Incidental Superhero
Part 11
We shuffle through dimly lit passageways, Sonya taking the lead, myself following closely behind, my left arm hanging loosely by my side. The dank service tunnel is much deeper and more intricate than I would have guessed, and as Sonya takes turn after turn it begins to feel like we are irrevocably lost. It’s only my unwavering confidence in Sonya that keeps me moving without complaint.
Well, not entirely without complaint. I can’t help but groan and sigh and curse whenever the pulsing ache of my wounded arm or my pounding head radiates through my body. After what might have been my hundredth outburst, Sonya swings around at me, the glare of her flashlight sweeping onto my face. “Really?”
Yes, I want to say, really! This hurts! To be fair, although my injuries were not so severe, my overreaction was not entirely my fault. Ever since that first time-freeze, when I dodged Mark Farini’s beamer, I had hardly ever felt physical pain. Everytime I was about to encounter some, time froze and spared me. From my perspective, the pain I was suffering through right then, in that tunnel, was the worst physical pain I’d ever felt.
But I wasn’t about to get into the semantics of suffering with Sonya. It seemed like poor form to pester her as she once again saved our lives. Instead I demure, look down at the ground petulantly, and stifle my groans.
Eventually I can feel the floor beginning to incline upward. Sonya walks assuredly, only turning around now and again to make sure I am keeping up.
“Just a little longer. There’s going to be a short ladder up ahead. I’ll go first and then help you up, OK?”
I don’t respond. Actually I don’t hear her at all as my attention is completely drawn to something in the murky corner of the dark tunnel. I could have sworn I’d caught a glimpse of something in my periphery and now I stare down into the darkness for confirmation.
Sonya keeps walking a few steps more and then turns around and shines the light at me. “Hey, you OK?”
As the flashlight beam arcs around the pathway and then up toward me, the bright cone of its light fills the space and there, in the corner, is a gigantic rat, still as a stone.
I put up my finger towards Sonya and then slowly point down at the humongous creature. Sonya sees it herself and, as she centers the flashlight on it, and the beam reflects brightly in its beady eyes, it blinks.
Both Sonya and I jump, and I can’t help but let out an audible yell. The noise scares the creature, which begins scampering with terrifying speed down the length of the wall. This in turn scares the two of us even more and now we’re both jumping back toward the far wall screeching like school children.
Once the enormous rat is well and truly gone, out of range of the flashlight, the two of us lean against the wall, shoulder to shoulder, our hearts racing in our chests. Slowly we turn to one another, our faces barely visible in the light reflected from the flashlight off the floor, and we share a silent understanding of the immensity of that rat.
Time has returned to normal, for better or for worse.
Eventually we calm down and it’s Sonya who speaks first. “We should keep moving.”
Hard to argue with that. We continue onward in the dark, twitching at every distant scamper and pitter patter of ratty feet, our heads swimming at the knowledge that the frozen world has awoken, fear of what we would find outside growing with each step.
Soon we reach the “short” ladder, which seems not so short to me given the state of my left arm.
Sonya senses my incredulity. “Don’t worry,” she bends down next to the ladder and comes up with a length of thick rope. “I found this up there before. We’ll wrap it around your waist.”
She did just that, the stiff half inch rope struggling to loop around my abdomen. Sonya ties it in a wide knot at my back, tests for basic strength and then starts up the ladder with the rope’s end tied heavily around her forearm.
The ladder rises about four meters up the face of an untreated dirt and stone wall. As Sonya climbs up I stand at the bottom bracing with my good hand, watching her scale the rungs with the flashlight protruding like a pixie in her back pocket.
About half way up her foot comes in contact with the wall between the rungs and knocks loose a small rock, about the diameter of a quarter. I can see the stone as it’s dislodges from the wall, clangs off a rung of the ladder, and falls directly towards me. I watch, impassive and immobile, as the rock falls. To my astonishment the rock does not stop in space, does not slow to a crawl, but squarely collides with my forehead, sending a new wave of dull pain reverberating through my skull.
“Ow.”
I rub at the small bruise forming on my head, still disbelieving.
Sonya looks down at me over her shoulder from near the top of the ladder. “You alright down there?”
I can hardly respond. Between the rat and the rock the world is speaking to me, and the message is overwhelming. Whatever power I had, whatever power had been influencing my life for the last 30 years, had announced its absence, loud and clear. It was almost moving, like the loss of a security blanket or, more honestly, a trusty, unseen companion. Suddenly I feel naked, standing there in the dark.
