“You again, stretchy boy?” a grating voice calls from the entrance to the alleyway.
I freeze, caught in the act. My arm stretches all the way up to the top-story windows of the Montiago Central Bank. There’s always some idiot who forgets to lock their window; one opening is all I need to get in, get some loot, and get back out again. I’ve done this so many times, I could probably break and enter in my sleep.
The man at the other end of the alley complicates things. He’s lit up by floating shapes composed of light, constructs formed by his stupid magic powers. He’s wearing his rainbow hero’s suit and fool’s cap, as he always does, and his arms are spread out wide like he’s performing for an audience. His face is smooth, handsome, and incredibly punchable.
“The Jester versus Putty Boy!” he cries out with a manic grin. “A classic!”
I grimace and pull my arm down, compressing it back to its normal length. As I move my joints creak and a muscle in my shoulder spasms in agony. Stretching used to be natural, easy. But these things change over time.
I know he’s expecting one of my usual tricks. A Springy-Kick, or a Slingshot-Punch, or even just a good old Super-Run-Away. In my prime I could even pull off a Bouncy-Ball maneuver.
Instead I raise both hands in the air. “I yield.”
Jester looks confused by that. He somersaults forward until he’s right in front of me, then waggles his eyebrows. “That’s boring. C’mon! Fight me!”
He doesn’t get it, and why should he? It’s been twenty-eight years since I first got my powers and faced him in the shopping mall over my petty teenage crimes. Twenty-eight years, yet he looks the same as always. He never changes, and it’s not fair.
“I can’t fight anymore,” I tell him. I wish I could inflate my chest and scream him into submission, but my ribs can’t handle stretching these days. “I’m out of options, Jester. I got old.”
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“Old?” he cackles. “Don’t teach your grandmother how to make jokes!” For a moment he looks slumped over and frail, one hand clutching a construct shaped like a cane. Then he zips back into his normal form, pulls an oversized object out of his pocket, and holds it out. “Why, you’re just a cheeky little kid!”
It’s a mirror, all bright lights around the edges but somehow reflective in the middle. I look into the mirror and a round, wide-eyed face peers back at me. Smooth skin, bushy blonde hair, a few stray pimples. I blink and the face blinks back.
I’m… young again? How?
When I slowly stretch out an arm there are no aches in my joints. The scars on my right hand from the time Jester tossed me a burning juggling ball are gone, and the bone-deep weariness that plagues me every day has vanished. I haven’t felt this alive in years.
I’m so engrossed in being fourteen that I don’t see Jester’s fist until it clocks me right across the face.
~
When I wake up I’m still in the alley, but Jester is gone.
My head is pounding like it’s gone through a tumble dryer with a sack of bricks. I groan and try to reach up to massage away the pain, but my hands and feet have been tightly bound. Stretching my way out will be a challenge.
That doesn’t matter. I’m young again! I have a second chance! My heart beats wildly at the possibilities. This time things will be different. I can get out of this cursed city, start over again somewhere new. All I have to do is scrunch my leg up this way and -
My knee screams in protest.
No. No, no, no, no.
I have to find a mirror to see the truth for myself. I can’t move my arms or legs, but he didn’t secure my head. So I stretch my neck out as far as it can go, angling out to the side where a streetlight next to a window bathes a small patch of the city in artificial light.
The reflection in the window shows a weathered face. Wrinkles, receding hairline, uneven stubble on the chin. A face I know too well.
Was it all a trick? Of course it was all a trick. I sigh as sirens echo off in the distance.
All these years, and I’m still just another joke in the Jester’s routine.