In this alternate reality, certain events were unfolding differently from the way I remembered. Trent and Stella weren’t on speaking terms, even with Stella about to give birth to their baby. This made no sense—what could explain it? Doctor Messiah suggested it could be that in this reality, Clarissa James wasn’t Ms. Megaton Man. But I didn’t see what difference that could have made, since in the early spring of 1981—when Simon Phloog was born—I hadn’t yet become Ms. Megaton Man anyway.

On our astral excursion, Doctor Messiah and I seemed to be covering a lot of ground, skipping forward through time at a breakneck pace, although I never seemed to ever get tired or sleepy, or even need a nap. Days, weeks, months seemed to pass by, but it was all so compressed; I was conscious of the passage of time, but not feeling the endurance of time at all, if that makes any sense.

Next thing I was aware of, Doctor Messiah and I were no longer sitting on the front porch of the Ann Spring house; our astral selves were standing on the driveway in front of the garage, facing the backyard. Everything was green and in bloom, like in the height of summer. The grass needed cut.

“That’s odd,” I said. “This crazy dream-vision of mine has skipped forward in time again—and passed over some very important stuff.”

“Like what?” asked Doctor Messiah.

“Stella was just about to give birth to Simon, for one thing,” I replied. “He was born on April 1, 1981. That was a very important scene. In the hospital room, the baby was flying all around—not surprising, since both his parents were megaheroes. It took a couple nurses to drag him down. When they finally managed it, he was whisked away; that’s when Dr. Quimby—it turned out in fact to be Rex Q. Rigid—administered some kind of process that neutralized his megapowers. After that, he was a normal, civilian baby.”

“Sounds like a very important moment,” said Doctor Messiah. “I wonder why you wouldn’t be shown that again—assuming this astral journey is designed to show you all the key moments of your recent past.”

“That was the same weekend Secret Agent Preston Percy showed up in a trench coat and injected Mega-Soldier Syrup into Trent Phloog’s arm,” I said, “a kind of a booster shot that temporarily made him Megaton Man again.”

I went to the garage door and peered through the murky glass windows.

“What are you looking for?” asked Doc.

“The Q-Wagon,” I said. “That’s the Megatropolis Quartet’s station wagon Pammy and Stella drove from New York to Ann Arbor in the first place. They seldom drove it; it should be under a tarpaulin. But I don’t see a vehicle inside at all—just a lot of rubbish.”

Momentarily, Clarissa Too—the other me—came out of the back door of the house. Clarissa Too was barefoot, again in athletic shorts and a tank top, carrying a load of laundry from the basement, which she set on the picnic table on the patio. Doc and I watched her a she unfurled a clothes line and strung one end on a hook on the back of the house.

“That’s another thing that’s wrong,” I said to Doc. “Notice how the other me is almost two inches shorter than me. But I had a belated growth spurt over that fall and winter and throughout the following year. If this were the summer of 1981, I should be at least a good inch taller.”

Next, Clarissa Too walked over to the garage, where she tied the other end of the clothes line to a hook in the side wall. Below this was a considerable stack of firewood.

“That stack of firewood brings back memories,” I said to Doc. “It’s the reason I became Ms. Megaton Man.”

“How so?” asked Doctor Messiah.

“Well, at one point, that stack of firewood was so high, nearly to the roof line, that it became quite precarious. One summer day like this, it teetered over, and I had to push Preston and Trent out of the way, and catch it. That’s how I knew I was Ms. Megaton Man. But that was more than a year after Simon was born…”

Doc turned to watch someone emerge from the back door of the house. “Is that Preston now?” he asked.

Preston, wearing his usual mirrored aviator sunglasses, had baby Simon in his arms, some baby wipes, and fresh diapers. Preston set Simon down on the picnic table in order to change his diaper. That’s when I noticed what Preston was wearing: dirty white tennis shoes, worn jeans, a black polo shirt, and a lanyard with a nametag.

