Way back when I could only imagine what the top of a counter looked like, I longed to be something more than I was. I wanted to live in a daydream world, where anything could happen. Each day, I dressed up as in one of my many identities, taking on the attributes of that character. There was Spiderman Saturday, the day I would climb on the walls, Superman Sunday, Batman was Monday to Wednesday, and from Thursday to Friday I was a Power Ranger.

“Chris, it’s time for dinner,” my mother hollered. But, I did not reply. “Chris, I said it’s dinnertime. We’re having pizza. Don’t make me find you!”

Who did this person think she was? How could she find me, me Batman? Didn’t she know that Batman is a stealthy shadow of the night? I felt somewhat sorry for her, imagining her searching for hours. Perhaps I would change into my alter ego as Chris Delaney, her beloved son.

That chance presented itself when, by some strange turn of fate, I slid out from under the couch and sprinted toward my room. On my way, I slipped on something. Someone had left a sock in the hallway. As I slid, one thought crossed my mind: If I survived this crash, my secret identity will be discovered. There must be something in my utility belt to stop sudden impacts. Maybe if … SMACK! Even Batman feels pain. Or maybe this was Chris Delaney feeling the brunt of the wall’s blind fury.

“Oh my God! Chris, I’ve got to get you to a hospital.” Mom’s reaction was probably in response to my forehead, which had parted, much like the Red Sea. Although instead of Jews passing through, it was a gush of blood cells.

Maybe it was the tremendous pain that caused my numbness to the incident, or perhaps it was hours of watching television. I prefer to think that television had some effect because maybe then it wouldn’t get such a bad rap from parents who blame it for their child’s stupidity. I’ve always felt that television has a wrong stigma. Kids see stuff on TV and then copy it. But, in all honesty, these kids are the sort who would jump off a bridge anyway; at least they’re occupied when they’re watching TV. So, I pretended to act as if I had just won the Tour de France. My cheeks rose as I revealed my teeth for a smile. My hand covered in blood, ascended and I began to wave. This probably horrified my mom who was already in tears.

“Oh my God, it’s worse than I thought,” she probably had said. But at that moment, she was sobbing so hard that it just sounded like, “Smurf Smurf Smurfing Smurfi.” Maybe I was watching a bit too much TV after all. She put something on my head to block the blood from running down my cheeks. There was a sudden bite of cold; an ice pack had been thrust onto the wound.

The next events are hazy: I know I was brought to the hospital and put in a straitjacket. For all I cared, my blood could stain my new jacket; it was kind of tight anyway. I did not want those giant aliens touching me with those shiny metal tools. Everyone knows that aliens perform experiments on little children because they haven’t had time to destroy their bodies with evil things. They couldn’t fool me; I had seen a show on aliens – I think it was called “The Jetsons.”

Anyway, I reached for my utility belt, but it was gone. The aliens must have taken it. One of them reached toward me with his large green hand. In it was a giant needle that punctured the outer layer of my body. I began to feel happy – liquid in my head was moving as if the contents were a lava lamp. A tiny rush of happiness would spring up, bounce off the top of my head and then merge again with the rest of my head goo.

All of a sudden, the goo was gone and I was awake. My parents and my sister were there and the aliens! Actually, they turned out to be doctors, but now they had their masks off, so I could see that they were people – unless they had shape-shifted into a human form. Just in case, I clenched my mom’s hand tight as they approached. The head doctor examined my forehead as if he were reading an amusing Sunday comic.

“Ha, well, you’re going to be fine,” he said.

“You look tough,” my mom said.

“You look like Frankenstein,” my sister concluded.

And I did. There was a gigantic stupid-looking squiggly mark on my forehead shaped like a lightning bolt. I became a victim of circumstance. Perhaps if my parents had conceived me later, or had me cryogenically frozen, I could have been pretty cool. There’s this book about a famous young wizard who also has a lightning-shaped scar. He is the boy who lived, who survived the onslaught of an evil wizard. But I was only the boy who had a stupid line down his forehead from running into a wall. Or was I? I decided to tell my friends I had had brain surgery to make me smarter. So I became smart.