Johnny Wagner, 3/16/09 12:39 PM

Ugh Max… Why do you have to talk to people? Why can’t you just let them buy their shit an get out!

The door Jingles again, great more customers, just what I wanted! I look up and notice a beautiful young woman has just entered the store. She is about 5'5", blonde hair past her shoulder, killer body, she gives new meaning to the term hour glass figure, eyes bluer than the sky, and one of those cute button noses. Everyone in the shop is staring at her, me, the kid at the counter; even the banter between Christian and Max stops for a minute. I manage to regain control of my jaw and shut it as she rushes past everyone ignoring all of us going strait for some books in the back. She quickly picks one and brings it to the counter. I don't say a word. I hardly even make eye contact.

This must be why women don't come into comic shops too often, our universe seems to break down around them. I don't even think to look at what kind of book she picked up. She's gone almost as quickly as she came, however, the kid turns back to the cards counter, and I hear Max and Christian resume their banter.

I try and turn back to my computer and do my best to ignore the ongoing conversation. I know any minute now he’s going to bring that guy over here and he is going to bore the hell out of me by telling me how “sick” the new Watchmen movie was, and how hot the chick is who plays Silk Spectre. I know she’s fuckin’ hot! I don’t need to be told this, a blind monkey could probably tell how hot she is with those knee high boots on and nothing else.

That’s not the worst part though.

The worst part is that the whole time he’ll be thinking about how much better he is than this place, and me. Fuckin’ preppy ass hole, "lowering" him self to mingle with us little people for a while, see how the other half lives.

I reach under the counter and pour two Prozac’s into the palm of my hand; I pop them in my mouth and chew on them like pez. They crunch loudly and their bitter flavor floods my mouth and throat. Assholes are always judging me. I fold my arms across my chest and narrow my eyes; I try and burn holes into the back of his well-groomed head.

Suddenly a voice not my own floods my thoughts, It’s 11:41 and 23 seconds, making good contact here, nice in with the… The rest of the words are covered up by a sudden high-pitched squeal that fill my mind and deafens my thoughts. A sharp throbbing pain, like the worst headache I've ever had, accompanies the sound; I squeeze my eyes shut and grab my forehead fighting back the urge to scream.

After a few excruciating moments, where I think my entire head is going to explode, the pain and noise subsides. I lean back in my chair for a second trying to figure out what just happened, and decided its time for more meds. I duck under the counter and start looking through my prescriptions and grab a bottle of Zyprexia and shake it hoping for a tell tale rattle. I curse quietly to myself when it remains silent. Franticly I shift several bottle around causing a few of them to spill and clatter against the tiled floor of the shop.

“Hey dude,” I bang my head on the top of the counter at the sudden sound of Max’s voice. I swear loudly as I pull myself up into view rubbing the back of my head.

“Shit Max, What the Fu…” I stop myself when I notice the trendy guy is with him. “Ohh…” I add staring blankly at the pair, my unwarranted loathing for this new comer starts to slowly creep back into my head.

“Oh yeah!,” Max slaps on his cheesiest grin and nod’s towards his new friend, “this is…” His smile suddenly fades and he holds a hand up to his nose. “Whoh, Johnny, dude, you ok man?” A hint of concern creeps in with his Spanish accent.

I become suddenly aware of the warm wet feeling beneath my nose, I reach up and touch a finger to my upper lip and hold it up to the light. The crimson gleam of my own blood almost sparkles on my fingertips.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I shake the thought away as I grab a tissue and clean my nose and lips. “No I’m fine, just a nose bleed, had ‘em since I was a kid, it’ll stop in a second.”

I glance over at the trendy guy and back to Max, then back to the trendy guy again, he smiles at me, a smile most would probably consider charming or something… To me it’s just sickening; I must have made a face because his look quickly fades to a slight and thoughtful frown. That’s more like it.

“Oh ok, well as I was saying, this is Chirstian, he needs help finding something…” says Max as he plasters his signature smile back on.

Christian extends his hand so that I can shake, and open’s his mouth to speak, but I cut him off before he can.

“Watchman trades are on display in the rack by the door, we have plenty of action figures, t-shirts and even a few official blood stained comedian buttons, great for your back packs, or in your case,” I pause my dry monotonous and well rehearsed speech to eye him up and down before continuing, “I would guess a hip messenger bag.”

For a moment Christian stands a little stunned, he drops his hands to his side and I smirk turning towards my mac book pro clicking on the safari icon in my dock. I watch slightly amused and pleased with myself as the icon bounces once and the web browser pops up opening default to my e-mail, no new messages except for some spam from WoW Vault… Ya buy gold once and you can’t get rid of the fuckers!

I’m slightly surprised when I hear Christian’s voice, not only because most of time when I do that the preps are so annoyed they just turn and huff out the store, but also because his voice sounds a lot like the one I just heard in my head a few minutes ago… Did I read his mind?

“Actually I was looking for some Age of Apocalypse books… ya know the alternate marvel universe timeline in which Legion, a powerful psionic mutant on Earth and son of Professor Charles Xavier, travels back in time with the intention of killing Magneto. Ya see, he believes Magneto's death will allow Xavier to achieve his dream of human/mutant equality," His tone is slighly condescending, not enough to accuse him of it, but just enough to know it's there. He continues with, "But Legion travelled to a time when Magneto and Xavier were still friends. So Xavier dies trying to protect Magneto. Legion vanishes, and a new timeline is created. The only person aware of how history has changed is Bishop. Because of Xavier's sacrifice, Magneto comes to believe in his late friend's dream of peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants. Apocalypse, an immortal mutant villain, was monitoring the fight. He chooses this moment as the perfect time to begin his world conquest, which didn't happen in the regular Marvel Universe for another ten years. Magneto assembles the X-Men just as Apocalypse begins his war. Despite the X-Men's struggles, Apocalypse conquers all of North America, and initiates a worldwide genocidal campaign of "cullings" that kill millions of non-mutant humans." When he finishes a look of smug satisfaction is on his face.

What the hell? I'm once again a little stunned, but this time by the accuracy and knowledge this guy has on an obscure but cult followed little event that happened in the marvel universe in the mid 90's. There is no way this guy is a collector, he must have rehearsed this with Max, they are playing some kind of Joke on me. Wonderful, it's fuck with the paranoid guy day again!

I glance over the top of my computer, the shock registered clearly on my face. My mood sours worse when I notice the bemused grin he now sports. Ok, you’ve earned a few bonus points there, but I’m in no mood to be one upped by some pompous little prep. Who the fuck is this guy anyways??...