I…

I cannot move my arms or my legs. The weight of my stone body is collapsing in on itself. Invisible, gnawing hands grab onto my neck, my head is experiencing a thousand pounds of gravity. I can literally move at any moment, but I'm simply too heavy. I feel the synapses, I feel my nerve endings across my nervous system light up like stars with the signal to move, but I cannot move. My fingers ache, my toes ache, the hairs on my body ache. The effort of even a simple action such as blinking is too much to bear. I can't do this, I don't know why I can't, but I cannot. It's ironic, my situation. I can fly, teleport, or even create the very clothes I wish to grab in my closet, but I cannot. I want to, I so desperately want to. My eyelids close as I exhale a sharp breath from the pit of my lungs. Why can't I do this?! I've seen stars born, I've seen galaxies created, I've spent a day on Venus, or on planets unnamed, but I truly can't get up.

I feel as though I were hit by a train, no, a nuclear missile hurdling at the speed of light. I slowly sit up fighting the urge to fall asleep as I rise into the position. I yawn and already feel tired, breathless, and spaced out. A sea of clothes fill my floor, water bottles weeks old are scattered in this sea, polluting any chance of cleanliness. I stare off into the four white walls around me for a moment, but after I hear a rustling, I bring my attention back to my situation. I hear her thoughts, I hear the footsteps shuffling the carpet from underneath the stairs. I hear the air hitting her clothes, I hear the jingle of my dog's tag. I already know what she's going to say but I begin to try and pretend like I won't. My gut hurts. A man who is unable to feel pain, a man who has flown through the Sun; my gut hurts. God, why does my gut hurt? I clench the sides of my ribs. I could clean this room, fix my stomach, fix my energy all with a snap, but I can't. My hands won't listen to me, my feet won't listen! Oh, my gut. 

A pattern of footsteps arrive at the outside of my door. It creaks open and I snap before she can enter. I'm dressed and standing at the door. "You're a man who can fly, yet can't do the dishes?" "Sorry I was just checking on the costume," I say. "Washed it last night," Tamia says. "I see that, thank you," I say. "I'll get on the dishes right now," I reassure her. She's in a mood. I give her a light kiss on the cheek while she looks down at the floor. I've told her a half truth about my powers, well, a quarter truth. Tamia is unaware of most of my abilities. She knows I'm invincible, strong and fast, but she doesn't know anything else. I've always felt this unfair to her, and in some years I'll have to say something, but for now it can wait. I go downstairs to the pile of dishes I left in the sink from last night. I place my hands on the corners of the metal and collapse my head. My breath is shallow and rapid. I can't do this. It's taking all of me to move, it's taking every ounce of strength I have to not collapse like a puppet cut from his strings. Oh my God, my stupid gut. Is it possible for me to feel sick? I've never felt this way before. I've fought Gods, interdimensional beings, I've taken a punch from aliens thousands of times stronger than me, but a stomach ache and a mood swing stops me?

She can't know. I materialize my suit onto my body. She walks downstairs and I'm already in the sky. I sneak away and hear her fading thoughts. She's unhappy with me leaving like this, fighting crime, she wants stability. I can't have stability, I have to fight for good. I fly in the sky and feel the cool air resist my face. I leave the atmosphere within a zeptosecond and stare at the Sun. I let the lack of gravity carry me but the gravity still remains on my tired head. If I could float infinitely away into solar systems, planets, stars, asteroids, alien life, my body would remain still. Unmoving. I hear a crash. I hear a scream, I do nothing. I want to fly, I want to save the day, but I can't move. What has taken over me? My heart rapidly pulsates. This shouldn't be happening; I'm a hero. Could this be emotions? No. Upon thinking of my emotions as I gaze at the reactions of the bubbling Sun, I realize, I'm totally indifferent. Nothing feels exciting, nothing feels new, I feel lost. I know everything, I can do anything, I've done everything. But now, right now, I cannot move. I drift into the moon and lay amongst it's rocks. Nothing is exciting. I'm the closest to vomiting I've ever been; I didn't know I even had the capability to. My mind becomes foggy and my arms tingle. I'm so cold. Cold? Is this what cold feels like?

I decide to float again. Why do I even do what I do? We all die eventually, my actions, regardless of how heroic, will never matter. I don't even matter. Any action I propose can change the aspects of cause and effect that are in truth, all inconsequential. I can't save us from the march of time. I know I'll live long after the universe grows cold, but what next? Emptiness, nothingness, meaningless, it's all erroneous. My eyes close again. I need to rest. I just need to rest. So much fighting, so much struggle, I need sleep. I decide to soar amongst the likes of Saturn, or even other stars in far away galaxies. It's all beautiful, that's for sure. But it all is the same formula. Every solar system, every planet with life I pass by, there's always conflict and there's always the ever expanding passage of time. I'm back in front of Earth in an instant. I watch the terribly fast rotation of everything around me. It seems so slow when you're down there, but up here, life goes so fast. The screaming continues; the planet screams. I watch our tiny planet spin, I imagine if it were still. I imagine the solar system, the Sun's constant pressure, the stars bursting to life through death and bustling gasses, I imagine existence being completely still. No turmoil, no movement, just emptiness.

"There'd be no life if there wasn't movement," a thought occurs to me. Without the tensions of gravity, without the reactions of the compounds, the atoms, the elements that comprise the very existence I live in; we'd be dead. I've never met the creator himself, but I imagine what a sort of afterlife would look like. What if it were completely still? I imagine doing nothing in that afterlife but the things I'd like to do. Upon first glance it seems like everlasting happiness, but how can a plant grow and feel the Sun's rays on its colorful petals without the conflict of breaking its shell and bursting through the soil? A lightness rises in me. It's not to say the gravity even in space doesn't yank at my ankle, but I begin to feel a kinship with the incorrigible pressure. For what being can know the pleasure of movement without gravity? What being can be fulfilled without knowing the pain of famine? What being can know the joys of breathing life without experiencing the work of inhaling? Suffering isn't a staple of my existence. Life doesn't exist due to suffering, and suffering is not a must in each life in the cosmos. But, pain, the pain in my gut, the inability to move my finger when I've been known to lift mountains; that pain is what makes me grow. Pain helps us all grow. 

I listen to the pain of the Earth once more; I must help. I must soar, I must relieve those of poverty, I must relieve those of war. I must guide them with the beacon of the overcoming and understanding of my own struggles so that one day we all can grow. But… I must realize the journey there won't be easy. Through this hardship of forging a better world, a better world shall be forged in me. In me, the newly forged world shall set an example for those forging their own within themselves. They too will prosper and set their own examples. We can all try to eradicate suffering but not it's lessons. We must understand the synergies of life, the beauty of creation, and the reasons for our existence. I must start today. I wish to sit, lie, and sleep. However, the world before me still spins and the Sun still rises. The plant still grows and the diamond is still forged. If the planet can move, so can I.

I… can move.