I, Leaf
The first chapter of a story I'd dreamed of writing since I was a kid, but shamefully abandoned after disheartening feedback.
I don’t expect anyone to read this.
I was maybe seven years old when Leafman first flitted into my imagination. I did a project for school about comics, and part of that included creating my own superhero strip. Sadly I no longer have that project as, at the end of the year, our teacher tore up our projects and threw them away. Possibly to have the paper recycled? I never found out, but remember being horrified by her callousness.
Over the years I’d sketch Leafman, doodle his adventures, dream of the world he lived in, the characters he’d meet, what sort of catchphrase he’d have…
Eventually, around 2009, I figured I’d have a go at writing a Leafman novel. But for who? Turns out my writing style was more an overwriting style, grotesquely overloaded with wordplay and far too referential for kids. But at the same time, too silly for adults.
I suppose, honestly, really only I was the audience.
So I wrote three chapters, a mad bit of world building, building to the introduction of my lovely little Leafman. And I sent it to a few children’s book editors to see if I was onto something. Only one showed any interest, but when we met, though generally keen, he explained to me everything I was doing wrong, and everything I needed to do to fix it, and though I probably should have listened to him, his version of my story wasn’t the one I was interested in writing, so I dropped the idea.
It nags me, though. The feeling that I should have stuck with it. Or tried again. Or just done something other than nothing. So having recently rediscovered the three chapters I painstakingly created to no avail, since this is my blog and there’s no one around to stop me, I figured what the hell? I might as well whack it up here and by all means, if you must, unsubscribe in disgust.
Without further ado, then, or expectation, here’s the first chapter of I, Leaf.
1. Life on Orth
Like an ancient crone with mints on her breath and a knicker draw stuffed like a pepper with potpourri, the breeze was gentle, cool and fragrant. Like a stout professor with a belly full of bacon butties, wobbling in pursuit of a bus just out of reach, the sun was big, bright and hot. The trees, their leaves rustling with gossip, their branches swaying to some secret tropical rhythm, seemed content, almost cheerful. Even dogs and cats appeared at peace, and cats with mice, and mice with cheese.
Regardless, it was a dark and stormy day on Orth.
A group had gathered, grown into a crowd, transformed into a mass, drawn and spellbound by events unfolding high above their heads. Beyond their understanding too, for even the most perceptive among them failed to appreciate, at the time, that everything was changing. That the balance between good and evil, once so heavily stacked in favour of truth and righteousness, was tipping violently in the direction of dishonesty and injustice.
The general consensus was that, although undeniably entertaining, what the good, the not-quite-so-good and the borderline-iffy inhabitants of Marvel City were about to witness was, essentially, a common-or-garden superhero scrap. No more, no less. Just another average, everyday, life-or-death struggle between a self-appointed city guardian and a criminally-inclined delusional nutcase. A villain whose evil, cackling laugh and needlessly complex illicit plan did little to protect him when the meaty hand of goodness gathered itself into a five-fingered fist of beefy justice and delivered a mighty, skull-rattling blow of why-did-I-get-up-this-morning mystification and jeepers-that-hurts-from-my-toes-to-my-peepers painfulness.
Invariably the villain would fail. Come to think of it, they always failed. Not just nearly, really, but actually really, every single time. So, although a super-powered bust up was always good for a laugh, much like a well-staged panto or an overdose of laughing gas, what with the outcome being a foregone conclusion, it tended to lack something in the drama department. Still, unless you were late for your tea or had to urgently tie your shoelace or something, they were usually worth stopping for and having a bit of a gawk at.
As was often the case, the battle raged on and around the roof of a non-descript and sparsely populated five-to-ten-storey building. Quite why superhero fisticuffs so regularly occurred on such elevated city locations had long been a matter of debate among the nerds of Orth. Some maintained that since so many of the superpowered community, both good and bad, are able to fly, or at least leap with epic bounds, that big, empty rooftops are a perfectly normal place to land for action. We have the pavements, the sidewalks and the streets, so they take the rooftops, the clouds and the roofs of floating blimps.
