The Undeniable Need in a World of Denials

In an unspecified intersection, the lights were functional. One direction, the light was red. The adjacent direction had a green light. However the many vehicles were at a stand still for in the middle of the unspecified intersection smoke rose up in the air; oil spilled out onto the road; and three cars with deformed bodies and broken windows faced in random directions. Already, a couple of good Samaritans had appeared to ensure that the ones involved in the crash are tended to.

One man was tending to a flipped car that had its roof crushed near flat. A nonresponsive lady was inside with no way of getting her out. The man reached in and woke her. She was confused and unable to properly focus on her situation. A group formed around. Each person talking to each other on what can be done and whether they can do anything for the lady when suddenly the engine caught fire. Pandemonium erupted.

People rushed around trying to find an entry point, but it all seemed in vain. There is no way someone can get access to the injured lady. The lady seemed calm. The fire seemed to be more aggressive. The faint sirens seemed to be near to non-existent. It seemed her fate had already been sealed. Breaking out in front of the crowd, an elderly man shuffled in. He seemed to be cut up. Panting heavily, he slid his feet onto the crushed windowsill, squatted down, and grabbed the lintel of the window. People looked at him stupefied.

He looked frail and flabby, but he wasn’t ever like this. As a matter of fact he was born shredded. John Kempler was born in 1942 in a remote town within a poor family. His father was a farmer who had many misfortunes alongside his wife. After many failed attempts of conceiving a baby, John was conceived. The family was dirt-poor, and everything seemed short of a promise of things turning around, when it was observed that the two-year-old John was easily picking up twenty-five-pound-dumbbells.

This made his father come up with the idea of having his son go to carnivals to show off his strength. John drew a large crowd that would be amazed at how strong he was. As he grew older, his strength increased exponentially. At the age of ten, his main trick was lifting cars up, acting as a jack, allowing someone to change the oil of a car. A long process that he did not break a sweat over. He was the star of the show, but eventually he outgrew the carnival.

His strength continued to increase to the point where it would be problematic. The first time he had sex, he fractured his girlfriend’s hip. His dogs would yelp in pain anytime he would hug them with little pressure. However it did not mean it completely hindered him. He became a club bouncer, and he was highly sought after as a bodyguard. His job as a bodyguard introduced him into a seedy underground world where crime was a common occurrence around his employers. After a while of seeing nonsense violence, he became inspired to become a vigilante.

However John had no success with this, as it turned out he was a well known person to begin with. It didn’t matter if he was masked. The strong man who stopped people with his strength was clearly identified as John. As a result, he was warned to not meddle in anything, and instead stay in his place as a bodyguard. He did not listen and was punished by having his apartment ransacked and being fired. So he sulked away to a different city, and illegally acquired a radio that had access to police channels. First call of a domestic case, he promptly arrived at the scene and was shot in the stomach by a crazed ex-girlfriend. It was at this moment he realized he was a mortal being after all.

At the hospital, he met a military recruiter. The recruiter had been seeking John after hearing stories about him, and wanted to recruit him into fighting for his country against the Vietnamese commies. The only issue that arose was that John was not bullet proof. However, John was desperate for a change of air in his life, and happily enlisted. The recruiter had no issue with it as, in his own words, the German scientists that the US government has under its belt would find a way to make him more enhanced.

So in the meantime, he was not in a war zone, but instead was stationed in the east coast, helping transport soldiers across the Atlantic Ocean. And there, he stayed for four years. Initially, he was eager to see action, but after hearing stories of villagers being slaughtered indiscriminately, not-so-conventional warfare tactics being employed, and overall the horrors that were brought along, John was happy where he was at. He never heard of anything back about scientists figuring out how to employ him as a super weapon.

After his four year contract ended, he left, and began to join many strongman competitions. He won his first competition with ease. The second one with ease as well. It resulted in him being accused of pumping himself full of steroids. All of which were easily disproved by a simple cup test. He was loved by the public. He brought great crowds, and great sales. However, he was despised within the community. Even when he attempted to hold back his strength and let other people win, it was plain obvious that he was superior to the rest. Eventually, the committees of these major competitions had grown tired of the constant complaints, and barred John from entering again. Every single one. Even the ones that had trouble obtaining sponsorships and crowds turned him away for he seemed to not give anyone a fair chance of winning.

The public championed him as the strongest man in the world. Too strong and successful for his own good. However he was suffering from this so called success. He lost his main source of income. Trying to figure out what to do next, he tried to get back to his previous career as a bouncer, but he was seen as a liability. He would be the first target in a hit, and there was no telling he wouldn’t try to meddle in stopping gang punishments or hits. So then he considered trying out as a model and actor, but he was told he did not have the looks for a model nor did he have the skills of an actor.

