Issue 79 - The Silver Surfer

                                                                     by Fausto Barrionuevo



                                             “Kill him, Capt. Atlas!” --- “With pleasure, Dr. Minerva.”

                                             From dialogue bubbles to their blood dripping knuckles,

                                             I unearth the cosmic male protagonist from a shabby box.

 
                                                       The attic-artifact resurfaced during my father’s search for

                                            missing computer parts. He mocks my sentimental stares

                                           as his relentless smoke cannon drops another burning bomb

                                           of ash onto the garage floor. While villains savagely beat

                                           to death my childhood hero, he solders on the computer-chip.

 

                                          He forgets, but my father was responsible for issue 79.

 

                                          His fingers felt the plastic portrait sitting on the shelf,

                                          under the section entitled, latest issues. I was seven

                                          when he came home with the comic book in hand. 

 

                                                   Was it the cover that caught his eye, that deep

                                                   amethyst with afternoon pink rays emanating from

                                                   the surfer’s body,  those vigorous white eyes

                                                  drained of cosmic energy in the embrace of his enemies?

 

                                                 Or was it an attempt, made by a jaded police officer

                                                 coming home to his family after a full shift with hopes

                                                 that his son stayed away from the criminal element?

 

                                                 In the midst of kicking rocks on memory lane, my father

                                                 pulls my thumb off the road before anyone could pick me up.

                                                He has me hold the flashlight while he sets the motherboard

                                                back into the computer. I’m checking my pockets for screws

                                                to enclose the casing, find a pebble, and remember the battle

                                                in issue 79 where the Surfer, bruised, tarnished, and smudged

                                                loses. In an electric pulse my father’s work is gone, circuits fried.

 

                                               Hunched in his chair, his old hands torn, quiet as the villain’s

                                               stand over the defeated hero at the edge of the panel, issue 79

                                               ends. A to be continued I’ve never read.

                                               I imagine the cover with an austere father and his son

                                               reaching over his head to hand him the silver screwdriver.