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After I finally mastered my superpowers, I had a very busy rest of the year.
I'm not quite up to the level of the whole crimefighting thing yet. I'm still having fun.
- New York City has quite a few rooftop gardens. I'd pick a real lush one, fly up there, and just lounge around in a deck chair until the tenant walks outside with a hanging jaw. "Hi! How ya doin," I'd say. "I'm a hallucination brought on by ingesting too much xenon." Then I'd holler "IT'S ALL UP TO YOU NOW TIMMY" and skedaddle.
- I'd get dressed up all natty and go to job interviews down on Wall Street. When they would tell me they were looking for someone with more qualifications (as in any) I'd tell them "Sorry to bother you" and go straight out the window.
- I bought a 3 foot diameter mini trampoline from a little sporting goods store. Brought it back, told the guy there was something wrong with it, persuaded him to let me show him out in the street. I jumped on it and just kept on rising till I was a speck. Walked back in the store an hour later to tell him "See man, that thing's DANGEROUS!"
- More prop comedy: Got a parachute, hovered in front of a 59th floor window. Knock knock. "Can you help me? It's stuck, it doesn't wanna go the last 500 feet."
- For Halloween I was Harry Potter, complete with broom. I pointed my wand at all the little trick-or-treaters and watched them flee.
- If I were a firefighter, I would get cats out of trees, but I don't like cats, so I put them up there instead.
- I tag all the police helicopters I see with PIGS FLY in bright pink. What's really funny is that they always think they'll be able to catch me.
- If I'm feeling benevolent I just go to a crowd or a lineup and toss some candy. You'd be amazed how many smiles are inside a bag of jellybeans.
- You think a snowstorm looks pretty from behind glass. You should see it from the snow's point of view.
- One night I went to a skyscraper construction site and used day glo spray paint to put a different sentence on each I-beam. My 3-D novel. At the end (on the roof) you find out the butler did it. With the poodle.
But I did some math. Manhattan has approximately 37,652 buildings. With approximately 3,389,725 windows. That's way too many for one guy to fly by.
So you know what I always see in the city? These preschool classes out on a walk. As though someone scoured the land for the cutest people all two foot high and different colors. Their teacher leading them in a line with one big rope tied to every wrist so no one gets lost.
And when these kids see me floating there grinning at them, always, invariably, one of them pops up off the sidewalk BOING without even trying. No one's taught them what's impossible yet.
I take my trusty box cutter and liberate these free thinkers. They're on my team now. I make them straighten up and fly right.
And when these kids grow up they're each headed out to a different city. Yeah, the trend started in New York, like everything, but it's on its way to you, to every little corner of America.
O beautiful for spacious skies.