“Yeah.” I say quietly.
Sonya makes it to the top and urges me to follow. Awkwardly I climb the ladder with my good hand, Sonya laying on her back and pulling the rope to take some of my weight, and working together, still in a haze, I make it up.
Sonya can see I’m distressed but doesn’t know why. I can feel tears welling in my eyes.
“Everything OK?” Sonya asks, and when she does I look at her and see with new clarity. I may have lost my guardian angel, whatever it was, but I still had a partner.
“Yeah, everything’s great. Thanks, for before, on the bridge.”
Sonya looks down, embarrassed. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be, you saved my life. Several times.”
Sonya looked back up, her features soft in the cool LED shadows of the flashlight. “Well, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.” She smiled. “Now we’re even.”
“I guess we are,” I said, leaning forward to connect the circuit of our lips, rejuvenated by the energy of her touch. When we part, I stand up first and offer my good hand. “Whadya say we get out of here?”
Sonya takes my hand and the two of us continue onward, down the dark hall, until finally in the distance we see a doorway, its shape outlined in light coming through at the cracks.
“There it is.” Sonya whisper, her voice nervous. “You ready?”
I nod, realize she can’t see me nodding, and then say “yes.”
We walk forward, side by side, toward the door, anticipation growing in my belly, awaiting the cataclysm outside, the nuclear wasteland that was once my home. My heart is racing again, each step bringing us closer until we are only a couple of paces away. The light from beyond the door gleams bright to our dark acclimated eyes. Just as Sonya leans in to grab the handle the door swings open inward and the figure of a large man stands tall in the doorway.
We scream and he screams and we’re all screaming for a second before calmer heads prevail and we all go quiet, the man with his hand on his chest.
“Who the hell are you?” He asks. “How did you get in here?”
I am too overwhelmed to say anything. Sonya sputters a response. “We came from the service tunnel entrance. It’s collapsed.”
The gray bearded man eyeballs us both. He is wearing a reflective vest and hard hat and as our eyes adjust to the light we see more movement behind him, which is not outside, but rather a well lit room.
“You guys are lucky, you must have just made it. Did you see the explosion?”
I open my mouth to speak and it just stays that way, agape, for a little too long. Sonya steps in. “Yeah.”
The man ushers us into the room and shuts the door behind us. Inside are three other workers, all with reflective vests on, surrounded by a variety of computers and monitoring equipment. Surprisingly one of the computers is currently on and the three other men stand huddled around it, looking at us only briefly before looking back at the screen.
The man who let us in sees us looking at the three men and gives a little smirk. “You all haven’t heard the news, huh?”
Sonya gives him a look of disbelief, almost offended. “Yeah, we’ve heard.”
But that makes the man laugh and we’re both nonplussed. “Nah, you haven’t heard the news. Go ahead.” He makes a light gesture toward the computer.
I can feel a buzz in my chest, almost like a tiny whirring engine beginning to rev up, just a warm spark of excitement, unsure of whether to extinguish itself or burst into joy. I walk over to the three men huddled at the computer and look over their shoulders at the screen.
The blood rushes to my head as I read and even as I begin to smile I get light headed and nearly pass out, falling at the last second into a nearby seat.
Back near the door the gray haired man is just shaking his head. “Damned Russians fired by mistake. World should be over, ‘cept it isn’t.” He laughs again, looking down at the floor.
Sonya follows my path over and looks at the screen. When she reads a little she pushes in and takes control of the mouse, scrolling through a live streamed article, reading as she does. “The missile misfired over the Hudson. Upper Manhattan was moderately damaged. No identified casualties” She swings around toward me “it worked! Henry, It actually worked!”
Slowly the blood returns to my brain and with it comes the realization that we had succeeded, and that my long labors were over. Emotion comes unbidden and next thing I know I’m balling my eyes out and laughing at the same time. Sonya joins in and the two of us hug in the midst of our emotional love fest.
The gray haired man is laughing at our laughing, almost like he’s learning the news all over again. “There’s no explaining it. All of those people. A miracle. It’s an actual miracle.”
Sonya and I share a knowing glance, and a silent understanding passes between us. We did it. No one else might ever know, but we did it. Finally, I find my voice.
“It is.” I say, feeling the profound responsibility of being an incidental hero lifting off my shoulders for the first time in years. “It really is.”
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