Dead or Alive pt 13
Lois pushed the remote to play the tape again. She rewound it a few frames. She could see that the hallway was empty. There was no piece of red kryptonite on the floor. Then she, Clark, and the coroner appeared and walked toward the camera, turned and walked through the morgue doorway.
She waited. The hallway was empty. Then she saw a movement at the doorway, a grey blur then the movement ended. The hallway was again empty. She rewound the tape again, but the blur was no clearer the second time. She knew it had been Superman, she'd seen him in full speed many times. Just what he'd been doing though was another matter.
She watched it again, puzzled then waited while the tape continued to play. Suddenly she sat forward. There was a heap of clothing on the floor outside the morgue door. It had appeared in the same spot as the blur. Superman had removed clothing. However, it wasn’t the blue and red suit. She looked at the pile of clothes on the floor. They were business clothes, she could tell from the way the lapel of the jacket lay flopped over the suit pants. The shirt was white. Wasn’t that what Clark had worn that day? She rewound it to check. Sure enough, he’d worn those colors. Where had Superman come from, out of the morgue, right? In suit clothing? She’d not seen anyone but themselves in there. She remembered Superman’s body in the drawer. It had been NAKED!
She waited, watching the empty hallway in real time. Finally, there was movement again; a woman pushing a housekeeping cart appeared at the far end of the hallway. She neared the pile of clothing, paused, picked it up, and dropped it into her cart.
The woman and the cart moved out of the way. On the floor of the hallway was something shiny and red. The kryptonite! Wow. So it had been in the clothes Superman had removed!
What was it that Superman had said, that his name was Clark Kent? That the kryptonite had been in his desk?
So now what did she know? Superman had gotten back in the drawer after leaving his clothes in the hallway. Was he really Clark Kent? Why would he tell her that if it wasn’t true? No idea. However, why would he also fake his own death? Why would he bother to be Clark Kent? Didn’t he have enough to do saving the world without being Clark Kent, too? What did Clark think about the whole thing? Maybe he had no choice if Superman wanted to be him, what could Clark have done to stop him?
Puzzled, she continued to watch the tape until the Coroner and she had come out of the morgue. However, wait a minute, where was Clark now? Oh, that’s right; he’d left before the drawer was opened. Lois appeared in the hallway on the tape and called for Clark. She picked up the kryptonite, looked at it, and turned to call for Clark again. Then she’d left with the kryptonite.
So, Clark Kent hadn’t gone out to stand in the hallway and wait, nor had he gone out to leave, the only person who’d come out into the hallway had been Superman, who’d returned to the morgue.
That would account for why Clark hadn’t been around for a few days, why the whole time Superman’s funeral charade was going on, Clark was away. Was that why Clark’s parents were at the cemetery for so long? But Perry had seen Clark somewhere, he’d said.
Before she rang Clark Kent’s neck, she’d better find out more. He’d had the red kryptonite. He’d obviously been in contact with it a lot if he even kept it in his pocket. It wasn’t like the way he usually treated it. It had been used on him once before. She’d been away to a conference, but she’d heard that Superman had been disabled from apprehending crooks by red kryptonite. Perry’s son. Right, he’d been in cahoots with the criminals and had been opening the lid on the box when Superman would come to catch the bad guys. Instead of doing the Supermanly thing, he’d become apathetic. He’d even flirted with women on the scene.
So Superman, if he was Clark Kent like he said he was, had kept that box of kryptonite in his desk for a long time. Now why would he do that? Why not just throw it into the sun? If it relaxed him the way alcohol or a drug relaxed normal people, then Superman must have been keeping it to use for the same purpose. But why? What did he have to escape from?
She thought back to what he’d said on the phone. ‘A relationship isn’t working if you have to die to get out of it.’ Well, he had a point. Was he taking the kryptonite to deal with his relationship with her? What was she really like towards him?
Soul searching like this called for chocolate. She opened her freezer, remembering that the container was empty. Well, soul searching wasn’t her favorite pastime anyway. She should probably show up at work.
Dead or Alive pt 14
“Why do you want to break up with your girlfriend, Superman?” Dr. Friskin asked the man in the blue spandex, lying on a red cape on her couch.
“She…I don’t like being with her anymore.”
“You don’t like being with her. Can you elaborate on that?”
“Well, I feel like I'm never good enough, that I'm never doing enough, that she always expects more from me.”
“How do you know she expects more from you?”
“She tells me. I could have done this better, I should have been faster, I should have listened harder.”
“Is she right?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. She’s right about a lot of things, but I just want to be me, accepted as me, for who I am.”
“That’s very understandable.”
