I hear flapping coming from behind me and there is a lashing at my feet as if my own costume is urging me on. I knew I should not have worn this stupid cape. The spandex on my leg is too tight and the blood is rushing to my hips. I mumble, “Fuck super hero depictions.” The cold air is rushing through my socks and I need to curl up in my bed and let my body rest. People can deal with their own problems during naptime.
I wish I could fly with ease, but most of all, I wish my hair wouldn’t get so fluffy after every trip. The asphalt stomps along my feet and singes my toenails as the hair on my arms rises like airplane wings pushing against the wind. I swear, if I get yelled at for missing dinner again, I’m relinquishing this embarrassing costume to Batman…
The only reason I’m wearing elasticized spandex anyway, which I find redundant, is because people only want to be helped by stretchy (and quite constricting) material. For some reason people are comforted by bright and offensive neon colors along with ALL of my body on display. Of course there isn’t really a shop for “Super Heroes” so I am quite literally wearing a Halloween costume. However, I do not ask for candy in return for my time, (though a thank you Hershey’s bar once in a while would be nice). However, no one wants a fat super hero, especially when their fat is nicely outlined in a Superman costume with the logo ripped off.
I finally walk up to my house and my calves are burning from lactic acid fermentation, which I was forced to hear when I was more or less, strapped to a chair. I took one jump and glided to the door. With one step I was very close to propelling my self through the door with a loud THUMP, which I have done a few too many times before.
My door was weak with paint peeling off of the frame into a pile like useless flaking eyelashes congregating on my doorstep. I’m careful not to slip on the paint shavings that only remind me that being a second rate teenager and unknown mutant doesn’t pay well.
When I walk into my house I am greeted by a comforting cough that reminds me I have been out just long enough to escape my smoke filled past. My sister, the pride and joy of the family, inhales like a jailed lung cancer patient whose only relief is smoking an impending death. The thin and decaying wood door that slams behind my jiggles the lose door handle in a way that only I have been cursed with. The brass lock shimmies in place in a tell tale sign that screams, “YES, it’s the son who has been avoiding you that is home.”
The carpet under feet is scratchy against the cotton socks I have worn down after I have taken my shoes off, and the yellow stains all over my carpet are like footprints laying the path to my dead dog’s grave in the backyard. Melancholy walls smile at me with the disgusting yellow that seems to invade old keyboards, sadly not excluding the dirt stuck in between the keys.
My sister glides down the steps with an aura of a mentally healthy person, surprisingly enough, and yet she manages to trip on the last step down. With a cigarette in hand she fixes her hair and brushes the lit cigarette to her cheek and jumps in pain. “FUCK!”
“Ya sis,” I say, “Those things will kill you.” Very proud of myself, I walk away giggling.
“Ya ya, your on your high horse after being out all day long. Just wait until mom and dad realize that you have been out all night. Where were you anyway?”
She says this with a certain attitude that somehow emits both hostility and class. She is staring out of fierce eyes in a sullen and petite body that looks completely out of place in the harsh florescent lighting and giant dirty furniture. She wears goodwill’s best clothes and struts around in high heels that may as well be eaten by the floor. Each time she steps down the stairs can feel the pressure from her stilettos and moan with agony.
“Did dad even realize this time?”
My father is a top-heavy man with stable circus feet that need custom made shoes. His feet are too big to wear store bought shoes but he also has an obsession with things this family can’t afford, and although he is a responsible man and does not spend money, his gleaming pair of spur-of-the-moment-spending housed his feet everyday with out fault.
His birth name is Adam but his short hair and stout body structure would tell you a different if they could so we call him Ralph. He and my mom met in high school and started dating after their friend died. They needed each other and yada yada yada, he is just a little wrapped up in his work. Ralph is quite naive and despises when I call him Ralph, I guess it’s disrespectful.