“That’s really weird,” I said. “I’ve never seen Preston dressed in anything more casual than patent leather shoes, creased slacks, a long-sleeved dress shirt—even at the height of summer—and an immaculate thin tie, with tie pin and cufflinks to match. Look, he’s not even wearing a watch! And…what is this? A name tag!”

“Apparently, your friend Preston works at Border Worlds Used and Slightly Used Bookstore,” observed Doctor Messiah.

“But he doesn’t work there!” I replied. “Trent is the one who works at the bookstore. And Preston never changed a diaper in his life—it was always Trent who was Mr. Mom.”

“I don’t see Trent around at all,” said the Doc.

“No, but he was the one who did all the household chores—like keeping the grass cut, and looking after Simon, allowing Stella to concentrate on her schoolwork.”

That’s when I noticed that Simon was older than a few months; he was at least a year old.

“This is a year after Simon was born,” I said. “It has to be the summer of 1982.”

“Is that significant?” asked Doctor Messiah.

“Heck, yeah,” I said. “I had spent the previous winter going through what I called my ‘delayed freshman crisis,’ shacked up with Yarn Man in the basement rec room Daddy had built. Most of it was a blur of wanton partying and missed classes—so much so I had fallen off the Dean’s list, was at risk of forfeiting my scholarship, and had almost completely trashed my college career. My folks came out from Detroit and performed an intervention and the whole deal. Mama chased off Bing—that’s Yarn Man—singlehandedly. But by the summer of ’82 I had returned to the straight and narrow…”

“All’s well that ends well, from the looks of it,” remarked Doc.

That’s when Trent’s green Volkswagen Beetle rattled up the driveway.

***

Trent parked right in front of me and Doctor Messiah, got out, and opened the back door. He had removed the seats and stuffed the back of the car with more firewood, which he proceeded to unload. This took him several minutes; all the while, Clarissa Too kept hanging linen on the clothes line and Preston finished changing Simon. The wood Trent brought added considerably to the already considerable stack next to the garage. The pile was so high now you couldn’t see where the clothesline was tied to the hook.

“We really don’t need any more Lincoln logs, farm boy,” said Preston, who had finished changing Simon’s diaper. He set the little tyke down on the patio; Simon immediately began walking around unsteadily. “We hardly ever have use the fireplace as it is.”

“Why don’t you mind your own business,” said Trent, brushing off the shreds of bark that clung to his arms and clothing. “Queerball.”

Preston flinched at the ugly epithet referring to his sexual orientation. I could tell he wanted to say something back to Trent, but by this Clarissa Too—the other me—had run over and was giving Trent a big kiss.

“Aw, why don’t you two get a room,” said Preston, clearly disgusted.

“We do have room,” said Trent. “I stay over whenever I want—right, sweetheart?” He gave Clarissa Too a slap on the fanny. “Besides, shouldn’t you be at your faggy little bookstore now?”

“So many things are wrong here,” I said to Doctor Messiah. “I wish I were taking notes…. First of all, I never once heard Trent use derogatory language about Preston being a homosexual, or hardly ever say anything nasty at all—that’s just not like Trent at all. And Trent and I were never openly affectionate around the house or in front of our friends—in the summer of 1982, we hadn’t even acknowledged our attraction for one another…”

Clarissa Too went back to hanging laundry. “Don’t be mean to Preston, Sweetie,” she said to Trent. “He does a lot around the house; we couldn’t manage without him.”

“Mind your own business, Sissy,” Trent said to Clarissa Too. “I’m tired of this snot-nosed faggot putting me down because all I can provide for my child is firewood, and fresh produce, and the occasional farm eggs, and such. Maybe I lack the education of city-slickers like him, or you, or Stella—maybe I’m just white trash and not good enough to live in some off-campus commune with you snobs, or raise my own kid…”

“This can’t be for real!” I said. “Trent never talked to me like that. Besides, Trent worked at the bookstore, not Preston. Trent read books all the time, trying to learn, to teach himself on his own. He never resented us for being in school, was never hateful…”

Trent was walking toward Preston now; Preston had taken a few steps off the patio toward Trent. They were approaching each other on the lawn, this side of the clothes line.

