Genre No. 2: The Flash Fiction

Clark Kent's Final Repose

It was the sixth times those fabled words were repeated that Clark lost it. Slamming his mug of coffee on the table, he got up and left without a word, aware of the surprised glares of Perry, Lois, Jimmy, and the rest of the Daily Planet staff behind him. As he walked out of the meeting room, he tried to remain as emotionless as possible as he walked past the cubicles and the seemingly mindless worker bees that occupied them. The newspaper industry had gone to shit ever since the internet had taken off in the turn of the millennium, and with that change had come a change in the type of people the Planet hired, boring emotionless, Millennials, who only thought about themselves. Clark hated them. Daily Planet sales had been plummeting for years, and everyone on the newspaper was in a bad mood, but no one’s mood was worse than Clark’s. As he got into the elevator, he figured this outbreak had been weeks coming. Signing, he pressed the button for the roof and watched as the elevator doors closed. It had always amused him how stupid the humans he worked with were, why you would have an elevator that led to an exposed roof with no ledge? He had saved enough jumpers over the years to know that open roof access was a bad idea. Nevertheless, the roof had served him well over the years, it was the perfect place to take off in pursuit of crimes, although in the past few years he hadn't used it as much he would have liked. “You’re getting old Clark” he said to himself as he stepped out onto the terrace. So it was true that the other guy hadn't made an appearance for a couple years, but that didn't mean he was dead. “I’ll show them” he thought, “I’m not dead, just retired.” In the years following his retirement, crime had spiked back up, and Luther, old and senile though he was, still owned most of the city. Metropolis was in a bad place, but he knew that if he went out for one more night, the whispers of his death would stop. He’d be idolized again, oh how he loved their adoration! It had fueled him almost as much as the Earth’s pleasant yellow sun. To be an ideal for them to strive for, that was what both his father’s, real and adopted, had told him to be. Taking off his suit (for he was getting to old to rip them off anymore), he stood there on the terrace, looking down at the passing cars and people below, scurrying around like ants through a maze. Oh, to fly again! It would feel so good to feel the wind brush against his face, to feel the wetness of the clouds against his soft skin. Not wanting to wait another moment, he leaped off the building. And as he soared through the sky, tears drenched his skin, he was flying again. He was back, Superman was not dead, and he was more alive than ever! The news was everywhere, but the Daily Planet had the inside scoop. It was their bestselling paper in the past five years, crowds lined up for a whole street behind newspaper stands just to get a look at the front page and its cover story,  The Death of a God: Superman Goes Splat.