Chapter 4
The Symbol
Inaction Man pondered the riddle of his name as he searched for somewhere to bed down for the night, or rather bed down for the day. Inaction man liked to sleep at noon, under the sun’s beneficent radioactive shield. In the bushes in which he had slept the night before, near Pont de la Tournelle, with a stunning view of Ile de Saint Louis, he found a broken and rusted bicycle.
Inaction Man disliked bicycles. They are a force for action and therefore anathema to a superhero who opposes all action. But this bicycle broke the rule. A bike that could not be ridden, a bike that celebrated inaction – this was a bicycle worthy of Inaction Man. Could it really be just a coincidence that this machine had entered the space-time continuum at this time and in this place?
“If there is ‘a special providence in the fall of a sparrow’, as the prince of inaction Hamlet purports there to be, then is this broken bicycle also a gift from the Gods?” Inaction Man asked his beard.
He decided to converse with the bicycle to learn something of its history. As a defender of the Earth, he had to choose his friends carefully.
Conversing with inanimate objects is a skill not easily mastered. Dr Doolittle managed to talk to the animals, but inter-species communication is a straightforward enough business, compared to blood and non-blood dialogue. Flesh and non-flesh exist on different plains and have never been on speaking terms. Striking up a conversation with a piece of wood or a chunk of metal is rarely successful. Those who attempt it usually drown in their own monologue. Even Inaction Man often required chemical assistance to bridge the divide between the animate and the inanimate.
To help him reach a state of spiritual openness in which he could commune with the bicycle, Inaction Man dug up a bottle of methylated spirits that he had previously buried in the ground, under the magic rock that had first alerted him to his superpower of meta-biological speech.
He drank it quickly, gulping the vision juice down. It tasted vile and smelt worse. He had to repress the urge to vomit when the meth hit his stomach. When he had ingested all of the potion, he fell to the ground and breathed in deeply. Like a worm in acid, his lined face creased in pain, with mucus streaming from his nostrils, he lay squirming on the sodden earth.
A fuzziness in his field of vision told him that the spirit elixir was taking hold. A buzzing sound tickled his eardrum, and soon Inaction Man could hear the insects talking to each other about work-related matters. It was all wireworms ever talked about, being single-minded and purposeful creatures with no social life whatsoever. Grubs complained about the cold and the insular lifestyle that being a pupa entailed. Beetles hunted through the leaf litter, picking out the noisiest complainers and making a meal out of their gripes.
Slowly the pain subsided and Inaction Man waited for the spiritual awakening the magical meth potion always brought. As he gasped, the mud he was now caked in began to dry and crack – a prelude to dimension shift. Colours blurred and melted into one another. The ground beneath Inaction Man trembled. The universal cosmos entered his body, through the corpus callosum, making it move in time with the earthwaves.
He saw, heard, felt, smelt and touched the universal truth that matter is energy and energy is matter. Two sides of the same coin but one fundamental force. Matter is just vibrating energy: energy is just vibrating matter. Matter moves slowly: energy moves quickly. He shivered in time with both, and for an instant, he was both forms at once.
Inaction Man staggered over to the bicycle and hugged the rusty frame. The first thing he noticed was that the bike’s frame was female. Though far from the first flush of youth, she was not as old as she first appeared. Weather beaten and neglected, certainly; far too young to look as old as she did, undoubtedly. Inaction Man rocked the bike gently and sang her a lullaby to win the bike’s trust.
The bicycle was coy at first. She had known many men and was wary of them. In the bike’s experience, men simply rode you from one place to another and then abandoned you without a second thought. Men were exploitative and only interested in one thing. Once you had served your purpose, they discarded you. Most never even spoke to you, except to utter the occasional expletives. Men were animals!
However, this was the first time a man had ever hugged the bicycle and there was something emotionally cathartic in it. Against its better judgement, the bike decided to speak with this strange man.
“Speak to me, oh wounded wheel bearer. What is your name?” Inaction Man said.
“I am Velib 5247, but you can call me Velo.”
“I am Inaction Man, superhero.”
“A superhero, is it? I must say that you don’t look like a superhero. Mind you, I’ve never met one before, so how would I know? They don’t ride bikes a lot. When you can fly through the sky there’s not much need to. What are your special powers, Inaction Man?”
“The gifts of sound and vision.”
“But doesn’t everyone have those powers, except the blind and the deaf, of course.”
