Chapter 2

Thank you to all who believe I can do this.  I promise I won't let you down.  I now give you chapter 2 of Super Mid Life

Chapter 2

Topher couldn't believe that his dream finally came true all those years ago.  Ever since that shooting star twenty three years ago he now had the ability to lift cars, fly anywhere he wants, and read minds.  This was proof dreams come true, but with all superheroes there are always supervillians attempting to take over the world.  This time it was Dr. Dementia, a deranged ex psychologist who hypnotizes his victims to do his bidding or believe whatever he tells them to believe.  He has been one of Topher's arch nemesis for many years now, and this time he has Topher right where he wants him.
Dr. Dementia cackles to Topher, "Topher, it's for your own good that I took your powers away, before you hurt anyone else.  You are the one who snapped, flew into the hospital, and punched out all the bottom walls so the building would collapse on itself.  It's your fault hundreds and hundreds of people are dead.  You are not a hero after all!"  Dr. Dementia kidnapped Topher a day ago hypnotizing him day in and day out, and finally he cracked Topher.  Dr. Dementia could tell Topher he was a pink unicorn, and Topher would get on all fours and start acting like a pink unicorn.  In short Dr. Dementia was victorious in finally defeating him.
Topher sat motionless in his chair quietly sobbing to himself, asking forgiveness from God for what he did, even know deep down in his heart he knew he didn't deserve His forgiveness.  Topher was led to believe that his wife was shot during the time Topher was being kidnapped.  She was rushed to the hospital to be operated on.  But the surgeons were not actual doctors, instead they were Dr, Dementia's thugs, and killed his wife on the operating table.  So Topher out of rage took down the hospital with his bare hands, killing hundreds of people, including his own wife who was in recovery after a successful surgery.  This is what Dr. Dementia has been telling Topher for the last two days, and this is what Topher believed.  He came to gain revenge of Dr. Dementia, but then got caught again, and was tricked into being completely powerless.  Dr. Dementia was all smiles for once in his life after an altercation with Topher, he was actually happy.  So happy in fact to add insult to injury just wailing on Topher's face because he knew that there would be no retaliation, no consequences, not even the uttering the word stop, because Topher was broken.
Dr. Dementia was in control and he knew it so he stopped punching Topher and just relied on verbal abuse, but the real reason the doctor stopped punching Topher is because his hand hurt like hell, and he had to give it a rest.  "You are a failure!" Dr. Dementia yelled at Topher.  "You are not a hero!  You killed hundreds of people including your own true love!  Your wife! You killed your wife!! You were never a hero, you are nothing but a time bomb that finally went off killing people, GOOD people!  Hundreds of them!"  Then Dr. Dementia did something very peculiar, and started jabbing Topher in the eye with is fingers, and stopped calling him a failure, and started calling him Daddy.  Then Topher heard a faint cry in the background that weren't his cries.

Topher was woken up from his dreammare, that's what Topher called them because in them he has powers like he has always dreamed of, but somehow always loses control, and kills the ones he loves.  He never got superpowers from that wish years ago, but instead lived out another dream of his, becoming a family man.  His wife was not dead like Dr, Dementia led him to believe she was sleeping soundly next to him for it was five o'clock in the morning.  Topher's eyes than adjusted to the darkness and saw a blurry silhouette of his six year old son Parker standing infront of him, who has stopped for a moment to see if he was successful in waking his Dad up from sleeping.   Parker wanted a story read to him. At six o'clock in the morning.  The previous night Topher told his son that he would read him his book in the morning, and since children have no real sense of time, as soon as Parker woke up that meant to him its morning, and my Dad will now read me a story.
Parker says in a quiet voice, well to Parker he thought it was quiet, "Dad, read me my book please, it's morning.  You promised."  Topher half dead to the world lets out a barely audible word that semi resembles five more minutes.  Since Parker was used to this answer from his father this early in the morning he knew exactly what his father had actually said.  He told his dad, "O.K.", and plopped on the floor and opened up his book trying to read it.  "The..d..o...g...dog...b...a..  Dad what does b, a, r, k, e, d spell."  Topher knowing he wasn't going to be able to go back to bed, rolled out, and walked like a blind zombie to his son's room to read his book to him. Parker followed his father grinning a big grin, because he knew he was victorious.