“I never meant to imply that you’re white trash, Trent,” said Preston angrily. “I meant to say it very clearly: You’re white trash.”

“Come to think of it,” said Trent, “I don’t much like the idea of a homo changing my kid’s diaper…aren’t all you fags perverts and child molesters and such?”

Preston was furious now, his fists clenched in rage. “Listen, buster, one more crack about my sexuality and I’ll show you what a man is…”

“What are you going to do about it, fairy?” Trent snorted.

“Honest to God, I never heard such language!” I cried, my hands over my ears. “Trent’s a homophobic bigot…. What kind of nightmare world are you showing me, Doc?”

But before Doc could answer, Preston had sprung at Trent and tackled him. Clarissa Too screamed as the two males tumbled onto the grass, fists flailing. Preston quickly landed several blows, and Trent was already bleeding from the nose.

“Good Lord, they’re going to kill each other!” I said. “Is this any way for the former Megaton Man and his former handler to be acting?”

The two figures rolled behind the long sheets on the clothesline; we could only see their shadows. Clarissa Too was screaming; the two males were clearly beating the shit out of one another.

“What a time not to be able to intervene,” I said. “I don’t suppose my astral body can do any good in this situation, can it, Doc?”

“I’m afraid not, Clarissa,” said Doctor Messiah. “We can only helplessly observe…and await the outcome.”

Trent and Preston rolled forward and got caught in one of the sheets on the clothes line. Instead of yanking the sheet off, it began tugging at the line, dragging all the laundry down.

“I pin clothes very securely,” I explained to Doctor Messiah. “You don’t want the wind blowing your underwear into the next yard.”

Then I noticed where the line was attached to the garage; it was prying the teetering stack of firewood away from the wall.

“Oh, no!” I cried. “The stack of firewood is about to topple, killing Trent and Preston!”

Doctor Messiah seemed nonplussed. “I wouldn’t worry. You were saying this was the moment you broke out as Ms. Megaton Man, wasn’t it, Ms. Megaton Man?”

***

At this point, Trent and Preston had gotten themselves entangled in the sheet, which showed grass stains and blotches of blood seeping through. They were still wrestling with one another, rolling around on the ground. They were getting wrapped in the line, now, too, so much so that the end tied to the house had snapped off. The other end—tied to the garage—was still prying the stack of wood away from the wall.

Clarissa Too was so absorbed in watching Trent and Preston’s struggle that she wasn’t keeping an eye on little Simon, who waddled around in his new diaper in the middle of the yard, unattended.

“Oh, no!” I cried. “If that stack of firewood topples over, Simon will be crushed to death…”

What happened next seemed to unfurl in slow motion before my astral eyes. Trent and Preston had rolled to the opposite side of the yard from where Doc and I stood on the driveway, so they were out of danger. But following them was the taut clothesline that grew every tauter, prying away the stack of firewood from the garage. Clarissa Too, with her back turned to us, failed to notice this until the clothes line literally clotheslined the side of her neck. Untangling herself, she then noticed that Simon was underfoot, and turned to see that the firewood was about to come crashing down on them both.

“Please, Lord, let her at least save the baby!” I cried.

With one swift movement, the other me picked up Simon and hurled him away, about ten feet or more toward the back of the yard. Somehow, the kid didn’t break his neck when he landed softly on the grass. Instead, he rolled nearly to the back fence, out of danger.

But Clarissa Too was still in the path of the firewood.

“Remind me, Clarissa,” said Doctor Messiah calmly. “This is where you’re supposed to catch the firewood, save Trent and Preston’s lives, and realize you have megapowers…that you are, in fact, Ms. Megaton Man…correct?”

“That’s what’s supposed to happen,” I confirmed. “But…”

Instead, we watched several cords of firewood bury Clarissa Too in a cloud of bark and sawdust.

