good morning starshine

“Sure pal, sure!… Not every day I meet someone willing to join me up there. And yeah, I guess so… I’ve been tryin’ to take the occasional trip out into the cosmos. But no matter what I find I always find myself drawn back here.”

“Uh. Not yet… But I jump real good. It’s how I go to the moon sometimes when I really need to be alone. Yeah, the best way for you to fly I can think of is if you had immense telekinesis– so you could still feel the world around you, just with your mind or something.”

“You can jump to the moon!? That’s bonkers! You’ll have to take me with you some time.”

“Uh. I guess that’d be high-end superhuman physicals and energy manipulation. There’s probably some more advanced stuff to all this, but the gist of it is I literally am unreasonably strong… and I can throw energy blasts!”

“They are massive. Or at least, they can do massive things. I appear human but I’m actually an alien– by way of the planet Nypardia. But I’ve lived on Earth just about my entire life. So’s I’m a superhero around these planetary parts now. I help folks out and clobber wiseguys. It’s nice to meetcha, Adela.”

“Wow! That sounds absolutely amazing! You must be really strong then.”

“You… Don’t wanna use meat. Use… I dunno. Aloe vera? I have only known pepperoni to soothe when I’m chewin’ on some rather than lettin’ it slime up my nigh-invulnerable skin. And maybe? They were seated durin’ the interviews so I don’t think they were hopping around like kids in a bounce house, or pro-wrestlers jumpin’ off the turnbuckles.”

He shrugged.

“I’m Rex. And I’m gonna go find a deli to buy pepperoni after this nice talk.”

“I’m Adela. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Rex.”

“Oh oh, okay! Things make a whole lot more sense now, sorry for the misunderstandin’. Rest in pepperoni your feet.“

He slowed down momentarily, mumbling about pepperoni to himself before shaking his head.

“I remember there were some interviews with astronauts who were forgettin’ about gravity when they got back to Earth. They’d just let go of a pen or shatter a mug like they were still in zero gravity mid-speech and whammo.”

“Rest in pepperoni? Does resting in meat help with burns? I’ll keep that in mind next time that happens.”

“Oh. I was just hungry– yours though, you put it very eloquently. Feel free to continue.”

“I was more or less trying to make a joke about myself. Things tend to ‘fall into the abyss’ for me because I’m blind. Once something leaves my hand, for all I know it could be gone forever. ”

“Like a mirage… I think that happened to a double-decker sandwich I got for myself once.”