After Topher read to Parker he proceeded in waking up his other children, his daughter Taylor, who was Parker's twin sister, and his oldest son Damian.  Taylor and Parker were six years old, and Damian was almost eight.  The superhero bug bite was transferred to his children as well, complete with bins of super-hero toys, pictures on the wall, and every article of clothing super-hero related.  To say he was a proud father would be an understatement.  Taylor was craving waffles for breakfast, so Topher told his daughter he would make them after he got dressed.
When Topher went upstairs his wife was in the process of waking up.  Anne was three years older than Topher and he found something new he loved about his wife each day.  Today it was she was wearing his I Fight Dragons t-shirt and looked cute as can be in his eyes.  Her shoulder length brown hair, brown eyes, and natural face was true beauty to him.  "Morning Sunshine!", Topher told his wife.  Her response was turning over in the bed and burying her head under her pillow.  Topher grabbed a a super-hero shirt out of his many hero shirts, and jeans and headed to the bathroom to change.  His morning ritual before he got dressed was to weigh himself before he got dressed. He was at 197 pounds, two up from where he has been all year.  He shook his head and went to the bathroom, and stepped on the scale again.  196, its a minor one pound victory, but a victory none the less, Topher gets dressed and heads downstairs to make breakfast.
Topher was making his kids waffles when they all came down to the kitchen and gave him a big hug, birthday cards, and an off key birthday song.  Today was Topher's thirtieth birthday and by the looks of it his kids were more excited then he was.  To Topher hitting thirty meant another year stuck at his dead end job at Prehistoric Pizza, where everyone appreciates him, except the ones that could help him move up the management chain.  Topher was not proud of his job, but his was proud of being a father, the greatest job in the whole world.  And moments like these wouldn't happen unless he was a dad.  He got the kids fed and in the car and off to school.
Like clockwork his kids were fighting in the car even before they pulled out of the driveway.  Topher was prepared and put on his "children's sing along" playlist that contained many of his and his kids favorite songs they sing to.  Ready, Aim, Fire by Imagine Dragons started playing and his kids started singing along.  "When your backs against the wall...hmphm...Ready, Aim, Fire Away!!!", Topher's kids sang along as loud as their little voices would let them.  The best part is they knew about a third of the song so they mumbled their own words, or what they thought were the words when they had no clue.  They sang the song the whole way there asking it to be repeated about nine times before they got to school.  By this time Topher had a headache and was ready to kick his kids out the door and speed off screaming FREEDOM!  But he didn't instead he went downstairs to the schools gym and waited with his kids for school to start.
Topher shook hands with the few fellow dads down in the gym, and said hello's to the moms.  There were more moms than dads down with the kids, but that was pretty much expected in Topher's eyes.  They had their morning prayer and then the principal asked if there were any birthdays today.  Damian, Parker, and Taylor instantly screamed out, "It's my Dad's birthday!". in unison.  Topher couldn't help but be impressed.  Impressed and embarassed.  The whole school sang "Happy Birthday Mr, Thompson".  Topher started to think Mr. Thompson is my dad, I'm not that old.  But was used to being called Mr. Thompson because that's what all the kids call him out of respect when he helps out in the classrooms.  Topher then led the school in saying the pledge of allegiance.  After the annual morning festivities Topher went to go find his kids to give them a goodbye hug and kiss.
Topher finds Damian standing in the second grade line and walks up.  Topher gives him  a hug and a kiss on the forehead saying, "Love you Kid number 1 be good."  Damian returns the love to his father and tells him he will like always.  Topher than goes off to go find Parker and Taylor before they head off.  There was no real rush because the kindergarten class is always the last one out of the gym.  He walks up behind Parker and gives him a hug and a kiss, "Love you Kid number 2, be good."  Topher then finds his daughter standing next to her best friends and gives her a hug and a kiss, "Love you Kid number two and a half, be good."  Taylor grabs her daddy's hand and asks to walk with her to the class.  Topher knowing that sooner or later this attention will be going away happy obliged.  He walked with his daughter to her classroom, and gave her another hug before saying goodbye for the day.  And heading off to start the day.  Which meant for Topher getting coffee at DB coffee and hitting the gym.  His other morning ritual.

