Kal-El. Kal-El. He says it softly to the mirror, watching how his lips and tongue change shape as they form the sounds. His eyes flicker upward on the first syllable, trying to catch his mirror image at the very moment, and then they shift downward again to catch the second half. Kal-El.

He changes names. "Clark Kent," he whispers. "Clark. Kent. Clarkkent." This one cannot be slurred; it must be said slowly, enunciated. The other name – his other name – suddenly seems more elegant, more lyrical. The consonants are liquid.

He cocks his head at that thought. Water and soil, liquid and rock. Space and Earth: that’s what his names sound like. K and T make him think of the sound a shovel makes when it’s thrust into hard soil, the sound of a bale of hay being loaded onto the truck. The letter L is like lapping water, the weightlessness of space, the feeling of flying.

"Who am I, then?" he asks the mirror. Is he the conqueror Kal-El, sent from the planet Krypton to drive the fear of heat and x-ray vision into mere Earthlings, to awe them with speed and strength? Or is he Clark Kent, a modest farmer’s son who trips over his own feet and blushes and stumbles over his words around pretty girls, and who doesn’t quite know what to do about Chloe, and Lana, and Lex?

He nods at the mirror. It’s time for shovels and bales of hay.

[End]