part 7: day two

FROM THE ARCHIVES:

I was #5K3^♠︎, a bookstore owner from Trier. My favourite genre is fantasy so that is our store specialty; but I despise Harry Potters. There is something weird about it that I cannot quite put into words, so you will not find any of the volumes in our bookshop. We feature a lot of lesser-known authors and to help these budding authors gain more exposure, we offer books for hire —— that means that we function as a mini library where customers can rent books for a set amount of time for a small fee. My wife and I travelled to Japan in a summer two decades ago and discovered that the Japanese and some other Asians do this with manga¹ and thought it was a great idea. Besides, it is also quite eco-friendly. 

Since the dawn of the superpowers, there was a spike in fantasy book sales.  Suddenly a lot of people swarmed into our store, das Regal; because we dedicate a bookshelf to collections of stories written by local kids that are often submitted by their schoolteachers with permission from their parents. And checked out a lot of superhero books. For fear that readers might imitate some of the nefarious acts in certain books, we hid some of the darkest ones in the basement. Though they could easily find another copy elsewhere, it is always reassuring to know that we did not contribute to anything malicious… since evil happens all the time, and sometimes it prevails. 

My superpower was omnirespiration —— I could breath everywhere, under water, in fire, at high altitudes —— basically anywhere with oxygen deficit. I needed a few days to discover my special skill, since I normally spend my time at oxygen-rich locations like my house, das Regal, or the forest. Then, some Frozos, as they called themselves, decided to turn part of river Moselle into an ice skating rink. Frozos were people equipped with the capability to freeze things as they wish, kind of like the opposite of Pyros. These two superpowers hated each other and always tried to prove their superiority by attempting “to make the lives of others better.” So while the Pyros were holding a barbecue festival that would end with a promised biggest campfire anyone had ever seen, the Frozos were freezing a river. They marketed the event as the “longest natural ice skating rink in the history of Germany,” they also organised speed iceskating competitions along some lengths with prizes sponsored by wealthy Frozos.   

I am not a huge fan of grilling so I opted to go to the cooler event; pun intended. I had not skated in years but I believed that my wife would not want me to miss this once-in-a-lifetime chance of skating on Moselle. When I arrived around noon, thinking there would be a less dense crowd, a lot of schoolchildren were there. Schoolteachers who were Frozos took their students on a day trip. I do not have any children but I find them adorable sometimes; I would say that the kids on that day were 50% adorable, 50% annoying. As I started skating, I closed my eyes and found my peace again, this was my happy place. My wife and I crossed path for the first time on a huge slab of ice, she was a beginner and slammed into me. I was a seasoned skater and gave her some pointers after that and she improved so much that she skated into my heart. Crack. 

My eyes were closed, so I could not pay heed to the warning signs that I was nearing the rim where the ice could be unstable. I could skate well but I could not swim.

That was how I came to be known as the Lifeguard in my community. I started volunteering in the fire brigade and while I have not actually saved any lives since we Germans are so diligent when it comes to emergencies, I did manage to help some distressed victims retrieve some mementos. I also started taking requests from people who dropped something into the river, and there was a box for it right outside the bookshop. 

I started reading a new trilogy and was very hooked; it was about three elves who could not see each other but knew each other existed and they had to save the world from a male witch; which was why I have not been doing a lot of good. So on my Day, I sorted through the half-full box of missing item inquiries and plunged into the river. The faces of the people who got what they thought they have forever lost would be what I continue to live for. 

1. Japanese comic; not to be confused with “mangga” that has the same pronunciation which means “mango” in Malaysian/Indonesian ↩︎

to be continued…