3 A Life Not My Own

What is this? I think as I stare at the red wall in front of me.

Then my thoughts turn to the solid ground I feel under me and the slight throb I feel from falling to my butt with no preparation.

I feel a gentle push from left to right upon my body as if I'm in the flow of a gentle wind or a stream.

I get to my feet and relish the feeling of movement, muscle and flesh responding to my will after what felt like eternity.

Bringing my hand up I'm surprised to see it is green? I hope this doesn't mean I will have anger issues.

Reveling in the motion I can put my body through I squat and then stand again swinging my arms to get comfortable but curious what my body looked like.

My hand doesn't seem outlandishly large nor my arms excessively muscular so there goes my claim to be the "Strongest there is".

Looking around I see a few animal skeletons half buried in the ground and a whole lot of red in the distance, looks a bit like the Mars landscape that was in The Martian movie.

"Well don't you look a little out of place kid!"

With no thought I respond, "Your tellin me!"

Wait, what was that I think as I spin around nearly doing a 360 and spotting nothing.

"I'm down here" the voice answered my confused look.

Looking down between me and the red wall I see a 2-foot-tall green monkey with eyes dripping amusement and sarcasm at the same time.

"Oh, your green too, so maybe I'm not green outside of this dream scape I have found myself in."

"Nope, you're as green as The Green is, which is surprising being in The Red and all." The monkey replies mockingly.

"The Red? Your name isn't by chance Psimon and you're getting your rocks off by winding me up, is it? Would you even tell me if it was?" I continue to mumble.

"Nope" he replies "I'm Monkey, well that's what you have always called me anyway. Here I'll give you the blood memories I have from the last time we were together".

Saying this he jumps to my shoulder pressing his head to mine and suddenly I feel like my mind is on fire. Like a pen is digging through my brain leaving memories in its wake.

The loving mother Marie Logan and the absent father Mark Logan who I never met, growing up in a wildlife preserve where I lived with just mom.

Remembering how much my mother loved me and the drive for a simple life she tried to instill in me.

The disappointment I thought I saw, when I liked the shiny things from town and especially when I watched TV and pretended to be an actor.

But our love for wildlife was something we could talk about even if we were in the middle of a fight that I felt was so important at the time.

Memories of how I would pretend to be asleep and let her pull me into her lap so she could run her hand through my hair, occasionally rubbing the top of my ear while humming to herself.

I had to pretend to be asleep so she wouldn't think I was a baby that still needed such things, but I was willing to pretend for her.

Though it usually did put me to sleep, I'd wake up in my bed with no memory of how I got there.

The late-night doctoring that changed our lives forever was for a wounded Gazelle that put us in the path of a herd of Wildebeest who were frightened by tanks crossing the border from the Bialya side.

In their fright they stampeded in our direction. With no time to move out of the way I froze up and just didn't react.

Slightly ashamed that my body wouldn't step in front of my mother to give her some small bit of protection, I was then awestruck when a figure dressed in black landed in front of the lead Wildebeest.

Grabbing it by the horns and shoving it to the ground with an angry sounding growl. Making the rest of the herd avoid him and thus me and my mother, saving us from being trampled along with the Gazelle.

I quickly moved in front of my mother so no one would see the shameful act of hiding next to her, I was 8 years old after all.

In a panic the Gazelle jumped up and tried to retreat through the herd which would spell doom for her. I tried to reach out to it only to see her float up above the herd and gently land in front of me and mom shaking in terror too afraid to move again.

After the herd passed a voice came from behind us "Are you both alright?" coming from a guy not much older looking than me wearing a red and black outfit with a yellow R on his chest and a black mask around his eyes.

I put it together instantly and informed mom, because she was old and sometimes slow on understanding the important things.

"Mom, Mom, Mom. We were just saved by Robin and Kid Flash."

I knew the other boy that appeared out of nowhere while I was talking by his dark outfit and red lightning bolt.

I saw online that he wore this costume when he was trying to be sneaky at night.

"Eh, Super boy and Miss Martian helped to" offered Kid Flash.

After a quick explanation from Robin, designed to help calm my mom down, I'm sure.

I heard Kid Flash say, "Coast is clear, you can un-camo now Miss M."

Seeing the strong guy that stopped the Wildebeest walk up with a big red S on his chest, I assumed he wasn't the Miss Martian Kid Flash was referring to.

At least I wouldn't call him that after seeing him toss around a male Wildebeest at a full charge!

I quickly figured him to be Super-Boy, wonder if he is the big one in Metropolis's son? Can he fly? Will he fly me around the reserve?

My thoughts came to a halt when my mom slowly appeared out of nowhere pulling back a dark blue hood.

Well, it would be my mom if she was younger like in her lame TV show, and well... Green.

Before I could say anything, Mom pulled out her MOM voice and started talking about how they could have made things worse, but I didn't see that.

They did save us from being trampled after all. Got to stop her before she gets rolling with what I'm sure would be a 20-minute lecture on how adults do things, "Moom, Uncool."

Seeing the wisdom in my words she relented and slipped out of her serious voice and thanked them for saving us.

"This is my son Garfield and I'm." The green girl quickly interrupted saying "Marie Logan, its soo good to meet you!!!"

After speaking super-fast she started slowing down "I, I have been a big fan of your work on animal rights for years".

Catching the surprised look on Super-Boy's face I was a little confused.

I couldn't help but think she got caught lying by her parents a lot! She needs some acting lessons.

After seeing her eye contact go to the ground and what I assumed was a blush on her green cheeks I thought, defiantly an amateur at lying, she must have never got away with anything.

After mom looked at the Wildebeest Super-boy slammed to the ground and the Gazelle that started this whole evening, she decided they both needed to go to our clinic.

Miss Martian quickly volunteered her friends to help with that while she went with my mom to fix the fences.

With some subtle pleading from both me and Miss Martian, Robin and my mom agreed to this solution.

After getting the wounded animals to the barn that worked as our clinic just after sunrise, I led the guys toward our house.

Hearing a familiar commotion in the trees I saw Monkey jump down to the shoulder of Super-boy and set his gaze on the protein bar Kid Flash was eating, he jumped forward grabbing his prize and ran to sit on my shoulder to enjoy this offering the new people presented him.

At which time I laughed telling them he was Monkey and assuring them he wasn't going to harm them.

"Good name, but I hate monkeys."

Hearing Super-boy say he liked his name Monkey puffed up his chest only to hear the comment of him hating monkeys.

Monkey, feeling betrayed by them offering him such a good snack only to disrespect him in such a way returned the protein bar to Super-boy's head with a screech of indignation.

After Robin and Kid Flash laughed and joked with Super-boy and I settled Monkey down, we continued to the house where I had something serious to discuss.

Entering the living room, I turned to them and said "So, pretty weird about Miss Martian and my mom hu."

"What do you mean?" asked Super-boy as he crossed his arms, looking at me with interest.

"I mean she looks exactly like my mom. You know, besides being green." I replied.

"She does?" responded Kid Flash.

"Well, duh not right now, but when she was acting in that show 'Hello Megan'!

"Wait, that's a show? I thought it was just something Miss Martian said." continued Kid Flash.

"She does say that a lot in the TV show, here let me show you." I replied wanting to prove my point.

"Here it is, Hello Megan the pilot episode." Holding up a dusty VHS tape.