Vigilante

   A skin tight suit might have been her best choice for the work she had ahead of her, but it wasn’t the kind of clothing she would use in her daily life. God knows that Clementine Avery would never wear such a scandalous piece of clothing and that’s not even considering the fabric! It was a kind of leather that molded itself to her body, which made her very self conscious but, again, it came in handy for situations that involved a lot of physical activity and the like. It was just what she needed, even if it wasn’t really her.

 Walking around in alleys and rooftops, Clementine eventually grew accustomed to her new skin and also to her newfound sexuality. She would hide her body before, but the suit had granted her an unexpected weapon and that was her own body and what she could do with it. Men would look at her ass and boobs for a bit too long, and she would take that time to tackle them, put them on a headlock and submit them, to ask a few questions or maybe to make them see who was in charge at that moment.

 However, and mostly during the day, she would still be Clemmy for her grandma and grandpa, the people who had helped raised her. Her parents had died in a plane crash years ago, and Clementine had been the only survivor. She was still called a “miracle baby” by some and she hated it. From a very early age, she understood that it was best to go unnoticed, and that’s why her sexuality was not something she explored until she was an adult and realized that she needed to do something to help people.

 When she first donned her uniform, Clementine was investigating the lawyer firm that wanted to take her grandparents house from them. True, they weren’t as liquid with money as they were in the past, but her grandfather had always paid the mortgage. She knew about this because she helped pay every single month, with the various jobs she head during her teenage years and then when she went to college. Her parents had saved for her education and wellbeing but her grandparents refused to use that money to pay anything for them.

 There were always long discussions about that subject with them and would always end up in hugs and kisses and possibly some ice cream, without them really acknowledging how much they actually needed that help. So Clementine worked hard, in part for them but also to have some money for herself and start saving for the unforeseeable future. She had no idea what to do in the future but she was aware that her parent’s money would not last forever. And problems always arose for people like her, so it was a good idea to work. And after that, it was a good idea to do more.

 Of course, the whole suit thing didn’t happen overnight. It was an idea she ultimately had after watching one of those vigilantes save some people from a fire on the news. Some people were not really into them but their grandparents were absolutely thrilled that some people had taken it upon themselves to help others, even if it was when wearing a mask and some other ridiculous attire. All of that gave her the idea that she could sneak in places and talk to people in order to really know what was happening with her grandparent’s house.

 At first, she only used clothes that hid her identity, but after a while it felt a little bit too silly to wear a hoodie and sunglasses. Eventually, people would find out who she was, if they had a brain. So she decided to wear a mask she had personalized herself and then came the first uniform and eventually she got to put on the skintight suit, which wasn’t her idea. Actually, it wasn’t her idea either when one her best friends discovered what she was doing.

 Adele worked with her and they had always been closed, or as close as you can be when you’re working and doing things at all times. Nevertheless, it wasn’t too hard for her to decipher Clementine’s secret identity. Clem was scared of her reaction but her friend just wanted in an all of the “nighttime fun”. She explained that it wasn’t something funny or enjoyable, but her friend was too over the moon to listen to anything she said. So Clementine told her everything about her first, and so far, only mission.

 It was Adele’s idea to change the outfit, to make Clementine more agile when encountering foes and also much more effective when avoiding people. The costume was completely designed by her friend, who had realized what Clem was doing precisely because she saw the same clothes her friend wore one day on the news the following night. She could be a little bit distracted and dense, but Adele understood the position her friend was in and swore to help her in whatever way she could. She felt very excited.

 Clementine had gotten a lot of paperwork that revealed something was wrong but she didn’t understand all of the terminology. Adele tried to help, but neither of them was a lawyer or anything close to it. It was Adele’s father, a retired public official, that checked the papers without them knowing and just asked his daughter about them. He explained that those papers basically gave properties away to that law firm by bypassing several laws with a special close that had not been revealed to the mortgage payers in the first place, as the law firm had bought the contracts illegally. It was surprising for the girls to hear it all in such a simple way.

 Eventually, Clementine got more evidence and she was able to put the law firm in very big legal troubles. They were forced by a court to give up all the contracts they had acquired illegally and an investigation was started to clarify how it all had happened. Her grandparents were beside themselves with happiness, and so were so many others of their neighbors. Of course, none of them ever knew what had really happened behind the scenes or how the evidence had really appeared in the judge’s private office.

