Microfiction – 053/365

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Roger fancied himself something of a superhero. Not someone bulletproof who could leap tall buildings at a single bound, or who with pinpoint accuracy and an effete bend of a wrist could somehow excrete a seemingly endless supply of a strong, flexible super adhesive material with incredible velocity and force.

No mask. No Costume. No, he was simply a doer of good deeds. Helpful to the helpless. Giver to the needy. He was: Samaritan Man!

Roger wasn’t sure from where in his make-up it stemmed, but he remember when it started. It was way back when he was 13 and after school one afternoon found the crying toddler lost and alone walking on the sidewalk past the Wilton Place duplex he’d shared with his mom and a stray cat they adopted and named Scotty because his mom said every cat’s name should have an “s” in it.

Without hesitation he went outside to the child and asked him his name and where he lived but there was too much terror and crying going on for the kid to answer. So he took the boy by the hand, brought him inside, and after setting him up on the living room sofa with some juice, called the police. By the time they arrived Roger had calmed the child down, turning his tears to giggles by bringing out some old stuffed animals he hadn’t touched in years — old Blue Dog and Tee Bear — and playing with them in front of him. The distraught parents from a couple houses down showed up shortly thereafter and had to face some pretty stern questions from the attending officers, such as “Please explain to me how a parent allows a 3-year-old child to wander out of a house , much less half a block down the sidewalk of a busy street?”

Since then, with varying degrees of regularity if he enountered someone or something in need of aid, he came to it. Whether it was the elderly crossing the street too slowly before impatient drivers, broken-down vehicles, abandoned animals, lost souls. It didn’t matter.

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