“The rest of the world thinks I'm wonderful. They appreciate everything I do for them. They listen to what I say.”
“And you would like your girlfriend to be that way, too?”
“Yes! She never listens to anything I have to say. She’s so pigheaded, if I see something that can hurt her, she just jumps right in anyway.”
“So you think she should listen to you and do what you advise her to do?”
“Yes! I'm not some idiot off the curb in Hobbs Bay, I do have some intelligence, not to mention a lot of superpowers that give me quite an advantage on what’s going on around us.”
“Yes, that’s true. Do you know why she ignores your advice?”
“No. Yes. She’s pigheaded and obstinate, opinionated and …”
“Yes, go on.”
“She just always has to be right, even if she’s not.”
“Was she like that when you started dating her?”
“Yes. She was worse even, I think.”
“So she has changed some.”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“Are you also trying to change any of your behaviors that she doesn’t like?”
Superman put his arms under his head on the pillow of his councilor’s couch. “I just try to block her out.”
“How do you do that, Superman?”
”I have a red rock that makes me forget how she treats me.”
“So it’s effect on you is like a drug?”
“I guess.”
“How do you feel when you use it?”
“I feel better. She doesn’t bother me as much.”
“How do you feel about using a rock to help you manage your life?”
“Bad. That’s why I think I should just break up with her, then I won’t want to use it anymore.”
“And have you tried to break up with her?”
“Yes.”
“And did it work?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she doesn’t leave me alone.”
“But you’re Superman, surely you can get away from someone who is bothering you.”
“I know, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“But it sounds like she’s hurting your feelings. But you’re ‘coping’ with that with your red rock, right?”
“I guess.”
“So what do you want to do about it?”
“I wanted to just leave the planet, just get out of her life.”
“But you can’t do that can you?”
“No.”
“So what did you do about it.”
“I faked my own death. I never meant for it to go as far as it did. I just meant for her to think I was gone and then I could stop being Superman so she’d never find me again.”
“And did it work?”
He looked at the woman taking notes in the chair across the room. “No.”
“And why didn’t it work.”
“Because I can’t stop being Superman. I couldn’t even help phoning 911 when I was in the coffin.”
“You phoned from the coffin?”
“Lois put her cell phone in there with me.”
“She really does follow you around!”
Clark nodded mournfully.
“If you had been able to successfully fake your own death, would it have been the answer to the problem?”
“No, not really.”
“Why not.”
“Because I would have to be Superman again anyway and she’d see me on TV.”
“Now, if you don’t want to see her, then why can’t you just not fly to where she is?”
It was more complicated than that. They worked together, well, at least in the same building.
“I could try that.”
“So is that what you’re going to do then, just not put yourself in her presence anymore?”
“It sounds like a good idea.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never broken up with someone before. I’ve always tried to work things out. I'm not a quitter.”
“What sort of marriage do your parents have?”
“It’s a good one.”
“What makes it a good one?”
“They talk things out… they can admit when they’re each wrong…they forgive one another.”
“So in your relationship, can you do those things?”
“I think so.”
“Do you talk things out?”
“Some things.”
“So there are some things that you don’t talk about.”
“Yes.”
“And do you both avoid talking about those things?”
“No, I just have some things that I don’t want her to find out.”
“And why don’t you want her to find out? Do you trust her?”
“Sort of. But no. I don’t think she’d feel very happy about some things. She’d get very mad in fact.”
“Would your parents hide things from each other?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So if you want to have a happy relationship, then do you think you need to do it the same way as your parents?”
He considered his answer for awhile. “I guess so.”
“You said your parents can admit they are wrong. Can you?”
“Yes. I do, frequently.”
“But you said your girlfriend can’t. But you also said she’s changed a bit since you’ve been together.”
“Yes. She does very dangerous things and I am always having to rescue her, even though I tell her it’s too dangerous.”
“Do you think she may feel she has to do things her own way to justify herself as a person? You’re so much better at so many things than any human, how do you think she feels about never being able to accomplish as much as you do?”
“I don’t know. She’d never admit it if she did. She acts like she doesn’t ever need any help from anyone.”
“How about you, Superman, do you act like you don’t ever need any help from anyone?”
“No, I’m here talking to you, admitting I'm having a hard time with my life.”
“That’s very true, Superman. Okay, that’s all the time we have today.” She pulled out her calendar. “The same time next week?”
“That's fine.” Superman stood up and reached out to shake Dr. Friskin’s hand. “Thank you for everything.”
“Anytime!”
Superman walked to the door of the office, his red cape billowing out behind him as he opened the door. “See you next week.”
"Bye."
