Hey, I'm a Super Hero!

What Dreams May Come: Part 2

What Dreams May Come: Part 2

A light rap sounded at his door that night.

"Honey? What's going on in there?" came the voice that would start off in a mock-friendly tone, like always.

And like always his mother tried to push open the door, without waiting for a response. His parents had refused to allow him a lock, even though he was in his high school years. They used the lame excuse of not wanting to break through if he called out for help in the middle of the night, though he suspected it was actually some sort of control mechanism. But he had recently found a cinder block at a construction site they passed on the walk back from school and had lugged it home, even though it had exhausted him. Nothing would budge that door when he rested it on his side, and it would stop them when they tried to burst in unannounced.

"What is this? Why are you blocking yourself in?" she said, with just a hint of stress creeping into her voice.

"Because I'm studying! I have a paper that's due tomorrow, and if I don't finish it I'll fail," he said, even though it was a lie. "You said I had to get good grades, didn't you?"

He heard his mother suck in her breath, sharply.

"How dare you talk to me in that tone of voice! You... are such an ungrateful child!"

The boy tensed, as a wave of defeat passed over him. The onslaught was about to begin.

"I'm not trying to be ungrateful," he pleaded. "I just..."

But she wasn't even listening at this point.

"I... cannot understand this," she whimpered. "How we've failed in raising you. What we've done to make you so horrible and mean to us..."

The hallway outside his door was silent for a moment, which was a good sign. The boy hoped that maybe she had given up and walked away. But then he detected it; the quiet sobbing, which grew louder. That was it, his mother was dissolving into one of the crying fits she would sink into once or twice a week, and there was the sound of her feet softly padding away as she went to wail uncontrollably in her bedroom. But eventually the noise of the TV could be heard, and there was no yelling from his father. It meant one of her shows had come on, that she was bored with taunting him... saving her drama for the weekend, when she would go into full-blown tantrum mode, the one that would shut down the entire household. Yet, for now, if his dad was passed out in the living room, the boy might be left alone for the rest of the night. But he would pay for his transgression the next day, at breakfast perhaps. He would have to hear what a terrible person he was, and they would tell him to take the block away from his door. But he would find something else to pile against it, books or a piece of furniture, anything that would thwart them from denying his speck of privacy.

For now he would enjoy a few moments of solitude, typing away at his laptop.

Even though his parents could be difficult they provided him a home and food, and the occasional luxury like the Mac ibook he had whined and begged for. Of course, it was a model two generations old that they had found on sale, but it more than met his needs. His mother and father had been poor when they were younger, and were thrifty to a maniacal degree even though the family was comfortable now. They had finally relented to his demands for his own computer, saying it was an investment in his college education. He didn't even want to think about that, other than to get his hands on the white plastic device. He hated school more than anything else in the world, even Clancy Creath, and fantasized about the day when he would no longer have to study subjects that didn't interest him.

He had finished his homework, which wasn't difficult to do. All his classes were fairly easy. In fact, it felt like they simply learned the same crap over and over, so the school could keep them busy and babysit for their parents until the brats were ushered off into adulthood. Since it was Tuesday night he went to a Facebook group called "Altered Light," one he belonged to where he would chat sometimes. The topic was New Age/Spiritual studies, but they never actually studied anything. They met once or twice a week to meditate online, and tap into the energy of the universe. He had found them by mistake when he was searching for a game called "Altered Fight," and had typed the name incorrectly. But it turned out to be a good thing because the boy loved this stuff, anything and everything that could provide him some sort of escape from the drudgery of his life.