Intangible Man

There’s nothing like disappearing at will right before my enemy is about to attack. I don’t wear a cape or any kind of costume. I like to blend in with the crowd so that my enemy, the evil Captain Radar, cannot spot me as easily.

It was a cold winter morning in an abandoned industrial park. I was trying to take some short cut to the other side of town because I was running late to an important business meeting. Scattered debris and thick smog permeated the desolate place. The overturned, half buried cannisters resembled tombstones. As I was walking past one that was right side up, I happened to trip on a bump in the ground and slam right into it. The next thing I knew, I had fifty gallons of toxic sludge dumped all over me. I was blind, burning, disintegrating. That was it. Dead for sure.

I must’ve passed out before waking up sometime later. Forget about the business meeting. I had to get to a hospital. But I didn’t feel any pain. Somehow, I felt better than ever before, like I had just drunk ten shots of espresso. Except, I had that level of energy without the jitters or the heart attack. I leapt off the ground like I was a boxer who routinely and gloriously picked themselves up after being knocked down. But then I felt a knot in my stomach as I looked down. Where are you, feet? I waved my arms in front of my face and even smacked myself a couple times, but all I saw was the green ooze trickling out of that rusty container past where my hands should have been. Never mind. I really was dead. Oh, well. But where was my dead body? Did it completely dissolve from the ooze?

I waited a moment to see if I would be thrown into the fiery pit or taken up into the sky before leaving, apparently destined to walk the earth forever. A disembodied spirit.

I wandered the streets of Manhattan. A young man walked right toward me. Since I was a ghost, I had to get used to walking through people, so I planted my feet and waited. But when he bumped into me, it was so unexpected that I went to the ground and so did he. The man got up with a bewildered look. He scanned the area in front of him, his eyes never resting on me. Other people walking by gave him strange looks and side stepped as if he were crazy.

I opened the door of my office building and looked back to see an old woman gaping, before shaking her head and continuing on, probably assuming that someone had pressed the automatic handicap button.

I tiptoed next to the wall, occasionally worming my way through the sparse crowd of business moguls. I barely made it through the closing doors of the elevator and shot myself into the corner, away from three other people.

The doors opened back up. “They really need to fix this thing,” said an annoyed man with slicked back hair and a perfect double Windsor. I tried to suppress my labored breathing as he fervently stabbed at the close button once more.

On the eighth floor, my ever-grumpy looking boss, Craig, stood with a hunch next to my closed office door with a cup of coffee and a five o’clock shadow. Leo, one of my sleezy coworkers greeted him. I stood against the wall a safe distance away.

“Did you get ahold of Jim?” asked Craig.

“No, sir,” said Leo. “Honestly, I think you’ve given him enough warnings. It’s probably time to cut him loose at this point.”

Craig sighed. “Well, if he does come in tomorrow, send him to my office.”

Leo eyed my office door. Especially the part that says “Jim Baker. Executive Assistant.” I wanted to punch that perfect jawline, tousle that Harvard crew cut, and wrap that green tie around his wrists. But not here. Not now. I would wait for the perfect opportunity.

Then, just for a split second, he gave me a sinister look square in the eyes.

Four o’clock. Another meeting I was supposed to be at. Leo stood at the head in front of the fifteen sets of expectant eyes surrounding the massive oak table. One board member, a middle-aged woman named Marge, had the stern look of a judge of a high stakes audition.

Leo cleared his voice as a small bead of sweat formed on his forehead. “In this meeting I’ll be discussing our sales over the last quarter and our projected growths.”

This was my chance. All the years of Leo stealing my parking space, making sure I didn’t get into the elevator in time, and “accidentally” spilling coffee on all my papers. I was going to get him back, finally. As he continued, I went up to him and poked him in the side.

A crack of thunder boomed outside as he grabbed me by the shoulders and threw me. Everyone screamed as I slid across the table as papers, laptops, and coffee cups flew everywhere.

