Inaction Man awoke with a start, his consciousness having jumped from one dimension to another. He scrambled out from under the bush that was his home and his wormhole. A fit of coughing and the discharge of phlegm startled two star-crossed lovers, sitting on a nearby bench.
He shuffled into the setting sun with no idea where he was going but with the certain knowledge that he had to go somewhere. Getting there would require all his powers of indecision.
He found himself, about a half-an-hour later, sitting on a bench on a wide street near a park, watching the last shards of daylight disappearing over the tops of the buildings.
On the other side of the road, a small pub was doing a brisk trade. Smokers huddled on the terrace outside, sipping beer and clutching cigarettes, and watched the world go by. Except, of course, for the part of the world directly in front of them; a part of the world that contained a dishevelled tramp in his forties, who rocked to and fro and mumbled nonsense to himself.
Inaction Man watched the people pass in front of the pub and pitied them. He saw them every day, at five in the afternoon, or others like them, moving from work to home, from one box to another, oblivious to the changing world around them.
A man opened a car door nearby and Inaction Man tried to warn him of the dangers.
“Oh lotus eater of the FOG, wrapped up in repetition. You turn to stone. Free yourself of possession!”
“Get a job!” the man spat back, and quickly entered his car, locking it centrally, and then speeding away.
Inaction Man shuddered to think that he too had once been such a man, before he saw the truth, but he had no time to think about that now. He had to watch each passer-by with the eyes of a hawk, ever watchful for Shape Changers or Changelings among them.
He was also aware of more mundane matters, such as his hunger. He would need to eat something if he was to make it through the dark night ahead.
The main problem was that Inaction Man was not in possession of any of what mortals referred to as money; a means of exchange without which living in modern society was terribly difficult, even for superheroes. Inaction Man had to waste a lot of valuable time trying to obtain money, and he could not understand why the Elementals who had made him a superhero had not had the foresight to also create a superhero bank account for him.
He did not need to live lavishly, but he did have needs, just like everyone else: the need to eat, for example; the need for whiskey to keep his skin water tight and prevent his insides from seeping through to his outsides; and the need to occasionally drink methylated spirits to promote visions. But now he needed food.
He looked at the bar again and noticed that a man had just been given a cheese sandwich. However, experience had taught him that food missions such as this one are fraught with difficulties. People, he knew, could be very reluctant to part with things, even when another's need was far greater than their own. They could even become violent if they perceive themselves to have been the victim of theft. It was, therefore, essential to explain to the giver that they were not victims of petty theft, but rather contributors to a greater cause; active participants in the battle of good against evil.
Inaction Man approached the fat man with the sandwich head on, crossing the road and walking up to him with his hand outstretched in a gesture of peace, which Inaction Man had also noted sometimes had the effect of encouraging people to donate cash to the cause.
The man saw and smelt Inaction Man coming and tried not to look alarmed. Inaction Man, however, who had an acute nose for fear, knew straight away that he was disturbed by his presence and tried to calm him.
“Fear not, Fat Man. I may be a superhero, but I was once a mere mortal, like you are now.”
“Ya what?!”
“I shall come directly to the point, obese benefactor, for I can see you are a man who appreciates brevity; a man of few words; a man deeply in tune with this age of reason.
“What are ya bleedin' on about, ya dipso?”
“I am Inaction Man; defender of the day; last bastion against the amassing forces of the Night Lords. I hereby charge you, in the name of all that's good and holy, to relinquish your sandwich to me, for I have need of it.”
“Get yis yer own bloody sandwich, ya smelly bum! Now, get away ta f**k!”
Inaction Man, inflamed by this coarse language, felt himself losing his temper.
“Release the baguette unto me, lest you should feel the wrath of Inaction Man.”
“The rat o' wot?”
At this point, the baguette found itself in Inaction Man's hand, but he had not taken it. To take something in this way would have been to act, and to act was bad enough in itself, but to act in such a way would have brought disrepute to the name of Inaction Man. A superhero may persuade someone to give, but he must never steal.
Rather, the baguette had made its own way into Inaction Man's hand, obviously choosing Inaction Man over the fat man. In Inaction Man's experience, even so-called inanimate objects can in fact move, given sufficient cause. Further evidence of this was that the baguette then made its way down Inaction Man's trousers, attempting to cement the relationship between them. Half of the baguette stuck out of Inaction Man's trousers, flaunting its infidelity to the fat man.
He did not take kindly to this rejection by his sandwich and deluded himself into believing that Inaction Man had stolen it. In a rage, he clenched his fist and punched Inaction Man on the nose, knocking him backwards. Inaction Man stumbled and fell into the gutter, dazed and confused, bloodied but not broken. He realised that events were very serious and would require all of his powers of inaction.
He lay quite still in the gutter and focused not on the towering angry figure above him, but instead on the stars in the night sky above both of them. He saw a billion points of light, all dependent on him, all willing him to succeed and defeat the forces of dark matter.
He held onto this thought as the fat man kicked him over and over again: in his face; in his ribs; in his stomach. He even vented his frustration on his erstwhile sandwich, and stamped it into mush, determined that if he could not have it, no-one would.
Inaction Man began to lose consciousness, pummelled as he was by the fat man; this breaker of bones, this settler of arguments, this teacher of lessons.
Eventually the police arrived and pulled the fat man away, bundling him into a police car, much to his annoyance. Inaction Man saw none of this, lost as he was in unconsciousness; contemplating the beauty of the heavens from within the confines of his own mind, entering that Zen state of complete inaction, complete inactivity.
Travel Writing
Crossing the Road in Saigon
(From Notes on Nam)