The Winged Man (Part 4)

There it was. He found the page where The Winged Man had been slighted by a universal villain. He studied the expression on his face. It was shaded into black, on one side. There was a frown, but not one that showed weakness; rather one that showed patience. For the great need patience enough to keep them company while they await their greatness to be revealed. They must tolerate the mud slung on their faces, because in due course, the brilliance of their true self will be revealed. The boy went back to bed, to a sleep full of powerful dreams, each one a reflection of those books under his bed. His head was like the ceilings in some cheap motels; lined with several mirrors, in different shapes and colours but all mirroring the same image.
The next day, at games, the boy walked up to Billy. Billy’s friends all looked at the boy in surprise but Billy only grinned. The boy put on a frown, one that did not show weakness.

“Das darf nicht wahr sein,” the boy said in as loud a voice as he could call up from his belly. Everyone stopped playing and looked at the boy. “This cannot be true. You cannot win against me. For your victory would be a perpetual assault to the truth in human nature. We are divine when in our true elements. I will not bow to the Bal of vile ignorance. You may have won the battle but I will win the war. You can but only await your impending doom in silence.”

No one spoke a word. The boy walked away quickly, out of the playground, out of sight. Billy felt a tingle in his belly, a strong urge to burst out laughing. The other children decided they now had one person they would all avoid. And the girl of the Valentine’s Day card solemnly stared at her shoes.

Oh and the boy, when he grew up, still wore glasses.

The Winged Man (Part 3)

That night, as soon as the lights in the house were turned off, the boy crawled out of bed and reached out for a book under the bed. He knew exactly what he was looking for. He turned it to the right page. It was all there, in black, white and gray. The Winged Man had his grip around the enemy. He flung the enemy around the railing of a high building. The enemy swung freely, his life depended on the grip The Winged Man had on his collar. The boy stared at the grip. He could see the veins on The Winged Man’s arms. He could see his muscles move. He could hear the throbbing of both hearts. He could smell the fear. The enemy would have to pay for what he did. The price would be his life. The Winged Man let go. The muscles in his arm relaxed. His breath grew steadier as he watched Billy fall down the building. Gravity. Death. It was all very natural. The enemy died as he hit the road below with a loud thud. Billy’s blood coloured the black tar road.

The boy wondered if there was a sequence where one of the blondes was slighted. Unfortunately there was not. So he shut the book in frustration.

He moved to the window. It was a moonless sky but the stars were aplenty. They seem so far away, he thought. Did The Winged Man ever gaze at the stars in wonder? Did Billy ever gaze at the stars in wonder? A sudden urge gripped the boy’s heart. He wanted to say something clever to Billy; something that will make Billy re-think his previous rudeness. He wanted Billy to be sorry for what he had done. He wanted the enemy to crave his friendship. Maybe something in German! German sounded so clever. What if Billy didn’t understand German? Anyone who read a lot of comics would know a least a bit of German. What if Billy never read a comic in his life? The thought made the boy’s tongue stick to the upper part of this mouth. What kind of a person never read comics? An unfortunate person, he decided. With this the primary difference between the two of them dawned upon the boy. Billy did not know The Winged Man. He felt a sense of pity for Billy.

He reached his hand under the bed again, this time pulling out an older edition. It explained how The Winged Man found his vocation. The boy took off his shirt and looked at his back in the mirror. He strained his neck to be able to see, in the mirror, the portion below his shoulder blades. He stretched his hand to feel the skin there. He also felt the protruding edge of some bone. No. There was no scar, no lump, not even a stray hair to show the start of a wing. It would never happen to him.

He looked at the book again, turning a couple of pages.

The Winged Man (Part 2)

The trust only grew with time. The Winged Man did no wrong and the boy grew to depend on this quality in The Winged Man. He made a mask for his own face out of paper. He kept it hidden under his pillow at night. One never knows when one will need it. He wrote the initials (WM) in his note book. He made a scrap-book containing a flow chart of all the things The Winged Man had done so far. It was all in the right sequences. Inside his Physics text book, on the last page, he wrote ‘WM Rulez’. And the nightly rendezvous continued, by the torch light, by the moon light, as the stars gazed in amusement, a hero was born.

On Valentine’s Day, Marie who sat behind him in class gave him a card. He did not give one back to her. She was alright, but she was not blonde.

One unfortunate Thursday, Billy was bored during Games hour. Billy looked at the boy. The boy was short for his age. He had very thick glasses, owing to his cylindrical vision being week. The doctor said it was because he did not eat enough carrots. Now his mother only gave him carrots for dinner. One of the stars in the sky would have said something about too much reading in the dark, but it bit its tongue and remained silent. The boy did not care about his glasses. They would be gone by the time he grew up, he thought. It was not important. Billy kept looking at the boy. Then he spoke to the boy.
‘What’s your name again?’
‘It’s John.’
‘On?’
‘No. John, with a J.’
‘No. It’s John with a P.’
So saying Billy squeezed his water bottle right onto the boy’s trouser. A dark stain formed on the front and along his legs. Everyone was laughing. The boy did not see who was laughing but he heard. He heard Marie too. She was laughing. Women are such a waste of time, he said in his head. That evening, on the bus home, he kept thinking. What would WM have done? I know. He would have bashed Billy’s face in.

The boy did not bash Billy’s face in. He just did not.

The Winged Man (Part 1)

It was there, right there, on the page in front of his eyes. He strained to see in the dim light of his night torch. He crawled, book in hand. He crept closer to the window and drew the curtains. The moonlight might help him see better. He was not yet 13 years old, but he lived a hundred lives, all at that time of the night, by the light of the battery- torch. He had climbed walls, pinned down villains with his bare hands, cracked their skull with one blow, made them confess, made them repent… he had saved the day, saved the world… all by the light of that torch, he had romanced pretty blondes, broken their hearts even, all for a superior cause, a cause that was his obsession, a cause that was his all. He had done this, without moving any further than the distance between his bed and the window close by. He had done it again and again, in his head, in his soul and through what he saw on those pages. He had a copy of every single edition ever published. His personal savior ‘The Winged Man’ had won again. He was right now on the terrace of a sky scraper, his cloak flying in the moon-lit breeze, holding his enemy by the neck. His enemy was the enemy of the world. The Winger Man was doing his duty.

John had been in this relationship with The Winged Man for about a year now. Since it started, it took over his life bit by bit. First it was the waiting for every new edition, the impatience, the longing, then it became compulsive, once he got the new edition he would read till it was over, on the bus to school, in the bath, in class, in place of his home work, even while he was playing rugby. He would just be reading. Once he had read it through, he would keep thinking about it, live and re-live it in his mind. It was like a song playing in his head. Then he would dream about it, while he was sleeping and while he was not. He would add to what he had read, fill in the gaps, with his own imagination. He would make explanations for the past and predict the future.

It was that face, always in his eyes, the masked face. No one had seen The Winged Man without the mask but the boy had. For we are not born with a mask on our faces. We make one along the way. To hide the pain, the embarrassment, the insecurities. To unlock the power within, the naked animal power, the power for cruelty.

Right now, by the window, he read again, what he had read a hundred times before, on that same page. He ran his palm along the page. The feel of coarse paper sent a tingle down his back. The put his head down, the smell of print went through his nostrils to the bowels of his being. The Winged Man would never fail. He was born to win.