Forkman

The diner was a wonderful place, where he would go in the morning on Sundays, eat a couple of pancakes, wash it down with syrup, and relish in a world free of paper because every Friday was Discount Day and that meant overwork and overtime.

But the pancakes were delicious. He’d been going for 20 years, and he’d never found the secret. He had peered into the kitchen, glimpsing at that mysterious process unfolding before him, and saw an ordinary cook flipping an ordinary pancake into the air.

Perhaps they added some salt, more sugar? He had tried once, making his pancakes, and spat it out immediately. It had tasted like rubber.

A fork. That had happened.

He had been eating pancakes for breakfast, when he held it in his hand, took a bite, and there was a warm rush of feeling through him, and then he felt the fork grow lighter in his hand.

Bob knew about this feeling. It was something they had all been taught in school, but he didn’t remember its name, yet he knew what the process was. Something… Starting with an S….

When he stood up, holding the fork in his right hand, the dishes jumped into the air, one split open, letting loose a sludge of soup onto a man wearing monocles.

“F###! S###-B####-F###!”, said something muffled behind the soup, turning visibly red, because it was radish soup and it was boiling.

Bob tried to find a word to say, but rushed away instead, stepping a bit faster than he was supposed to, and this led to him crashing to the ground, slowly, as his head bounced and nearly shattered against the solid concrete, although he felt no crack, nothing draining out of him, and when there was a crowd of people standing around him, he could still speak and felt no pain at all. But, the people were not looking at him, they were looking at the crater the size of a middle-aged man’s skull crumbling into a series of eclectic pipes.

He backed away, crawling into the forest of shoes and scarves, and then hearing a crack from the iron door, he dropped the fork and felt a rush of pain enter his head and eyes until he fell into whirling darkness.

“HA!”, Bob shouted, “I’m awake, I’m fine, I’m awake! I’m fine!”

He looked around in a dark hospital room and nodded slowly into that space. Then, stopped, feeling ashamed, and quietly bowed his head in silence, as the nervousness faded away. He felt numb, he was cold, and there was nobody in the hospital, except for the faint beeps of the heart-rate monitor.

Beside him, a remote control lay dully against the moonlight. He turned it on, but it was static, as it glared into his eyes, and he turned it off with the repeated smashing of the buttons.

He was hungry... And he had eaten something before… But, he was hungry. He saw a tray of food laying near his bed on a separate table. He dragged it off, and it hit the bed with a soft thunk, bouncing onto his lap. There was a spoon and a fork, and he ate slowly, and then felt a rush of warmth flow through him again, lightness, covering his entire body.

Something starting with an S...

Ah, yes, and those people….

Yes, there was a fork, wasn’t there? He had dropped it, something had happened, and why had he shouted before? What was going on? Oh god! Oh god!

The Strontium Process… That was it...

Rays of warmth, he remembered, and the familiar warnings of what possibly could occur, and then those stupid genes, genetically swimming around and then the random Strontium Process.

He wondered if he would be better than UltraMan, perhaps like SpoonMan, or LawnMower Man, or perhaps Explosion Man. And yet, after all those years, he was one of them. That was fine, that was fine, that was fine, definitely fine, fine, fine. Ha!

A nervous laugh, part excitement, part fear, burst deep from inside him.

Ha? Ha! Ha?.... Eh…

And, as he thought about powers and superheroes, he fell asleep.

“Morning.”

“Yes?”, he said, with a little jitter in his legs, “I’m awake, fine, awake and fine.”

“He awake?”, said a voice from outside.

“He is, sir”, said someone else, who he couldn’t see.

The bearded man walked inside.

“Address me as sir, you don’t need to know my name. Hahahahaha, like any other hospital, did you think?”, he said to Bob.

“Ha-. Yes, yessir”, he nodded quickly.

The man paused, and then grabbed his hand and shook it firmly.

“I’m Almost-Captain Gregory Sr.”, he squeezed Bob’s hands, “Part of the Police Database.

“Police Database, Hahahahaha”

“Don’t talk. Here, let me finish”

“Yes, yessir”

“Don’t interrupt-”, the bearded man sighed and then nodded, “Okay, let’s cut to the chase, get to the point, Strontium Process, entered into Database, wish you a farewell. Now, I’d like to talk to you about money.”

“Yes? But what about my powers, don’t you want to?”

“Do you often splurge on your money? How is your bank?”

“Your bank account”, said the nurse, that Bob could now see.

“Yes, yes, he knows”, the man said, nodding.

“What?”

“Your bank account”, said the nurse again.

“Your money, your moolah, your millions, your bucks”

“No, I don’t… spend much… But I don’t have much… What does this have to do with-?”

“You’re being discharged from the hospital. Your hospital bills mean that you are currently in debt by over two thousand dollars”, said the nurse.

“Forks, I don’t know about money, but Forks”, Bob attempted to smile, but ended up with nothing.

“What do forks have to do with debt?”, said the man

“I can use my powers through forks”

“That’s okay, that’s fine. But we’re going to have to discharge you”

“Don’t you need my information?”

“Well, we’re going to need to contact your credit card provider first.”

“Credit Card Providers?”

“I thought we talked about this Bob...”, the bearded man sighed, losing a deep breath into the world, and walked away, drowsy, unkept, unshaved, like he hadn’t gotten enough sleep because he had been looking at Credit Card Providers for the whole night. Then the man turned around and walked away.

“Come back! Come back!”

The police, they were everywhere, while he was hiding in that alleyway, minding his own business, and they had come. Nearby, there was a nice subway. Full of hot nice food, but nobody would let him in. The police would beat him up if they ever saw him.

He sighed and listened for footsteps, sirens, or tires screaming out onto the street, potshots, or anything, but he was fine, for now, they were getting nets, and more police perhaps.

He could ask Frank to give him some shelter at his place. But he lived in Boulevard CT, in the alleyway, where it was very clean, which was depressing because all those shelter-less people gathered in groups, flocks, just moving around in a circle on the street until someone called the cops, and then he’d never get any sleep.

Hrmmm….

No, no.

Wait... what the hell was it?...

No, not him….

Not him….

There was a siren, approaching soon… Quick… Quick...

George’s place, but that was in a rich neighborhood, where they had tents and families, and that would seem too strange…

As he thought to himself in the miserable rain, a downpour of mist rained upon his ragged cap, and he shrieked as the water hit his skin.

“George, F-”, the shriek of a siren hit his ears and he ran out of the alley.