AVERAGE MAN

As a young man, he had always had the fantasy. Actually, he had had it even earlier, as a boy. Sometimes, it would reveal itself in his dreams. Sometimes, he would write or draw those ideas, those possibilities he wished he could indulge in. Silly, he would tell himself. Wanting to live and act in ways beyond any reality. Fantasy.
Gradually, life had ground the fantasy away. Ground it to its core. Dreary, repetitive days washed over it and him, waves over rock, until only the very essence of it remained. All traces of embellishment, all the trappings of colour and drama sluiced from its center. He sometimes missed those bits of flotsam. Mostly, he reveled in the firmness of his dream. There had been times when that hadn’t been the case, and he had indulged in the trappings of the fantasy, rather than its true essence. No longer.
Still, he had to live. In order to survive, he did only what was necessary. He toiled at a job rather than strive in a career. He ate and drank as needed, rather than feasting on life. He had a wife rather than a great love affair. The only energy he ever truly expended was that which he used to maintain his illusion of happiness to the rest of the world. Passion he reserved exclusively for the one part of his life that truly engaged him. Fantasy.
Perverse would be what they would have called it. His passion was one that would never have been accepted by his peers as acceptable. Normal men didn’t indulge in or even spend time considering the notions that he did. Perverse.
No one ever knew. No one ever even suspected. The people around him, even those closest to him, saw just what they expected to see. Happy, fulfilled and content was the portrayal and it was wholly and completely believable. His wife, his children, his parents, his friends; they were all so easily mislead. Lying was the kindest thing he felt that he could do for them. To let them discover the bitter truth would be beyond painful for them. It would force them to face not only his failings, but also their own. Despite all of his deceptions, his love and admiration for the people around him was no lie. It was the only thing that kept him alive.
The figurative gun had been to his head more times than he could remember. Not a real gun, to be sure. He didn’t own such a weapon. Sometimes, it was a knife at his wrist, deliciously cool, deadly sharp and inviting. Other times the temptation had been the deadly rattle from a bottle of medication or a lingering, longing gaze up the side of a very tall building. Once, he had almost driven his car off the road at a tree. Airbags had saved him that time. Not by deploying, but just by existing. He suspected that he probably wouldn’t die, saved by the passive safety measures in his vehicle. The last thing he wanted to do was cry for help. That would be how it would be characterized if he only attempted suicide. He had to be absolutely sure. No half measures, no nearly, no almost. Live or die, nothing in between. That thought, that somehow he might fail and find himself in a hospital bed rather than oblivion, always stopped him before he could end his irrelevance.
The problem continued to be the living. Life was beyond boring. It wasn’t really even life. Existence. One day blending with the next, punctuated only by the most rare and most extreme of sensations. He found joy in nothing, pain in nothing. Meaningless days followed meaningless nights. His family went on meaningless vacations, getting him away from his meaningless job. Only his fantasy had any reality and that only in the fleeting moments that he could spare for it. Even time worked against him, taken up with the ubiquitous needs of a life that held no interest for him.
What he could not know was that all these things were about to change, in a very surprising way. If he had known, he might have chosen that moment to go on one of those meaningless vacations. Not that it would have saved him.


On this particular Sunday afternoon, the entire Wilson clan, parents, children and even the surviving grandparents from both sides of the family were gathered in Will Wilson’s mid sized suburban back yard for a barbeque. Burgers and dogs sizzled loudly over the burner while conversation floated over the fences into the neighboring backyards in the area. Nearly everyone who mattered to the Wilsons was currently in the backyard just then, except for the patriarch himself, Will Wilson. He was in the house, in the washroom specifically.
A particularly average face stared back at him while he lathered up his hands in the sink. Without conscious thought, he caused the soap to sluice from his wet flesh, holding his average hands beneath the tepid water. His still wet fingers ran through his thinning hair, smoothing it into submission for the moment. A deep, but quiet sigh escaped through his slightly parted lips, followed by his smallish, pink tongue which wet his lips as he mentally pasted a half hearted smile on them.
The house was empty of life except for him at the moment. Peace of this sort was a rarity to be sure, what with two children, a wife and a dog in the family. With a very few exceptions, the Wilson home was a constantly loud, active and often chaotic place. To describe the current state of relative calm as one of bliss would not have been an overstatement in Mr. Wilson’s estimation. He further estimated that it was destined to be a short-lived peace, as all such moments in his life seemed to be. A second sigh joined the first, though his lips and into the past. Forgotten almost as it left his body, another insignificant moment added to the series of insignificant moments that made up his life.
Desperately, he wished that he didn’t have to go back to the yard. He wished that he didn’t have to face his family, spending yet another day lying to them about just how marvelous it was to be there and to be him and to be a part of such a wonderful family. Somewhere, there were people, probably a large number of them, who would have gladly traded places with him in a heartbeat. His life may have merely been an average one, but that put it far above the lot of a great many of his fellow human beings. Average should have been enough for him, but it wasn’t and it never could be. Therein lay the problem. The nature of his personal fantasy precluded average from ever being enough.
As he always did, he gathered his will, wrapped it firmly around his malaise and stepped from his momentary respite back into his real life. Only this time, he stepped from his malaise into a life he never had dared to believe he could have. He stepped out of his bathroom and into a bright white light. Then he fainted.

***

In high orbit, somewhere above mid-western North America a satellite, invisible to any conventional tracking systems, unfurled a small antenna. Moments later, a small screen lit up and began filling with rows of small symbols and letters familiar to the figure seated before the screen. The first lines contained longitude and latitude designations. It was the information in the following lines that made the seated figure lean closer to the screen. A smile formed on the face reflected in the small screen, a smile that never quite reached the reflected eyes.

***

“Extraordinary. Simply extraordinary.” The whispered words seemed to thunder in Will’s skull, pounding behind his eyes as if they were attempting to beat their way out of his head through his eye sockets. He did his best to suppress a pained groan. His best wasn’t very good.
“He always looks this way?” Same voice. Same result.
“That’s what I’m told.” Different voice. Same result.
“Shhh.” Will’s voice. Same result.
“Mr. Wilson. Glad you could join us. We didn’t expect our attentions would cause you this much trouble. Our apologies, but it was necessary.” The first voice spoke now in a more normal tone of voice. “The pain should subside shortly. It is unavoidable, but we were truly surprised that you were so affected. We assumed you would be, less…” The voice trailed off, and true to what it had said, so did some of the pain. Will steeled himself to what might happen and with a wince, opened his eyes.