A Once Superman

His eyes were always the first feature that folk noticed. Obsidian globes, half-lit with a dormant fire, were his pupils, ringed by crescent-shaped irises. It was these irises that sprang the fear of God into passers-by. Embroidered with aquamarine and burnished jade pigments to resemble the earth’s surface, they were illuminated by reflections of past glories – in one corner languished the chaotic first rescue, while its adjacent side hid the encore performance. The eyes were the only remarkable thing to lie in his otherwise barren face.
Barren? It was as desolate as the surface of the moon; pock-marked with craters on the blanched surface, which was dusty with age, and isolated scars that gave the impression of tattoos, or the first footsteps of astronauts, and commemorated his more irksomely powerful opponents. Silver lips were sunken and puckered simultaneously, resting below the wrinkled remains of a Roman nose. The entire face was superficially buried by a layer of silken, labyrinthine cobwebs. It was a sad epitaph to a previously glorious crown of glossy mahogany curls. In his senescence, he was a shrunken and feeble excuse for a man – each time the mirror caught him, he would think to himself that he was merely a synonym for death.
This youth-parched face was now thrust into view of his young ward, who was in the midst of an innocent childhood – energy and a lust for activity buzzed through each tiny, pure, seven-year-old pore; he was brimming with life, sugar-sweet, engorged on adrenaline from the day he was born, and dehydrated of patience. Butter-gold sheets of hair, naively coiffured, restlessly swinging from side to side as he shuffled about, nervous without succumbing to fear-driven paralysis. Flecks of dirt, so common in children of that age, were sprayed across his peachy cheeks, and he was rubbing them relentlessly, attempting to clean himself but only succeeding in ingraining them more deeply and spreading them further. Cobalt eyes – the shade of the copper sulphate at school, the old man noted, or the raspberry-flavoured sherbet they sold in the derelict corner shop nearby – sat, plummy and bright in the snowy vastness of his conjunctivae, absorbing the pattern of each wrinkle on the elder’s face as if it were a particularly complex painting. But such idle serenity was against his lively disposition, and he grew bored in his inertia.
“This one’s yours, Mr Kennedy. Have you provided him with all the items on the list?” A patronising woman, who in trying to sterilely brighten each orphan’s childhood succeeded only in frustrating them.
“What’s his name?” The pensioner’s voice was cracked, as though it was barely used nowadays, and previously ravaged by years of nicotine abuse.
“Tomasz. T-O-M-A-S-Z. He’s foreign – part Polish, part Russian, part English and part French. Only speaks English, though, with the odd foreign word thrown in – usually Speerdalay, which we think may be the name of an old friend.”
“The parents… immigrants?” A sharp, disapproving inhalation from the woman, whose austere bun seemed to cover a minefield of political correctness, boxes to tick and sharp voids where independent thought should have bubbled.
“That’s an inappropriate question, Mr Kennedy. His background history is tragic enough without digging around for such details. All that matters is Tomasz’s welfare!” Her lapidary, ruddy countenance had tensed further, and had become increasingly rubicund in between her stern chastises and henpecked hand-wringing.
“Tragic background?” Her matronly uptightness softened with a maternal sigh, as she related the necessary details.
“His parents were taking him out to a playground on his third birthday, near Christmas, when a drunk driver skidded into their car. Both parents were killed instantly; Tomasz only survived because... well, no one’s really sure how he managed it. We have never been able to trace any relatives of his, with the exception of his paternal grandmother, who refuses to have anything to do with him. She claims that he is... bad luck.” Tomasz’s flaxen locks, an angelic halo of hair, and rosy apple-cheeks were so charming in their purity that nothing could have seemed further from this description. Only the devil himself could have put such a sweet child veil over a demon
“Bad luck? Makes two of us.” The woman’s draconian eyes searched him suspiciously, alert, seeking an excuse to keep her charge glued to her ascetic demeanour and prevent him from knowing of indulgence, profligacy, promiscuity and all of those evils that lay outside the orphanage, and probably shared a bed with the dubious Mr Kennedy.
“Have you filled in the form?” His creaking fingers clasped themselves around the crumpled, tea-stained page, fishing for it, seeking its familiar, papery feel in threadbare pockets that held a sea of digestive biscuit crumbs and the occasional tumbleweed pieces of fluff. When, finally, it was fully retrieved, he handed it over to her. For her approval – if, indeed, that was something she ever gave. The gravely cloudy eyes lacked any sort of cheery twinkle, and an ill-fitting suit gave her the appearance of nearly bursting out of herself in an unrestrained obesity (something which, in itself, suggested an unhappy woman).
“But, why – you’ve left the occupation questions unanswered!” gasped she, appalled by the blasphemy that non-adherence to the law of ticking boxes personified.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m no paedophile – I’ve barely seen a child in years, let alone wanted one. This one’s hardly a Lolita.” His wry, spry manner almost caused her to smile, before she remembered herself.
“Well, I suppose I shall have to let him go. Take good care of him, and read his factfile – I’ll email it over to you.” The matter-of-fact certainty that he possessed any such device amused him – it was the first time in years that he had been moved to a smirk – and he left her to her white-washed world of government initiative schemes to increase adoption levels and tick more boxes.