I read an article online recently about how since the Awakening, self-reported cases of depression and severe anxiety have tripled compared to the decade before. I can understand it. When people all around you suddenly acquire amazing abilities, even God-like powers, it can cause a serious existential crisis. Your boy Luke is fine though, I’ve had tons of practice feeling inadequate, because my cousin Mike is perfect.
I am not kidding. Even when we were little, Mike was taller, faster, smarter, more handsome and more charming than any kid I’ve ever met then or since. He got straight A’s, was captain of whatever sport he was playing, MVP of whatever game he was in, and girls were crazy about him. It was relentless. I couldn’t even beat him at UNO.
The funny thing was, when I was hanging out with Mike, I never minded that he could crush me at everything. He wasn’t just my cousin, he was one of my best friends, and he was as good at being a friend as he was at everything else. He was fun to hang out with, and whatever he was winning at, he would be sure to include you and make the experience a blast.
The problem was my Grandma. We lived a couple of blocks away from my grandparents and so I was at their house almost every day. My aunt and uncle lived with Mike in Groveland which was about an hour away, and he only came over every few weeks or so. Grandma couldn’t get enough of Mike and how awesome he was, and so just about every day I’d hear this unending stream of “Mike did this, Mike won that, Mike is going to be Valedictorian, Mike invented the internet.”
This one time really put it over the top for me with Grandma. I heard her telling her neighbor how Mike had spent the whole weekend up on her roof cleaning the gutters. Except that was ME! I spent the whole damn weekend cleaning my grandparent's gutters, ME! The bastard got credit for the sacrifice of a weekend I made! Life was so unfair!
You think I’m lying about spending an entire weekend cleaning gutters off a little three bed-room house but I’m not. My grandparents made a terrible mistake and planted a Kentucky Coffeetree right behind the house when they built the place. Look them up. They are beautiful trees, but they are the world’s messiest tree. First, they drop millions of little flowers, then they drop these huge pods with giant beans in them, then the little leaves fall off, then the STICKS fall off. Millions of 2 foot long, gutter clogging sticks. If you are interested in horticulture look up “pinnately compound leaves''. It’s Horticulturalese for “HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS”. And after I handled that massive hassle once again, Mike gets the credit. Story of my childhood.
Eventually all the times I heard from my Grandma or someone about some awesome thing Mike had done I built up resentment at my inferiority. I developed this weird love/hate for Mike. I loved him when he was around because he was awesome and fun and hated him when he wasn’t around and I was crushed under his tsunami of incredible.
Eventually I made my peace with it, some point when I was in college. Mike was in another state around then, so I didn't have to hear about him for months at a time. I was busy figuring myself out. I realized that in any given endeavor, someone (Mike) will be the best, and then there’s everybody else. This was a good immunization for me personally when the Awakening happened.
I was in my dorm the night of the Awakening, and I slept through it. I didn’t see a single Wonderflonium meteor, and only found out about them the next day. My roommate was at a kegger and said that it was so overcast in our area that they didn’t notice anything anyway. I’m sure they were all really busy looking up at the stars.
Mike was backpacking in Montana that night, saw the whole thing, and got a huge personal dose of Wonderflonium. He told me he had to wrestle an awakened Grizzly on the way back down out of the mountains, which of course he did because it’s Mike. Which means you already realize that Mike’s an Awakened too. BIG TIME.
You like super strength? Mike’s got that. Super speed? Mike’s got that. Super senses? Flight? Chickety-Check. Particle beams emitted from his hands? Check. My cousin Mike is the world’s one and only SSS-class hero- Star Commander. The guy who has defeated countless S-class Villains, and single-handedly eliminated the Florida triffid outbreak just before Orlando was overrun.
I guess it says a lot about Mike that he told me about his Awakening right away. He called me up in my dorm and told me that he had powers before I had even really wrapped my mind around everything that was going on. It really calmed me down. I figured if Mike had these powers, then probably everything would work out. It always has before when Mike did stuff, so it would again.
Obviously, things were pretty insane everywhere for a while, not everyone who Awakened a superpower was particularly responsible with them. In some ways this is understandable. Say you are a pale, friendless, basement-dwelling neckbeard and suddenly you develop the power to control drywall. Yesterday you were scraping the mold off a 3-day-old mini pizza and today all walls in the world are yours to command! It stands to reason that this goes to your head a little. Before you've really thought it through, you’ve got the homecoming queen from your high school days held hostage by your army of gypsum golems. It could happen to anybody really.