Others believed it was more the hero’s doing, that by restricting typically violent big city encounters to rooftops, they were protecting innocent locals from collateral damage. Which is to say, when ray guns blast, when skull-shaped bombs explode and when tiny robot spiders spray their venom like glugging cats marking their territory, if at the very least these proceedings unfurl some forty or fifty metres above the heads of regular Orthonians, then certainly that limits the likelihood of nearby innocents getting hurt.
Cynics suggest, however, that high rise shenanigans are largely orchestrated by the bad guys, an egotistical bunch who, starved for attention in early life, treat the world like a stage for their maniacal wrongdoings, showing off for all they think they’re worth on a raised platform that folk can see from far and wide.
One final possibility, and this was the option favoured by conspiracy theorists and other crackpots, is that rooftop brawls were somehow arranged by a singularly-powerful, double-dastardly and triple-secret cadre of chiropractors bent on the exploitation of rubbernecking bystanders who, after devoting a good thirty minutes or more to gazing up at the elevated antics of super types, developed painful neck cricks that required the urgent, expensive attentions of bone-cracking, sinew-twisting, muscle-smushing professionals.
More relevant to our story, tough, than the reason for the location of this particular rumble, is who started it, who finished it, and what happened to the heroes in the middle. These were happenings of a sort best described as unimaginable, though obviously right after they’d occurred they had to downgraded to imaginable, as, well, they’d happened. Still, they remained startling enough to send a shiver down the spines of all those who recalled them. Mind-boggling enough to boggle the minds of even the most brainy, brawny Orthonian.
Back to the beginning, then. It had all started out so… typically.
A figure, dressed half in black and half in white from boots to mask, stood firmly at the edge of the rooftop in question, cackling with the force of a dozen healthy witches, punctuating his arrival by shooting a blast of something loud, orange and lasery into the sky from a ray-gun the size of a traditional vacuum cleaner. Though bulky, it was undeniably cool, all polished chrome and see-through glass with a metallic grey finish and a pulsing background hum, like a swarm of invisible hornets.
“Citizens of Marvel City,” hissed the two-tone figure as best he could, though there was a nasal timbre to his voice that diffused the menacing quality he was aiming for with a dash of annoying weasel. The voice was familiar too, though the costume, and the boom stick, were new.
“I have a message for you, and your heroes.” He paused to sneer, revealing cracked and jagged teeth that were, like his costume, alternately black and white. “I don’t expect you’ll like it very much.” Another pause. Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t in a hurry, evidently enjoying the drama, and the attention, of the growing throng.
“I… am… The IdMaster!” His name he bellowed with particular ferocity, stabbing his signature weapon, later identified as The IdBlaster, into the air with every over-enunciated syllable. Though he was plainly proud of his menacing new moniker, the general consensus was that it sounded less super-villainy than it did like some new piece of exercise equipment. Like, ‘Bid goodbye to flabby thighs with The IdMaster!’ Or ‘Vanquish unsightly bottom-wobble with a daily dose of IdMaster!’
Despite this arguable shortcoming, he’d still managed to capture the attention of the crowds on the ground, and, far off in the distance still, a flying speck of khaki green that grew larger and more distinct by the second.
“I am not a good person,” he continued, proving that he could, at the very least, be an honest one. “And I am not alone. For years now my associates and I have been thwarted – outwitted and humiliated – by the self-appointed guardians of Orth. By Law and Peace and The Chew Crew, by The Sheriff and General Good. You’ve relied on them to keep you safe. To guard your property. Even make you breakfast.”
The IdMaster’s eyes narrowed. Some said they saw him lick his lips, like he was about to tuck into a delicious buffalo steak, or a Dairylea Cheese and Ricicle sandwich (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it). “You’re lazy and you’re weak and you’re soft and soon, very soon, there won’t be anyone to protest you from me. From us. From him...”
A smile now. “How about we get the ball rolling on this bold new era of Orthonian life by every one of you handing over your valuables?” There was a rumble from the crowd, a collective tone of disbelief that could have been distilled into the catch-all phrase, “huh?”
“That’s correct,” clarified The IdMaster. “Every one of you below me. Every one of you listening. This is a stick up. Give me everything. Every wallet and watch, every gadget and gizmo, every ring and bauble between you. Unless you value those things more than you do your life, drop them without question into this giant sock.”