 Some people did associate the vigilante they had seen in the news a couple of times with the case of the law firm, but that was it. Clementine felt really stupid for that because her other persona was not supposed to be known at all, but she had felt, at times, the need to help others and that’s why she had gotten to the news. It was kind of fun for her when, at the start, only drawings from the witnesses could be done and she looked like a very sexualized superhero. She thought it was fun and also good they were way off.

 In time, someone actually came up with a recording of her saving some people from getting mugged and there were even some pictures from security cameras of her entering the law firm’s building, and that’s how everything got tied up. After her grandparents’ problem ended, she decided not to wear the mantle ever again, which Adele thought was a mistake. She didn’t understand that it was something dangerous and potentially deadly. Clementine could get killed or someone could get killed because of her.

 For Adele, it was all just fun and interesting. She explained to her friend that she was now someone important in the community, someone that looked after the ones that no one cares about and that’s way she was such a key part of what was going on in the city. But Clementine decided not to pay attention because she knew that not much was required for her to become addicted to what she had done before. She had felt the rush going through her body and just knew that it could be something too attractive.

 Trying to get away form all of it, she went back to her studies and her work but something always bothered her. It was as if she had a fly or a bee inside her skull and it wouldn’t stop annoying her unless she thought about how exhilarating it all felt when she uncovered the truth and she fought injustice.

 When you’re hooked, you just are. So when a young woman was about to get raped near Clementine’s house, she put on her costume and kicked that man’s ass like there was no tomorrow. She saved the girl, who asked who or what she was. Clem then realized she had never decided on a name for her other self.

Rush

   What did I dream? What did I eat last night?  What was my last thought before closing my eyes and falling asleep? It’s silly, but I don’t remember any of it, or at least not once. I have to be still and really try hard to remember the answer to every single one of those questions and many more that appear many minutes after I wake up. Does it all have to do with this? Is it all connected, as many people believe? They think that if one thing happens and then another or something else on the other side of the globe, then it’s all connected. To me it sounds stupid and very easily dismissible as a theory but who am I to trump over the delusions of so many of our fellow human beings. Maybe it’s better to let them wonder through the cosmos and just not pay attention to whatever they might have to say.

 Yet, I feel confused, scared and my stomach is rumbling like mad. Did I lose my last meal too, even if I haven’t vomited at all? It feels like I have. My belly really hurts and my body overall feels tired and weak in a very weird way. It’s like something took away my bones for a single second but I can still feel them readjusting to their original positions. It also feels as if the room had been completely moved like a gigantic cube while I was sleeping, causing my senses to become insane. I can’t really tell if up is that way or down is that other way. I don’t know and to be honest I have no intention to help anyone in that department. I just want this very awful feeling to leave me, my heart to stop pounding. It seems it wants out.

 Turning on the light in the room, and I say it in singular because there’s only the one, was not the best idea. Only to see the mess I caused… Well, it wasn’t me and it was, all at the same time. Maybe that’s why I feel a little bit guilty too, like when you’re little and you pee your bed. And you are conflicted between going to your parents and tell them what happen. Or maybe, you think, you can clean it yourself and put the linen in the washing machine and no one will ever know. And when they realize what happened, you feel weak and shaky and you cannot really talk and you want to cry but know it’s not really a moment to cry because, somehow, it doesn’t feel like it.

 My stomach is the worst part. It’s still restless and I don’t know if it’s a good idea to have breakfast. I mean, what if I just expel all of that in an hour or less? I don’t want to be cleaning that or feeling even worse than I feel right now. I don’t want to risk my mental health and my physical one. Besides, the possibility of having to clean the floors (here’s hoping it’s the floors…) does not really excite me at all. If anything, it makes my stomach even more restless, as if I had a very violent electric eel trapped in there and she stings me every time I think of pulling her out of her cozy environment. I don’t feel good, that’s the point.

