I wasn't aware of the fact that I did not arrive back home - I was paying more attention to the large man with his back turned. The white tunic, light blue cape and large, turnip-shaped head made him all too easy to identify.
There is a time for action and a time for reaction. A time to object and a time to interject. For this creature, it is never one of those times. He never interferes. He simply and only watches.
So they say...
We were standing in what appeared to be a massive control room of sorts, with a clear high-domed ceiling that offered an uncharacteristically busy view of outer space. we were on the Moon. He was preoccupied with a massive wall of monitor screens - each appearing to offer distinctive images he requested.
He was a cosmic couch potato without a couch.
"Are you...the ghost of Christmas future?," I asked.
He turned to face me. his eyes were pools of glowing, firey amber. He turned to face the screens and pointed at a group of images with a lone finger...images...of me...
There was I, a decade older, drunk bidding a small fortune on an Adam West bust - the fourth in my collection...
( http://adamwestbust.com/ ) ;P
There I was, 11 years older, picking up a package from the post office - 50 issues of Jughead featuring Trula Twyst...
Was I there? - 12 years older, paying 200 dollars for Mark Hamill's autograph for a photo of him from ...Corvette Summer ?
There - 13 years older, selecting the 4th, not the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd copy of a new issue offered on the shelf at a comic shop.
Was That me? - 20 years older, watching someone select the 5th copy of a comic offered on the shelf, then walking over and resetting that stack...why am I bothering to do that?
I...think I'm working in a comic shop...
I...think I'm in charge of a store I own...a dead comic shop...
I...
"I...,"
" Yes, you, " the spirit spoke. He began to change. Transforming...becoming leaner, meaner, darker. The demure blue, yet quietly confident cape grew outward and expanded into bloody crimson red. The turnip-shaped head shrank into a narrow oval and the eyes outsized it - those firey amber pupil-less corneas glowing a bubbling, steamy green. Spiky studded chains and collars tore through the modest tunic - the long chains landing on the floor with a resounding clang that could wake the dead.
He became a darker shadow of his former self, literally and figuratively. If the former made a crow's nest among the stars, the latter was more likely to find a comfortable vantage point in a shadowy corner of a dank dead end nowhere - an alley, perhaps?
"You're the first spirit I've encountered with an identity crisis : a marvelous two-in-one. The 1st spirit wanted to stay relevant, the 2nd was an armchair spectator of the past, the 3rd wanted depth and recognition in the present day. What do you want?"
His voice was a low smouldering roar, his posture that of a sleeping giant finally awake. "I want to use my powers. I'm going to save my universe by destroying yours."
To be continued...
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