VORTEX
By Kevin J. Curtis
Reginald
Vortex was the furthest thing from a superhero. He was smallish and slightly
overweight. He wore glasses and had a rather prominent nose. Beneath this protuberance,
was a thin line of a moustache that adorned his upper lip.
Next-door
to Reginald and his wife Twitchy, lived the Butt-Pollens; with whom Reginald
did not get along well with. The family was crass and insisted on making
everything their business—and shouting
advice to Reginald at any given
moment.
“You
ought to trim that bush,” barked Oscar Butt-Pollen; patriarch of the
Butt-Pollen family.
Reginald
looked at the small, scraggly spirea and replied, “Yeah, maybe.”
Oscar’s
wife Ginger Butt-Pollen was hanging dingy underwear from an equally dingy clothesline.
She added, “I’d paint that fence if I was you.”
Reginald
looked at the weathered wooden fence and replied, “Yeah, maybe.”
The
Butt-Pollen’s son Max came whooshing past down the sidewalk on his skateboard.
He scared the bejeezus out of Reginald’s cat Morris, who he’d named after the
cat in the TV commercials from the 70’s.
“You
should get rid of that cat!” yelled Max Butt-Pollen as he flew past.
“Definitely
not!” shouted Reginald Vortex—as he began to grow annoyed.
“See
here!” yelled back Oscar Butt-Pollen. “No need to take it out on the boy! We
all know that cat is a menace!”
“How
so?” challenged Reginald.
“Why
it…” began Oscar. But before he could continue, the Butt-Pollen’s dog, Major
Butt-Pollen, was at the weathered wooden fence barking his challenge to the
Vortex cat.
Knowing
exactly where the fence was and that he
could circumvent the structure while the barking dog could not, Morris Vortex hissed
loudly at Major Butt-Pollen before hopping on the top of the fence and trotting
down its length with the dog in fast pursuit.
“There!”
shouted Oscar Butt-Pollen. “Do you see now what a menace that feline is?”
“All
I can see or hear is your dog barking,”
replied Reginald.
“Reginald!”
called out Twitchy from the window of their bungalow. “What has that dog so
upset?”
“He’s
a menace!” Reginald shouted back at his wife.
“See
here!” shouted Oscar Butt-Pollen.
“Put
a sock in it!” Reginald shouted back; as he stepped through the side door of
his garage and pulled it closed behind him.
Once
inside, Reginald reached down and grabbed the bumper of his Dodge pickup truck.
Slowly he lifted the front end off of the garage floor. When the truck was a
foot off the ground, he slowly set it back down. Just then, Twitchy opened the
door.
“What
are you doing in here?” she asked.
“I
just lifted my truck a foot off the ground,” replied Reginald.
Twitchy
looked pensive, and then she began to laugh. “Sure you did Reggie,” she said as
she laughed her way back into the house.
Off
in the distance, a loud explosion blasted through the peaceful neighborhood!
Reginald Vortex looked up from his daydreaming and pulled down the stairway that
led up into the attic at the top of the garage. He climbed up the steps and
quickly came back down wearing a cape, tights and a red tunic. Exiting the
garage via a secret back entrance, he emerged in the alley between the Vortex
garage and the Butt-Pollen garage. Suddenly and without warning, Reginald had
become “The Vortex!”
Reaching
upward, The Vortex began to rise
above the houses. He flew across the neighborhood at a blinding speed and
landed seven blocks away at the site of a building collapse! Quickly, the
superhero pushed the brickwork back into place as he righted the building and
flew back toward home—satisfied that he had once again, saved the day!
Back
at the site of the building collapse, the demolition crew looked confused as
they stared at the building they had painstakingly set explosives inside of
before setting off the charges to implode the outdated structure.
After
landing in the alley and entering his garage through the secret entrance,
Reginald quickly changed in the garage attic before coming back down the stairs
and lifting the ladder back up to close the attic entrance. He walked back out
into his yard and was immediately noticed by the Butt-Pollens.
“Did
you hear that explosion?” asked Oscar Butt-Pollen.
“It
sounded like the entire city was being bombed!” said Ginger Butt-Pollen.
“Yeah,
maybe,” said Reginald Vortex; as he escaped into his bungalow.
KJC20150812
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