“You think you can sneak up on me and make a fool out of me, Jim?” said Leo, in a loud voice that echoed with the sound of the thunder. All the board members fled the room. Leo spun around and as quickly as the lightning flashed, his attire completely changed. He was now wearing a dark green costume with the letters “CR” on the front of it and a helmet the shape of a radar. In fact, it looked like a real, functioning radar because it pulsed with a virtual needle that spun around and around.

I just gaped at him, dazed. Reaching behind me, I felt the deep head indentation in the dry wall. How was he seeing me?

“I’m going to enjoy watching you fall eight stories to your death,” Leo said, leaping onto the table and charging toward me. I rolled to the side as he buried his fist into the wall where my head was a second earlier.

I leapt onto the table, off it, and rolled under, barely dodging his blows each time. Coming out from the other side, I quickly hurled a fist at him, but he grabbed it like it was nothing and shoved me once more, this time into the door. I felt the knob slam into my spine. I felt slightly weakened, but normally I probably would have been killed or had every bone in my body broken from either collision.

I summersaulted away. Now Leo was blocking the door. I channeled every fiber in my body and closed my eyes as I made for the nearest wall. Shwoook! Shelly’s office! I couldn't believe I just did that! This was so easy! I made for the next wall but collided with it and fell straight on my face. Okay. Maybe this would take some time to master. As I got up, there he was at Shelly’s door. Leo gave me the evilest of grins.

“Neat trick,” he said. “But all you can do is run away and hide.” He leaped up for a karate kick, but I leapt back toward the wall next to the conference room, once more channeling my energy. And behold, there I was back in the room that resembled the aftermath of a tornado. Then, suddenly, a thought occurred to me. I made for the wall to my left and dove into Leo as he ran through the main office hall. A desk split in half as I slammed him on top of it.

On we went, punching, shoving, and grappling until I found myself right at the edge of the broken window inside the conference room. Leo came at me, and channeling my energy once again right in the spot where I stood, I dissolved into the floor. Now in the seventh-floor lady’s bathroom, I peeked my head through the wall and saw Leo crash onto the hood of his own BMW. His bloodied body lay there all mangled and broken.

I turned back to find three women glaring at me from the sinks. I scurried away while mumbling an apology as I passed by them. I went down the elevator instead of my own cool, unique teleportation method and was in complete shock. There was Leo’s car, all smashed up in the parking lot. But he was gone. It was way too quick for the paramedics to have arrived or even for some random person to steal the body. He survived!

And so that’s how it began. We were long time coworkers battling over the next promotion in a cozy office building, and now the streets of Manhattan was our new battleground.

One day I got a distress call that Leo or should I say Captain Radar, was up at the top of the Statue of Liberty. I entered at the base and ghosted my way up to the top. Sure enough, there he was on top of the torch using his evil radar powers to jam everyone’s cell phone signal.

He turned around and gave me an evil grin. “Come back for another beating, Jim?”

“You won’t get away with this.” 

“Get away with what? I’m just standing here minding my own business. I think you need to reevaluate who the real villain is here.”

I had enough of his evil mind games, so I darted toward him. He didn’t seem to expect it because I was able to push him right off, but not before he blew me backward with one of his radar pulses from his helmet. I fell right through the forearm part that holds the torch... but didn’t go through to the other side.

A thick sheet of smelly copper pressed against my face and seemed to compress all parts of my body. I screamed at first in discomfort, but then in frantic urgency for someone to hear me and come rescue me, but it was like screaming into the vacuum of space. I tried wiggling any part of my body, but nothing would move. Not even an inch. I even tried channeling all my energy which had worked every single time since the accident, but nothing happened.

What a cruel twisted fate. Stuck in the forearm in America’s most beloved statue that represents freedom, but being the least free out of anyone. Sometimes I think I see a green pulsing light above me. Probably Captain Radar is back to taunt me. But one day I will get out of here. One day I will defeat Captain Radar and get him fired from that office once and for all. One day I will be the true hero that Manhattan deserves.