The superhero powered battles are back.
My youth was spent in-between the pages of comic books, reading hundreds of them over the years. Even though I read them voraciously, I never could remember the stories inside – or at least they didn’t spark my imagination like a good book would, the pictures took the effort out of creating the scene in my head. I feel like those comic books read me, while I slept through the action…
The pages of comic books were different for my best friend Alexis (RIP), the words and pictures were enough to spark his imagination, transporting him inside each heroic battle – as if he had lived it inside a dream… Plenty of times, Al would come down to my apartment, excited about reading the newest Hulk or Wolverine comic, and proceed to spoil every detail with animated precision… his words painted a picture, vivid enough to transport me into the battle, I never had to read a comic if I didn’t have to.
The battle was in the old Pre-war building again, located somewhere in Manhattan or the Bronx. Zombies or groups of people are involved – the chase or escape was going up and downstairs. Pandemonium is all I can describe the action, confusion and stark imagery all around me, meant to keep me in the action. We’re winning the battle against the antagonists, using fists and weapons, we slowly deplete their numbers – they keep coming though.
The superhero action was left for the end.
We cleared the building of enemies, but one remained at the top floor. Residents that were hiding out in their apartments flooded the hallways as we cleared the building, getting everyone to leave via the stairwells – elevators never appear in the old building, only the skyscraper. Just as the last screaming resident exits the front door and to safety, my companion (usually a woman) beckons me to come back in so we could finish the job.
Jumping over the bodies of the fiends we unceremoniously disposed of, we make our way back up. A few others joined our team, they had been outside taking care of the attacking stragglers. I’m in the lead, making my way up to the top floor landing. The stair to the top had broken off in the intense fighting, only the railing above was intact. A ladder appears, probably created by one of my team, I begin to climb up. An older gentleman pops out of the apartment to the right, a resident who was too feeble to flee the onslaught – our enemy comes out of the apartment on the left, a ridiculous plastic pompadour that looked like it came out of an anime, was on his head. Despite the silliness about to break the dreams grip, my companion shouts behind me to “Get HIM!!” I’m struggling on the makeshift ladder and the villain makes an announcement and a big reveal…
“I’m Electro!!!”
This can’t be – a Spider-Man enemy? He bursts from his disguise as the leader of the zombie hordes, crackling with powers on a scale I had never realized before possible in a dream. Body rising up in the air he shoots a blast of energy towards my team below and behind me, my companion is already glowing with purple energy of her own and deflects the energy with a force-field she put up. Either fear or my having turned invisible, saved me from the initial onslaught – this was too much power for me. My companions however knew how to handle him. Another team member began explaining how she would increase her magnetic resonance so she would be able to absorb any more blasts. The elderly man was encased in a bubble and spirited down the staircase to safety as I finally vaulted over the rail to the landing.
Standing just in front of our nemesis things became too exciting for me, the dream begins to subside leaving me confused and wondering what would have happened if I had stayed in.
As with most of my dreams, there are details and subtle hints left out, breadcrumbs of a story that my mind can’t ever hold on to. The feeling is like reading a comic book, not being able to recant the story correctly, like Alexis could.
The enemy is always a version of yourself, the thing you fight against – whatever you’re afraid of… ‘Tricky’ sent a message yesterday “A delivery that I had to receive, but didn’t want…”
I think he meant the nightmares would return.
Gabe Miranda lives a stones throw from uptown Charlotte, enjoys Star gazing and creating chaos on Twitter. Currently working on editing diary posts to self publish his first book.
