II.

On the day Romel received his powers, he awoke alone in his girlfriend’s bed a little after 11 AM. Though groggy from reading late the night before, he ventured to open his eyes and begin his day. With effort, he swung one foot off the bed, then, with equivalent effort, the other. It took him a minute of laying like this before he managed to sit up. He rubbed at his eyes with his palms, yawned, coughed when he smelled his breath, then got up.

The first thing he did on his feet was scratch, with conviction, at his right butt cheek. It itched. The next was to retrieve his girlfriend’s ear buds and old iPod from off her night table. The ear buds he slipped into his ears, the iPod he secured in the waistband of his boxers after setting it to a Queen playlist. The first song that came on was The Show Must Go On, one of his favorites. He particularly liked the line: “My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies.” Romel thought that if only the world’s soul were painted like the wings of butterflies, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in.

He listened to the song on his way to the kitchen, picking away at his air guitar (he did this only after insuring there was no one in the house). In the kitchen, he fixed himself a brunch of boiled spaghetti, one of the three things he knew how to cook, along with red sauce he heated in the microwave. After he was satisfied (which didn’t take long since he was gypsy thin) he scraped the remainder of his food into the garbage, and headed back to his girlfriend’s room.

There, he sat back on the bed, and picked up the book he’d been reading the night before. It was a science fiction anthology by Marc Uriah, a little known local author who Romel really liked. The story he was on depicted a war, a literal war, between an army representing the id and another army representing the superego, taking place within the psyche of a man under the influence of psychedelics. This was the sort of story Romel got into.

Firstly, there was the drug angle. Romel himself never did drugs; he was too scared of their effects. But the stories allowed him to feel edgy vicariously. Secondly, the conflict in the story was the only sort of conflict Romel enjoyed: the fictional kind. He could get immersed in it without feeling what he usually felt when immersed in a conflict, namely guilt, anxiety, and discomfort.

                

He finished the book within a couple of hours, sad that it had ended.

                

“Is this what the world in our head is really like?” he said to himself aloud, feeling all smart for having wondered such a thing. Narrowing his eyes like an intellectual pondering, he continued: “And do we have any say in the matter?”

                

He figured these questions could only be answered by further reading. The book he’d just finished, though, was the last of the books he’d checked out from the library. He’d have to go get more. Which meant he had to dress himself and go outside. To this he sighed. He enjoyed being at home, alone, in his undies. The world outside was an annoyance, a bombardment to the senses, a place of hostility.

These were the kinds of feelings his dad used to call “delicate,” back before Romel got out from under his tyranny. His dad did so while affecting a limp-wristed homosexual and often followed that up with a bout of yelling in which he decried his and his wife’s genes for having produced such a child. Thankfully, his dad’s opinions held no sway over him now. If he wanted to stay shut in all day, he could, except when he couldn’t, like now.

He threw on his black t-shirt bearing the face of Edgar Allan Poe and over that he slipped on a greyish, silvery sweater. He picked up a pair of black jeans he’d left on the floor the day before and pulled those up his legs. When he reached his waist he was forced to remove the iPod from the band of his boxers so he could button the pants. This was the first he noticed that the playlist had run out of music. Based on how long the playlist was, this must have occurred about an hour ago. He switched it over to a Beatles compilation (the drug years) and stuck the iPod into his pocket. Finally, he tucked his dreads, which he wore short and a bit unkempt, back, so he could pull the hoodie from his sweater over his head.

Then he was off, out on the pristine streets of Gemstone Key.

While he walked to the library, he talked in his head to what he thought was God. He did this often while alone and trying to puzzle through something.

“Let’s say it’s true that we are caught up in a war in our minds. One side is our impulses, the bad ones, like our anger, our cruelty, our wanting to control people, and then the other side, it’s all the things we know are good, like being nice and humble and not hurting anybody. And sometimes one side wins, and sometimes the other side wins, and in some people, one side wins more than the other. Is “ME” the part that gets to decide which side wins or is “ME” just an illusion produced by the battle? Are we in control of what we do or are we trapped in some destiny dictated by the chemicals inside us? Can we judge each other for what we do?”

This line of logic immediately brought up images of his dad reacting in some overemotional manner to one thing or the other. It didn’t really matter what since that’s how he reacted to everything.

“Can I judge my dad for what he does?”

He became split in two at the manifestation of this question.

One side of him, what felt like the more reasonable, logical side, actually wanted to pursue the idea that he could not judge his father. His father, like all others, was a product of this war, and for whatever reason (maybe upbringing, maybe not), it seemed the impulse side was the stronger of the two in him. His behaviors were then the natural outworking of forces beyond his father’s control. Maybe his dad was to be pitied rather than hated.

The other side of him, the side of him that desired justice, the side of him that, during moments of self-doubt, emerged to reassure him, to imbue him with a sense of self-righteousness, this side refused to accept this. There had to be people in the world considered “good” and people in the world considered “bad,” and “ME” had to be the distinction between the two. There were those who’s “ME” favored impulse, like his father, and those who’s “ME” favored good, like Romel.

In the end, as with most things he thought about, he remained undecided. Fortunately, his savior, the library, lay ahead. He walked up the steps, under the influence of choice or chemicals in his brain or something else entirely,  gripped the door handle, drew the door toward him, and trod passed the threshold.