Superhuman Nature

by Brandon Overall

  As he headed downstairs into the kitchen, he glanced into Bryan’s room to make sure he was still sleeping. It was breakfast time, and Neil decided he was going to have some fun with it. He took a quick look around to make sure no one would be able to see him through a window, and began the most entertaining cooking session of his life up to date.

  Neil closed his eyes and felt the room around him. He felt the bowls, the cutlery, the food in the refrigerator, the pan, the knobs on the stove, and everything else he would need. He raised his arms like the conductor of a symphony as he played his masterpiece. Objects in the room began spinning. Eggs flew out of the fridge, a pan nestled down onto its spot on the stove, slices of bacon pulled apart from the package. Ingredients and utensils swirled around the room like a tornado.

  All the while, Neil kept his eyes closed. He didn’t need them to see what was going on around him. He could feel it all. The eggs cracked into the pan and the shells were discarded into the trash. At the same time, the bacon began to sizzle as it was thrown down onto the hot cast iron. The toaster made a sound as the bread was depressed inside. Fresh fruit and yogurt were thrown into the blender, and it was turned on. Neil heard the sound of pouring liquid as his cup filled up with juice. He was creating his whole meal all at once, and there was no effort or difficult multitasking required. The experience was exhilarating.

  Neil was eating his masterpiece as Bryan came downstairs.

  “Thanks for using the blender at 8:00 in the morning, psycho. It sounded like a hurricane passed through the house down here. Did you snort a line before you cooked breakfast or something?”

  Bryan walked over to the pantry and prepared himself a bowl of cereal.

  “No, you were right the first time, it was a hurricane.” Neil would need to learn to watch the noise when he was doing things that defied the laws of physics.

  Bryan sat down at the table with Neil as they both ate their breakfast.

  “Hey man, how are you doing lately? Any more weird things happen to you?”

  Bryan’s tone got a little more serious. He was asking about what Neil had told them the night he broke the TV. He could tell it wasn’t a rhetorical question. All the roommates joked around constantly, but they still cared about each other like family. Bryan was genuinely asking to find out if Neil was ok.

  “Nah, nothing like that. I’m positive it was just stress getting to me. Things have actually been going great. I’ve been in a great mood ever since I met Emma.”

  It wasn’t a lie, Neil felt fantastic.

  “That’s good, I’m really happy for you, man. You sound like you’re diggin’ her pretty hard. You should call her up and ask her out for a romantic evening or some shit. Chicks love that stuff.”

  Neil appreciated the effort, but Bryan wasn’t exactly the best person to take relationship advice from. His last few girlfriends didn’t last very long, and ended on pretty bad terms.

  “I was thinking about it, but I think I should wait a few days. I don’t want to seem too pushy. Maybe I should wait for her to come to me.”

  “That’s the spirit, bro, she’ll be coming to you in no time.”

  Bryan punched Neil in the shoulder as he walked back into the kitchen to set his bowl in the sink. It was hard to have a serious conversation with Bryan, but Neil didn’t mind. There was never any shortage of hysterical laughter at their house.

  Neil thought about what his plans were for the day. He decided to set his priority on one thing, and one thing only. He was going to fly today. Neil checked the weather, and saw that it would be overcast the whole day. That was a lucky break, since it meant he might be able to fly above the clouds and not risk being spotted by anyone on the ground.

  Before that, though, Neil needed to figure out a solution to a problem he knew he would have. Objects moving at high speeds through the air produce a lot of wind. That meant he would have to worry about the temperature if he decided to go high up into the atmosphere or at any considerable speed. The mere thought of being that exposed to the elements was a bit frightening.

  Neil took a trip to the Superstore again and purchased a motorcycle helmet and a snowsuit. The snowsuit would have to do for now, but if he went too high he might need something more heavy duty, like an aluminum thermal suit. He made a mental note to check Amazon later on.

  This time, Neil drove to a different wooded area, further secluded from the college town. He wasn’t going to risk running into that homeless man again. After a 45 minute drive, he arrived at his destination. The woods he decided to use went much deeper than his previous spot. The chance of someone spotting him there was almost nonexistent.

  Neil pulled his car up onto the grass directly in front of the wood line. Despite his Sunfire’s bright red color, there was no way someone would spot him from the road.

  He walked directly into the densely wooded area, and kept walking until he had gone almost a mile. He held his motorcycle helmet in one hand while he draped his snowsuit over his shoulder with the other. It was over eighty degrees outside, so the thought of wearing a snowsuit was uncomfortable, but the thought of freezing to death at 15,000 feet was even more so.

  Neil found a good spot and laid down his gear. A warm-up was definitely in order before he attempted flying above the clouds. He put on his protective gear and prepared himself to be the first human self-propelled aircraft. Neil focused on pushing his body upwards like he had done the day before. It only took a few seconds for him to get it right this time.

  He was now floating several feet above the ground, and he felt the strange sensation of being suspended by a force that was evenly distributed over his whole body.