 Breathing has become harder. I don’t know why, but it feels like this room, filled with freezing air, is running out of oxygen. However, I don’t want to open the window and become a human popsicle. Because even know, seating on my bed, I can feel that damn cold air like a snake going up my legs, through my belly and chest and to my brain. My fingers feel weird too, like they are about to crack. And I still cannot breath. Opening my mouth seems futile and only my nose is trying to keep me alive but I have no idea how skilled my nose is, even less right now when the punch had come from the area. I try to inhale some air and it feels heavy, almost solid. I can almost feel its taste and it doesn’t taste good at all.

 Why is that? Because of the surroundings I guess. I know now I don’t like this student life, or at least not at this age anymore. I sound old but I’m not, I just complain every single second about things that I have decided to be my life, so if you think about it, I should just shut up. And I do. I don’t really use my vocal chords as much as I did back home, although that is kind of obvious. After all, they are your family and you love them or at least I love mine. If you have issues with yours, well, sorry for that. But these other people, the truth is I don’t care for them at all. They could die out there, rammed by a bus, and I would honestly not give a shit. I would only worry for the next person, the next boring and predictable human male to stay in that room and talk about booze and pot, because apparently this is it for humanity.

  Well, that let’s a weight out, somehow. But still feel a bit lost. After all, my awakening today was too fast, too confusing and a little of a low blow. You never know when things are going to take a turn, one of those turns that changes your whole mindset for the day or even for more time. I hate it when it happens because change scares me and it scares me a lot more than I imagined it. I want it all the same over and over and over again and I’m not ashamed of confessing that. Because I don’t see anything over the hill. No green grass, no cute little houses, no beautiful people smiling at me and doggies coming to greet me. I don’t see anything.

 The future scares me and maybe my body had finally realized it. Maybe the war between my insides and my mind has begun and this, whatever it is that’s writing this, is in the middle of the fight. And I know there will be blood and pain all over, there will be losses and gains and my mind is going to spiral down a wormhole that I have made for myself. Because, if we are objective, no one else is guilty more than ourselves. If there’s something happening to us, we probably had it coming and we even knew that it was coming, even if we chose not to acknowledge and just pretend nothing was happening, as we often do.

 That roll of toilet paper is starting to look funny somehow. I guess it’s because it is. Such a funny thing to have around one’s house, when you think about it. It’s shape; it’s function, the one it is built and all the strategic marketing behind such a strange object. I don’t mean that to be funny or make some funny toilet jokes. I’m afraid I don’t know any of those so I cannot be funny that way. Actually, I have no idea if I’m funny in any way. Maybe I’m like the toilet paper, that’s just strange and everywhere and that’s me sometimes. There but not there at the same time, however always out of place, as if I was an extra and I always come in the scene a little too early or too late. I do feel like an extra sometimes and I believe we all do everyday, so I don’t really fell bad about it.

 I put on my socks again, as they slid out of my feet during the night. Maybe that’s the reason why I feel like I feel right now. But I doubt it. What do socks have to do with anything? I just want my feet to feel a bit warm in order for my body to stop trembling and for my belly to calm down. I know I have responsibilities and all that but I’m seriously thinking about staying in bed all day. The idea seems very alluring and a very great one, I must say… Fuck, there they go again with their music and their noise. I don’t care what time of the day it is; you just don’t shove your tastes down people’s throats. It says a lot about someone, music and how they behave with it and how they consume it or however you want to say it.

 My pillow was spared, mostly. I want to lay my head on it and just close my eyes because I start to feel a little dizzy again. I just want to rest and not have any of that annoying noise around me. I don’t want to feel more than the warmth of the bedspread and the smell that I leave in my pillow. That may sound a little bit self-centered, but I guess it is the only way to calm me down, to make me realize all of this is real and that I’m not imagining anything strange and crazy. Actually, I do want this all to be my imagination and I don’t mean this morning, I mean this whole part of my life. Because it doesn’t feel right and I’m just holding on, trying to make time pass day by day.

 All the blood I spilled this morning… It tells me it is real and that I still have to keep my ground, I still have to wait and endure for more time. I’m not a good person but I don’t think I’m bad either. I’m in between. When I woke up to a rush of blood coming out my noise, successfully avoiding everything to be tainted in red, I thought it was a punishment for something, I thought it was because I had done something wrong and now I was paying for it. Maybe through just the bleeding, maybe through something more. I don’t know that for sure and to be honest I don’t really want to know because my head is spinning. Although that awful music might have something to do with it… Sometimes I do hate people.