A small volume, cloth bound and shabby. "The Time That OMMSSSDDDDTTTTT Came Out To Play."

Inconspicuous on a long, loaded table among books that had been best sellers a decade ago. It drew his eyes. It called for hesitating fingers to brush its yellowed pages. He didn't understand, but still, somehow… he knew.

There was no time for reading poetry in his life. A moment snatched, here and there. A sunset, a sunrise. A birdsong savored, the engine's rumble and growl. The way the light sometimes tangled itself in her hair. But usually… usually there was no time.

He found time for this. Juggling the balls of school, and family, and friends in one hand. Spinning the plates of Powers, and Protection, and all of his self-imposed responsibilities in the other. And somehow holding steady as he manufactured the time needed to read a dusty little bundle of pages that cost him less than a pack of gum at the Library donation sale. He knew.

He let the words settle, weighted, in his heart and bones and at the base of his skull. He listened to thundering echoes as it whispered calls from his spirit's eternity and back to his fingertips, tracing the words. As if they had more substance than ink on paper. Because they had more substance. Because he knew.

So he shaped those words with silent lips. Learned their rhythm. Felt their pace. Wrapped the warm edges of his very self around them and their meaning. Then he tucked the tome away upon the shelf of his bedroom closet. High on the shelf to the right of the door, beneath folded winter sweaters. And he returned to the welcome, casually hectic pace of his everyday normal.

So when the next stage came…

As he had somehow known it would…

The man, the monster, who had declared himself his enemy crossed the final line. Abandoned any pretense of humanity and waged War.

Abductions in the dark. Sourceless screams. An unacceptable, inescapable threat against the girl… the woman that he loved. Everything he knew and cherished, the world itself, under siege. And a breeding program for mindlessly loyal soldiers, an army, designed for the sole purpose of defeating him. Capturing and subduing him. He pulled forth his gifts, his power, as he had so many times before.

But it was not time, not yet. So he fought, without fervor. He raged, without fire.

Waiting for the proper time.

Bound and escorted to the feet of his enemy. Presented as a trophy, he stood unbowed. With measured breath and steady heart, he let the man crow and gloat and boast of long plans. He let the man preach the apparent triumph of his greatness. He listened as the man railed against the unfairness of his life. Of how he'd been denied the love he demanded. Of how he'd been cast out of a society he'd constantly derided and turned his back upon. And so, when that man had been granted his own gifts, he denied their majesty. The man had never been able to understand that everything he thought was due was to be given, not taken. It was all to be earned, never owed. Those powers of his own, used instead as weapons against anything and anyone who had no immediate use to him. Finally, the man turned, sneering upon him to pronounce a righteous verdict and sentence.

And thinking upon those dusty, insubstantial words in an inconspicuous book… our hero spoke. He said aloud the words that he had only read once, but which had resonated so strongly within him. He voiced their rhythm, rhyme and meter, feeling again that deep chord of harmony in the verses. The recitation was so calm, so unexpected that the man allowed the full narration as he stood there. Defeated, but unvanquished. Bound, but unconcerned.

The words in the book may have been a kind of magic. They may have been coincidence. Whatever they were or were not, they had spoken to him as he'd read them and they roared in him as he recited them aloud. They told him what he was and what he could… would be. He recognized them as a match for the lock of preconceptions within himself and he held them tightly as he turned the key. What had been light and sound without material became his cloak and armor. What had been power and ability already beyond the imagining of most men became… more.

He held the truth of these words and the truth of himself in his hands, a brand and a blade. He shook off the bonds placed upon him by his enemy and the bonds he'd placed upon his own potential. And he stepped forward to unmake this monster who'd once been a man. And as he stood still within the feathered ashes of what that man had made, he knew.

This is what I am. These are my gifts. This is not my fault, but it is my responsibility. This is what I choose.

He turned to the observers and stated, "I have defeated a King. I have defeated this man who would conquer us all. But I won't wear a crown for you. I don't want to rule and you don't want to be ruled. We don't need it. Just remember this. I plan to protect this world as I have been. I'll do whatever I can do to keep the balance, just as I have been. But if you bring a fight to me, I will tear you down. I will bring everything I am and make sure that nothing of you or your plans is left standing. Go."

He turned to the undone army and sent them away. He turned to the rescued and sent them home. And he carefully tugged on the opened wings of his new understanding, tucking them close again to just be once more as he was. Himself, as normal as he'd never been. Never again as he had been, not what he'd just become, but maybe not so… obvious about it. Hiding again in plain sight, just another normal young man. One who had no time for poetry between the pressures of school, and family, and friends. …And the power, the protection, the self-imposed responsibilities of his hidden life. Average. Undetectable beneath the assumptions that others would never see past, but that he knew now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, were the furthest thing from the truth.

He went home. And to this day, that one poem… A jumble of words that he had no time for, but made time for. That he knew and somehow came to understand… To this day, it remains his favorite. The poem, "The Time That OMMSSSDDDDTTTTT Came Out To Play."