He Could Make Himself Invisible

I don't know why everyone considers the ability to become invisible a superpower. For me, it's always been a curse. I've had this ability ever since the Seventh Grade. All it took was one goof while having to give a speech in front of the class to gain it. I'm nearing fifty and it shows no signs of going anywhere. It will be a haunting fact of existence until I really do become invisible as a ghost, or until I've deteriorated into raw nothingness with but a sentence of cold facts about the date I appeared and the date I vanished. The inconspicuous dash in-between may as well be my biography. Since acquiring this superpower, the pages of my story have all been blank.

There's more than one way to be invisible. It's not always all about physical transparency. In my case, it's about a combination of factors. Some of them physical. Some of them abstract. It's about all five of the senses: What people see, what they hear, what they smell, what they feel, and what they think.

They see nothing, and most of the time I like it that way. I'm not the type whose photogenic blessings draw glimmer-eyed stares everywhere I go. At best, I'm average. At worst, I'm repulsive. Considering the social status I've been dealt, there's always been this gut feeling clawing at the internal glue holding my will to continue that it's the latter. No, they don't make a habit of announcing the fact in my presence. I think the majority feel too much pity for that.

They hear nothing. Inaudible, invisible. It's always deliberate, and most of the time I like it that way. Many thrive on being heard. Some are irritating, others, the life of the party. The lifers both make me feel alive and dead, depending on my state of mind at the moment. The closest I get to visible is when I smile that dreadful smile I hate. That smile does nothing for me. It never has.

A lot of people - usually the same ones who thrive on being heard - go to great lengths to be visible through scent. I go out of my way to be neutral in that department at all cost. Cologne would be a waste anyway. I keep it simple and boring with cheap soap. It's deliberate, and it's part of what keeps me invisible.

Presence is something which has to be felt. They can't see what they can't notice. Boring and average generally goes unnoticed. I hate being noticed. It's never good news. I like it just fine as the shadow figure I've trained myself to be, except for virtually every minute of every day. They want the attention, let them have it all. Their visibility is my shield.

Someone who isn't thinking isn't seeing either. No one thinks when I'm around, because my masochistic mission is seeing to it they have nothing to think about. I'm a plant...walking vegetable would be more like it...a living thing, and nothing more. I go through the motions, doing the minimum required for survival, not because I want to survive but because I'm hard-wired for it by nature whether I like it or not. I eat, I sleep, and I work. That's what people see. Out of mind, out of sight. Invisibility.

Many thanks to this superpower for effectively sabotaging any resemblance of a purpose. Invisibility is a disease with no cure. It spreads, infiltrates, breaks down, undermines, compromises, ravages, with self-destruction as the inevitable end-product.

In my mid-twenties, I met someone who happened to have a superpower of their own: Superhuman strength. That made me feel the closest thing to how I imagined happiness feeling. Her presence in the building was all it took. The strength radiated from that determined-fighter smile, surrounding and encasing me in a perpetual hug of sun-like healing to the neglected grass blade that was me.

This smile was genuine, unlike the false one I've so loathed having to wear every day. It was genuine despite everything. All she'd been through. Things that, for once, made me aware of not being alone in the "deserve better" category. Not just a cute face, but a role model. That's superhuman to me.

It also takes superhuman strength, apparently, for anyone to exert their self enough to give me the time of day. But for her, this came natural. She was as stubborn about getting to know me as I was about resisting getting known. Within weeks, she was the first being on the planet to know I have a pet peeve against humans I refer to as "Car Campers": People who sit in their cars with the engine running long after they've parked somewhere. It gets under my skin worse than any other psychological torture. How did she know? Because unlike everyone else, she's observant. She was a Car Camper herself until noticing the gleam in the corners of my narrowed eyes one afternoon when I went to get in my car after work and she happened to be parked right next to me. The engine cut off and she got out.

"Well it's not like I've been conspiring all my life to make you a nervous wreck!"

That smile. That laugh. It made me smile, and it made me laugh.

A month later, something happened that made Car Campers bottom on my list of worries. My answer was a stuttered "yes", but the inside answer was a silent "no". It was the first time I'd ever been asked out on a date, and the last.

Superpower sprang into action. I tricked her vision by ducking and hiding every time I heard her lively voice down the hall. I tricked her hearing by holding my breath, waiting for her to hang up when she called. I tricked her emotions by replying to the texts with calculated runaround for answers. I tricked her mind by arriving at the restaurant early to pay the waiter in advance for her meal and leaving.

It was a success. I became invisible. She no longer noticed my presence, even when we passed by each other on the street. Through her superhuman strength, I think she understood. That fear of failure and rejection had been the cause of all this. Today, she smiles and waves once in a while. It's half-hearted, evasive, and deliberate. She gets it that I hate being noticed and doesn't take it personally. I wish I could hate being noticed as much as my adapted inner child has forced me to pretend.

***

It was late in the evening and I didn't want to be here. Here in this underground parking garage with all these parked cars. Vehicles are never unoccupied as far as I'm concerned. There are always people behind those tinted windows. Gawking. Laughing. Scheming. Humans are everywhere, lurking. I was so close to safety. I was within unlocking distance of my own car. Then I heard voices. My I.Q. lowered to half its resting level like it always does when humans are around, and rationality retreated like an ebbing beach wave, replaced by the adrenaline-fueled handicap that is my so-called superpower. My body straightened into a board. My eyes ceased to blink. My muscles ground to a halt, with only the pulses pounding beneath clothing giving any indication of life. In essence, I became one with the concrete pillar beside which I stood.

As the voices drew near, embarrassment scolded within. I realized it was an elderly couple. I'm always terrified that invisibility will one day fail me. This situation was no exception. What would they think? What would they say? Worst of all, what might they do? They'd probably think I'm high on drugs or mentally ill. They'd probably ask me if I'm all right. They might call the police, or an ambulance. The beet-tone to my face was as much anger as anything. Anger at myself.

As they opened doors to get in their car, I sensed something. A vibe coming from nearby. It must have been the faint seismic reverberations of another vehicle that had just driven onto this level of the garage that induced it. The vehicle crawled past rows of cars. The driver had his window down. Despite the slow speed, there was still an abrupt screech when he hit the brakes.

"Hey, buddy! What are you up to over there?" That was the tape loop of dialogue which had already played dozens of times in rapid succession. But instead, he was too busy blazing at the couple to notice anyone else.

"Excuse me!" he said in a labored breath. 

"May I help you?" the elderly man asked with a shake to his voice. 

The driver gave a sheepish start of a giggle. "Yes! I...um...dropped my wallet around here somewhere. I was just wondering if either of you have seen it."

"No, we sure haven't." they both said.

"Okay. Sorry to bother you." The window was partway up when he let go of the button with a teary eye. "My daughter's birthday party...What am I gonna do now?" The wheels began a slow roll forward.

"Wait!" the couple said after an expedient consultation with each other. "Sorry about your luck, Mister. But if it's any help to you, here's a twenty."

"Oh, bless you!" he said as the husband tugged best he could to reclaim his wife's opened purse from his hand.

I couldn't stand to witness anymore. "Hey!" I boomed from five feet away, donning my hideous smile and making eye contact with another human for the first time in years. All three were as shocked over my presence as I was over my superpower. The culprit peeled out, leaving the purse behind.

I had two new friends. My only friends. And that was the moment I realized that the real, live, "Invisible Man" had saved the day.