At that, The IdMaster threw a very large, red and wooly, sock-shaped sack into the air. Slowly it floated down towards the crowd, which was about a thousand strong now. It landed in a puddle, roughly in the middle of the incredulous assembly. People looked around at one another. There was a lot of frowning and shrugging.
The thing was, he was alone up there, The IdMaster, a solitary figure on the roof of Marvel City’s fanciest plush toy store, Stuff the Animals. Conspicuously unsupported by ground-level henchmen, even with the apparent destructive power of the IdBlaster, his attempt at a mass-mugging seemed destined for disappointment.
Surely he realised that? This odd black-and-white man. Given the near-perfect failure rate of super-villainous misdeedery on Orth. Surely The IdMaster couldn’t expect his theatrics to harvest any kind of return? Unless… Unless… Unless he wasn’t really there for the stuff. Unless he had a different agenda. A secret agenda. An agenda so very cunning it would have taken a thousand foxes a thousand years to decipher. Well, maybe not THAT cunning. But cunning enough. Cunning enough to fool say, a hundred foxes who’d only had a hundred years to figure things out.
Brandishing his weapon in as threatening a manner as he could muster, aiming it squarely at the Marvelites below, The IdMaster added, for dramatic good-measure, “I thank you in advance for your drone-like co-operation. My condolences to the families of any who resist.”
“I could say the same about yours,” boomed Steven, a burly, floating man who wasn’t great with one-liners. Do you remember that distant, khaki dot several paragraphs ago? Well, this was it, or rather him, a plain-dressed superhero with shiny black, Doc Martin boots, neatly pressed army trousers and a crisp white shirt. No mask. No superhero name. That stuff was all too silly for Steven. But he could fly, he could punch a bad guy into next week, and he had just arrived to save the day. At the time, it seemed like that would be enough.
Generally, more usually and as a rule, however, the people of Orth preferred their heroes to do their heroing with a little more showmanship. Liked their good guys to exude a bit more flash and sparkle. Capes, masks and a catchy name might not have been essential to the preservation of law and order, but they helped hold the attention of easily distracted onlookers. In a nutshell, watching Steven was like sitting through a moderately entertaining Christmas panto where half the actors stayed in their home clothes. It kind of took you out of the moment.
“Hello Steven,” weaseled The IdMaster, who actually seemed happy to have attracted the attention of a floaty do-gooder. “Right on cue. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the-”
Steven interrupted. “I know who you are. The costume’s new. The gun too. But you I remember. I never forget a voice that’s begged me for mercy.”
“You’re mistaken,” asserted The IdMaster. “I am-”
Again, Steven cut in. “You, rooftop villain, are OddSox. You steal odd socks. You wear a costume made from socks. Your signature weapon is a smelly sock with a few stones inside. You drive the Sockmobile and live in a bungalow called Socktopia. And I seem to remember,” he concluded with a patronising smirk, “that after I karate chopped you in the kidneys three years ago, and carted you off to prison for masterminding the Great Sock Heist of ’07, you swore you’d one day sock it to me.”
Irritated with Steven’s uncommonly eloquent précis of his former identity, The IdMaster shrieked, “Better late than never!” Lifting the IdBlaster to shoulder height and staring through the scope, he paused only to deliver a brief origin monologue.
“It’s true, I was OddSox, once,” he relented. “But my passion for odd socks faded after three year’s hard labour in the prison laundry. Day in, day out, I was forced to wash thousands of the things, all white, all pairs. Eventually I couldn’t even remember what it was about odd socks that I used to love.
“That’s when I met him,” continued The IdMaster, briefly lost in his own back story. Though Steven was visibly bored and itching to pound the rambling wrongdoer in the kidneys, he decided to give his nostalgic nemesis another minute before the smashing commenced.
“He saved me. Changed me. Gave me purpose. A new identity. And a toy.” The IdMaster gestured to his shiny new weapon, which was about a million times better than a smelly sock packed with pebbles. “This wonderful toy. Would you like to play?”
Impervious to bullets, bites, power rays, poisons, rockets, stony socks and bony elbows, the hovering hero actually laughed. Threw his head back and everything. Held his sides like they were aching too.
“Go ahead, sock boy,” he taunted. “Give me your best shot.”
By all means, discourage me from sharing chapter 2 next week.