As soon as Topher steps into the gym he feels he has entered his third home.  His first being his family, the second being Prehistoric Pizza, and the third being his "me" time at the gym.  He puts his earbuds in and turns on the Ipod onto shuffle.  It's leg day.  Topher hates leg day.  When Topher was in high school he had surgery on his right tendon, to help correct his acchilles tendonitis he had at the time.  His leg never really recovered and suffered in growth since then.  His right leg was named his girly leg, by teachers, some friends, and yes even his wife.  He was deteremined to make his leg less girly, even if he died trying in the process.  Which he has almost done on a few occasions at the gym.  He did his leg presses adding a little more weight each time.  His ipod going from Five Finger Death Punch to Britney Spears.  He loved his ipod and how random it could be.  The funny thing is Topher made a promise to himself when he started going to the gym that when ever a so called girly song came on his ipod he had to do five more reps than usual.  And just to make it even more interesting he had a ton of so called girly music on his ipod.  From Taylor Swift, to Selena Gomez, to Katy Perry.  He worked hard to it all.   After an hour and half of pain, sweat, and swearing at the gym he checked his phone it was a text from his wife.
"They need our help with an art project down in the twins class, can you go down."  The text read.  Topher shot back a text to the teacher, Mrs. Merring telling her he would be there in about twenty minutes.  She replied back with Topher's favorite word, "Awesome!".  Topher went  home and changed and kissed his wife and told her good night.  Anne works at the hospital on night shifts so Topher and Anne don't see much of each other.  They joke to others that's how they keep their marriage fresh and always so happy.  But deep down Topher really misses seeing his wife, but he knows how much he loves her job.  So he's happy for her that she found out her true calling and gets a satisfaction from her job.  Topher hits DB coffee on the way back down to the school, to pickup his complimentary birthday coffee.
As soon as Topher drives up in his orange Cobalt the smiling faces of the DB workers are there ready to greet him with a friendly, "TOPHER!"  Yes he is on a first name basis at the coffee shop.  They ask him what he is up to, and tells them it is his birthday today.  Then the whole coffee stop starts singing Happy Birthday Topher!  Topher tries to never go anywhere to get coffee, and this is the reason why.  He looks down at his coffee lid.  All the coffee lids at DB coffee have a special message.  Today's his read his favorite, "Get up early. Stay up late. Change the world!"  That was basically Topher's motto in life and that is how he lived his life.  Topher thanks them for their awesomeness and tips them and heads down to the school.
He gets there just as recess is ending and snack time begins.  His favorite time to come down.  He spots the pretty sweet superhero cupcakes, and then sees his wife, Anne putting a candle in a cupcake.  Anne had the idea since they wouldn't have time to have cake at home tonight with homework having to be done, baths need to be taken, and lunches being made all before she had to head off to to work, decided to bring the cupcakes to the twins class and enjoy a birthday song there.  The whole class sang Happy Birthday once again, and Topher blew out his candle.  Making the same wish he has made since he was a kid, wishing to become a superhero.  True dreams never die.
Taylor asked her dad, "Daddy, what did you wish for?" She said smiling.
Parker quickly yelled, "Daddy, can't tell you or it won't come true.  That's the rules of wish making, don't you know that Taylor!"
Taylor looking a little defeated cuddled into her daddy's arms for a hug which he happily gave.  Topher than proudly said, "I wished to become a superhero.  The same wish I have made since I was about your guy's age.  And I never told anyone until now.  It still hasn't come true, So maybe it's not meant to come true, and I should start making a new wish.
Mrs. Merring came and gave Topher a hug and said to him, "Mr. Thompson you are a superhero!  That wish came true a long time ago! Isn't that right class."  Which the class shouted yes in agreement.  The art project they were doing that day were making superhero capes, in honor of superheros everywhere.  Topher loved helping in the classroom, because he knows in a few years parents are really needed in the classroom anymore.  So he will take any chance he can get to help out.  That's pretty obvious with him and wifes combined hours of over a hundred volunteer time for the school.  The minium is thirty five a year.  Topher made his own cape, as well helped the kids design their own.  Topher's cape was orange with a giant A for awesome on it, and lightning bolts down the sides.  Parker's cape was green with a giant B on it for Bat-Dude and little black cut outs that closely resembled bats.  And Taylor's cape was pink with sparkles everywhere with a giant P on it, for what else than Princess!
