That made sense.
Maybeee… I could spice it up and move east. As long as it wasn’t anywhere warmer than here, I might even be able to run during the day instead of risking my life every night. I had never been farther east than Texas.
I needed to think about it a little longer to be on the safe side.
But just a little longer. A day or two max. No more than three. It was a good plan, I thought, as I picked up the glass of water I’d left on the edge of the table and took a big gulp. In the middle of taking another drink, I grabbed the remote from beside the map and turned on the TV.
“…I’m tellin’ you it was got-damn ANGELS! The po-lice tried to say it had to be some weather phenomenon. Call it whatever the h-e-double-l you wanna call it, but that weren’t no storm out there. It were angels!”
The reporter on the screen blinked, and at the same time, the corners of his mouth twitched almost unnoticeably, but I caught it. “Sir, why would you think it was angels and not a member of the Trinity you saw through your window?”
The elderly man lifted his arms and let them drop at his sides. Behind him was an arid landscape with some blurry horses in a corral. “Come on, boy, use some common sense. Ain’t no lightnin’ blottin’ out the got-damn sky the way this’un did. D-uh. Tried to tell me too it was one of ’dem cape-wearers. What them ‘heroes’ gonna be doin’ around here? Nothin’！ That’s what! Lived here my whole [beep] life and never have I seen one of ’dem comin’ ’round these parts. We ain’t got no crime worth dealin’ with. Puh-lease. This here was HUGE! You couldn’t see nothin’ but this light in the sky. No reason it woulda been one of ’em Trinity. They can’t do that kinda thing. Folks been watchin’ too many movies.”
That was… interesting. I remembered one of them had been spotted in Albuquerque helping with a fire, but that was nearly three hours away and about a year ago. There was crime here, in the town I lived, like everywhere else, but nothing that kept me up at night.
It was one of the benefits of living in Chama, New Mexico, population about 1,000.
Which was exactly why I lived here.
On the screen, the older man’s hands moved animatedly as he went on to say that his neighbors had claimed to have seen something out of their windows, but by the time they had gotten up to look, there hadn’t been anything out there. It was only because he’d been washing dishes and had a window above the sink that he’d seen the “big ol’ glow move across the sky.”
I’d always wondered if angels were real. Some people said they existed—and I mean, if you really thought about it, there were superhumans or whatever the Trinity were, why wouldn’t there be angels? When I was little, we lived in a house that my grandma swore was haunted. But angels?
I changed the channel, trying to decide if I was in the mood to watch a movie or not, but I paused on the footage that seemed to have been recorded on a cell phone.
“The Primordial made a rare appearance today at a hospital in Chicago. Workers said the hero spent several hours at the facility, distributing gifts to children.”
Taking another sip, I eyed the woman standing beside a hospital bed, smiling at a little girl tucked into it.
Rumor had it she was six foot two or three, but it wasn’t like anyone had ever held a tape measure against her. She had broad shoulders rounded with muscle, and beneath the dark green, skintight suit that covered everything from her throat to the tips of her fingers and toes, the most well-known member of the Trinity was r-i-p-p-e-d. Everyone had, at some point, watched the footage of her holding up the Golden Gate Bridge when an earthquake had done the unthinkable and nearly caused it to collapse ten years ago.
I wanted to be her when I grew up.
If I magically became superhuman. And grew over a foot and gained forty or fifty pounds of muscle. And had magnificent bone structure and flawless skin.
Miracles could happen.
The incredible woman had hair so brown it couldn’t be mistaken for any other color and a skin color so golden, if she had any human in her, which was widely debatable, I was pretty sure a DNA test would have come up with a mix of ethnicities to pinpoint how it came to be. The face of the strongest woman in the world could only be described as striking.
She was a beacon of strength, femininity, and just plain being amazing, for not just little kids but for people of all ages. They all were, if you wanted to get technical. Most of humanity thought the three superbeings, called the Trinity for that reason, were incredible.
Not plain, normal people with a million lies on which they’d built their lives.
I was going to play myself a sad little violin.
“…among outcry from the families of those who were injured during the fire that left dozens hospitalized. Newly recovered security footage shows The Defender arriving ten minutes after…”
And here I’d literally just been thinking about that fire. I couldn’t believe they were still going on about it. It was a miracle he had even been able to help in the first place. He’d saved so many people. I rolled my eyes and switched the channel one more time before freezing.
There was a man with rich, brown skin surrounded by at least four heavily armored police officers moving toward one of those vehicles that SWAT teams used. “The trial for Camilo Beltran began today. Otherwise known as El Cerebro, the former drug lord and leader of the Arenas gang is finally being brought to justice on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering, and bribery…”
Swallowing back the anger and the little bit of fear that suddenly built up in my throat, I pressed the button on the remote again and decided I might as well eat now and watch a movie. That would be good. I had some time to kill before my lesson with my newest student, a twenty-three-year-old named Jo Ji-Wook who was moving to Toronto in a few months. His English was improving every week, and I was really proud of how far he’d come. What I should do was fold laundry while I sat there, but suddenly I felt extra tired and bummed out.
I’d spent half the day trying to replace the garbage disposal that had stopped working. The online manual I found claimed it would only take thirty minutes, but that hadn’t been the case. One of the screws had arrived stripped, and it had gone to shit from there.
Which was basically the story of my life. When You Think Things Can’t Go Any More Wrong, Hold Your Horses: The Gracie Castro Story. Coming to theaters never. Shinto Studios would shoot the screenplay down before they even finished reading the title. Gracie Castro: The Sorceress of Secrets might work, I thought glumly. Except I didn’t have any powers, if you didn’t count my rare but epic stomachaches.
Like the one I had right then, that I hoped was actually gas or just uneasiness about moving.
I cast a long look around the living room of the mostly bare single-wide trailer that had been home for years. Then I probably sighed for the tenth time in the last ten minutes and settled deeper into the couch for comfort. It was the closest thing to a hug I was going to get anytime soon, after all.
I missed hugs. I missed them a lot. Hugging yourself didn’t release any oxytocin in your body, so it didn’t have the same effect as getting one from another person.
I knew that from experience.