The Death of Superman

I tried writing this post once before. I was ready for it, but for some reason something wasn't right, and so I left. Maybe the timing was off.

Awhile back, way before I started reading Chuck Palahniuk, I came across something that sent chills running down my spine. It was a work by Ernest Hemingway, a flash fiction piece he wrote to settle a bet with some drinking buddies. It went like this -

For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.

They wanted a novel in six words. I imagine they got more than they waged for.

I also read that in his senility, he took his life with a shotgun blow to the head. I don't think I've been the same since.

It's terribly numbing to hear things like this for me. You read about these people who do what you dream about, and then hear how they erase themselves, perhaps not even knowing the scope of their influence. Not knowing how important they were.

And maybe there's good reason behind each story. Depression, addiction, heartache. Maybe. Maybe at that point, when they had to decide whether this was all worth it or not, the thing everyone else saw and what they saw didn't line up. Maybe the timing was off.

I wonder if they regret it.

Right at the point you realize there's no going back, there has to be a split second of lucidity. In that moment, the depressed can feel and the brokenhearted are whole.

There's got to be something like that going on in those milliseconds before death.

Maybe not.

Maybe there's just violent jerking or useless flinching or empty gasping before the dead silence. Before the walls are painted with shame and secret and bits of skull and brains. I'm sure there would be regret if they saw what we saw.

I wonder if that's why we've never heard from Superman, though. He's probably seen what it means to be special. To be adored. It means nothing really. Because Cobain was a modern day poet, but in the end we couldn't save him. And similes never hit as close as Plaith's, but not even our medication could keep her from her demise.

Maybe that's why Superman has never shown.

Or maybe he has, but he's gone just the same.

For the seconds he was here, he made their lives better. He showed them what love is... shared with them the things they crave - good music, good reads, prime time things - but he couldn't stay, because the love was too uneven. The love he gave wasn't in line with the love they gave. And when he had to make a decision about whether all this was worth it or not, he did. And in the milliseconds of lucidity, when the heartbreak turned to love and the weight of the world never seemed so light, he knew what he did was done.

I'm sure he regrets what he did. But he had no choice. The timing was off.