Days of Invincibility

They are over, my friends, over and

over again, the days without end,

the glory days where I could eat what

I wanted to eat without fear of the

slightest threat to my health and well

being.

Past and gone, times where my cells

aligned forming a shield of impene-

trable steel, no arsenal of violence

or mayhem could penetrate. Over

are the days patience and a few

aspirin could outlast the petty

bothersome annoyances of bodily

aches and pain.

Bullets, atom bombs, cancer,

hurricanes and ruptured appendix

were fatal conditions which plagued

other weaker or less fortunate

specimens than I.

But gone now for me are those

impenetrable days where fear of

susceptibility to fatality did not

affect me adversely. I stood chin

up, bullet proof and ten-feet tall.

Gone are my excessive and dare-

devil days of impunity. With age

and little foundation of prudent

and preventive precautions of my

defiant and reckless past, the aches,

pains and disabilities I face today

have come home to roost.

Now is my time in the barrel—

the Piper must be paid. Even

George Reeves and Christopher

Reeve who were far more renown

as supermen than I had to eventually

face their comeuppance.

Proof, even the fiction which you

may have believed as true can only

get you so far. Pain is pain, dear reader.

Mortality is the reality. And all the

aspirin in the world won’t alleviate the

inevitability of that.

                         -30-

Chris Hanch 6-27-2022