|
||
|
||
|
|
It should be dark outside, but it’s never really dark in Metropolis. Instead, lights shine brightly enough that Clark, leaning over the rail on what passes as his apartment’s balcony, can watch the people down on the street. From this vantage point, they really do look like rats scurrying to some obscure, non-existent finishing line. Clark wonders idly what they're doing, where they're going, if it even matters. He remembers watching a video about powers of ten his freshman year in physical science. The camera started out in a park somewhere, focused on this happy couple having a picnic on a yellow-checkered blanket. Then it zoomed out to ten meters away, one hundred, and then a thousand, and it kept going and going until the couple disappeared, and the park was gone, and the city and continent, too. The world was a speck receding in the distance, the camera left the galaxy, going so far away, and it just wouldn't stop zooming out. Then, when it finally stopped, it zoomed back so fast it was like being in warp, until it was back in the park. The couple was still there, contentedly munching on potato chips and acting like nothing had changed. The science teacher said the purpose of the video was to give them a concept of what exponents meant, how huge or miniscule they could make things when tacked onto a number. Clark doesn't think it was supposed to be depressing. It was, anyway. He'd suddenly felt so small and so fucking insignificant, like he didn't matter at all. Maybe he didn't. Doesn't. Going about his business every day, always trying desperately to fit in, and he wonders if anyone ever notices him at all. Odd, that when you're the center of your own universe, every little drama seems earth-shattering when it's clearly inconsequential in an uncaring world. An unsympathetic galaxy. It's probably no different here than anywhere else in the universe. Things have never been quite the same for Clark since he saw that video. For a while, he contemplated doing something--anything--to make people see him. He'd lived long enough as an invisible man, going through life and hoping not to stand out; he'd wanted to know what it was like to have heads turn when he walked into a room, to have people talk about him, write about him for a change, focus on him. Care about him. Maybe he still wants that. In fact, that's probably why he and Lex got along to inexplicably well. A relationship between them didn't make sense, except that it did. They each needed what the other could give, something that no one else had been able to provide. Lex had this way of looking at him so that Clark knew Lex actually saw him. Clark let a lot slip in front of Lex back then, made a lot of pathetic, transparent excuses that he couldn't have expected even Lana to believe. He doesn't even think it was a subconscious effort to give Lex clues, because he always reveled in Lex's undivided attention, and it couldn't have been a coincidence that his slip-ups always brought him that as a reward. He craved that attention more than any other, loved having those keen eyes locked on him like he was the most impossible, addictive puzzle that Lex would never ever solve or grow tired of. Clark can't remember when that changed. Now, though, Clark looks out at Metropolis and knows he's just another person, working aimlessly in a bubble of invisibility and loneliness and insignificance. Never going to make a difference, never going to be remembered, never going to be the center of anyone's world, much less a universe, ever again. He's a spectator at the margins of society, taking notes in his composition book and pretending he doesn't wake up floating above his bed each morning. Pretending to be normal when all he wants to do is stand out, make someone see him again, make him real again. He doesn't want to be alone. But he is. Times like this, he feels like he always will be. He has to do something, and tonight he wonders if maybe he can fly. END
|
|
|
|
||