“Have you tried not listening?”
Clark shook his head and stared at the ground. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
It was getting worse. There had been a time when he’d thought his parents’ farm to be quiet, peaceful, a refuge from the busyness and noise of Smallville. But over the last few months he’d been able to hear more and more, and now it was more than he could bear.
“Tell me then,” Jonathan Kent said.
Clark hesitated. How could he tell the man who had raised him that he could hear every pulse of his heart? He could hear the sounds of air rushing into and out of every tube in his father’s lung. He could hear the sounds of his tendons subtly stretching and contracting as he shifted positions.
He could even hear the slight murmur in his father’s heart, the result of genetics and a fondness for fatty foods.
“I can hear everything,” he said finally.
“Everything?”
“It’s a quiet day,” Clark said. “What do you hear?”
Jonathan was quiet for a moment. “I can hear the wind moving through the trees,” he said at last.
“I can hear the ants moving in the ground,” Clark said. “The sounds of every single blade of grass moving in the wind. I can hear Wayne Irig in his field. He’s arguing with his wife about the harvest.”
He was quiet for a moment. “The couple that lives one farm down from the Irigs are having sex and the farmer that lives one farm down from them is regretting eating the jalapeno chili at the corn festival. He’s lactose intolerant and he’s been in the bathroom for the last twenty minutes.”
Jonathan put his hand on Clark’s arm. “I can’t imagine what it must be like.”
“It’s a thousand times worse in town,” Clark said. “I can hear everybody all at the same time, all the time.”
It was maddening, and if it continued to get stronger, like his other abilities, there would be a point where he couldn’t get away from it, no matter how far he ran.
His abilities felt like a curse. It was as though the world was conspiring against him, as though he’d never been meant to live in the world.
“I’ve tried not to listen,” Clark said at last. “But I just don’t know how.”
All his father could do was hug him.
************
Avoiding cities had become routine to him. He’d learned to filter out the sounds of small town life, but some sounds he’d never been able to ignore. The sounds of fighting, of panic, of terror. In a small town these sounds were rare. In large cities they were ever present.
Wichita Falls was only a medium sized city at best, but compared to what he was used to it was enormous.
Clark stared at the city in front of him, lit against the darkness of the night sky like a sea of stars. Wichita falls had more than a hundred thousand people. If he was going to go to college, he was going to have to learn to ignore those sounds. Colleges were small towns all on their own, and his scholarship led him here. He was going to have to learn to not listen.
Sighing, he stepped forward. He wasn’t going to be able to stay on the edges of the city for long. Even at this distance he could hear the sounds of a dozen traffic accidents, ten times as many fights and the sounds of three people begging for help.
He glanced down at his hands; they were clenched so tightly they had turned white. He could feel the handle of his suitcase falling apart and he sighed. This would be the fifth time he replaced it.
Getting through this wasn’t going to be easy, but he wanted to make his parents proud.
Still, every cry for help tore at him and made his gut clench. There was so much more he could be doing, and yet he felt helpless.
Taking a deep breath, he shot into the sky leaving his suitcase behind. It hadn’t been until he’d learned to fly that he’d finally relearned the meaning of silence.
As the air faded around him, the constant din faded away. In space there was no sound at all, and it left him with a feeling of peace.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t spend his life flying from planet to planet. He could only stay in space for twenty minutes at a time and then he had to return.
Reluctantly he returned to Earth.
************
Clark tried not to flinch at the sound of a gunshot in the distance. Luckily the sounds of the jackhammers nearby almost drowned it out.
He brushed ineffectually at his suit.
“You should get another outfit,” Lois said absently beside him. She was busy looking at the street worker he’d saved and she barely seemed to notice him.
Another outfit…There were times he wished he had another outfit. She never seemed to notice him in this one.
He’d have to dress in something flashy to get her attention…he’d have to practically dress like a circus performer.
In his mind he imagined himself as the bald strongman with the big moustache, wearing the outfit. Looking like that, nobody would even recognize him.
No one would recognize him…
For once the feeling in his gut wasn’t one of anxiety or regret. Instead it was an unfamiliar feeling of excitement.
He hadn’t felt this way since he’d first seen Lois.
The first time he’d seen her, it had been as though the entire world had become still and silent.
Meeting her had changed his world. It looked as though listening to her had changed it again.
**************
Learning to listen again was easier than he’d thought it would be. It was learning to ignore some calls that was hard.
Now that he had the freedom to intervene, it felt as though he was losing himself in the job. He was having trouble balancing work and his other life.
Even with his abilities, he was still burning the candle on both ends. He wasn’t getting even three hours a night of sleep.
Even Lois was beginning to notice, and she was usually oblivious to anything but the story in front of her.
“Are you all right?” she asked, leaning across the desk to snatch the last donut before he had a chance at it.
“I’m fine,” he said. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with her. For all he admired her, he knew what she’d say. The story was the most important thing.
“You don’t look fine,” she said. “You look like you haven’t been sleeping.”
“I’ll be ok,” he said. “I’ve just been busy.”
“You’re scattered, disorganized. You leave work at all hours of the day to do things you should have taken care of at home. The cheese of the month club…really?”
Clark shrugged.
“You need to get your priorities straight, Clark, or you won’t be in this business long. You have to figure out what the most important thing is, and the least important thing. Do the important things first, and the things that aren’t important…don’t worry about them.”
“Like cooking,” Clark said dryly.
“Exactly,” Lois said. “I live in the greatest city in the world. I can get food delivered at any hour of the day or night. My time is much too valuable to waste learning to make duck livers and cooked goose.”
“We’d better get back to work or Perry will cook our respective gooses.”
“It’s geese, Clark, and I’m one step ahead of you.”
She usually was.
Of course, maybe in this case she was right.
***************
He woke suddenly, the sounds of squealing tired and crunching metal sounding in the distance.
Lois shifted in bed. “Do you have to go?”
He shifted a little and kissed her neck. “No. It’s just a fender bender. Everyone will be all right. Help is on the way.”
She smiled sleepily, and he could feel her hand on his bare arm. “I’m glad you can stay.”
“I’ll always come back,” he said, kissing her again. “The world may have Superman, but I’m yours.”
She’d been right. He’d had to learn to prioritize. He’d learned that not every accident, not every crime required intervention. Sometimes things worked themselves out quite well without his help.
Kissing her again, he felt the world around him grow still and quiet, almost like it had when they’d first met.
She was his refuge, his stillness, his quiet in a world filled with noise and anger and pain.
He kissed her again, and for the next little while all he could hear was her and him and the sounds of their love.
In the aftermath, as they clung together he could hear nothing but the beating of their hearts and the gentle sounds of their breathing.
The rest of the world was silent.
