature? If these people weren't freaking out, they would realize the Café Show isn't the safest place to be. A robot chest laser cannon thingy capable of blowing a hole in a museum is more than capable of blowing a hole in a coffee shop surrounded by glass.
People frantically gather at the far side of the coffee shop. Some scream, some seem excited, some get their camera phones out.
I take another sip.
The robot fires again. He yells something, but it's hard to tell what. It would be more effective to yell your demands between blasts instead of during. Most Supervillains aren't too savvy in the efficiency department though.
More people run out of the Hunter. They would really be safer to use the building's underground walkway to cross over to the museum’s other building. Too bad a hero isn't here to tell them.
The robot lets loose with another blast. The building creaks in on itself. It's the only sound trumping the explosion and screams.
The first Superhero appears: Rocket Girl. I check my cell phone. Four minutes. Impressive, especially if she had to change from whatever she had been wearing into the black pants, white tank top, pink cape, and white astronaut looking helmet she wears that says “Rocket Girl” across the front in pink, cursive letters.
But she's outmatched. That robot is at least a level eight threat. Last I checked, herowiki rated Rocket Girl a three. Her only power is flight, which manifests as a rocketing thrust from her knees down. I don't even think she can maneuver that well. Couple that with zero force field or invulnerabilities, and you've got a morgue visit waiting to happen. I take another sip. Hope that helmet isn’t just for show.
"What-are-you-talking-about?" Rocket girl yells between explosions. She slowly circles around the robot. "What-do-you-mean-the-museum-must-die?' Last-time-I-checked-it-was-just-a-building-not-capable-of-y'know-death-and-stuff."
Holy crap ... it's Grace, the so-so barista.
The door to the coffee shop rings shut behind me. Without being aware of it, I've walked outside. I would admire the surrealness of the moment, people running by me while I casually sip my cappuccino, if I weren't intrigued by the upcoming Grace/Villain robot banter.
The robot stares at the museum, as if seeing it for the first time. "Interrogative, irrelevant. Primary directive, essential. Hunter must be terminated. Any carbons impeding this unit’s progress must also be terminated. Any non-carbon sentients impending this units progress must also be—"
"Must-be-terminated-yeah-I-get-it, really-I-do.” She continues to zip around like a rocketing tinker bell. “Okay, so-what-exactly-did-this-building-do-to-deserve-this?"
The robot tilts its head. "Query, unorthodox. This unit is neither unauthorized nor authorized to share any information regarding—"
"It's-not-just-sharing-if-it-helps-you-with-your-primary-directive, right? Which-I-assume-you've-been-authorized-to-seek-if-necessary, no-matter-what-or-how."
"Affirmative. Hunter’s status as a Superhero has prevented the—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, are-you-talking-about-HUNTER-Hunter. The-person? The-Superhero-person?”
The robot looks at Rocketgirl, the Hunter Museum, and then back at her. If I thought it were capable, I would say it was embarrassed. It slightly tilts its head to the side. "Internet search indicates there is a ninety-nine percent probability this unit's search and destroy directive contains an error."
"Think-we’ve-ventured-way-past-probably-and-went-into-full-blown-confirmed."
“Seeking new objective parameters …” The robot rockets away. I lose sight of him in the morning sun.
Rocketgirl streaks by in the opposite direction, and I scream her name.
"What, you-need-help-or-something?"
"No, I just wanted to tell you … good job,” I say from what seems to be a million miles away.
She lands and helps an old lady to her feet. The old lady starts to thank her, but Rocket Girl turns away. "If-I-had-done-a-good-job, I-would-have-stopped-that-thing-by-actually-stopping-it-instead-of-probably-sending-it-after-Hunter. Not-like-I-contact-him-though.”
She lets the implication hang in the air for a few seconds. There’s no need to say anymore about her inability to contact Hunter: She isn’t a registered Super—he is. Contacting registers, even for the sake of helping them, is risky for an unregistered. As she may have found out already. As I definitely found out when I helped Liberty.
I-wish-another-hero-had–been-here-to-help." Rocket Girl acts as though she wants to say something else, doesn’t, and rockets off.
I take another sip. "So do I."
Then it happens.
I say “it” because I have no idea what. The coffee cup clatters to the ground and spins away. I fall to my knees, one hand slapping a puddle of warm cappuccino, the other one clawing at my throat …
I can’t breathe.
I CAN’T BREATHE!
“M,” I rasp, “what are … you doing to me?”
***
“Panic attack?”
Doctor Mary Lou Garrison (A.K.A. “Mom”) clicks the top of her ink pen to write something too small for me to see on her clipboard. “That’s the only thing that lines up with your symptoms.”
“Are you sure,” I shuffle my legs on the examination table, crinkling the paper cover, “because, I mean, that means it’s all in my head, right?”
She stops writing and slings her grey streaked blond bangs out of her eyes with a quick flick of her head. “Yes and no. It is in your head, but it’s a head with a ridiculous amount of subconscious control over your body.”
“That would mean … wait, why would my body do this to itself?”
