CONTROL:
By: ShadowWing
Standard Disclaimer: The narrator of this piece is mine all mine!! Please borrow with permission. Thanks!!
Out of Control.The most common phrase when used by others to describe me... Or my alter ego, I should say.
The maniac, the daredevil, the impulsive one, the superhero who will end up in Arkham before the next decade is out. Okay, I'll be the first to admit that I earned that rep. Those names, but little to they know that it all on the outside.
I pretty sure Belfry-Brains knows the truth, I know Jonn knows, hell he taught me the meaning of control.
Control.
That two-syllable word became my mantra at the age of twelve when a few beakers went flying across the BatCave's lab when I still wore the Nightingale costume. Nothing was the same after that...
Nothing...
I could never look at things the same way either.
I've always tried to look on the bright side of things, to see the good even in the heart of the worst criminal. That point of view got killed when I began to 'hear' their thoughts, to 'see' what was in their thoughts, dreams, and desires. Not pretty at all.
It was a wake up call; a big one and it got so much louder. I do mean that.
You see what very few people realize is that these powers of mine...they don't come with an off switch. Nope, the best I can do is turn down the volume. That's where the control comes in.
Still confused? Okay lets see if I can put this in perspective here, in terms that a typical non-telepath can understand. Okay just imagine for a second a drop of water.
You're not imagining...I can tell.
Come on work with me here... Now you've got it.
Okay now imagine that single drop represents your mind, then add drops to represent your family, friends, and neighbors at one drop per person. Then add your co-workers, the average people you meet on the street, the population of the city you live in, the state, the whole country... By now you should have a sizable amount of water.
Now, imagine that this good amount of water is beating on you, like a good old thunderstorm, now here's the trick.
Keep Dry.
Because that's what I have to do, I have to keep dry, and the only shelter from the onslaught is my own mind, me myself and I. Nobody else can help; I'm all on my own here folks.
So know you can see the need for the 'out of control' persona, it keeps a part of me distracted, while the rest of my mind stays dry. Or tries to at any rate. You see to keep dry you have to do two things. One put on a raincoat strong enough to keep dry or dance between the drops before they hit.
Both are not easy.
If you have been caught in a severe enough storm you know that there is no one type of protection that will keep you dry indefinitely. They all break down eventually, you have to get wet sometime. And moving between the drops will eventually wear down the strongest person. So I do both.
Because I can't come in from the rain.
I am the shelter I run to in a storm, so I put up barriers that cannot break and move like a shark in the deep blue sea. To let either my walls crumble or to pause for a moment will not only cost me my stability...
It may cost me my mind as well.
So outside, in the costume moving in the night I show the world the part of myself that deep inside I can never truly be anymore.
I can never let my guard down or my control to drop.
I can act like I don't have a care in the world, like a madwoman looking for a straitjacket, be the jokester I once was, and get away with it.
But they will never know the truth, and that's the way I like it.
Because you see but making the world think I'm not in control makes them underestimate me.
That puts me back in control after all.
End