The Green Lantern Ring – Chapter 2

The first time I used my power ring to punish.

1 month after receiving the ring:

I was walking home past a row of 10-story buildings when a man suddenly stepped out from around the corner, about 20 or 30 meters away. He seemed to be listening to music aloud, on his phone, bobbing his head to the rhythm. He turned towards me and pointed his index finger at me. He said something, or maybe just sang along to the music, I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t react.

The whole scene was unexpected – at 3 pm in the calm, sunny afternoon, a guy shows up, pointing at me, singing music aloud and bobbing his head, as if he just came out of a night club on a Friday night. Oh and he was a gypsy. A gypsy acting weird is usually not a good sign. So I just kept walking ahead, toward him, without reacting to him in any way. This seemed to annoy the guy, as he suddenly stopped dancing and looked back at me a few times. I continued on ahead, walking normally.

When I reached him, I passed him by. From the corner of my eye I could sense him turning towards me as he said: “Take off your glasses, asshole!”

I didn’t react, just kept walking in the same pace as before. I knew that, had I reacted, he would’ve probably attacked me. There was no point in getting into a fight over nothing. But it did bother me, to be honest, even though he couldn’t see this on the outside. It bothered me partly because my self-confidence wasn’t as strong as it should’ve been – strong enough to instantly deflect such pathetic insults. But it also bothered me because it was a bright, peaceful afternoon, retirees and mothers walking around, pushing their strollers with their babies in them, and yet such a thing could happen.

So, after I passed him and walked about 15 or 20 meters, I turned back and could still see him standing there, looking at his phone. I lifted my hands to the level of my stomach and I imagined two green hands, made of light, appearing behind his ankles – I could feel the sensation in my head, the energy of the ring, and I focused it on this thought.

Suddenly, two green dots started to flicker behind his ankles. Stay where you are, don’t move, I thought, while trying to concentrate on the form I wanted to create. The green light stopped flickering and began to grow and take shape. Yes, the bones and the joints and the flesh and the muscles, keep going, don’t stop! Two green hands were sculpted, levitating slightly above the ground, behind the man’s ankles. Every time he moved, I thought I’m going to lose the construct and he’ll turn around and notice me.

But I didn’t, and he only moved his arms to take off his hat and put it back on again. The green hands of light were done. My constructs are working! Finally! I smiled. Then, I clutched my hands into a fist and the green hands did the same – they grabbed a hold of the guy’s ankles.

He looked down in surprise. I made a quick, pulling motion towards my stomach. The green hands pulled the guy’s legs out from under him. He fell flat on his face on the concrete floor. I could hear the sound of his head crashing into the ground. Holy shit, it works! I can do this!

I turned around and started walking. I was still smiling. I felt a power that I had never felt before, a power that I’d stopped wishing for years ago. I could hear the guy cursing and shouting. After walking about 15 more meters, I turned around. I was relatively far away at this point, but it seemed like he was looking at me again.

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1 month earlier – the day of receiving the ring:

After I broke the window – seemingly with superpowers from the Green Lantern ring I ordered from an online merch store – I was awestruck. I wanted to believe it, but I was also second guessing myself: could this really be true? Have my mental health problems deteriorated into schizophrenia and I’d just hallucinated? Or am I dreaming?

I washed my face with cold water. I didn’t seem to be dreaming: everything felt as clear, detailed and real as life usually feels. I wasn’t in a bad mental state either, having quit my toxic job a month ago, so it would’ve been strange timing if I was crossing the line into schizophrenia at that point. I went to the bedroom, checked the window again: still broken. I touched it, felt the glass with my fingers. It feels real. Nothing feels off.

I remembered that I had not eaten anything yet and it was already 11 am – could it be that hunger is making me see things? But, in those days, I often didn’t eat breakfast: I woke up around 10 am, and after I got ready to take the bus, it was already lunch time, so my first meal was at the restaurant I usually go to (the one that has the cheap menu option). And never have I ever hallucinated before.