So, Guardian Command sends a hero to rescue Whitney from the wallboard mooks and then haul you off to the Sandbox to learn how to be a productive member of Awakened society. I hear the wifi at the Sandbox is pretty good. Can’t be much worse than your old basement, eh Lord Drywall?
Working for Guardian Command is Mike’s full-time job these days, when he’s not out in the hyperweave spandex saving the world, he’s a full-time admin at the Tower in D.C. I’m sure he does a great job at that, just like he does at everything. I’ve seen him on CSPAN in a congressional hearing or two. Those guys eat him up. Anyone who pretends to be anyone in Washington has a picture of themselves shaking Star Commander's hand in their office. Good thing he has a super-immune system, that’s a lot of sticky fingers.
Mike has encouraged me to come work in DC with him.
“Luke, when are you finally going to be on my team? It will be just like when we were kids!” he’ll say.
“When we were kids, it was all pretend. I don’t need someone throwing an actual car at me alright? That’s your thing.”
“You could be a big help in a pinch Luke. You’ve proven that.”
Yes, I am Awakened, and yes, I did help Mike and the Guardians save the world one time. I helped stop the Necro-Naut. It was awesome, a complete victory. I only needed my arm in the sling for six weeks.
Let me catch you up on my awesome powers. I got them years after the Awakening. To this day I have no memory of ever having a Wonderflonium reaction and I have NEVER knowingly been anywhere near the stuff. I was out on the river fishing with Mike when it happened. Mike was already working for the Guardians back then, but he still flew over from DC to hang all the time. Incidentally, Mike isn’t just a SSS-class hero, he’s also the world's only SSS-class fly fisherman. When you have perfect control over every muscle group and super senses to anticipate the wind direction you can put a fly on the smallest riffle 30 or 40 yards away and make it touch the water like a fairy kissed your cheek. The guy can do things with a fly rod that make me want to die, low hanging branches on the water, heavy brush backing him up, 20 mile cross winds cannot stop him putting the fly right in front of the fish.
That is the one thing about Mike's fishing skills that I don’t envy. I wish I could cast like him, but I love the mystery of not knowing if the fish is there. Sometimes you can see a fish rise, but most of the time you cast to the places you know trout are likely to be. Except for Mike. He can see the fish. Hell, he can hear their hearts beating! I like the excitement of seeing the fish strike and feeling her on the other end of the line. Until she strikes, I have no idea if a fish is there to rise. That kind of uncertainty, that little mystery of life? Mike can’t really have little moments like that.
So anyways, Mike and I were out on the river shooting the shit. I had leaned my pole someplace because I was watching him cast those beautiful, graceful one-in-million impossible casts that he makes every. single. time. We were joking around and I said if I’d ever Awaken I’d want it to be something really funny like morph into a flourescent orange ground sloth or have the ability to command jellyfish and we were laughing our asses off.
“No! What would be classic is if I could freeze people by doing Jazz Hands!”
“Jazz Hands?”
“Yeah, you know. JAZZ HANDS!” and I did the stupid jazz hands. That’s when it happened. I felt this funny buzz in my head and then it shot down my arms like one of those 4th of July sparklers was using my nerves for a bobsled run.
I was looking straight at Mike, but I was still trying to process what THE FUCK had just happened. So it took me a while to realize that he was slowly toppling forward into the river like the fall of a mighty oak. It was such a confusing moment, I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking about jumping in the river. Was he just going over the top with the joke? He hadn't brought extra clothes, but it's not like he couldn’t fly home in 10 seconds. I finally realized something was weird because he wasn’t moving, his rod was still in his hand and it was stiffly waving around as he slowly tumbled in the river, completely rigid. I stood there like a chump for at least a minute. I’d like to think if it was anyone else, I would have jumped in, but it was Mike and he literally cannot drown. He goes up into low earth orbit sometimes to do emergency work on comsats and stuff without a suit, well he’s got on the Star Commander suit, but the point is that breathing is optional for Mike.
At that point the current had turned him into the bank and I got hold of his flyrod and pulled him in closer and then I pulled his stiff ass out of the water. It was maybe ten to fifteen seconds later and he suddenly turned back on.
“What the HELL WAS THAT, LUKE?”
It was probably one of the only times I’ve ever seen Mike lose his shit, and I deeply regret being so weirded out by what had just happened that I didn’t really give it the attention it deserved. Kind of like a phoenix making sweet love to a bird of paradise in the light of a full moon under a magical oak tree or something. You know, it had a rarity value. You could make a commemorative plate.
