• It was decided. I was going to be a superhero. I, a wimpy, book-loving, cowardly, shy, timid -- OH WHO WAS I KIDDING? No, wait, calm down. I took a breath. It was okay; I could do it. I was going to. I had to.

    But... I wasn't going to do it as I was. Some changes had to happen here, some big ones. That's why I was sitting at this desk with a blank piece of paper in front of me; I had to come up with these changes, and write them in ink so there'd be a written promise that I'd actually go through with them. Or, at least, the ideas would be more solid. So.

    ...So why aren’t I writing yet?!

    Oh God, my mind was running a blank. I began to tap my pen on the desk nervously, getting more impatient as the seconds sped by. No, wait. This was easier than I was making it. I took a deep breath. I could just think of existing superheroes, right? What did I have to do to become like them?

    Well, I supposed that the first and most obvious was get an identity. I couldn't exactly run around going by Jack. I wrote it down, “Identity.” After a moment I thought of building on that, maybe some brainstorming notes, but I came up blank again. Hmmm; think, think. A name, maybe? Oh gosh, no way; I should have at least come up with a style or something first. But, geez, then I was even MORE clueless. A style? Like a fighting style? Even just an appearance style. I tried to propose just things that I should have been coming up with, but I didn’t know who I wanted to be or even who I would be, if I was a superhero. I just wasn’t very superhero-ish. I mean, I didn't even know if I wanted to do this.

    ...Sigh. Yeah, I had to. Of course I was going to do this, all of me. After looking at the paper again though, I decided that the identity thing could be put on hold. I skipped a few lines.

    Okay, so what else? Well, most superheroes knew how to fight. I wrote that down as well. “Fighting Skills.” I moved my hand down a line for notes, but realized I couldn't just think those up. I let go of my pen and woke up my computer with a click. A few more actions of the mouse and some typing later, I found that the price for some self defense classes in the area was... three hundred a month?! No, something had to be wrong here! That was almost as much as my rent cost. My paycheck couldn’t afford that. Savings maybe? I searched again. Two fifty. I kept searching, but only got it down to two hundred, and that was just self defense. The three hundred dollar one had at least some kickboxing and stuff. I considered searching just that, but realized self defense was a bit more necessary than offense, at first. I couldn't help anybody if I couldn't help myself. But, offense was important too, because without that I wouldn’t even be much of a superhero. I’d just be a guy that could defend himself.

    I sighed again, feeling increasingly defeated, but wrote all of the websites and prices down. Ergh, what else would a superhero need? I tried to think of something a bit... cheaper.

    Well, superheroes roamed through their city a bit. I supposed they'd need knowledge of where things were. Then a police scanner or some sort of gadget to tell them about occurring crimes. Maybe just gadgets in general; superheroes seemed to have a lot of those. Wait, I wasn't made out of money! I tensed up when I remembered this, and quickly crossed out the scanner and the gadgets. Those could wait anyway. Though, without the scanner, I'd have to identify crimes myself.... I wrote down "knowledge of laws" after thinking about what the police could do that I couldn’t. I stopped there, and went to look it up on the local library's catalog. It was easy; it was my homepage. Both the maps and handbooks would not only be free, but were also now on hold under my name. At least I had gotten one thing down.

    Hmm. What else? I looked around while I thought. Specifically I looked around at my small, cramped apartment. Oh. Well, no, that could wait. A superhero didn't NEED a hideout. My eyes skimmed around though, wondering where I was going to put my stuff.

    My STUFF.

    My eyes shot back down at "Identity.” Oh gosh. I'd need some sort of outfit. I mean, it was necessary, with the appearance part and all. I just hadn't accounted that it would cost any money. Great, how much would clothes go for anyway? I looked that up.

    It wasn't anything I didn't expect. T-shirt, jeans, gloves, eye mask, shoes... they could total to a simple fifty dollars. As long as I didn't need multiples of anything--

    Oh. Clothes tended to get ripped in fights, I supposed, maybe. The money added up when I multiplied fifty just by three. Yikes. But... I took notes anyway.

    Was there anything else? (I hoped not.)

    After a few moments my mind wandered back to what superheroes had that I didn't. I thought about the inside stuff. There was motivation? ...Confidence. Bravery. I thought back to my motivation. Those last two traits were a part of what I was seeking.... I imagined how differently things would have played out if I had those two things when it happened.

    Oh wow. No. Nope. Impossible. That wasn't me. That wasn’t me at all. It was like looking at an entirely different person. Sure, maybe I wanted to be like that, but it was so different from how I currently was, and so close to how I didn’t want to be. If I was like that I risked being the very thing I hated: a bully. I knew there was a difference between a hero and a bully. To me though, that only difference was that one attacked the guilty and one attacked the innocent. I’d been there in that situation, on two ends. No way was I going to try to do good and end up getting attacked, and no way was I going to risk becoming the very thing I hated. Both of those sounded pretty dangerous. And then, oh gosh, out of nowhere I remembered how little I had in my savings.

    Okay. It was concluded that I wasn't going to be a superhero.

    No way.

    ...Damn those guilty that continue to attack the innocent.