Goddamn Destiny

It all started with a superhero. He didn't really have a name, you know, like (InsertRandomArticle)Man until after he died. That's the thing. You see, he figured out how to make some sort of magnetic armor, basically to dispel bullets, and he had this staff that had the magnetic strength of ten men or something. But it didn't do a thing to help his real life. That's where he died, in an accident as random as the mugging that distracted him from committing a robbery he built the suit for, becoming something noted as heroic.

"Goddamn word, 'hero.'"

"What's wrong with hero?" asked his date the next night after the incident. He didn't answer, and instead reclined in his seat, lit a cigarette, and took a sip of the glass that he’d left there a few minutes before. As he lifted it to his lips, expecting Jack, he tasted something else…

"Water." He said.

"What?" asked his date.

He ignored her, and instead thought about his drink. Huh, he thought, I drank all the alcohol, and the ice melted, and now it’s just water. I haven’t tasted just water for a long time. It’s good.

Anyway, that was just a distraction, to keep his attention off of the irony that he said the same thing during that unheroic, serendipitous night; it was snowing then, obviously, when he showed up on top of a random convenience store, where he heard someone getting mugged or something below. Jealous, he swept down to prevent the cops from arriving earlier than was necessary. In a bloody explosion, he crushed the first man's skull that splatted onto the snow with the glimmer of a Christmas tree. The other two men knew they ought to retreat, but met similarly overviolent ends.

The victim, a carmel prostitute with almond eyes and dark hair, stood up and lit a cigarette.

"You're a hero."

"Goddammed word, 'hero.'"

"What's wrong with 'hero'?" she asked, standing beautiful and erotic in the snow.

He didn't answer right away. Then, bluntly, "Wanna fuck?"

"No."

He approached her, and she shot. He was, of course, impervious to bullets.

"You had a gun?"

"Yeah. Forgot." She shrugged. With similar bluntness, he said, "Lend me a smoke."

She gave him one, lit it, and then they fucked anyway.

She was a sweeter lover than his date the next night when he accidentally tasted the frigid flavor of water, so he never bothered to remember his date's name as he left her in her drunken, exhausted stupor in the sweaty bed in the expensive hotel meant for celebrities like himself.

Weeks later, his agent called far too early in the morning, "Wake up, Joe. You got work to do."

"Goddamned name, 'Joe.'"

"What's wrong with 'Joe'?"

"That's not my name."

"Whatever. Put on a suit, we've got a party to get to."

"What the hell kind of party are you talking about?"

"It's in Tokyo."

Later, while a the party, the agent was about to light a cigarette, when he finally found the drive to quit.

"Why quit?" asked his celebrity client, the secret super-hero.

The agent didn't answer; he was focused on someone else.

You see, at the party was the love of the agent's life, elegantly marrying into a software conglamorate. She, of course, was torn between love and poverty and love and wealth and, more than anything, between what she could have and what she couldn't, and whether it was any different than what she shouldn't have. Neverminding morals, the agent ignored his own girlfriend, to nightly send coded correspondence to his Oriental desire-de-amor, which the Tokyo police meanwhile mistook as references to the agent's secret hobby of grand theft auto and his love's fiance's secret business of importing stolen cars. Having never met in person before, neither knew that they worked with each other.

To distract his love's fiance, the agent introduced his celebrity client, who was, of course, the superhero now dubbed "Fate" by the growing media legend that the hero had gathered for himself in the past weeks of attempted robberies that accidentally turned into the heroic slaughter of unfortunate criminals. Rumors surrounded his arrival in Tokyo, but of course, no one knew he was Fate.

As the agent made love to his fatal female, her fiance interuppted with just enough time to realize this was the worst day of his life as the police invaded, and began shooting. Everyone died, including the agent's celebrity client named Fate. Before dying, Fate lit his last cigarette, and sighed, wondering how his carmel prostitute was doing, which was the first time he ever thought about anyone before.

Meanwhile, no one knew that Fate was actually dead, as rumors filtered out until they reached the eldest child of the Rays, the brother, as he sat back, smoking a cigarette and drinking Jack, wondering who else in the world also enjoyed such things.

