Melvin the Unlikely Hero

Melvin had a very odd birth. He was born in the trunk of an old station wagon that was stuck on the room of a skyscraper in uptown New York City. He was then taken to the countryside where he was raised in a barn. His parents feared that if he had a rich life, he would take them on a talk show and complain about being smothered in his youth. As it turned out, he grew up to fulfill his dream of being a checkout clerk at the local Save Mart. He was happy in his life.

One day, in his apartment underneath a bowling ally, and above another bowling ally, he was eating dinner. He had just finished his feast of two-day-old Happy Meals and decided to eat some sponge cake for dessert. This was a special sponge cake; it was seven days old and now had a heartbeat, or so the sponge cake thought. He ate the sponge cake and promptly died.

Like foxfire streaking towards a field of grain, he was accelerated through the planes of existence until he arrived at a point. He looked about and noticed dossiers, a dingy desk, and pictures of people. Behind the desk, was an odd person. He had a wizened face, but a youthful body. He grumbled about inconveniences as he signed 17 forms and then looked at Melvin.

“You have caused me a lot of trouble. As a result of you dying, you inconvenienced me with extra forms.” He saw Melvin was confused and added “Requisition forms, for sending you back to Earth.”

Melvin found his voice, and as a teacher scrapes her fingernails over a chalkboard, so did his voice sound, “Are you a god?”

The person laughed, “Yes, I am a god.”

“What is your name?”

The god stood up to his full 5’5” height, which was a full head shorter than Melvin “I am Flanderencelrothorenarux,” he said proudly.

Melvin took in the name and then asked, “What are you god of?”

Flanderencelrothorenarux looked at him and said meekly, “Nothing at the moment.”

“Huh?”

Melvin sat down as the god sat. As the wind howls through the valleys of the mountains during winter, so did the god sigh. “I was the god of Wisdom, but I agreed to bet it in a card game with the god of lies, deceit, and cheating. Now I am god of nothing at the moment. My job is to make sure heroes go about their lives until fate kicks in and also I do coffee runs to Starbucks for all the other gods.”

Melvin startled at that. “Not very wise of you, was it?”

The god looked up with anger. “Shut up!”

Melvin looked at him annoyed. “Well, since I am here, does that mean I am a hero?”

The god gave a weak smile, “Well, the real guy got eaten, and if I brought him back, it wouldn’t have been a pretty sight. But, you were our fifth choice, and the only one whose life had not lead to something that mattered.”

Melvin gave the god a look that said he would have been happier without this knowledge and asked, “Ok, what do I do?”

The god stood up proudly and picked up a calendar. “The women of the Ethereal Plan swimsuit issue?” Melvin asked.

The god quickly put that calendar in a drawer of his desk and pulled out “Monsters of Earth.” He turned to September and there was a picture of a Hill Giant named Hank. “This is the monster, kill it.”

Melvin had remembered all heroes have some special gift or weapon and listened eagerly. Flanderencelrothorenarux walked to a wall and pressed a button. The wall fell away and there stood and beautiful axe and armor composed of a shining metal. Melvin was ready to receive the armor and weapon as the god moved over to them.

But, he picked up a small shiny object and said, “This was knocked off the axe. You may use it.”

He then picked up a scrap of leather “This came off the armor. I t was rotting and no longer useful as a strap, you may use it as well.”

To say Melvin wasn’t happy would be the grand understatement of all understatements. “This is what I get to defeat a giant with?!?!?!” he asked.

The god smiled “No, that and I will allow you your underpants if you must.”

The god handed these to Melvin, who quickly donned them. He then asked “Well, where is this Hill Giant?”

The god took out a map of the United States and pointed to Kansas, “He isn’t too bright. There are few hills there, so your search shouldn’t take long.” He pressed a button and Melvin disappeared.

Melvin reappeared on a slingshot. He saw a blue spot in the distance; he looked behind him and saw another godlike thing. The godlike thing said, “Thank your for flying Immortal Airlines,” and let go of the slingshot Melvin was sitting in.

