SUUUPEEER SLOOOWWW

1

In a world full of superheroes there is a simple man defined by his love of a simple food. Everyone who knows him calls him Jimmy and he goes officially by ‘superspeed’.

“I love chicken nuggets” said Jimmy

“I know dad” chuckled Jimmys son.

Jimmy’s son was called Jimmy Jr. The two were walking together on the way to Jimmy’s favourite chicken nugget spot Chickenboost, which was down the road from where they stayed.

“I still don’t understand why u don’t just use your super-speed to run there and back, it would be a lot faster, and you could get ur beloved chicken nuggets a lot faster” said Jimmys son.

Jimmy smiled to himself and rubbed his son’s head.

“you know I don’t go fast anymore junior!” lectured Jimmy in a playful way, “to live da good life, you gotta take life suuupeeer slooowwww”.

Jimmy’s son giggled and rolled his eyes.

1.5 – at Chickenboost

“Welcome to Chickenboost!”, welcomed an employee at the till, “Or welcome back I should say!”

Jimmy smiled.

“the regular?”, asked the employee

“yes please!” replied Jimmy

The employee put his hands towards his temples and started focusing – he uses telepathy as a sort of intercom system for Chickenboost which really streamlines communication in the business. It’s part of what makes Chickenboost so great!

“ahh, sorry Jimmy. It seems we’re out of chicken nuggets”, said the employee

Jimmy gasped. The employee put his hand to his head again – he was getting more information.

“…and in fact, there seems to be a shortage of chicken nuggets at all of our branches”

2

Jimmy decided to take himself and his son back home to figure out what to do next, then he got a call. It was from Chickenboost.

“Hello?” said jimmy

“hi its me”

It was the employee from earlier. Jimmy had given Chickenboost his personal phone number.

“oh hi” said Jimmy

“yeah, I couldn’t give you a full update earlier since there was a queue”

“the long and short of it is there’s rumors going around that Chickenboost HQ is about to take chicken nuggets off the menu and apparently all the other chicken places are doing the same

since there’s really a global chicken nugget shortage.”

“a global chicken nugget shortage!” gasped jimmy

“Yeah. And also, it costs too much to source them given the demand isn’t high enough”

“damn! I thought everyone loved chicken nuggets!” said Jimmy.

“thanks for letting me know”

“no problem Jimmy”

3

“What could be causing a global chicken nugget shortage” said Jimmy thinking aloud, pacing slowly.

“there’s a global chicken nugget shortage?” asked Jimmy jr.

“Yeah. And apparently everyone’s gonna take them off their menus due to low demand” explained Jimmy to his son

This was looking to be a problem only Jimmy could solve.

Jimmy’s wife overheard the phone conversation and began to give her opinion on the matter. She has good hearing, which is a superpower in a way.

“Jimmy, you can’t go getting worked up over rumors.” She said in a comforting way

“yeah, youre right” said Jimmy.

4

Later on in the evening, Jimmy and his wife and son were watching movies on TV, and then they switched it to the news.

“…and in financial news...” said the newscaster from the TV.

Jimmy and his wife focused on the news.

“popular chicken spots such as ‘Chickenboost’ have taken chicken nuggets off the menu! Reports say it’s because of a global chicken nugget shortage.”

Jimmy looked at his wife and then she turned up the volume on the tv.

“the cause of the global chicken nugget shortage is not fully known, but it appears Earth is no longer receiving chicken nugget imports from the chicken nugget planet in the chicken nugget galaxy, which has previously been our primary source.

“the chicken nugget planet…” said Jimmy to himself before catching himself plotting aloud. He looked back at his wife who was looking at him in a supporting way.

“you go do what you have to do” said Jimmy’s wife.

Jimmy nodded thankfully and then stood up and (slowly) went towards the door.

“can I come?” asked Jimmy jr.

“okay get your coat” said Jimmy in an uplifting way, “lets go save the world!”

Jimmy jr. giggled, got his coat and they went out the door.

5

“Where are we going?” asked Jimmy jr.

This was a good question, since Jimmy had not yet figured out a plan of action.

“The newscaster said the problem is coming from space” reasoned Jimmy

“Cosmic Man will know what to do!”

Jimmy thought about putting his son on his back and zipping to Cosmic Man’s house in a gust of wind, until he remembered his own rule about going slow and started his (sloooooow) car.

After a journey through the town, they arrived at Cosmic Man’s house who welcomed the pair into his home.

“Long time no see Jimmy!” he said

“Likewise!” replied Jimmy whilst Cosmic Man greeted Jimmy jr by ruffling his hair.

“You’re a busy guy these days Cosmio!”

Cosmic Man was called Cosmic Man since he had a spaceship. He had no superpowers. He seemed to be in a rush in the middle of getting ready for something when Jimmy and Junior arrived and he was being polite by slowing down for them.

“What brings you boys here anyway?” asked Cosmio

“Long story short, we need to borrow your spaceship” replied Jimmy, “theres a problem involving the chicken nugget galaxy”

“ahhh damn you need it like right now??” said Cosmio in a stressed tone

“the thing is, I’m about to head out since my step-daughter is getting married!”

“dammit” said Jimmy jr to himself, since he had a crush on her. Cosmic Man continued:

“and it’s in the Wedding Galaxy which means I’m gonna be out for at least a few months”

Jimmy thought about the prospect of going months without chicken nuggets and gasped.