“Well, usually it happens when we keep something bottled up.” She studies me with judgmental eyes. “Something big. It’s the body’s way of compensating. It’s like it’s trying to tell you you need to make a change.”
That sounds totally right. “That doesn’t sound right at all.”
“Sometimes we’re under more stress than we realize. We think of our stressors as individual problems, when really they’re holistic.”
“But I don’t go to church.”
“No … I mean—they’re greater than the mere sum of their parts.”
“Oh.” I have no clue what she is talking about.
“Okay, think of it this way: This week, you’re dealing with the possibility of flunking an English class.”
“No I’m not,” I say hurriedly.
“Hypothetically.”
“Oh.”
“This week it’s the English class, which you can handle. The week before, your girlfriend moves away.”
Ouch.
“Which you can handle okay. But put them in the same week and suddenly your stressing about both of them. The stress of each event becomes greater because they’re together. Throw in another stressor—”
“I, okay, but my symptoms were …”
“Hence the ridiculous control. You can go to the bathroom more, less; it can make you dizzy; it can make you vomit; it can screw up your blood pressure; it can make you feel like you’re out of breath—“
“No, that’s not me.” How the frak can I explain this without actually explaining it? “That’s not it. I mean, that’s some of it … but I felt like I was about to die. And I know what that feels like.”
“How do you know what that feels like?”
I look at the floor, trying to think of something. Moments like these, it’s easy to forget my mother is also my general practitioner. I’ve been meaning—wanting—to get another since I was old enough to drive. But truth be told, I rarel
y got that sick and, after bonding with M, the rarely became never. But after the … episode (God, panic attack, really?) I decided, reluctantly, to have a physical (just the general kind—not the one where the doctor gets all grabby—pretty sure there’s not a word to sum up how gross that would be).
Mom was the easiest, quickest way … and if something big was happening, she was bound to find out eventually anyway. And by something big … I mean M big. This has to be his fault. He’s done something, doing something, and hiding it. He’s getting revenge against me.
Another flick of mom’s hair brings me back to the conversation. “Car wreck. The car wreck that Bo and I had last year with another car. That we almost had I mean.” My cheeks flush.
She hugs the clipboard to her chest and looks at me over the top of rimless glasses. “You never told me about it.”
“It was a long time ago—never seemed important.”
Her eyes needle into mine.
“We almost kinda hit a deer—and then didn’t.”
“You said it was a car.”
“We hit the car instead. We almost hit the car instead.”
She sighs.
“But that was a long time ago. It should be, like ancient history as far as my body is concerned.”
The pen resumes its scratching on the clipboard. “Don’t you be so sure. Stress can wait and catch up with you when you least expect it. Sometimes weeks, months, or even years after. Usually, it’s a prolonged effect. When your brain faces an overwhelming stress for a lengthy amount of time, it has certain chemicals in it far longer than it should have. It compensates for the imbalance later. Basically, when the stress is gone, the brain has to play catch up. It can take a while—sometimes even longer than what stressed you.”
“But, mom, I couldn’t breathe. It was … my throat closed up.”
“Stress causes your esophagus to close up, which can feel like your windpipe even though it isn’t. Then, we hyperventilate because it feels like we can’t breathe, even though we can.”
“There has to be something going on. Something else.”
“The heart tests came back normal. The allergy tests came back normal. If there were a problem with your lungs or windpipe, it wouldn’t have just gone away.” She lets a moment pass and then puts her hand on my elbow. “Look, I know this is hard to accept, but a lot of people have anxiety issues.”
More like alien issues. “So what do I do in the meantime? What if this thing happens while I’m … doing … anything?”
Mom tears a piece of paper off her prescription pad. “Take one of these and talk to me about it after you calm down.”
I look at the prescription. Like any that I’ve ever seen from Mom or another doctor, I can’t make heads or tails of the writing. “Talk about it?”
“The only way to get beyond this, to move past it, is to talk about it. The medicine will help with the symptoms, but unless you talk about it—get it out somehow, they’re just going to keep coming back.”
I keep looking at the script and pretend to think about the medicine. This can’t be something that simple. I’ve been through a lot of crap over the past eight months, and this is what I’m going to have trouble dealing with? Some sort of freaking … post anxiety? I’ve done what I needed to do. I’ve saved people. A lot of people, gobs even. The only thing that’s going to manage to do me in … is this?
No way.
M.
You’re doing this to me. Not stress—you.
What if he’s leaving me? It will kill me—I mean not in an emotional sense; I’d be glad to be rid of him. But it will kill, kill me. Christ, what if he’s already left me?
What if I’m dying?
Mom says something.
“Do what?”
“Are you free tonight? I thought it’d be a good night to meet Jacob, if you’re up to it.”
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
“Don’t feel like you have to. I don’t want you to push yourself if there is a lot going on.”
“No, no, I’m good. You’ve been seeing him for what, like a week?”
“Try a little over a month.”
“Oh.”
“Marko’s at eight?”
“Yeah. Marko’s at eight.”