After that things kind of went nuts for me for a little while. I was personally freaked by suddenly becoming an Awakened and Guardian Command was freaking out too, their concern being that Jazz Hands worked on STAR COMMANDER. Given that he’s basically the Guardian’s ultimate trump card and up until then he’d been immune to any type of “induced status effect” power he’d ever faced. I think if I had been a villain or just some rando I might have been looking at a long-term vacation in the Sandbox. Fortunately, I am tight with people that are WAY UP there in Guardian Command, know what I’m sayin’ ?
They did make me do a buuuuunch of tests though. At which point they determined that Jazz Hands is actually pretty lame as Awakened powers go. E-class lame. First thing we realized is that it has an individual cool-down per use. I tried to Jazz Mike again to demonstrate it and it didn’t work. After I jazz somebody, they are immune from another jazz for about ten days of cool-down. If I jazz one person, they are frozen in “Jazz-time” for about 90 seconds. During which they have no pulse, do not breathe, do not exhibit brain function, you are basically a piece of furniture. A person in Jazz-time is completely vulnerable to physical attack, they are just stiff, flesh and bone mannequins. I can Jazz multiple people at once, but the more people I Jazz the shorter they all collectively stay in Jazz-time. I can do two people for forty-five seconds, but a group of 10 for only nine seconds. Plus, I only have enough Jazz Hands “special sauce” or mana or Wonderflonium rays or whatever I use to Jazz about 12 people into jazz-time per day. Any more than that and I pass out. To top it off, I have no other Awakened enhancements at all. So, I could jazz the biggest Big Bad Villain in the world, but I probably wouldn’t have the juice to do anything to him while he’s in jazz-time, and then he’s going to turn on again and turn me into paste. I’m not even a glass cannon, I’m a glass taser. I have no interest in trying to be a hero when I’m this squishy. I have a family, OK?
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Do you remember about 4 years ago when the Necro-Naut was rampaging all over the East Coast? He’d built himself a powered armor suit with phased kinetic dampeners that were practically impossible to stop as long as he kept in motion. Mike and Guardian Command asked me to try and stop him with Jazz Hands. I was totally uninterested in going out in public as myself, so they disguised me as Boy Beluga even though the whole thing went down on the street in Allentown like 100 miles from the ocean. I was wearing this huge suit of body armor inside a fat suit, plus all that grease Boy Beluga has all over him. It was pretty doable, until the heat dissipation system got knocked out by a piece of shrapnel from something the Shadow Ape punched. Then I was sweating like an angora goat.
The operation was a success though. If you ever watch the video from the fight you can see “Boy Beluga” crouching about a block away behind a silver Volkswagen Jetta doing absolutely nothing. That was me.
I Jazzed the Necro-Naut from about eighty yards away, which was pretty much my all-time longest range shot. That gave Mike, excuse me, Star Commander plenty of time to cut him out of the armor while he was stiff. So other than almost puking from heatstroke the actual super-combat went fine. It was during the wrap-up I got hurt. I think Shadow Ape forgot for a second that I wasn’t actually Boy Beluga and gave me an “attaboy” slap on the back which fractured my scapula. Good thing I was still in the armored fat suit or I’d probably be pushing daisies.
Guardian Command put me on the inactive list and I had to sign a bunch of forms promising to only use my powers for good, and that is what I’ve always done. Always.
Dude, I know what you’re thinking, OK? I’m not a pervert. A person without my incredibly strong moral fiber might consider using Jazz Hands inappropriately. You could definitely go on a banger of a petty crime spree, jazzing clerks and emptying cash drawers. Or a PERVERT could Jazz girls and cop a feel while they were in Jazz-time. It’s not like I don’t have a brain and cannot imagine the evil naughtiness this power could be used for. I’m just pure of heart, stalwart and true. I’d never do something like that. Ever.
OK, well this one time I did abuse this awesome power. I was in this pedestrian mall/business park in North Danvers for a meeting and I walked past this glass wall of a yoga studio with a class that was in session. It looked like an entire class of super-hot young college girls or something, it was a top-notch group of elite yogis in there. I don’t know what came over me, but I had this irresistible impulse and I jazzed the entire class. I did a bad thing. It was like Paul Bunyan entered the Yoga forest, and they all were dropping like dominos. It wasn’t funny and I instantly regretted it.