“I possess suprasensorial sight and accelerated audition. I can see things that are not there and hear things that are not said.”
“… And is there much call for that kind of thing?” the bike asked.
Inaction Man sensed the bike’s disappointment. Perhaps it was hoping for something along the lines of laser eyes or the ability to fly, but Inaction Man was no bling potentate.
“What has brought you to this ruinous state, brave Velo?” Inaction Man asked the bike, caressing its broken wheel.
“A drunk. A man. A drunk man!” Velo cried.
“The only man worse than a drunk man is a sober one,” Inaction Man said, nodding wisely. “Both are prone to action but at least a drunkard rarely finishes what he has started. How did the fiend misuse you, battered bicycle?”
“The pup swung his leg over me and rode me as recklessly as a blind skunk. It scared me into speech, so it did. Then he farted on my saddle, the filthy sod. Booze and hash, that’s what I smelt. He was so out of his face that he could hear me. I tried to warn the drunken fool that he was going too fast but men never listen! He just kept looking around him, jerking his head right and left and completely ignoring me.”
“Men are often deaf to the truth,” Inaction Man said.
“I shouted at him to get off me, but the more I yelled, the more crazily he rode. When I screamed, he crashed into a wall. And then, to rub salt in me wounds, he threw me into these bushes here and left me to rust and rot. Cast aside for the piece of old junk that I am. It’s enough to make you wish for the crusher’s yard, it really is,” Velo said, as the metal frame began to quiver.
“This is indeed a sad and bitter tale, sister Velo. On behalf of my race – by which I mean the race of men and not the race of superheroes – I apologise and ask forgiveness. Man’s inhumanity to bicycles knows no bounds.”
Velo didn’t answer but the bike had stopped crying.
“They’re a wicked lot, men are,” Velo said.
“Where does this malevolence come from?” Inaction Man asked rhetorically. “Not from the ridden but from the rider. A bicycle is not evil in and of itself, and yet there is much evil done through it. In the bicycle we see all that is wrong in man: his need for motion; his craving for action; his drive toward destruction.”
“Right you are, Inaction Man,” the bike said, with more hesitation than conviction. Or so it seemed to Inaction Man.
“Know you this also, vexed Velo -- thou art no ordinary bicycle. You were meant for a higher purpose!”
“Really? What purpose is that then?”
Inaction Man stood up at this point, picked up a nearby branch, and gently placed it on each wheel of the bicycle. As he mumbled some incantation, he placed his hand reassuringly on Velo’s handlebars.
“Velo 5247 of Paris -- I hereby dub you a Knight of the Order of Inaction. From this day forth, thou shall be known as Symbol – if thou wilt take this honour, as I believe thou will, having seen into thine soul, and
seen it to be good and true.”
“Symbol? A real name? I’m not just Velo 5247 anymore. If I’ve got a real name, I really exist. Cool!”
“You are sorely needed, Symbol.”
“Needed for what exactly, Inaction Man?”
“I do not fully comprehend the exact nature of my mission as of yet, but I know I am responsible for defending Earth against dark forces.”
“Defending the Earth, eh? Sounds very important. Tell me, does it pay well then, this superhero lark? Are there many fringe benefits?”
“What would Inaction Man do with money? To spend is to act and cash corrupts the soul. What every superhero really needs is a worthy assistant in their fight against evil, and I would like you to be my assistant, brave Symbol. Will you accept your commission? It will be dangerous, it will be difficult, but the fate of the city, nay the fate of the entire world, hangs in the balance. I need someone beside me I can trust, someone I can rely on. Will you join me?”
This was the first time Velo had been referred to as someone rather than something. The bike was delighted, and for that act alone, it would have followed Inaction Man anywhere.
“I accept! I will defend you always and fight the dark forces and all of that sort of thing.”
“Excellent! From this day forth, you shall be a beacon. A warning of the dangers of action and a calling to inaction.”
Inaction Man and Symbol fell asleep together under the bushes near the Seine, hugging each other for comfort and safety. Cars and bicycles whizzed past them, completely oblivious to their existence.
They were both sure that this day would go down in history, the day that the Inaction Man met Symbol. As they fell asleep, Inaction Man thought about the great books that would one day be written about their crucial role in the day of reckoning.
They had no idea what their exact role would be, of course. The future was uncertain, but they took comfort in the fact that at least they would certainly be facing the uncertainty together.