Miracle Monday (29 page)

"Doesn't it, though? Happy Miracle Monday, Superman."

"Excuse me?"

"Miracle Monday. It's the first Miracle Monday. It's a holiday. People will celebrate today for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. And only you and I out of all the people in the world know what they'll be celebrating. I'm a historian. Actually a history graduate student, but I came here to find out what no one's been able to find out in nearly nine hundred years. Now I can go home and tell the story of Miracle Monday."

"That's fantastic."

"So're you." She grabbed his face and went up on her knees to kiss him.

"What do you remember?"

"Everything. Saturn, the plagues, the fight, everything, all firsthand. I'm my own primary source."

"It couldn't be a very pleasant story for you to tell."

"Neither is the Civil War or the Nazi Holocaust, but I know about them. At least this one has a happy ending. Did you know that the hotels in town have been filled to capacity for at least a week?"

"Hotels?"

"Full of historians. Every few years every big University in the Solar System budgets a fellowship to send somebody from the history department back to the first Miracle Monday in Metropolis. Some professors have it written into their contracts that they get to go. There are more Pulitzer Prize winners in this town today than there are in Cambridge, New Haven and Princeton put together. There were a lot of them hiding out in the woods and the wheat fields around the place where the Kents found you as a baby, but not as many as there are here. They're all going home empty-handed and empty-headed except for me, and now I know why."

"Wait a second. Saturn told me he picked you out to use because you were different. You weren't so different if there are hundreds more like you from the future scattered around the city."

"They weren't here yet when C.W.Saturn first entered the Earth. That was my idea, coming a year early, for my dissertation. That way, I figured, I could at least have some good stories to write about even if I didn't learn any more about Miracle Monday than any of the others had. Also it was cheaper. I didn't have to get Columbia University to cover my hotel bill."

At this Superman smiled, then chuckled, then he laughed, and soon he was roaring with laughter as was Kristin. The feeling Superman himself had authored finally caught up with him.

For a while Superman and Kristin sat side by side, dangling their feet over the edge of the Galaxy Building. He gave her a whimsical giggly account of his conversation with C.W.Saturn. She teased him about the future and the futures of his friends.

"Jimmy's going to miss you," he told her.

"He won't even remember me," she said, "and besides, he'll do fine. Even his kids will go down in history, but not the way he will."

"His kids?"

"Well, there's got to be a James Bartholomew Olsen the Third, if for no other reason than the fact that James Bartholomew Olsen the Fourth has to marry my great-great-however-many-great-grandmother."

"You're kidding."

"No joke. That's why I wouldn't go out with him. It would have been indecent."

"What about Lois?"

"What about her?" Kristin grinned.

"Umm. Does she do anything historic?"

"Of course she does."

"She's probably the first woman President or something."

"Well, nothing quite that mundane, Superman. But you know that already, don't you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Miss Wells."

"No, I suppose not. They're always the last to know."

He thought awhile, looked out over the city and found Lois skipping down the street like a schoolgirl toward her apartment downtown. He would be waiting there, hunkered down in a corner of the elevator, when she arrived.

He told Kristin how he had masqueraded as C.W.Saturn in order to trick Luthor into telling him where he had ripped a hole between Saturn's world and Earth in order to escape from prison. Then he reached into his cape pouch and gave her a lock of hair from the pouch, held together with a rubber band.

"Hair?"

"Mine," he said. "It was what I traded with Luthor to get the information. He gave it to me when he thought Saturn wanted it."

"How can you beat that? A lock of Superman's hair. That's better than Elvis Presley's scarf."

"Tell me something seriously, Kris."

"Can't promise. It's against the rules, even for you."

"Just one thing. Do I ever make friends with Luthor again?"

She thought about how to tell him and how much to tell him. He was Superman, after all, she had to tell him something. Finally, she just whispered, "Someday."

That made him happy. "Will you be all right here on the roof?"

"I'm fine. I don't need any saving or heroing anymore. I'll be going home soon."

He was about to soar off when she asked him to wait a second.

"Yes, Kris? What is it?"

"I just wanted to thank you for a wonderful time."

"No regrets?" He smiled his special smile.

"Nope. Well, maybe one."

"What's that?"

"I never got to meet John Chancellor."

He laughed again. "I'll give him your regards," Superman said, and he was gone.

Soon, Kristin was gone as well.

