TM #190: If I were a child again.
I was a quiet child for the most part - although when I tell people this they seem to have trouble believing it - but I was a quiet child. Even before it happened, I was a quiet child who spent more time listening than talking, I’d sit there and I’d try and take it all in - everything about the scene in front of me. I’d try to remember anything new to try for myself later. I’d collect words and try them out in sentences, forcing them in even when they didn’t quite fit the context and (sometimes) the social setting. I didn’t run around the house screaming, but I was one of those children who always asked questions, endless questions, requiring clarification on every single point until there could be no doubt left, no ambiguity. I remember when I discovered the word ambiguity, I used it in several sentences an hour, for a day at least everything was ambiguous and then the next day it was all ambivalence.
Of course, I had a secret identity in which I was neither quiet nor ambivalent. In my secret life I was Zorro. A man with a destiny, as suave as he was deadly, capable of wooing a woman and humiliating his foes all the time barely breaking a sweat (a phenomenon that is physically impossible, let me tell you, even with an excellent anti-perspirent, wooing a woman requires a great deal of sweat). Zorro was the champion of the people. He was the enemy of tyranny and above all else, he was just so damn cool. Zorro would never sit there and watch the world go by, he already had all the answers. In those moments in which I was Zorro I was not the quiet child, but then, I was not Bruce Wayne. I was someone else entirely. Sometimes I thought of that as the real me, the person I really was, if only the world could see it.
If I were turned into a child again, I’d be that real me for another hour. I’d be Zorro. I’d free my people and save the girl and I’d be myself again. After all, no man is ever so much himself as when he’s protected by his mask.
Bruce Wayne
Batman
393 Words
Of course, I had a secret identity in which I was neither quiet nor ambivalent. In my secret life I was Zorro. A man with a destiny, as suave as he was deadly, capable of wooing a woman and humiliating his foes all the time barely breaking a sweat (a phenomenon that is physically impossible, let me tell you, even with an excellent anti-perspirent, wooing a woman requires a great deal of sweat). Zorro was the champion of the people. He was the enemy of tyranny and above all else, he was just so damn cool. Zorro would never sit there and watch the world go by, he already had all the answers. In those moments in which I was Zorro I was not the quiet child, but then, I was not Bruce Wayne. I was someone else entirely. Sometimes I thought of that as the real me, the person I really was, if only the world could see it.
If I were turned into a child again, I’d be that real me for another hour. I’d be Zorro. I’d free my people and save the girl and I’d be myself again. After all, no man is ever so much himself as when he’s protected by his mask.
Bruce Wayne
Batman
393 Words