No more quotation marks. Threw them down the garbage disposal. They looked like blackened scallions. Sacred scarabs, scurrying.

Superman was a bad bird. Bad.

No flap. No limbs out like a Stratofortress. Like someone would when sitting up in bed and yawning. Not out, out. Like a crucifix.

Meeting him in person would be a letdown save for a couple of things. One, the thickness and stiffness of the cape and how up close, its material appears more cabernet than fire truck, like a rich theater drape that has a regal, ascending disposition that arcs almost higher than his ears behind him, like a gargoyle’s wings.

And two, the scarce amount of light that bounces off an igneous head of hair.