Rodney Carlson was an average, unassuming microbiologist studying whipworm when, as a result of a co-worker's careless mistake, the specimen Rodney was studying inexplicably turned radioactive and jumped into his eye in a really gross chain of events that you kind of had to be there to see, but trust me, it was totally gross. Anyway, it made him into a hero who uses a parasite-like ability to feed and survive on a host. With these powers, he contributes nothing to the host's survival and hopes to one day fight crime as the STUPENDOUS CAPTAIN PARASITE!

The line at the county unemployment office was out the door and halfway into the parking lot, and Lisa hadn't even had her break yet.

Still, she was especially thankful for the job, since her husband Jeff had been eaten alive one afternoon while working on Wall Street. She hadn't really gotten used to telling people that that wasn't a euphemism. During a two-week stint in which Jeff was trying to finally make it in the big city with his burgeoning hot-dog-stand business, he had, in fact, been sliced apart and ingested by investment bankers who had run amok after their firm collapsed.

So here was Lisa, a widow, barely 30, thrust into the epicenter of the nation's economic crisis.

It's not like she expected to be working in what was suddenly the busiest place in town. She had started there in 2005 so that she could do something quiet for once, after working as a car horn tester, an elephant feeder and Rosie O' Donnell's personal assistant. But here she was, with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

And today, of all days, there was a man dressed in bright green spandex splayed out like a quadriplegic all over the chair across from her desk.

She started in with the standard questions: "So tell me, Mister..."

"Captain," the man said.

"Mister Captain?"

"No, my title. It's captain, not mister. I'm a superhero, if you couldn't tell."

Lisa thought he had to be kidding, since she had just watched him cry to get to the front of the unemployment line, then steal a man's chicken sandwich right out of his hand. She clicked her pen against her forehead and pressed on.

"Okay. So tell me, Captain..."

"Parasite."

"Captain Parasite?"

"Yes."

"Because it says here your name is Rod Carlson, and that you worked as a microbiologist until mid-2002."

With surprising speed for a man whose limbs were so seemingly lifeless, Rod snatched the paperwork out of Lisa's hand and stuffed it down his throat, swallowing it without even the slightest mastication.

Lisa momentarily rethought most of her life decisions before moving on with the questions she could remember.

"Um..." she said as she considered that she maybe should have taken that job as a professional shooting range target. "What...what would you say are your strongest skills?"

"Well," said Rod as he began his lengthy and disgusting digestive process, "I do fight crime."

"Oh," said Lisa. "Well, that's promising. Have you applied to go to the police academy?"

As Rod began to regurgitate onto the floor, he shook his head.

"So that's a no?" Lisa asked.

He nodded as he licked liquefied paper off of the carpet.

"Well," she said with the condescending disappointment her bosses told her was a must, "are you looking for any work at all? Security jobs, maybe?"

"Look," snapped Rod as he returned to his near-comatose seated position. "I'm not looking for a job. I already have a job. Superhero. That's a job."

"No it isn't."

"I'm not here to argue semantics with you. What I am here to do is find out about that free money I heard people outside talking about."

Lisa paused.

"Free money?" she asked. "You...you mean, unemployment insurance?"

"I heard it was like, 300 bucks a week or something," Rod said. "I want that."

"I don't think you're eligible. In, really, any imaginable way."

"But you could fudge the paperwork or something, right? You like, control it. You can help the fight for good!"

Lisa rubbed her forehead, forgetting the pen in her hand, thereby smearing ink all over her face.

"That would be the opposite of good," she said with a sigh. "Also, you ate, threw up and re-ate the paperwork."

Rod furrowed his brow.

"So you're saying there will be no free money?"

"I can't see how that could happen, no."

"Well, I won't be satisfied if I leave here empty handed."

And so, off went Captain Parasite, out into the shopping center parking lot, waddling off toward Krispy Kreme with Lisa's coffee mug, the change from her purse, three couch cushions, some pens and a framed picture of Lisa's daughter.

Lisa shuffled back into her office, ready for another test of her will to keep breathing.

As Rod threw all the junk he had been carrying for the past 10 minutes into the dumpster outside Krispy Kreme while licking the thrown-out, days-old donuts in that same trash receptacle, he had a thought, which he said aloud:

"Is there any kind of benefit for someone who gnaws off their own limbs?"

He didn't know the answer, but soon, he thought to himself as he set off on another adventure, he would.

Captain Parasite 1
Captain Parasite 2

KingOblivionPhd@the-iss.com