"If I could give you immortality, would you take it?" asked the attorney in training that sat next to him in the hazy, red-brick-walled den of the jazz club.

"Sure." Said the brother.

"Oh, also, I've got something to tell you... ever hear of Fate?"

"Yeah."

"No, no, I mean the guy with the name, Fate."

"Nope," said the brother, because he hadn't, and knew less than anyone that Fate was dead. That's okay, because none of those stories had ever occured to anyone in the Ray family, as their understanding of fate had nothing to do with a dead superhero. Instead, they lived life trapped in a place of oblivion. Mom was oblivious because of her selfishiness, as she would sit indulgently on the couch demanding everything that she hadn't time to do herself because the soaps were more important.
"Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?" asked her second daughter.
"Like that, like it's my fault." They were agruing about the second daughter's permission to go away for a weekend.
"I don't understand what you're talking about! You're always saying that stuff, I don't understand, what did I do? It's not like you're perfect!"
Mom glared, and looked to her husband. "Don't let her talk to me like that. Do something. Well? Say something. You just gonna sit there?"
"Don't talk back to your mother!" said the father.
"I think she should be grounded---" said the mother.
"Why should she be grounded?" asked the brother.
"Oh, you shut up," said Mom to her son, "You always take her side. You never take my side. Never. Until you have kids of your own, I don't want to hear it.
"Mommy, I want a monkey! Can we get a monkey?" said the youngest daughter.
"Oh, shut up! Does that have anything to do with what we're talking about? Does it? Did I say monkey? No! I didn' say monkey, Mom didn't say monkey, no one said monkey, becasue we're not fucking talking about a monkey!" said the second daughter.
"---Oh, is she ever grounded!" said the mother.
Eventually it would escalate to a yelling match, and everyone would leave angrily, leaving just the father alone in the living room, to contemplate what was right. Dad was oblivious because of his idealism, as he would pace through the house, between his basement lair and his attic room, where he would spend hours contemplating the the immorality of the world and the nature of God. The next day, he went to work, and the Mom cheerfully decorated the house, without cleaning it first, greeting everyone as though no argument had happened.
Not present in the arguement was the the eldest sister, because she had left the house. She was oblivious due to her enormous sense of practicality and mathematical obligation to what wanted to do, without much care as to what that even was. She was the second to move out.
The last sister was oblivious because of her immaturity. Contrary to her immaturity was the negative influence of her mother's lazy selfishness and the postivie influence of her mother's care for everything but a good influence. Also, the last sister had an unnatural maturity to her body managed by an incredbily young age; by four, she had her first pimple; by seven she needed an adult bra; by twelve she had the look of a twenty-year-old goddess, with the simple, childish, immature innocense of a ten-year-old. The result was a dire need on the part of the father to shelther her from her immense popularity at the local middle school.
The first to move out, the eldest of all four children, the brother, was oblivious and aware in a bazaar combination of clairvoyant understanding and stubborn idiocity. Early, he was interested in the important things his philosopher father taught and tolerant of the demands of his worldly mother, but naive to the nature of the world. Then, in response to his overwhelming lonliness, he fell in love, and suddenly learned the entire nature of the world in one morning of passionate kissing, as everywhere, churches held their normal services. From that point on, he fought with stubborn blindness to hold onto a love he believed in stronger than love itself could handle; he was oblivious to everything else, because that's how he thought love should be. Years later, after the enormous exhaustion of a failed relationship finally overcame his stubbornness, he returned to his old home, wiser and sadder. Just as he was the first to leave, he was the first to return.
The only one who hadn't ever been stuck in a state of oblivion was the middle sister, who understood things better than anyone else, in a way that frightened the adults in the family. The mother's response was a cold sense of jealousness against her daughter, as though she were the popular newcomer upsetting Mom's delicate popularity, like in high school. She got ignored, as a result, but blamed for the mistakes of the first daughter.
Nevertheless, time went on while the family went on living on a pile of unresolved problems and enormous potentials that hadn't quite yet been met.
"I've got time," said the brother.
"You do? Good." Said the attorney in training. "Alright. It all started with a superhero. He didn't really have a name, you know, like (InsertRandomArticle)Man until after he died. That's the thing. You see, he figured… "