Topher spent the rest of the day in the classroom helping during class, reading stories, doing funny voices, and playing with the kids outside with all their capes on.  There's no cooler feeling than running real fast and feeling and hearing a cape flap in the wind behind you.  Topher never forgot what that felt like when he was a kid.  And Topher thought it was a little ironic that the day he celebrates getting older he spends being a kid.  Topher wouldn't of had it any other way.  While Topher was down at the school Teresa, Topher's mom called him on his cell phone and sang him happy birthday,  Followed by his sister, Krista calling right after his mom did.  And on top of that his phone constantly vibrating with text messages or Facebook wall posts of happy birthday.  The one day of the year where you wanna take your phone out and chuck it at a wall as hard as you can.  But you can't because of how expensive it is.  But still you think about it.  Alot!


The next day Topher woke up completely refreshed and feeling more alive than he has ever before in his life.  It was the same feeling Topher gets after writing a really emotional blog where he pours his soul out and holds no punches, or after a month of great workouts.  He didn't know how to explain it but he felt different.  A good different.  His wife was still at work from the night before so it was up to him to get the kids fed and off to school once again.  He grabbed a different hero shirt and another pair of jeans and headed into the bathroom to start the morning ritual once again.   He took off his shirt and noticed something extremely odd.  His stomach had shrunk.  Drastically.  And the man boobs, or moobs as he called them.  The same ones that years ago a friend of his asked where his top was to hide his boobs at the pool when they went swimming were.  His moobs were gone.  What was in place was a fully chiseled chest.  Straight off a mens fitness magazine.  He had abs!  Topher has never had abs in his whole life, but staring him right in the mirror was a six pack.  His six pack.  The six pack he has been working on getting for the last two years, now of all days decided to show up.  He didn't know why, and frankly he didn't care.  He then noticed his arms.  His arms were no longer just arms. but full on twenty four inch guns.  Topher pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming.  He wasn't.
He put on his shirt best he could and proceeded in waking up the children and getting them ready for the day.  His kids were having trouble getting up so Topher decided to have some fun and grabbed his nerf dart gun and entered each kids room.  He first went into Taylor's room and turned on the light.  He first tried softly waking her up, but she wasn't budging.  So he unloaded all twelve darts into her waking her up with screams of surprise and laughter.  Taylor gave her dad a hug and Topher helped her get dressed.  "Grab your gun and we will go wake up your brothers", Topher told Taylor.  Then Topher and Taylor creeped up the stairs as quiet as they could and split up to go into different rooms, so the screams of one of the others wouldn't wake up the other and spoil the fun to be had.  Taylor went into Parker's room because it was just natural for her to torture her twin, and Topher went into Damian's room.  They unloaded all their ammo on each other's target simutaneously, and woke both brothers up at the same time.  Mission accomplished.  Taylor and Topher hugged each other and gave each other high fives and headed downstairs to go make breakfast.
On the menu today was dinosaur eggs, which was oatmeal with gummy dinosaurs that come out of candy eggs with hot water.  One of Topher's kids favorite meals for breakfast.  While his kids were eating breakfast he combed Facebook for inspirational things to post, because Topher always has to be the ray of sunshine.  Even if people don't wanna see the sunshine.  He finds about ten pictures he likes and shares them all, thinking in his mind if I help inspire one person today, then today will be counted as a victory.   Gets the kids in the car and puts another song on that his kids know only half the words too.  "I wanna live in a world full of heroes", by Kirby Krackle one of Topher's favorite bands, and one he has actually met.  The song name checks alot of different heroes.  "I wanna live in a world full of heroes!", are the words his kids only know.  But they sing that part loud and proud.  And Topher sits in the front seat of his car smiling, and proud.  Some parents are proud their kid is an honor student, Topher is proud his kids love nerd rock as much as he does.
They get to the school with no blood shed and only a little of headache a starting.  A good car ride in Topher's mind.  They all pile down into the gym again for the morning prayer and announcements.  Topher goes up to one of the dad's Jeff.  Jeff is a father of a girl who is in Damian's second grade class, and has become a good friend of Topher's.  They even coached T-ball together, or as Topher called it herding cat's with cattle prods while playing with grass.  Coaching another proud dad moment.  Jeff shakes Topher's hand, a handshake that usually crushes Topher's hand, a handshake Topher barely feels as of right now,  and says, "Man, the gym is being kind to you!"
Topher taken off guard on how there is no sign of pain during the handshake just smiles and answers back, "Thanks man!  I knew if I kept at it something would finally happen.  And I guess my thirtieth birthday present from God was to finally show all the hard work I've been putting in the last few years! So to that I say thank you God!"
