***
Tempus Anyone?: Tempus
***
Ah, what a beautiful day! Gold in his pockets, a gun in his hand, a way out of any cage anyone might try to lock him into…and Lois Lane standing right in front of him. Clueless. Hapless. Helpless. It was good being a time-traveler--really helped clear up any Superman-sized problems before they could even occur.
Oh, the look on her face will be priceless, almost as good as the look on Superman’s will be when Tempus stands over him and reveals his flimsy secret to the world, all while knowing that the Superman of this dimension is lost and alone. As purposeless as Tempus used to be in the Utopia these do-gooders cursed the world with.
The glasses really were a stroke of genius--on his part, not Superman’s, obviously. He can’t help but laugh when he throws them aside, then laugh again at the proof that good old Herb erased this Lois and Clark’s memories of their previous encounter. How positively helpful of him!
“Private joke,” he says off-handedly.
And that’s the beauty of it. When you’re a time-traveler--and now a world-hopper as well, just for the fun of it--everything’s a private joke. Everything’s amusing and entertaining because none of it can rule him or stop him or touch him. Nothing can contain him. He’ll never be helpless again, forced to sit meekly while the world plods along in its preset lines. Boring! No, now the world is his television, and the added dimensions means he can always change the channel to something even more interesting. More challenging. More ironic!
And there are so many Loises and Clarks out there--why, if Herb continues to give them a brain-cleaning every time, even just one world can offer endless possibilities of fun.
And he controls them all. It is, after all, a private game, and he is the winner.
In every time.
In every world.
No more Utopia. No more Superman. No more boredom.
Just private jokes everywhere, and he’ll be the last one laughing.
***
