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Illusions Of Grandeur: Clark Kent
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“A trick’s a trick, no matter how big or small,” she said, giving me her trademark skeptical, jaded, I’m-the-senior-partner-and-I-know-better-than-you look. “Once you figure it out, it’s not magic anymore.”

That was what I was most afraid of. It was what had haunted me since I was eighteen and came down from the exhilaration of finding out I could fly. It was what made me sometimes break out in a cold sweat ever since I met Lois. As bulletproof and indestructible as I was, it was this nightmare that I could never escape.

One day I would tell her that I was Superman. That Superman was me. That there was only one man where there should be two. That her hero was just me and that I was an alien.

One day the truth would come out, and I was so afraid--terrified, really--that the magic would all be gone then. No more awed looks and reverential articles. No more benefit of the doubt and admiration. Just disappointment. Disillusionment. Just a trick, exposed to the cold light of day and made ordinary and banal and forgettable.

I didn’t want to trick people. I certainly wasn’t using it as entertainment or charging money for it. In fact, I would have given almost anything to be able to tell Lois Lane this one, overarching secret.

But intentions aside, it was a trick. It was lies and deception and quick exits and missed appointments and constant evasions. It was threaded through every moment of every day of my life, in everything I was--inescapable. No matter what I did, I was tricking someone. No matter what suit I wore, I was lying in some way.

Right now, that was all right. Right now, Lois smiled at Clark and flirted with Superman. She wrote articles about the hero and partnered with the man. She worked with both and liked both to differing degrees.

But once the Secret was out…once the flashy stage lights were doused and the scenery was packed away and the show was over…then what would be left? Would there be any more magic?

I didn’t know, and I was scared to death of the answer.

Maybe one day I wouldn’t be. Maybe one day my dislike of the secrecy would be stronger than my fear of the fallout. And when that day came, when I finally took the glasses off…I could only hope Lois still found at least some tiny scrap of magic left in me. Maybe even enough to love.

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