  It reminded him of letting his body go limp underneath the water in a lake or a pool, but it felt lighter. There was no resistance from gravity when he tried to move his limbs around. There was no pressure on his chest, no holding his breath, and no distorted, cloudy view through the water. The best explanation Neil could come up with was that it was like swimming through the air.

  After getting used to being suspended in the air for a while, Neil angled his body so that his feet were pointed behind him, while his head faced forward. His head was raised so that he could see in front of him. He had turned himself into a Neil torpedo.

  Satisfied with this launch position, Neil pushed himself forward. At just a few feet off the ground, he began to move forward first at walking speed, then at running, then faster. The experience was unlike anything he had ever done before. Neil was actually pushing himself around the world using absolutely no energy on his own part and without using a vehicle of any kind. Neil continued accelerating until he was going at least twenty miles-per-hour. He weaved around trees like the speeder bike scene on Endor.

  Whenever Neil started to feel comfortable with his speed, he increased it. Finally he figured he must have been going at least fifty miles-per-hour, so he faced himself upwards and broke out of the tree line. He felt the way a fish jumping out of the water must feel. The sensation of the open air gave him such an incredible rush that he couldn’t help but cheer in excitement. He was skirting along the top of the tree line at over a hundred miles-per-hour now.

  Each new speed was just as easy to achieve as the last. There was no limit to the force he was able to apply to his own body. His power seemed unlimited.

  As Neil’s speed continued to grow, the wind against his helmet became louder and louder. He could feel the vibrations caused by the friction. Neil had an idea that seemed too silly to work, but it was worth a shot. He stuck one arm out in front of himself like Superman. Amazingly, it had done what he hoped. The wind broke around his fist instead of his helmet, and the friction against the rest of his body was lessened.

  Comfortable in his flight skills, Neil looked upwards to the clouds. He knew that somewhere up there was a glorious golden sun, just waiting for him to break through the layer of cloud coverage to see. He thought of the similarities between himself and Icarus - the boy who flew too close to the sun with h
omemade wings that the wax melted and he plummeted to his death. Neil had to laugh at the humor of the situation he found himself in.

  He angled himself upwards, and shot straight towards the clouds. He was now traveling well over two-hundred miles-per-hour. He held his arm out in front of him and cemented it in place with his mind. The force of the wind at this point was so strong that it could easily pull his arm back and dislocate his shoulder if he wasn’t careful.

  Neil looked down and saw that he was gaining altitude at an astounding rate. The ground shrank below him, just like it did when taking off in an airplane. He saw the highway and the city below him, but knew that he was moving too fast and would look like a tiny speck to anybody on the ground.

  The cloud layer above him was getting closer by the second. The air started to feel like the biting cold of a winter storm, and he could see moisture forming on his visor. Each deep breath was less fulfilling than the last, but the air was still thick enough to take in all the oxygen he needed.

  Finally, he punctured the bottom of the cloud layer, and his mask was completely covered in water droplets. Around him was a grey fog so thick that he couldn’t see his hand in front of him. The thick condensation lasted only a few seconds, until finally he broke through the layer of water vapor into the sky beyond.

  What he saw completely stunned him. He slowed to a halt and focused his gaze on the incredible view. The entire sky was a brilliant canvas of gold, orange, and red. The top of the clouds were bathed in sunlight trying to shine through. Shadows from the higher clouds were cast upon the layer beneath them. The entire horizon above the clouds was covered in the glow from the warm sun.

  Neil wished he could just point himself at the sun and fly straight into it. He felt a strange attraction to it, like a moth drawn to a flame. Looking out the window of an airplane was nothing compared to the unleashed feeling of being completely exposed and free like Neil was. He took off his helmet to see the view with his own two eyes. Nothing he had ever seen on Earth came close to what he felt at that moment.

  The rays from the sun soaked through his skin and calmed his entire body. Its radiance painted the rest of the sky with colors. Words failed to capture the combined experience that all of his senses provided him. Looking at a photograph of the same image would never be able to replicate what he felt, suspended above the clouds, staring at the sun.

  He had never felt as small as he did then. The irony was not lost on Neil. Only after he had become the most powerful person imaginable was he able to truly feel insignificant. It wasn’t a bad feeling, though. It was calming – euphoric, even. Exams, girls, bills, parties - it all seemed so petty when looking across the painted sky and embracing how vast it all was. Neil could make little impact on anything up there.

  He took another few minutes to admire the view, and released control over his body. He let himself free fall back down to the earth. He leaned back and faced towards the sky as he fell. The weightlessness reminded him of falling backwards into a pool, if the pool were 30,000 feet below the diving board.

  All of his worries and problems seemed to vanish as he plummeted towards the earth at terminal velocity. It was at that moment that Neil understood the significance of the power he had. He had just barely begun to scratch the surface of what kind of impact he could make on the world. He was beyond the petty problems that humans faced. He felt like a god. Human nature no longer applied to him. He was superhuman now. He was only subject to superhuman nature.

  The closer Neil got to the ground, the more he felt like he was being sucked back into his old life. The scar that humanity left on the face of the earth was a permanent reminder of all of the human problems Neil felt free of up above the clouds. The highways, buildings, power lines, cars – the sight of all of it pulled him back into the reality he never wanted to be a part of again.

