My Day As A Super Hero

My mother came across this story that I wrote a few years back when I as applying for the Institute of Children's Literature writing school. It's an fun little story of my life when I was thirteen, but as I read it today the last paragraph jumped out at me. I have been a cautious man by nature, and I think I may have found the day that I made an agreement with the enemy about that very thing. Thank You Jesus for bringing this back to my remembrance so that I can break that agreement and move on towards becoming the man that You want me to be.

In the thirteenth year of my birth, I was as rambunctious as any other young man of the same age. This was a special time in my life, as I was changing physically, but not so much mentally. This new found awareness that it took more to hurt me than what I was accustomed too, coupled with the brain of an eight year old is a dangerous combination.

You must understand now, that my favorite playmates were the ones I visited in far away lands and in enchanting distant worlds of fantasy. Comic book heroes always intrigued me with their fantastical powers, and their sense of obligation to always do the right thing. And of course it was always at the right time.

Probably my favorite hero of those days was Spider-Man. I would swing through the buildings of Manhattan Island with him on a strand of webbing that would stick to anything. We would swing by a building, see something mysterious, and then stick to the wall like a real spider and watch until time to make our move. Then using our web shooters we would shoot a thin stream of webbing, swing down, and beat the bad guys afterwards swinging into the sunset, at least that’s how I saw it.

One day after a severe thunderstorm had blown through; I looked out my window to see that lightening had knocked an old tree down in our back yard. The tree had a fork in it and it was my good fortune that one fork lay two feet off the ground and the other twelve feet. Cautiously, I climbed up onto the top fork and thought this is like being Spider-Man. Now bear in mind, the eight year old mind and thirteen year old body. So positioning my fingers after the fashion Spider-Man would use when shooting his webbing towards a building, I pretended to shoot some webbing then jumped off the tree. I hit the ground, rolled and jumped up laughing.

Now not thinking of how rain soaked tree bark and rubber tennis shoes soles worn thin by countless hours of playing would interact, I embarked on my acting like Spider-Man for the second time. As I leaped, my feet slipped and I fell spread eagle towards the lower fork of the tree. It was at this time my eight year old brain transformed into that of thirteen because I knew how much pain my crotch was going to be in if I landed in this position. So with the agility of Spider-Man himself, I rolled to my right side. I hit the ground with a thud, right on my wrist fracturing it in two places.

As I screamed for my mother and cried because of the pain, I realized then that my one day as a super hero would be enough. From that day forward I have just read about super hero exploits, instead of acting them out.