Jeff not sure how to respond to that tells Topher he's gotta run to work, and take care and he'll catch him later.  Topher says goodbye to his kids and gives them kisses and hugs and sends them off to class.  Topher gets in his car and just sits there to fully digest what has happened overnight.  He has no answers for himself.  He wonders if he should tell his wife about the sudden change, but he thought it might be more fun to see if she notices.  He gets on his Facebook and posts the status, Today's goal: Be awesome!.  He then puts down the phone and heads to the gym while silently telling himself we are going to go see how awesome I can be.
Topher grabs his ipod again and plugs his earbuds in and decides to warm up with a little action on the treadmill.  He starts to jog, but doesn't feel any burn so decides to speed it up.  He starts running, but it still seems way to easy for him.  This never happens because Topher hates running.  It might stem from years of being bullied, or not being able to run his whole life growing up. Or quite possibly because he's been told he looks like a drunk penguin when he runs.  Doesn't matter the reason Topher sucks at running, but today it felt like a brisk jog to him.  He ran for a good hour and half not really feeling the burn then decides he should do some weights before leaving the gym.  He goes over to the bench press bench and puts thirty five pounds on each side to warm up with.  Topher does an easy twenty reps.  Decides too add another ten pounds to get him started.  Topher again effortlessly pumps the hundred and thirty five pounds up and down twenty times.  Topher amazed and feeling super confident goes to grab two forty five pounds to add to each side on top of the other forty five that were already on there.  A grand total of 315 pounds.  Tophers usual max on the bench is 145 with a spotter.  Once again up and down, up and down, up and down, a total of twenty five times.  Topher is awe struck and grabs his stuff and heads to his car.
Topher takes a swig of his water bottle for the first time in the last two hours, not really out of lack of dehydration, but more of he always did after the gym.  He sat in his car for a good five minutes going over the day, and what has happened.  "Running really fast,  Lifting heavy stuff without any effort.  No way. There's no way it came true. Holy....  I have superpowers", Topher screams in his mind.  Topher can't believe after all those years making the same wish it finally came true and he couldn't be happier.  With all these sudden emergence of powers Topher started to wonder what else he could do.  Topher really wished he could fly.  Maybe he can fly now he thought to himself.  Only way to find out.  Topher stops at DB coffee on the way home, and once again got the lid that states, "Get up Early. Stay up Late. Change the world!" Fitting Topher thought.  So very fitting.   He heads home and pulls into the driveway.  He looks around to see if anyone is around and starts jogging.  Then running.  Topher first was able to see things when he was jogging but as soon as he started running and not limiting himself the world turned to a blur.  He swear he saw trees, and little blurred out forest animals while he was running but he knew that was impossible since he was just running around his neighborhood block.  Topher thought it might be a good idea to stop and see if anything had happened.  He stopped three feet away from a lake, and a sign that said Lake Michigan.  Topher's jaw dropped because when he started running he was in Idaho.
Topher than turned around and ran back home.  Across many different states watching the world go by in a blur.  Smiling the whole entire time.  For once in his lifetime he was fast.  This is the same kid who in elementary school got a note from his doctor saying he couldn't run the mile due to his asthma.  Topher thought to himself look at me now!  Screw running the mile.  I'll run the states.  He had to stop a few times to make sure he didn't overshoot himself and land up in Japan, but after a few missed states he finally made it home.  Surprisingly not exhausted at all.  He walked up to his car and looked around to see if anyone was watching.  Not a soul outside that was good for what Topher was about to attempt next.  Topher grabbed under his car with both hands, and slowly lifted them up.  Lifting his own car over his head in the process.  Topher let out the biggest smile of his life.  Put down the car after a few more pumps up and down for good measure, and decided to see one more thing.  He went to the backyard to clean up the yard from dog poop, a very quick and easy job now that he had a little speed in him.  Then climbed through Damian's window to get on the roof.  He headed out onto the roof and towards the backyard.  If anyone saw him doing this he could just say he was checking the roof for broken shingles, but he would have have no excuse for what he was about to attempt.
Topher walked to the edge of the roof and looked down.  That was a long drop.  A three story house.  Topher knew he could fly he just knew it.  So he first started taking a little jog about to jump and then stopped right at the edge.  Saying to himself, "I have super strength, super speed, so chances are I can fly!  And I will not know unless I try! So I must do this."  Topher goes back again revving up his engines before he launches off the roof and into the sky.  At least that's what Topher was hoping was going to happen.  Topher closes his eyes runs to the edge of the roof and jumps off.