Action Figure

I looked down at the Ironman watch on my wrist. It read 9:17 PM. It had been exactly twelve hours since my awakening. Exactly twelve hours since the fade in of the opening scene. Somehow it seemed like a lifetime ago.

I gathered my legs underneath me and began a mad sprint toward the Intercoastal Bridge ahead. All around me a crowd was beginning to gather; on both sides of the bridge, on the water below, and even in the air above me. No doubt my bizarre adventures of this day would make for the perfect sound bite, the ultimate in exploitive fodder for the eleven o’clock news tonight.

This is it I thought—the big push, the rousing climax, the great showdown. This is what will put the asses in the seats and keep them coming back for more. I was more than up for the challenge.

I reached the base of the bridge at full throttle. My blood streaked legs of sinewy flesh began to quiver from sheer exhaustion as I stepped up into the steep grade of the pavement.

It was steeper than I had ever remembered it. It was much too steep. Each step I took sent a burning wave of searing lactic acid into my thighs and hamstrings. It felt like I was pulling a two ton trailer.

At first I just thought it was me. I had been pushed beyond the limits of any human endurance I had known. I was delirious. Reality and hallucination now co-existed in the carousal of imagery, sound and smell that comprised my unstable state. I could not be sure of anything anymore. I only knew that all of this had to end. And it would end. It would end here at the crest of this bridge.

This is where I would make my last stand.

I could see the swirling reflections of red and yellow lights on the rising pavement before me. Intermingled with the approaching scream of the sirens, I could hear the clicks of shotguns being cocked to fire and the yell of a bull horn demanding I halt, raise my arms and drop to my knees.

Never—I am not giving up—not now—not ever.

I spent the last eight years of my life on my knees with my hands up in the air, letting everyone and everything have their way with me. I was a defeated warrior who walked around in a passionless stupor; a zombie, a pod person in a functioning coma induced by one emotional beating too many. I was the whipping boy of every thoughtless, hate-filled soul within spit ting distance; a human receptacle where self-centered agents of evil could deposit their angst; a walking, breathing tackling dummy available for every angry prick with an attitude that passed by and needed to unleash some frustration.

Fate had kicked my ass and I had taken a seat on the bench.

But no more—

Never again—

I have returned from the land of the living dead, and I am now here to stake my claim.

As of twelve hours ago I became the man in charge...