Chapter Sixteen: Ain't No Rest For...

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When I came to Starlight City, I expected fights. I expected grit, darkness, and well? Picture this: me standing on a rooftop as the rain whips up my sexy black hair and police sirens wail in the background. But this? The thrift store suit, the gel in my hair, and my sudden (often) realizations that I'd rather roll around in a bed of nails than smile at one more mom and offer a"Supers are abominations, am I right?" This, this is not a picture I want pictured.

The first week, I copy my dad's approach to the whole jamming-rhetoric-down-the-throats-of-the-sweet-and-unsuspecting thing , the one he told me over and over about at all those sad Christmases we had in the empty living room. When he was young and handsome, he said, he'd slick down his hair with bear grease and knock on every door in his district. It would take him weeks. Housewives and stay-at-home dads would invite him in for afternoon coffee or freshly-baked pie. And at their own tables, he'd sweep them off their feet with his swooping speeches and pretty rhetoric.

With my hair slicked back and my thrift store tie as unwrinkled as I can hand-iron it, I go a-knocking.

"Hi, would you like to learn more about the super menace—"

And as soon as the words leave my mouth I get a door slammed in my face so hard it whooshes back my hair. Hair that was already plaster-stiff from gel. After that, I start getting, well--you call it desperate, I call it creative.

Fliers.

So I should've taken graphic design in high school

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So I should've taken graphic design in high school.  And maybe another English class, come to think of it, but that's beside the point.

On a warm night, let's say a Tuesday, Galaxy catches me with masking tape in my mouth and six poorly designed fliers stuck to my hands. All I hear are a couple of cuss words and get a slight cuff on the ear, and just like that, a crowd forms around me and my the telephone pole.

(by crowd I mean mob)

On a cooler night, on a let's say Wednesday, I'm back at the manor house. The one with the vortex that leads to hell inside.

"I'm sorry!" I shout to a dark, trippy void. "I'm sorry, I should've worked harder. I--I--"

"Such a disappointment. If something..." The dark trippy void flashed red, and the  voice shook the ground beneath me. Disappointment. The word has followed me from my home and it probably won't leave until I die. "...radical doesn't happen by Saturday, I think you should be disposed of. Yes?"

"Yes,"  a thousand voices answered from everyone around me. I clutched my ears and fell. Up, up, up, my body went weightless in  the void while I was holding my breath, trying not to break as all the shards of color and sound buried down into my skin.  Trying not to scream. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, shut it!"

You can call it what you want, I'll call it brave. And strong. And other good words.

(So what if I'm becoming a worse liar.)

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