This story could be taken right out of a black-and-white creepy mystery movie from the forties.

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These two people here clearly aren't Clark and Lois. The picture doesn't look quite the way I wanted it, either, regardless of whether the people in question look like Lois and Clark. I wanted the woman to look stronger, less scared, and focused in her worry on the man. I wanted the man to look confused. I wanted the two of them to be alone in a creepy "alley-scape" where the light of streetlamps still left some parts of their surroundings in deep shadow. But this picture was the best I could find.

There is also something haunted and almost supernatural about this fic. Clark's obsession with the injured man is hypnotic and strange. And why does his side hurt? His side?

I once talked to a theologian who said that there is an alternative way of interpreting the story of how God created Eve from Adam's rib. The alternative, said the theologian, is that God literally "cleaved" Adam and "broke off" one half of him. According to this interpretation, the original human being was sexless, but when it was broken into two halves it turned into a man and a woman who are forever incomplete without one another and long to be reunited with each other again. It is possible to turn this idea into a very beautiful love story. But when it comes to your story, Barbara, it is more as if Superman has been "broken off" from Clark's side. The man who used to be Clark and Superman is now Clark only, and he no longer has Superman's powers. Superman, on the other hand, doesn't necessarily have Clark's humanity. Clark desperately longs to be whole again, which is why he is so obsessed with finding the part of him that was broken off. That is why he so badly needs to find the injured man in the alley. And he has completely forgotten that he himself reacted with pain and shock when he touched that other man. This frightening experience has not only not scared him off, but he doesn't even seem to really remember it any more. All he knows is that he needs to find that other man and help him - and the only way he can help that man is to reintegrate him into himself.

This is a spellbinding tale, Barbara.

Ann