All My Friends Are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman Page A

Perfectionist’s head down until their foreheads meet.
    ‘Close your eyes,’ the Clock whispers.
    ‘They are closed.’
    ‘Close them.’
    The Perfectionist closes her eyes. The Clock begins to hum. The hum is high-pitched and steady. It drowns out the seagulls and the surf. The Perfectionist can feel it in her chest. It keeps getting louder. It fills her ears. She can’t think about anything else. Then it’s gone. All sound is gone.
    ‘We’re here,’ the Clock says.
    The Perfectionist opens her eyes. She sees nothing. It’s white. All white. There’s no up. There’s no down. No horizon. Nothing. It’s just white.
    ‘Clock, what is this?’ asks the Perfectionist. Her voice is shaky.
    ‘This is the future.’
    ‘This is the future?’ the Perfectionist asks. Her mouth is dry. She forces herself to swallow.
    ‘Why is the future like this?’
    ‘Because it hasn’t happened yet,’ says the Clock.
    The Perfectionist wakes up. She’s on the airplane. She feels the plane’s descent. She flares her nostrils. She breathes, deeply. She can still smell Tom.

SIXTEEN

INVISIBILITY
    Tom isn’t considered invisible since his invisibility is isolated to the Perfectionist. But there are invisible superheroes, who can be divided into two groups: those who can switch from visible to invisible at will, and those who are invisible at all times. David Duncan falls into the second group. After five months of Tom’s isolated invisibility, the Amphibian wrote David Duncan’s phone number on a piece of paper. He gave that piece of paper to Tom.
    ‘You should call him,’ the Amphibian urged. They were drinking beer at the Diplomatico on College Street.
    ‘Why?’ Tom asked.
    ‘Because he used to be the Blue Outcast and he’s one of the few invisibles who’ll talk to you.’
    ‘What would I talk to him about?’
    ‘Being invisible.’
    ‘But I’m not invisible.’
    ‘He might have, you know, a perspective. He might have advice for you.’
    Tom took the number. He folded it into his wallet.
    Three days later, just after the Perfectionist stopped smoking, Tom found an airline ticket to Vancouver sitting on the kitchen table. He understood the consequences and became desperate. He called David Duncan. Duncan agreed to meet him at Pauper’s Pub, a fake English pub on Bloor Street.
    David Duncan had come out of the womb invisible. The nurse washed away the blood and afterbirth to find nobody there. As a toddler he’d wiggle out of his diaper. His parents had to wait until he cried from hunger to find him. They almost died of worry. They took the drastic step of painting him blue.
    Using a water-based non-toxic paint, they kept him painted until he was five years old. On his first day of school his parents left the decision with him. He could choose to remain blue or to return to his natural invisible state.
    David went up to the bathroom. He had an hour until the school bus arrived. He filled the sink with water. He washed all the blue away and looked at himself in the mirror. Lifting his toothbrush, he watched it float through the air. It terrified him. He decided to remain blue.
    David attended public school painted blue. He made no friends. He became the Blue Outcast.
    All during high school the Blue Outcast resisted the temptation to sneak into the girls’ changeroom. Not once did he steal into a teacher’s desk. He always paid to see a movie.
    Graduating with average marks, the Blue Outcast got a job at a call centre and a one-bedroom apartment just east of Church Street. He led a solitary life. Every morning he would paint himself blue like other men shave. No one ever suspected he was invisible. They just thought he was weird.
    Then one day, a Wednesday, the Blue Outcast worked late at the call centre. He waited for the 6:04 streetcar. Normally he got the 5:15. This is where he saw her. She was hard to miss. She was orange.
    The Blue Outcast was in line for the front doors of the streetcar. The Orange Exile