I’ve always felt super ashamed because some of those girls got hurt, bloody noses and stuff. Imagine being in tree pose and then being unable to move? That’s what happened. You don’t realize how you are constantly adjusting your balance while you are standing still, till you can’t. When I jazz somebody who’s standing still, nine times out of 10 they fall straight over, unless they are close to an obstruction in the direction they are falling and then they just lean there like a broom in a corner until they turn on. So I pretty much never use Jazz Hands on anybody, it's too easy to hurt someone. They might fall into some water, or in front of a car, or if they are driving a vehicle? It's not safe.
My wife Victoria knows about Jazz Hands of course. She knows about Mike too. It would basically be impossible for me to hide stuff like that from her. I’m kind of a laid-back doofus and she is pretty impossible to lie to, so I never even try. I did NOT tell her about the yoga class though.
I did use Jazz-hands on Vicky once. One time. She was leaning over the couch already so I thought it would be safe and funny to joke with her a little bit, so I jazzed her. Then I kind of doubled down on stupid and decided to draw a dick on her face. We can all see where this is going. She turned back on and had a hard time seeing the funny aspects of it all since she immediately went Mistress of Pain on me. When Vicky channels the Mistress of Pain, it’s not an exotic and fun leathery latex Mistress with buckles and melted candle wax. She’s the old-fashioned kind where they feed your liver to the pigs at the end. So that was probably one of my all-time backfires as my married life goes. I learned a lot about myself, and about boundaries that need to be respected. Like the DMZ in Korea.
I’ve read lots of different theories on Awakened powers and how they work. According to Mike, the research on how Wonderflonium interacts with biological organisms to create the Awakened is pretty inconclusive. Some people Awaken with powers that are exactly what they need to deal with a specific situation, even if it's ridiculous like the girl who can summon her phone from across the continent. Some people turn into monsters, Mike basically turned into a demigod. I’m not sure, but I believe that intent has a lot to do with it. Mike is basically the most obscenely decent guy I’ve ever met and has never swerved from that. If the Wonderflonium fairies were looking for someone to trust with the ultimate SSS power-set, they couldn’t have found anyone less likely to misuse it than Mike. To this DAY, he coaches a girls peewee soccer team.
So, if all that is true, plausible? Why did the Wonderflonium fairies give me Jazz Hands? I think it still has a lot to do with intent. I am a regular guy, I don’t want to be a hero, and I don’t want to do Mike’s job for God’s sake. He’s hopping around the PLANET like a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest. Forget that! I am a 35 hour-a-week man, one hundred percent. I think all I really wanted deep down was to be able to beat Mike, just once. So, the Wonderflonium answered and gave me Jazz Hands, a pretty much useless superpower that could stop Star Commander for ninety clicks. I wonder though, if I was a bad guy? If I hated Mike? Would I have gotten Jazz Hands? Don’t think so. I may be able to stop Mike with Jazz Hands, but I’m pretty much the last guy on earth who would ever dream of really doing it. I’ve only ever used it on Mike one time.
OK, twice. But it was for a very noble cause.
Vicky is the queen of my world, my sun, my moon, my starlit sky. She’s the best thing that ever happened to my sad and lonely existence. The only star that can share top billing with Vicky is my beloved daughter Rachel, my little sunbeam. RaeRae is awesome, she’s four years old and is a certified genius. She’s way smarter than any kid I’ve ever met. You can tell this because she is totally in love with me. She is aware that I am the most awesome and incredible person in the whole world and am much cooler even than Star Commander. See how SMART she is?
So RaeRae is crazy about this cartoon Mighty Dancer Princess Peppermint. It’s a magical girl show that was originally Japanese like everything hip these days. Princess Peppermint and the other Mighty Dancers protect the universe from the Rigids. I could go on about the plot, but it's not really about the plot with shows like that anyway. RaeRae and I have a good time watching it together, for a cartoon it's actually pretty good, lots of jokes for adults who watch along.
Last Halloween RaeRae and I did father/daughter costumes. She was Princess Peppermint and I was Bulong. He’s kind of this blue dragon-donkey that eats pickles and is a sidekick comic relief guy. I am GOOD at being comic relief. Anyway, our costumes were bangin’ and we rocked the neighborhood and scored SO MUCH candy! Mike and I never pulled down a haul of candy like that when we were kids. Victoria wanted to sort through it and take all the sketchy candy with chemical ingredients. I told her she was spitting on the true spirit of Halloween.
