Without a Utility Belt
By Gayle Francis Moffet


She calls me from France, voice lilting and happy. “You should come out. It’s amazing. I ate the most interesting pizza.”

“I can’t possibly,” I reply. “I don’t even have a passport.”

I am in France.
I am a superhero
cape fluttering behind me

There is a bluff in my eye line. Huge and smooth. Ocean waves slam to the top of it and recede.

There is a tree
roots half-exposed
it grew there before the bluff was a bluff
before it was forced to be indecent with its roots

A scream: shrill and terrified. More screams as I whip around. My cape moves with me. There are people, and they are in danger. I have to get them across the ocean waves to the bluff, to the indecent tree.

…how?

A dozen of me, all superheroes, created by the ocean waves, curling out of the water as the waves bully the bluff, as they mock the indecent tree.

“We’re you’re stunt doubles.” I smile. Of course they are.

They jump
they throw ropes
they land in the water, ride the waves back in
like porpoises
or superheroes
Porpoise superheroes

I am a superhero.
I am in France.
I can smell pizza.

It strikes me—in a moment of quiet, as my doubles try another angle—that I should not be in France. I don’t even have a passport.

But the pizza here is good, she said.
I like pizza.

I am across the ocean waves, pulling a rope around the indecent tree.
I am next to the scared people, rigging the into a zip line. I am across the ocean waves, detaching people from the zip line.

There are no more stunt doubles
just me.
I am a superhero.

The indecent tree holds everyone’s weight. I smile when everyone is across. I walk the edge of the bluff. I slip.

The waves are warm
I ride the waves to shore
I am in a car.
on the phone
the road ahead is curvy, the lights of other cars a haze

“I got the pizza,” I say. The pizza box is in my hands. It is huge, half the size of the car. “It’s amazing.”

“I told you,” she says.

The car veers. The pizza box is gone. I got off the road.
I was supposed to be driving.

I wake up in a hole. No, not a hole, a well. The sides are made of rock. There is a man there. He is tall, thin, and muscular.

A Greyhound of a man
muscle barely covering bone
skin barely covering muscle

The nose is wrong
a pug nose on a Greyhound face
a Mutt of a man, trust on his face

“We have to climb up,” he says. “We have to escape.”

I clutch a rock
it fits into my palm
it breaks into my palm.

There is a shower of dust, then a shower of rocks. We duck together, the man and I. The rocks do not hit us. They fall around us. They make a cave.

At the top of the cave, there is light.

He lies on the ground. I lie next to him, press my cheek against his chest.

“We will escape,” he says.

I know we will.

I am a superhero.
There is pizza.


- - -
Gayle Francis Moffet writes essays, short stories, plays, novels, and poetry. She is currently writing her second novel, which she thinks was supposed to be her first novel. Recently, she and her husband moved to Portland, Oregon, which is a whole new experience from Yellville, Arkansas (where she grew up) and Springfield, Missouri (where she went to college). When she's not writing new pieces or working on her Master's Degree in Professional/Technical Writing, she's blogging about writing at gaylefmoffet.com.