***

My senses were engulfed; for a moment, I couldn’t see anything but a blinding red light. The pain in my hip was excruciating. The smell of wood and dirt and grass filled my nostrils; I was barely able to breathe. My ears could hear nothing; Doctor Messiah was nowhere to be found; I was conscious only of two men, Trent and Preston, bloodied themselves from their altercation, pulling logs off of me and throwing them aside.

“Where am I?” I asked, groggily. “Where’s Doctor Messiah?”

No one answered me.

I was sprawled on the lawn, barefoot, athletic shorts, tank top—the same clothes I had worn when my astral self was standing next to Doc on the driveway. But it was also the same garb Clarissa Too had been wearing when I watched her get crushed under hundreds of pounds of firewood.

“Where is Doctor Messiah?” I repeated.

I couldn’t move my right leg; I tried propping myself up on my elbows. I looked over at the driveway, but my vision was blurred; I had flecks of wood and dirt in my eyes. But there was no Doctor Messiah, no Clarissa—astral or otherwise—standing there. There was only me, on the ground, bloodied from head to foot, surrounded by logs, looking up at Trent and Preston. I was screaming.

“Where is Doctor Messiah? Where is Doctor Messiah?”

Somehow, I was no longer an astral visitor to an alternate reality; I was now inside the crushed body of Clarissa Too. I was her.

Maybe it was an hallucination—it was hard to tell, I was in so much pain—but I thought I glimpsed a bone protruding from my thigh.

“Why have you forsaken me?” I said weakly, before flopping back on the ground.

That’s when I passed out.

***

I awoke in a bed, on clean, starched sheets, my right leg in a full-length cast, strung up on some kind of pully above my bed. A nurse was straightening up a stack of magazines that sat on a table next to me—I think they were comic books, but I wasn’t sure. I recognized the surroundings: I was in a hospital room at the Arbor State Medical Center, just like when Stella had had her baby.

“Nurse, where’s Doctor Messiah?” I asked, weakly.

“Your doctor will be in to visit with you shortly,” said the nurse, smiling. “She’ll be glad you’ve finally come around.”

“But I’m not supposed to be here,” I said. “I’m only visiting this reality.”

The nurse checked the intravenous drip. “We may have to change your medication,” she said. “You’re a little bit punky, Ms. James.”

“What’s happened to my leg?” I asked. “I’m supposed to be Ms. Megaton Man…”

“Fractured in three places,” said another woman’s voice. This was the doctor now speaking to me. She had her hands in her coat pockets; she smiled down at me affably. “You have a metal rod in your thigh now—it’s the best we could do. But at least we were able to save your leg.”

I was propped up in a wheelchair now. Somehow, I was still fast-forwarding through time.

“You’ll need to begin physical rehab,” she said. “It won’t be easy, but you should be able to walk again…”

More blinding pain. I was grabbing onto parallel bars now, struggling to move forward. A clean-cut looking jock guy was coaching me, urging me forward. It was a struggle to move even and inch with that cast around my leg.

“That’s it, good girl, Clarissa…”

Next thing I knew, I was in the lobby of the hospital; I was dressed in my Arbor State Abyssinian Wolves hoodie and sweat pants, the latter of which had been cut away to allow for my leg cast, which was propped up on the chair’s rest. Mama and Daddy and Avie were picking me up; Stella was there, holding Simon in her arms. Trent and Preston, covered in old scabs, stood apart.

“There’s our hero!” cried Avie, as somebody pushed my chair toward them.

“You saved that little baby’s life,” said Mama. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Nearly got herself killed,” said Daddy. “Probably be on crutches the rest of her life.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” said Stella. “Simon, your Aunt Clarissa saved your life. What do you say?”

“Chriz-lista,” said Simon, waving.

“Where’s Doctor Messiah?” I asked.

“She’s been asking that since the accident,” Preston explained to my parents. “There’s nobody by that name on staff at this hospital.”

Trent stepped forward, sheepishly. “I’m so sorry this happened, baby, really I am. I just feel terrible.”

He placed something in my lap.

“Don’t forget your comic books,” he said.

All characters, character names, likenesses, words and pictures on this page are ™ and © Don Simpson 2020, all rights reserved.