Melvin was again shot through the planes of existence and landed on Earth on a skyscraper beside something that may have once been a station wagon. He went to the door and then the elevator, down to the street. He found the subway station and boarded. On the subway, people stared at him, in his underpants and holding a sliver of metal and a leather strap.

Melvin just said, “Red Hot Chili Peppers look alike contest.”

The people nodded and turned away. He got off the subway near the airport and found a ticket waiting for him. He read the ticket “Cargo” and a note attached read “Sorry, but we Immortals have a budget too.”

After a long, cold flight, he landed in Kansas. When I say land, I mean he fell out of the plane when they let the wheels down and skipped along the landing strip for a few hundred yards. He lost most the skin on his right arm and chest, but since he was dead, it didn’t hurt. So, now a dead, cut up guy in underpants walked from the airport to the fields of grain. He traveled for two days, and it didn’t take long at all to find the giant.

Melvin looked in the distance and saw a large figure sitting. He went closer and saw a giant sitting on a hill, singing to himself. “Hello…giant guy”

The ugly giant looked up. “My name is Hank.”

Melvin looked at the giant. “What are you doing here?”

“There are only two or three respectable hills in Kansas, so I am stuck here.”

The two got to talking, and Melvin decided that Hank was a nice guy. After a while Melvin took a deep breath, then said, “Well, we have to fight, ‘cause the gods say I have to kill you.”

“Then I guess we gotta fight” the giant said dimly.

The giant stood up to his full 20 foot height. Melvin slashed at the giant with his metal sliver, and it pierced its full eighth of an inch into the monster’s skin. The giant then backed away and looked at his bleeding ankle. He picked up a dirt clod and threw it at Melvin. Melvin held up the leather strap in front of him and the dirt clod was launched right back at the giant.

The clod hit the giant square in the face and Hank yelled in a large, booming voice “Ouch! That smarted me!!!!!”

Melvin looked at the giant and said, “I doubt that.”

The giant staggered around and stumbled on an old wagon. Hank fell to the ground and Melvin hopped onto his chest. He then stabbed downward with the glorified toothpick and once again pierced his enemy. The giant slapped Melvin away and the hero’s neck snapped, along with his backbone. That would have hurt and stopped a normal man, but Melvin was dead! So, it didn’t matter. The giant tried to reach for the sliver, but he couldn’t pry it out. Melvin watched from his broken body as the giant did this. His first thought was to get up and attack again, but a broken neck and back was a bit difficult. In fact, when he did manage to get up, the giant would just knock him down by blowing air in his general direction.

For weeks, this went on. Melvin would try to get up and fight, and Hank would just blow him down again. Hank got red fingers and wasn’t feeling too good after a while. Another month passed, Hank died. Not from Melvin getting up and attacking him, but from a quite nasty strain of the flue.

The giant’s body became a hill, and Melvin realized why there were so few hill giants, mountain giants, cloud giants, fire giants, and frost giants: it was because there were so many hills, mountains, clouds, fires, and glaciers. The entire world was their graveyard. Melvin started to feel bad about Hank. But, after Hank’s hill became a nest for vultures who started to eat Melvin, he forgot his guilt.

Finally, Melvin felt himself pulled back to that other plane of existence. He saw the gob beaming with pride. “Good job, you have completed the task.”

Melvin looked in dismay, “You mean I don’t get godhood, or riches, or a story in TIME magazine?”

The god shook his head, “No, you don’t even get to be ressurected.”

Melvin scratched his head, “Then what do I get?”

The god smiled on him, “You get to do coffee runs for all us gods, and I got a new title. I am the god of impossibly long names. I can’t tell you my new name, for Mobius would end before my name does.”

And so Melvin, who was born in a station wagon, raised in a barn, killed by a sponge cake, fulfilled a prophecy that didn’t matter much, became the new coffee boy for the gods. And what does Melvin say to all this? “Do you want Mocha or Latte?”

The End