This is not a tangent! I’m trying to explain how important Mighty Dancer Princess Peppermint is in my world. Important enough to use Awakened powers. There was a limited-edition Princess Peppermint doll that came out for the holidays. It had this little battery-operated pedestal you put the doll on and she would do all the Mighty Dancer Magical Power moves that Princess Peppermint uses to beat the Rigids. RaeRae was desperate to have one, and it was my mission in life to secure my baby girl this ultimate treasure. I had been all over the city, I scoured all the stores, called all over, and finally found a store all the way in North Danvers that had a shipment still in stock. I knew a guy who knew the owner of that franchise, so I called in a favor, and they saved me one in the back, so I had time to get over there and SAVE CHRISTMAS.
As I was headed out the door, I got a call from Mike.
“Hey Luke, what are you up to right now?” he asked.
“Got some last minute, mission-critical, Christmas shopping I’ve got to do in Danvers” I told him.
“No kidding? I’ve got something I need to get too. Hang on a few and I’ll go with you” and he hung up. He was calling from DC I’m pretty sure, but Star Commander doesn’t even need to file a flight plan. He walked up to me in his “random citizen” clothes a couple minutes later.
I drove us to Danvers. I’m pretty sure Mike has a car, I don’t honestly remember him driving since he Awakened, but he probably does it from time to time to maintain his secret identity.
Flying over there was a hard no. I’ve flown with Mike before, it’s an experience for sure. By the end of a Mike-flight you feel blurry, like the world is separated from you by a pane of thick greased glass, and you have the worst case of helicopter hair imaginable. Think about Beaker from the Muppets or Buckwheat from the Little Rascals, or someone who just had an electroshock treatment. That’s how a Mike-flight is. I’m not doing that anymore.
So, we got to the store in North Danvers. I don’t like going to this area because I have yoga class guilt. Turned out Mike had some toys to buy too, so we both went in and I went looking for the manager. That’s when everything turned into a dog’s breakfast.
The manager gets all cagey and apologetic, and it turns out that somebody pulled a favor that trumped the favor that I pulled and gaffled Mighty Dancer Princess Peppermint out from under me! You can imagine my rage, my impotent rage. I was going to disappoint my RaeRae, maybe so much that she’d think Star Commander was cooler than me! After a brief moment of sorrow and panic I remembered that I had Mike with me. Mike! I’d take a Mike-flight all the way to Tokyo if I could get my baby that doll! I ran out of the office to find him.
Mike was standing near the checkout talking to a flirtatious-looking assistant manager, with a large box in his hand. A box. A box with a very familiar face and font on it. IT WAS MY MIGHTY DANCER PRINCESS PEPPERMINT DOLL! The rat bastard who had gaffled my doll was my own goddamn cousin! Son of a BITCH! He was trying to steal my RaeRae! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I had a moment of absolute clarity. I understood everything. I realized that every trial of every day of my life had been building for this precise moment. Every time Mike had beaten me, in sports, in school, in Grandma’s heart, everything. Every game of UNO lost, every fish I watched him catch while I got skunked, all of it. I realized the universe had molded me into his perfect rival, his shadow, his lesser copy. It was all so that ONLY I would have the power.
Only I could wield the one true power that could bring Star Commander down.
Only I could be the one to stop him when Star Commander turned to the dark side and FUCKING USED HIS POWERS FOR EVIL!
I Jazzed him.
I even screamed it out loud like some stupid anime protagonist, “JAZZ HANDS!”
I wish I could tell you that I watched him as he fell, but I did not. The moment I felt the Jazz Hands powers hit I was sprinting towards him. I snagged the doll box with my left hand and with my right I was already pulling my phone out. I slid the box over the checkout scanner and held my phone over the reader and screamed in my mind waiting for AcornPay™ to beep and tell me the transaction was cleared. The second I heard it I was running, an internal clock counting down the ninety seconds. I needed to get out of the store, away from Mike and maintain possession of the box!
I ran out of the store and the RFID alarms started blooping at me because I forgot that step. I actually have no clue how you run the magnet thing to disable the RFID tags so I guess it didn’t matter anyway, no one could stop me, not even Star Commander.
A little while later he called me, and I told him what an asshole he was for trying to use Princess Peppermint to come between me and my baby girl. It was Mike, so he apologized since I was clearly right, and he was clearly 100% in the wrong. Everything I’d done was completely justified.
It is said that with great power comes great responsibility, and it's true. I should know.
I’m a superhero.