Why Batman Can’t Fly

This is an unofficial fragment about the man in the bat suit.

I wake up on a dark, rainy night in a quiet Gotham. I hear Alfreds footsteps in the hall downstairs and close my eyes again. My alarm has failed me once more. Fifty million in assets and still not a working clock. A half-empty glass of bourbon is laying on my night table together with my beeper and a file with “Two-Face” on the label. Damn it. I couldn’t sleep again. This shitty phrase still echoing in my mind: “Live like a god, die like a whisper”. It’s a sentence written on a thick paper note, left behind for me a couple of days ago in a restaurant. God. I don’t feel like getting up today, I don’t feel like brushing my teeth and starting the Lincoln. I sigh…

My name is Bruce Wayne and I fight freaks and jokers in an overcrowded, bizarre circus.

A man is dictated by his actions. He may grieve, but if he retains from showing his sorrow, he is not sad. He may love, but if he refrains from showing his feelings, he is no lover. So who is the man for others when he is something else for himself? He thinks and feels; yet we only know what he does.

This life has given me many good things. I am what people would call “successful”. I have money, women, cars and I spend days in the week trying to stay in good shape. My true name is Batman; Bruce Wayne is just a worn-out playboy teasing off his parents’ hard work. In Batman I find the true me, the man I am, my homeostasis.
I inherited Wayne Enterprises at a young age. Armed with the responsibility for thousands of people and the core to direct my life, I discovered that a man can reach the untouchable glow of the stars and I discovered that with me, thousands of people would see the scarce sunrays of Gotham. And so I decided to live for them.

“Live like a god, die like a whisper”. More than the messenger, it’s the message that intrigues me. Have I been living like a god? How can that be true if I am the opus dei; the man who raids the inhuman with the hands and brains of a mere mortal? I am no superhero, of course not, superheroes can fly. All I do is use what I have to prevent harm to the innocent, because to me no other good is greater. I cannot fly, my eyes don’t radiate laser and the strength in my arms cannot lift a car. I have science, mathematics, technology, strategy and money, the greatest weapon in Gotham. So no, I can’t live like a god, but I will die as a man.

I get up, brush my teeth and start the Lincoln…