All My Friends Are Superheroes - Andrew Kaufman [16]
It’s exactly that sort of responsibility that the Inverse seeks to avoid and it’s why he has never shaken his own hand.
MR. OPPORTUNITY
He knocks on doors and stands there. You’d be surprised how few doors get answered.
MISTRESS CLEANASYOUGO
The most powerful superhero of all, the one everyone wishes they were, is Mistress Cleanasyougo. At the end of every day she folds her clothes. She never leaves scissors on the table, pens with no ink are thrown in the trash, wet towels are always hung up, dishes are washed directly after dinner and nothing is left unsaid.
THIRTEEN
BEGINNING DESCENT
The captain’s voice comes through Tom’s headphones. In confident tones he announces that flight AC117 is commencing its descent. They will be arriving in Vancouver in twenty minutes. Local time will be 5:17 p.m. The captain requests that all passengers return to their seats and fasten their seatbelts. Tom looks up. None of the passengers are standing so no one moves. He feels the plane tilt downwards. He tries not to cry. He has twenty minutes to convince his wife that he isn’t invisible. He disobeys the captain’s orders and dares another trip to the bathroom. He pushes past the man in seat 27D.
As Tom walks down the aisle, the man in seat 27D begins to study the Perfectionist. He watches her watch clouds out the airplane window. The Perfectionist notices she’s being studied. She doesn’t look over. She keeps her eyes on the clouds.
He swallows, clears his throat. His thumb and forefinger rub together.
‘Perf ?’ he asks.
The Perfectionist looks over. He’s looking right at her. For the first time she looks right at him. She reaches out and traces her index finger across his lips.
‘Literal?’ she asks.
‘Literal?’ says the Broken-Hearted Man. ‘Nobody’s called me that in years.’
The Literal and the Perfectionist dated in high school. They were very much in love. They were each other’s first. They separated to go to university but pledged to stay together.
To prove his love the Literal gave the Perfectionist his heart. He put it in a shoebox, wrapped the box in silver paper and carried it down to the post office. After licking twenty-nine dollars and forty-seven cents’ worth of stamps, he addressed the package to the Perfectionist, c/o McGill University, Montreal, Quebec.
Three weeks later, the same shoebox arrived in the Literal’s mailbox. It was wrapped in the same silver paper, but the box had been opened. His heart was inside. At that moment, the Literal stopped being the Literal. He became the Broken-Hearted Man. He was so crushed he never talked to her again.
‘What are the chances I’d be sitting next to her on an airplane?’ the Broken-Hearted Man asks himself. Impossible odds. Must be fate. Daily for thirteen years, sometimes three times a day, he’d rehearsed this moment. He knew exactly what he was going to say, what tone of voice he’d use. He wouldn’t be bitter – that would make him look weak. He’d be casual. He would be glad to see her. It wouldn’t be the most important moment of his day.
‘It’s been so long,’ the Perfectionist says.
All the Broken-Hearted Man’s plans evaporate. His eyes go wide. He can’t stop it. He can’t spin it or control it. It simply floods out of him.
‘Why did you do that?’ he wails. ‘Why would you do that to me? Why did you return my heart?’
The Perfectionist stares at the Broken-Hearted Man. Her teeth grind together.
‘I loved you so much,’ the Perfectionist says. Her eyes have gone glossy. ‘Without it, what would you have loved me with?’
The Broken-Hearted Man says nothing. He looks at his shoes and nods. He moves to the back of the airplane, finds an empty seat.
Tom returns from the washroom. He sees the Perfectionist crying. He strokes her hair with his hand. He almost feels her lean into him. She doesn’t hiccup.
FOURTEEN
THE BUTTON FACTORY GALLERY
Tom watches the Perfectionist sniff. In the washroom