#24 Caleb Wash – Patient

I don’t know at what point I gave up the fight, but I do know that it was long before I actually stopped fighting.

For months, I had been feeling out of sorts. My punches weren’t as fast or as strong, barely knocking criminals over as opposed to when I could send them through a wall by accident. And then a couple of real punks, the type that I would have wiped the floor with a few years ago, were suddenly slipping in under my guard and gave me a beating.

At first I thought that it was some evil plot. Maybe Enchantra had cast some spell on me, or the Toxin had managed to slip me one of his custom-created concoctions. So I went after them. I beat down doors and chased leads, until I found them and made them talk. But they didn’t know anything. No plot or scheme, just a bunch of super-crooks that found themselves up the creek.

I went to the doctors, but they couldn’t find anything wrong with me. I was the picture of health. I was better than that even. How could a man that could outrun a cheetah and then bench-press a Buick possibly be sick? All of their tests agreed that I was as strong and fast as I always was, maybe even more so. But still every night I went out, I came back bruised and beaten.

It was one of those thugs that finally clued me in on it. He’d been purse-snatching when I slammed him into a wall. He bounced right back up and pulled a knife. He laid me a good one across the chest before I put him out.

When the police showed up and carted him away, he looked at me and said, “Crazy man jumping at the knife like that.” I thought about it. Had I actually jumped for the blade? Did I want to get hurt? Was that why I wasn’t doing so hot lately?

That night, I opened up the phonebook and worked my way down the list of headshrinkers until I found one that would make an appointment.

I’ve been in therapy for six months now, and I am doing much better. I don’t go out on the streets anymore. Instead I devote myself to more constructive uses of my powers, building up the city instead of tearing it down.

Category: 2011, Superhero