And so, by the 1980s, he obtained a steady job as a bus driver for the city. People recognized him instantly, and as a result was the victim of harassment by news agencies trying to get a story off of the man down on his luck. John had no interest in giving out a story as he felt embarrassed by the turn of events. It got to the point where the police had to disperse these aggressive crowds of reporters. If you were to ask him how he was doing, he would say he was okay. But, if you asked him how he really felt, he’d tell you that he felt incomplete. Despite being in his forties, he still hasn’t found his own proper groove.

Then he met his wife, a thirty-year-old woman who had a small crush on John about ten years prior, on the bus. As they spoke, they had a lot in common. One thing led to another, and a little John was born. However, it seemed that he did not inherit the same strength as his father. John was relieved as he at this point felt like his strength cursed him with an unorthodox life. His son would be able to live a relatively normal life. Despite this, John still felt like he did not have everything he wanted.

However, one night, John and his wife were slow dancing to some tunes on a record player in the early night. She put her head on his shoulder as they danced in a slow circle, hand in hand.

“This is all I could ask for,” she sighed.

And with this, John had finally accepted his role as a traditional father. Being the breadwinner of the family, caring for his only son and wife. Life seemed to finally have a purpose for him. Alas, not everything is absolute. He continued to work his stable job as a bus driver until the age of retirement. His son grew up perfectly normal, went to college for a business degree, and obtained an office job in a different state. His wife stuck by his side until her peaceful death. John once again felt lost.

Sure, he should have felt accomplished, but it was all gone. He lived by himself as he was still agile for his age. But then his body was no longer able to keep up with maintaining itself. His ability to move declined greatly. The now elderly man had lost his strength. So, he relocated to a nursing home. There he made friends with the residents, the nurses, and the rare volunteers that visited. Eventually, as his strength continued to wither away, he became wheelchair bound. John had accepted that this was the end of the line for him. He had lived a good life, and he should consider himself lucky for at least experiencing what he experienced. As time passed like how it always does, boredom kicked in and it became so mind numbing for John that it left him mentally destitute. And, so, he passed the days day-by-day in his room waiting for his time to leave his mortal body.

One day, he was lying in bed watching the traffic from his window when he saw a car run a red light and crash itself into two other cars. Uninterested, or rather half-paying attention to the chaos, it wasn’t until the car caught on fire that it snapped him properly awake from whatever mental fog he was in. Watching the fire on the engine intensify made his blood rush at a strength that he hadn’t felt in close to a decade. For the first time in forever he sat himself up and slid himself to his wheelchair. Something he was unable to do for a year now. He felt like he had to help whoever was in the burning vehicle. So he wheeled himself to the front door of the facility, and tried the door. It was locked. He turned to the receptionist.

“Let me out,” he said.

The receptionist looking at him incredulously stammered out, “I-I can’t do that. Go back to your room.”

“No. You don’t understand. It’s just that uh,” he tried the door again and got frustrated.

“Fine. Fine,” he barked.

He wheeled back to his room and looked back out the window. It seemed people were standing around clearly distraught. He squinted his eyes to see if the person was still in the car. Sure enough, the person was. It made John’s blood boil that once again he was being denied of saving someone. But instead of giving up, he felt more determined to do something about it. Without thinking about it, he stood up with difficulty, and looked outside the door. The receptionist and a nurse were standing afar. They were in conversation, but were staring with mouths wide open watching the destitute old man standing in front of them. John looked back at the window, grabbed his wheelchair up off the ground, and threw it at the window with high speed. The window shattered into pieces, and almost immediately John flipped over the windowsill onto the broken glass.

And so now there he was squatted over the crushed car window with his feet on the sill and his hand on the lintel. The heat of the car was very intense here and it was starting to burn John’s face and fingers. It was now or never. He used every fiber in his body to stand up like how he did when he lifted those cars up when he was a child. Someone was about to walk up to him, and pull him away from the fire when the metal started to squeal in agony. John was shaking intensely. The gap in the metal started to widen. John let out an agonizing scream as he fully opened the window leaving a gap big enough for the lady in the car to be pulled out.

As it widened completely, a loud snap was heard, and John fell over. Some folks rushed over and pulled the lady out the car. Some folks grabbed John and dragged him away from the fire as it began to engulf the entire car.

“Jesus, sir! That was amazing! How did you manage to save that woman?” exclaimed a young boy.

“Oh, my back. Ohh,” whimpered John.

John wasn’t even aware of what was going on around him anymore. The excruciating pain in his spine had disoriented him. The pain was everywhere, and as people started to gather around the superhuman, the pain started to abate. John suddenly felt warm, light, and had a moment of clarity where he understood what the young boy said to him. Finally, he was able to save someone. Everything began to feel numb and comforting to John. Albeit he was finally starting to slip away from his broken, mortal body, like a cracked glow stick, his spirit brightened up.