  As he slowed to a halt and touched back down onto the ground, he had completed the transformation back into old Neil. It wasn’t a good feeling, but he had gotten used to old Neil after being him for almost 22 years. He exhaled one large breath and emptied the last trace of the clean air he was able to breathe beyond the clouds.

  He took off his snowsuit and motorcycle helmet once he returned to his car. His car felt slow and clunky after experiencing the exhilaration of self-powered flight. If he was going to try to continue using his power unnoticed, though, driving in a car would be a necessary artifact from his old life.

  As Neil drove back home, he thought of how badly he wanted to tell someone about what he had experienced. Whoever he told would surely believe him, since it would be easy for him to demonstrate it right in front of their eyes. Would he be able to trust anyone, though? If Neil wanted to maintain any semblance of a normal life, he couldn’t risk someone giving away his secret.

  If he were to tell someone, it would have to be someone he could completely trust to keep it to themselves. Bryan and Alex were great friends, but good secret-keepers they were not. His family back home would be supportive, but the temptation to spread his secret to the family gossip circle would be too much for them to resist. His younger brother would be the most trustworthy person he could imagine telling, but even that was a risk. They had been incredibly close when they lived together at his parents’ house, but he hadn’t spoken to his brother in months. There was no telling how much he could trust his brother now.

  If Neil really wanted to be able to trust someone, he would have to confide in a person with as big of a secret to hide as his own. He would have to find someone like him. Was there anyone else like him? His search of the entire known internet the previous night had left him without any solid leads.

  He thought back to that blogger, Carl Delmont, and wondered if it would be worth checking into. The only problem with following up was that Mr. Delmont lived in Georgia, and his full address wasn’t posted onto his blog. If he was going to speak to this Delmont, he would have to find out exactly where he lived.

  When Neil got home, he went straight up to his room and sat down at his computer desk. He clicked on the bookmark of the blog site from the previous night and looked for some way to get in touch with Delmont. He found what he was looking for in the form of an e-mail address on the “Contact Carl” link.

  Neil thought about the best way to get Delmont’s attention without drawing too much attention. He decided it was best to use an alias for this, since Delmont’s emails were no doubt being monitored by some government agency in the name of “anti-terrorism”. He also determined it would make him sound more credible if he made it sound like a cry for help rather than a cheap attempt at fame or publicity. After almost an hour of typing, erasing, and retyping, Neil sent the email.

  Mr. Delmont,

  My name is Richard Krauss, and I need your help. A lot of strange, unexplainable things have been happening to me, and I don’t know who I can turn to. Shampoo bottles are falling over as I reach for them, clocks are breaking as I stare at them waiting for class to end, and I even broke my friend’s TV by accident when I was angry. I feel like I’m doing these things, but I know there’s no way it’s possible, is it? Please respond and tell me I’m not going crazy. I would love to meet and talk to you about all the things that are happening to me if you aren’t too busy to listen.

  Thank you for your time. Reading your blog gave me hope that there are others out there like me. I hope it’s true.

  Sincerely,

  Richard Krauss

  Neil went downstairs to fix himself dinner after sending the message. He figured it would likely take a few days for Delmont to read through all of his letters from crazy fans. Even if he did read Neil’s message, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t throw his letter in the same category as all of the crazies. Hell, even Neil wasn’t sure if his sanity was completely intact.

  Bryan was downstairs watching TV, as was Alex, who was back from visiting his family for the weekend. It looked like Neil would have to prepare dinner the old fashioned way – no swirling tornado symphony th
is time.

  “Hey Alex, welcome back. Did your Mom ask about me?” Neil said as he purposefully walked in front of the TV to block their view.

  “She did as a matter of fact, she asked if you got that rash looked at. Hey, Bryan told me you almost got laid this weekend but didn’t because you are a little bitch. Is he telling the truth?”

  Neil was reassured in his decision to not tell Bryan about his new abilities.

  “If you have to ask if Bryan is telling the truth, then he probably isn’t”

  “Hey, I resemble that remark!” Bryan yelled, as Neil walked into the kitchen.

  After Neil finished preparing his meal, he sat down on the couch with his roommates and chatted for a few minutes. He told Alex about Emma, and Alex told both of them how his older brother got thrown in jail for streaking at a high school football game over the weekend. His older brother was a bit messed up in the head and always ended up doing dumb things. All of the police back in his home town knew Alex’s brother on a first name basis.

  Neil finished dinner and went back up to his room. To his surprise, he saw that Delmont had already responded to his email. It was short, but it was all Neil was hoping for.

  Richard,

  You are not crazy. I would love to talk to you about your experiences. If you want to speak in person, I am in the Augusta-Richmond County Library every Saturday at noon. Come alone.

  Carl Delmont

  The last line caught Neil a little bit off guard. ‘Come alone’? What was the reason behind that? Neil worried if he might be getting himself into trouble, but he was reassured by the fact that he knew nobody posed any kind of danger to him anymore. There was no harm in talking to this Delmont, even if he was crazy. It was a chance at answers, and the risk was potentially worth the reward.