Both Jimmy and Cosmic-Man thought about what to do next. Cosmio didn’t want to leave his friend hanging and Jimmy didn’t have any other plan.

“I know!” said Cosmic Man suddenly, “you can go to see my cousin, he’ll help you out; owes me a favour anyway.”

Jimmy smiled.

“Who’s your cousin?” said Jimmy. He never knew Cosmic Man had a cousin.

“He goes by Providence. He has science and magic powers.”

“that’s awesome!” exclaimed Jimmy jr. The two men smiled at him.

Cosmic Man gave Jimmy Providence’s address and Jimmy thanked him and congratulated his daughter for her wedding before heading out.

6

After another car journey, Jimmy and Jimmy jr arrived at Providence’s place. It was a humble little place that had a big front driveway area. There was music coming from inside the house, so loud that you could hear before you entered.

The front door magically opened and shut behind them as they approached and entered the building.

“Superspeed!” shouted Providence as Jimmy entered a living room area from the front landing.

He was holding a beer can in one hand and facing towards a football game on TV. All Jimmy and his son could see was his long and wild hair since he didn’t turn around from his football game to greet them.

“Hi. You can call me Jimmy” replied Jimmy, a little bit taken aback by how Providence knew it was him without looking.

“Hi!” said Jimmy junior. He was already a little bit of a fan of Providence.

“Welcome, welcome, make yourselves comfortable” said Providence, eyes still locked on the game, and he gestured towards sofas to his left and his right.

“Sorry about my manners. There’s like 2 minutes left in the game, and I really need my team to win otherwise my life savings are in the toilet!”

Jimmy didn’t know whether he should laugh or not, but he did anyway. He took a look at the score on the game; 0-0.

“So, what brings you here?”

“Can you help us travel to the Chicken Galaxy? Cosmic Man said you knew a way?” replied Jimmy.

“Yeah! I can help, no problem. I can open up a teleportation portal, and it’ll take you guys straight there. I’ll even put a spell on you guys so you can breathe in space”.

Jimmy was elated. Jimmy jr who was paying attention to the football game noticed one of the teams scored. He looked towards Providence, who was now shaking his head in disappointment at the result.

“ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh jeez” sighed Providence. Jimmy and Jimmy jr decided it was best not to comment.

Providence finally looked at Jimmy, and Jimmy was surprised by how much he looked like Cosmic Man. Providence drank the rest of his beer.

“So, when do you guys need to travel?”

“As soon as you can” replied Jimmy, thinking about chicken nuggets.

“Now?” asked Providence, trying to take his mind off the game

“Sure!” said Jimmy.

“Ok let’s do it!”

Providence looked towards the ground in front of him and started chanting a spell. Glowing symbols appeared on the floor and formed a circle, slowly expanding.

Jimmy jr gasped in excitement.

Suddenly the symbols stopped glowing and the circle closed.

“ahhh damn” said Providence.

“what’s wrong?” said Jimmy?

“the magic isn’t not working too well since the bloody game has screwed up my mood” explained Providence, “we’re gonna have to use science”

7

Providence pulled up a table that had some schematic paper on it, and used his science powers to design a spaceship in a few short moments, which was just as cool to Jimmy junior.

“Now all we need is to get the materials and you guys will be good to go” said Providence reassuringly.

He made some instant-photocopies using a peculiar hi-tech piece of equipment and gave one to Jimmy junior and his dad.

“How long do you reckon it will take?” asked Jimmy junior.

“A couple years I reckon, if we all work together” replied Providence as he put his materials list on his to-do board.

“Well actually, seeing as your dad is helping it will probably be a lot faster”

“ahh, well my dad likes to go slow nowadays” said jimmy junior. “Right dad?”

Providence and Jimmy Junior looked over to Jimmy, who was staring at the materials list. The prospect of waiting even one year for chicken nuggets was making him a little dizzy.

“Dad?” said jimmy junior, trying to contain his laughter.

Jimmy shook his head to himself and smiled.

“…”

“fuck it”

8 – Super Speed

A blink later, all the materials were outside the house on the front driveway and a brief, coordinated effort later the spaceship was built.

Jimmy thanked Providence for his help before heading out with his son to the spaceship in matching space-suits.

At first, they struggled to find the Chicken Nugget Galaxy and got a bit lost. They finally figured it out, although they used more fuel than they planned for.

“We have to stop here otherwise we’ll have no fuel to get back”

They arrived at the head of the Chicken Nugget Galaxy. Although he had no plan of how to get back into the ship, Jimmy used his superspeed to run-and-jump out of the spaceship, propelling him at great speed into the chicken nugget planet.

He ran across the entire planet looking for chicken nuggets, but he did not find any. Then his oxygen supply was about to run out and he got desperate. He was about to give up and then the planet itself spoke to him

“Welcome traveler. Where do you come from?”

“Earth”

“Ah. I was starting to feel as if my chicken nuggets were not being appreciated on Earth, so I stopped sending them. Now that I see an earthling is willing to come all the way over here to visit me, I feel appreciated again and I will resume sending them again”

The chicken nugget planet gave Jimmy some oxygen flavored chicken nuggets and teleportation flavored chicken nuggets for him and his son to return back to earth.

9 – A Week Later

After the long adventure of the previous week, Jimmy and his son took a familiar walk.

“I love chicken nuggets” said jimmy

“I know Dad” chuckled Jimmy’s son.

The End