TM 235: Show me where you live
Coast City used to be one of the most desirable locations in the United States of America. When Dad was first stationed at the base nearby, I thought I was the luckiest kid in the world. Not only did I get to watch the planes take off and land all day; I got to go home to a city with the sunniest beaches and the prettiest girls and the friendliest, happiest people -- because how could you not be happy if you lived in a place like that?
It changed. A maniac parked his spaceship above my city and blew it off the face of the Earth, because. . .hell, I don't keep track of 'because.' I'm a Lantern. A cop. I'm supposed to stop the bad guys, leave the motive to somebody else. I tried to think about the reasons, once upon a time. That didn't take me anywhere good. So things changed for Coast City, and things changed for the Green Lantern of 2814.
But nothing lasts forever. Not even change. I came back to Earth, and I brought Coast City with me. Don't ask me how, because my hows aren't any more useful than my whys. If I want something badly enough, I can make it happen. So I used my power to start rebuilding the city. The government even tried to help, but for a long time, they couldn't even pay many people to live there.
You couldn't have paid me to live anywhere else, of course. But I didn't really blame the people who left; and I'm not at all sure I understood the people who stayed. The most common sentiment I heard expressed was that lightning wouldn't strike the same place twice -- but I've seen enough things to know that it can, and will. And sure enough, last year, with Sinestro's strike force headed for CC, I rushed back there, ready to urge the city's population to evacuate. They'd done enough, they'd tried to make the gesture of belief by coming back to this cursed town. Coast City had asked enough of them. It was time for them to run.
They didn't run. Instead the people of Coast City stayed in their homes, and held green lights up to their windows. Why would we leave, they seemed to ask, why would we lose hope, when we have a Green Lantern looking out for us?
I'm a Green Lantern of Sector 2814. I've flown from one end of the galaxy to the other. I'm a cop with the whole solar system as my beat. Coast City, California is my home. The only place I really belong to, the place that belongs to me.
My city without fear.