Want to know about my last Saturday night?  I was lucky enough to get invited to cover the superhero convention.  I was some psyched!

Until I got there.

I quickly discovered that not only was the main hall packed with a million other journalists, but that the actual superheroes were segregated into two camps with a big wall between them and refused to talk to anyone except their own sponsors.  Boring….

I left after a few minutes.

It didn’t take long walking around the campus to discover where some of the lesser, non-affiliated superheroes hung out.

I knew I had hit a more interesting place when I noticed the guy by the door smoking a joint.  He gave me a peace sign as I joined him.

“Hi!  Smart man staying away from the freaks over in the main hall!” he said, his bloodshot eyes seeming to focus on my left ear.  “By the way, I’m Ganja-guy.  Try to guess my superpower…”

My stomach rumbled.  “Uhm, incapacitating everyone with a great need to eat corn chips and chocolate chip cookies?”

He just smiled and handed me a huge bag of chips.

“Come on with me and I’ll introduce you to the gang.”

I was surprised that the main hall was a million times more ornate than the where the usual characters were seated.  It looked like a room in a royal palace.  A few people were seated here or there, some looking out of the great leaded glass windows, and some standing around, chatting.

And yet, there was one thing that really caught my attention that seemed to have nothing to do with the wood and marble, nor of superheroes.  In the middle of the grand hall a luxurious dress made of plants was on display.

 Before I could ask, Ganja-guy whisked me to a corner.

A man in a frumpled jacket was quietly reading a book in a corner. Ganj shushed me.

“Who’s he?” I whispered.

“Diff-E-Q-Man, sometimes just called “The Math Professor”.  His superpower is that he can bore a person to death in a minute flat.  Literally.  Deader than a van full of hippies and a million hits of acid and Jerry playing on a bootleg cassette.  Doornail dead. Come, I have someone else for you to meet.”

The person was a very large man.  When I say “large”, well, I’ll admit it is euphemism for rotund. He was wearing an orange, striped superhero suit.

“Hey!  Great to meet you!” he said when we walked up.

He talked for a quarter of an hour, nonstop, and was perhaps the most jocular, jolly man I had met in my entire life.

Ganja-guy finally rescued me.

“Any guesses?”

“Uhm…”  I had no clue.

“He calls himself Jupiter-dude, the great gaseous giant.  I call him The Windmaker, and his superpower is…”

“No,” I said, “No, no thank you, I don’t want to know!”

Ganj just laughed and gave me a new bag of corn chips.

I looked at my host and couldn’t suppress the childish giggle, knowing it was as much his influence as the juvenile humor of the situation.

I was introduced to a few others, like the young lady who called herself The Kit-Kat-Kid, though Ganja-guy called her something that I felt was more than a little misogynist, who could get all of the supervillains’ secrets from their pets.

Throughout, my eyes kept wandering over to that wild, literally, dress on display in it’s personal pool of sunlight, but my host kept herding me away from it.

We met others, like Leopard-frog-Lady, Figment-Man, Waxen-Woman and Goober-Guy.  With more than one I wondered if I should have gone into the main auditorium with the more well-known specimens of that odd superhero species. 

And then I was introduced to Projectile-vomit-man, and, well, I was turning queasy and looking at the exit.

I was actually about to make my escape when a woman I hadn’t noticed before appeared in a window. Sunlight surrounded her, even as she entered into the middle of the room.  My host coughed up a lot of smoke and started to hasten my departure, but now I had to stay!

It was impossible not to notice this woman.  Besides the halo of sunlight that followed her, the hundreds of butterflies around her, the most noticeable thing was that she had very long hair that was full of flowers.  And, uhm, the flowers and butterflies were the only thing on her.  Which was extremely noticeable.  Yeah, she proudly wore her skin.  And some skin it was.

She came straight to us.

I was mesmerized by her eyes, the most wise and ancient orbs I had seen, and yet as fresh as the new dawn sparkling on the dew.

“Junior, introduce me to your friend,” she said.

“Mother, you’re embarrassing me!”

“Really?  Why?”

I was growing intoxicated just by her presence in a way that went far beyond what even Ganja-Guy was causing.  First, it was a refreshing intoxicating, pleasant yet frightening, and everything was a little less funny.

“Mother, this is a formal function!”

She gave his tattered jeans and tie-died t-shirt a once over.

“I have seen you frolicking as I have intended, in your all-nothings, don’t tell me you haven’t.”

My host just sputtered, then took a long hit from his joint.

But I was still curious.  And the sunlight and fragrance of a fresh rain on a new woods was making my head spin.

“Ganja-guy, can you please introduce me to this lady?” I asked.

She laughed.

“Ganja-guy?  Right! His name is sometimes Weed-boy, and often Nature-boy.  I’ve even heard him called my name, if you can believe it!  If you haven’t noticed, he is male, and so…  Some do admit he is my son. But Ganja-Guy?  Junior, you shouldn’t get any more of those allusions…”

I was about to say something when she stopped me, putting a finger up, and acting like she was listening to a distant voice.

“I am sorry, I have been called.  I am busy!  As they say, a Mother’s work is never done…”

She started to walk towards the window, but Ganja-Guy called to her, “Mother, please put on your superhero suit!”

She looked at the dress made of leaves and twigs that had so drawn my attention.

“That thing?  It’s itchy.  No, I will go out as I intended, in my own personal attire!”

There was a flash of lightning a deep thunder and she was gone.

I turned back to my host, who had the biggest joint I had ever seen in my life.

“So…,” I took a wild guess, “Mother Nature’s Son, I’m assuming that her dress…”

“Yes, yes, it is her dress, and it is always here and changes with her seasons, yes. How embarrassing…”

“And when she said that you…”

“Yes, yes, she knows all.  You know it is not nice to fool my Mother….”

I turned back to the dress, her dress, and felt not only her intoxication, btu a great need for fresh air under the tress.

I turned to my host, and attempted a straight face, which was always difficult when around him.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” I said, “but nature calls.”

Yeah, I just returned from a 60-mile hike and feel great.  I think next weekend I’ll go out in search of my newest favorite superhero again!

Until then, I can always look out of the window and see her dressing on all of the trees and be reminded of her intoxicating presence.

***

This was written for the writephoto challenge which is hosted by KL Caley. KL provided the interesting image of the dress at the top of the post as well as the keyword, “Dress“. I hope you enjoy the story!