Mom lightly touches my shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good.” Definitely not good. I left good in the rearview forever ago. “I’ll, uh, go get this filled.”
She opens the door to the examination room and lets me walk out first. She doesn’t look at me. She never looks at me when she’s trying to figure out why I’m lying.
***
“So, babe,” Bo says to the nurse behind the counter as I walk up. “What time should I pick you up later ‘cause I’m thinking the sooner we get together, the sooner we can get together, know what I mean?”
Breanna, the brown headed nurse that works behind the counter, looks at Bo over the top of her glasses. You would never know Breanna is in her forties. The girl is built like a brick … something house (never understood what that meant). She works out just about every night and is in better shape than most people half her age, especially the pudgy Bo.
“I do know what you mean. And I have a rule about dating men.”
“Oh yeah, babe, what’s that?”
“That’s the rule. I only date men.”
Bo jerks away from the glass as if Breanna somehow transformed into a snake. He points his finger at her, like he wants to say something, but either thinks better of it or can’t think of anything to say. He shoves some loose paperwork off her counter.
“Thank you for making my point.” Breanna looks at me. “Will you please tell your friend to grow up, Gabe?”
“Tried and tried again. If anything, he’s regressed.”
Bo pretend laughs and even throws in a golf clap. “Oh, ha-ha, this is Gabe Garrison, everybody, he’ll be in town all week, of course you may not recognize him with my foot in his ass. You ready to blow or what?”
I look at the prescription again. “Yeah. Do I need to sign anything, Breanna, or—”
“Nope, I got ya taken care of. Hope you start feeling better soon.”
As we walk out, Bo mimes holding a phone to his ear and mouths ‘call me’ to Breanna. She rolls her eyes.
***
“So anxiety, huh?” Bo asks as we climb the steps to the Grota auditorium. “Doesn’t surprise me.”
I shift my blue backpack to a more comfortable position over my red button up shirt. Blue jeans and Chacos complete my ensemble. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on, dude, you’re bound up tighter than people at an S and M party. You never let anything out. You need to, you know, express yourself, let others know how you feel. You never told that Reagan chick anything and look what happened.”
“Wait a minute, what?”
Bo stops at the top of the steps and faces me. “Seriously, dude? She dropped out of college and moved to her dad’s in Cocoa.”
I stop too. “How do you know that?”
“Her mom told Sally the hair dresser, who told the guy that does my pedicures, who told me.”
Some part of me should feel glad that I finally know the fate of Reagan MacPherson. However, I can’t get past something else: “You get pedicures?”
“Hey,” Bo says while easing out of one shoe to show me sparkling toenails. “This beautiful awesomeness didn’t happen by accident. Besides, I’m a complete package. What would happen if I get a chick back to my mom’s basement, and she’s all into me—like, ‘Oh, Bo, you’re so freaking hot, I love the way your slippery body feels against mine,’ only to look down to see some funky ass, gnarly things for a toenail and totally ruin the moment?”
Other students go around us, into the auditorium entrance. The image of a naked Bo firmly ensconces into my brain and refuses to leave. “Don’t think that’s what would ruin the moment.”
We walk into the auditorium and take seats near the back. It’s one o
f the largest rooms on campus and can accommodate something like three hundred students. We’re here for Dr. Casa’s Supers and Ethics class, a required course at UTP. I’m two months into the semester, but I haven’t seen the infamous Dr. Casa once. The class has been taught by a rotating squad of T.A.s and Grad students.
That’s why the constant murmur of just over a hundred students abruptly ceases when Casa enters the room.
Keeping his blue eyes on the class, he slams the door shut, bouncing an echo off the high ceiling of the auditorium. Dr. Casa looks like he’s worn the same blue button up shirt and black dress pants for three days. Salt and pepper stubble matches his wavy, unkept hair. The grey blazer is the cleanest looking thing about him and it looks like he threw it on without much concern for a straight lapel.
“Good morning,” he says without looking like he remotely means it. A few students murmur good mornings in return.
“As I’m sure at least one of you know, I am Dr. Casa.” He slings a small backpack onto the lectern. “I say at least one of you because all it took was one of you to report to the dean that I wasn’t teaching what is, at best, a remedial history course and, at worst, a colossal waste of my time. Will whomever did this please stand?”
Nobody stands.
“Uh-huh. Okay, we’ll do this the hard way.” He shakes an iPad loose from his backpack. “Statistically, one third of you will fail, the other third will scoot by on the skin of your teeth, and the remaining third are overachievers whom could learn everything in the curriculum from Google. Since the middle third is too boring for me to care about, and the first third too much of a failure for anybody to care about, that leaves the overachievers.” He walks up the steps leading into the rows of students. “Eighteen year olds don’t care about whether or not I’m here. They just care about pleasing mommy and daddy, and if you can get an easy A, all the easier to do said pleasing. That narrows it down to three. One of which is in his sixties, so you’re not paying for the course and two of which are in your forties, so you are paying for the course.”
I look at Anna and Steve, the two forty year old students. Both are sitting on the far opposite sides of the room. I wonder if he knows their names.