So it can’t be that, I don’t think. But, to be sure, I decided to get dressed quickly, reach the next bus and have lunch before I try anything else with my new Green Lantern ring. I was super excited though – excited in a way I haven’t been in a really long time, maybe ever. As I locked the door of my apartment, I kept thinking of all the possibilities this would open, if true. All the things I would be able to do. And all the questions it would raise. How is this possible? Who made this ring? What does this mean about the world that we thought we knew the rules of? What does it mean about physics? But I tried to hold myself back a bit, to be more cautious: you don’t know for sure yet, go eat lunch, don’t get carried away.

I stepped into the restaurant. This was the place I frequented while working at my previous job – the office is literally 4 minutes away. After I’d quit my job, I was initially a bit bothered by the idea that I might run into my ex-colleagues. I’d not had a good relationship with any of them, except for two guys who also quit. But I’d kept coming here and I never ran into any of them. I usually arrived at a time when most of my ex-colleagues would already be finished having lunch.

“Hey!”

“Hello! I’d like an A menu and a half litre cola.”

“Sure, go ahead, take a seat.”

“Thanks,” I said and walked through the short hallway that led to a separate room with a few tables in it.

“Here’s your coke,” said the bald guy with a beard who was one of the waiters there. I didn’t know his name, I still don’t, but I’d seen him in my neighbourhood many times. He usually plays with his son in the playground right below the building I live in. We’d said hi to each other a few times, although I was always the one who initiated it – who knows, he might’ve kept ignoring me, if I hadn’t made the first move. “Thanks,” I said.

“Enjoy!”

I drank at least one half litre coke every day, which I know is quite unhealthy. My parents had been trying to convince me to quit this habit, and I planned on doing so… eventually.

The bean gulyás also arrived, with two slices of bread for dipping into the soup. I love it, great Hungarian food. After I filled my stomach and my hunger was gone, I decided it was time to do another test. There was no one in the room other than me, so I thought it should be safe enough.

I placed my half litre coke bottle on the other side of the table. I made a fist with my right hand, pointing the ring towards the bottle. I focused on the bottle, imagining the green light encircling the bottle. I wanted to take hold of it with the light and pull it back towards me. Some green started to flicker in front of the bottle. I smiled and stopped. “Holy shit! Holy fucking shit!” I said out loud, but in a low voice. “It’s working!” So it wasn’t the hunger, I concluded.

I still couldn’t be completely sure I wasn’t hallucinating though. But it didn’t feel like I was… anyway, I decided to think about that later and continue with my experiment. I pointed the ring again, focused on the bottle, imagined the green light. After some flickering, the green light started to grow and take some sort of a shape in front of the bottle. I felt a strange sensation in my head, a new feeling I had never felt before using the ring. I was trying to spread the light around the bottle, but it was growing very slowly. I gave it a mental push in an attempt to speed it up, but instead of growing, the light surged forward and knocked the bottle off the table. Shit. The light disappeared.

I suddenly realised I was sweating and my heart was beating faster, as if I’d just finished doing fifty squats. So, I guess using the ring requires quite a lot of energy… and I’m not exactly in good shape. In fact, I had stopped exercising over two years ago, so even walking up to the fourth floor left me breathless.

Thus, I understood: these powers don’t come that easily, I will need to practice. I stood up, paid for my meal and left the restaurant. On my way to the bus stop, I kept smiling and thinking about how amazing this was. I don’t think I’d smiled this much in a long time. I think… I actually have superpowers. I was still a bit cautious though, trying not to believe it entirely just yet. Also, I needed a way to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

I decided two things: first, I will record myself using the ring. If I watch the recording and see the green light, it’s probably more likely I’m not hallucinating. Two, I will ask somebody to observe me do it, and tell me if he/she can see the green light. That is as close as I can get to making sure all of this is real. But this person has to be someone I can truly trust. And I already knew who it’s going to be.