Final
Entry
 

The
lock
of
hair
belongs
to
the
University,
of
course,
and
before
it
was
placed
on
display
at
the
Superman
Museum,
a
number
of
tests
were
done
on
it
in
the
School
of
the
Sciences
’
laboratories.
Evidently
it
is
not
human
hair,
indestructible
or
otherwise.
It
is,
in
fact
quite
indestructible,
as
Superman
’
s
hair
ought
to
be,
though
it
can
be
cut
with
ordinary
scissors
when
the
peculiar
radiation
of
a
yellow
star,
such
as
Earth
’
s
star-sun,
are
excluded
from
it.
It
even
has
the
genetic
cell
structure
that
was
purportedly
had
by
Superman.
Through
some
highly
sophisticated
means,
however,
which
is
not
understood
by
me,
it
was
found
that
it
is
not
hair,
but
some
genetic
duplicate,
probably
produced
in
a
laboratory
of
some
sort.
Certainly
the
authorities
do
not
doubt
my
word
that
I
got
the
lock
from
Superman
himself
and
I
do
not
doubt
that
Superman
believed
it
to
be
his
own
hair.
It
simply
is
not,
and
that
is
the
new
mystery.
No
one
possesses
the
technology
in
the
twentieth
century
to
produce
a
spectrographically
and
genetically
perfect
duplicate
such
as
this.
No
one
with
the
possible
exception
of
Luthor,
and
that
is
the
theory
that
the
people
at
the
University
School
of
the
Sciences
are
toying
with
now.
 

The
question
is,
why
would
Luthor
do
such
a
thing.
I
have
my
own
theory,
and
I
will
make
it
public
with
the
publication
of
this
journal
a
year
from
now,
on
Miracle
Monday,
2859,
once
I
am
well
beyond
my
period
of
time
reorientation.

Primarily,
I
am
undergoing
an
intensive
language
course,
designed
to
refashion
my
speaking
patterns
in
a
manner
more
suitable
to
the
twenty-ninth
century.
The
disco
slang
must
be
eliminated,
the
subjects
of
my
sentences
must
be
remove
from
the
beginnings
to
the
end
of
my
clauses
and
so
forth,
or
I
could
develop
a
terrible
stuttering
problem,
I
am
told.
I
met
a
number
of
actors
and
scholars
in
twentieth
century
Metropolis,
though
who
spoke
what
amounted
to
Shakespearean
English
and
they
seem
to
fare
well
enough.
People
seemed
to
like
the
way
they
spoke.
No
one
likes
the
way
I
speak
except
me.
This
may
be
the
last
thing
I
ever
write
that
could
be
understood
by
a
resident
of
the
outrageous
Nineteen
Eighties.
Alas
and
alack.

I
am
typing
this
last
entry,
as
I
typed
all
the
others,
but
this
time
I
’
m
doing
it
on
my
very
own
antique
Olympia
portable
typewriter.
I
bought
it
with
the
money
I
got
with
my
postdoctoral
fellowship
that
I
won
as
a
result
of
my
mission
in
the
past.
There
are
no
more
discos
around,
so
I
have
decided
to
take
up
typing
as
a
hobby.
Lord
knows
where
I
’
ll
get
anymore
carbon
ribbons
when
this
one
it
came
with
runs
out.
I
understand
that
these
ribbons
were
once
thought
to
have
caused
cancer
in
secretaries.

Here
is
my
secret,
and
it
will
not
be
told
until
this
report
is
tachyographed
through
the
Galaxy
next
Miracle
Monday.
I
think
Luthor
did
switch
his
fake
for
the
real
lock
of
indestructible
hair,
and
he
did
it
precisely
because
he
thought
the
Devil
wanted
an
artifact
of
Superman
’
s
body
through
which
he
could
come
to
possess
the
hero
’
s
soul.
Why,
the
reader
will
ask,
did
Luthor
not
want
this
to
come
about?
Remember
Hamlet?

In
Hamlet,
the
hero
hates
his
Uncle
King
Claudius
so
much
that
he
avoids
killing
him
while
Claudius
is
praying
in
church,
because
Hamlet
believes
that
anyone,
no
matter
how
sinful,
who
dies
while
he
is
praying,
will
go
to
his
reward
to
Heaven,
rather
than
Hell.
He
hates
Claudius
enough
to
let
him
live,
rather
than
assure
him
of
entry
to
Heaven,
no
matter
how
painful
that
entry
may
be.

So
listen
to
how
simple
this
is;
Luthor
did
not
hate
Superman
enough
to
send
him
to
Hell.
Luthor
discovered
the
fact
that
there
was
an
after
life,
that
there
may
well
be
a
Hell,
and
that
if
he
gave
C.
W.
Saturn
the
real
lock
of
hair,
Saturn
might
have
brought
Superman
to
Hell
as
a
sort
of
Trophy
of
Profanity.