— Fiction —

I Am Glad My Childhood Dreams Did Not Come True

I wanted to be the Six Million Dollar Man.
I am married and divorced several times. Each of my wives become increasingly annoyed with the constant “do-do-do-do-do” sound I make when I lift, run, stare at, or listen to something. My non-bionic left arm atrophies due to lack of use, making me look oddly lopsided. Then as I reach the age of fifty, my bionic limbs begin to stiffen and creak with overuse so I walk with a gimp and creak like a rusty truck. I decide to hire a lawyer and sue the doctors who turned me into a half-robotic freak. Since I have been unemployed for several years I try to get a loan based on the six million dollars I am worth. Finally, I commit suicide when I realize that the six million dollars, after inflation, is not worth much more than forty-six bucks.

I wanted to wear the X-Ray Specs I ordered from the back of a comic book for the rest of my life.
The X-Ray Specs consist of plastic frames with cardboard lenses that have a hole filled with red threads. The ad suggests that I will be able to see through girl’s clothing, amongst other things. The only way I can see “through” anything is if a person is standing in front of a bright light. And then I only see a shadowed outline. Since I am now stuck wearing these things for the rest of my life, I am ostracized throughout high school. I become an isolated misfit. The only job I am able to find is at a joke shop. I am arrested several times for harassment after stalking women who are wearing dresses and are standing in front of unusually bright lights. I get a good lawyer. He supplies the judge and jury with similar X-Ray Specs. They see how lousy they are and conclude, also, that you can’t really see shit with them.

I wanted to be able to use The Force.
I find that whenever my little brother Danny is annoying me I am able, like Darth Vader, to make him feel like he is choking. I also try to do some good things, too, such as mentally lift the sofa my mother wants to move across the room or write essays for school by lying on my bed reading comics while “the Force” types my paper across the room. But I find that the chokehold trick becomes more and more useful. I am able to dispatch bullies with a wink. I am able to get liquor store clerks to let me buy beer when I’m fifteen. But after awhile this truly gets away from me—anyone who pisses me off gets the chokehold: the driver who cuts me off, my bosses, the guy in the theater who keeps text-messaging during the movie. I can’t control it anymore. I hire a lawyer to sue George Lucas. We lose due to Mr. Lucas’s phalanx of attorneys. My lawyer, the judge, and George Lucas mysteriously die of asphyxiation.