240p [verified]: Superman

“That’s good,” he said. “The world needs saving.”

The little boy in the towel had stopped running. I was standing in the middle of the yard, looking up at him. Waiting. Expecting. The way children do—as if their fathers are the undisputed champions of the universe. superman 240p

Not the gaunt, hollow-cheeked man I had held in a hospice bed last month. This was a different creature. Thirty years old. Thick arms. A black t-shirt stained with motor oil. His jaw was set like a vise. He was holding a cardboard box—one of those heavy ones full of engine parts—and walking toward the trash can. He didn’t see the camera. “That’s good,” he said

On the fourth viewing, I noticed something I had missed. At the very end, just before the recording stops, the camera lingers on my father’s face for half a second. He’s looking past me. Past the backyard. Past the oak tree. He’s looking at the horizon, where the sky is turning orange and purple. Waiting

The little boy in the blue pajamas—me—puffed out his chest. “I’m Superman. I’m gonna save the whole world.”

A small, bony kid in blue pajamas. A red towel safety-pinned around my neck. I was running in slow, clumsy circles, arms stretched out in front of me, making a sound that was supposed to be the whoosh of flight but came out as a breathless, giggling wheeze.

And in that low resolution, that grainy, smeared, barely-there image, I saw it.